‘Comrade’: the Liberation Roots of the Militarisation of Politics in Zimbabwe, 1960s–1979

Abstract

This article examines the development of militarisation in the liberation movements from the 1960s to 1979. It argues that the militarisation of politics and the state that would dominate Zimbabwe in the post-colonial period has its roots in both the Rhodesian state and the liberation movements. It asserts that the Zimbabwean state was militarised at birth primarily because the liberation movements had the military dominating politics, a process that was also, though variably, happening in the Rhodesian state. The article concludes that the militarisation phenomenon that dominates Zimbabwean politics and state today can only be disentangled when the forces that generated it are properly understood and situated in their context.