Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923691
Joshua Chakawa
Summary The article addresses new and emerging perspectives on Gukurahundi genocide as remembered by combatants who participated or were close to the violent clashes between former Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas at Connemara and how their fighting resulted in a national crisis. The bulk of the literature on this subject so far has concentrated on atrocities committed by 5 Brigade and other government forces in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces between 1983 and 1987 without elaborating how it all began. This article unearths causes and course of the violence at Connemara, how it was organised and deployment of government security forces to quell it together with how the violence then spread to other barracks. The purpose of the study is to contribute interpretations and debate on this mass killing which today continues to haunt Zimbabwe. Connemara was chosen as a case study because fighting there between former ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas went unchecked and finally led to desertions in the army and then the Gukurahundi genocide. The story being told here is unique in the sense that it does not speak to civilian victims of violence but rather to armed men who were involved or at least close to the event. In gathering data, use was also made of secondary sources both published and unpublished. In terms of reconciliation and healing, it is important to take into consideration a multiplicity of voices, which is precisely what this article is doing.
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Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923735
Mphathisi Ndlovu
Summary Graves are central to Zimbabwe's political landscape since they constitute sites of contestation in respect of memory and identity. Given the legacies of the Gukurahundi genocide, it is fitting to examine the debates and controversies surrounding the Zimbabwean government's plans to exhume the remains of victims from mass graves. In 1983 the Robert Mugabe-led government deployed a military unit (the Fifth Brigade) to the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces, supposedly to quash a “dissident” movement. The military unit went on to commit unspeakable crimes against civilians. By the time the Gukurahundi genocide ended in 1987, at least 20 000 Ndebele- speaking people had been killed. Memories of these horrendous crimes remain repressed and heavily guarded by the state, though there are increasing calls for justice, as well as calls to commemorate and rebury the victims of the Gukurahundi genocide. Recently, the government has been advocating the “fast-track” exhumation and reburial of Gukurahundi victims. However, some civic groups in Matabeleland are resisting this state-engineered mechanism of exhumation and social healing. Given that mass graves represent “crime scenes” and “wounds of history”, this article investigates the politics of memory triggered by the government's planned exhumation of Gukurahundi victims from mass graves. It explores how discourses on the exhumation of genocide victims from mass graves are mediated and contested in spaces of communication, such as news websites and Twitter. This article, which is informed by Achille Mbembe's theorisation of necropolitics, concludes that mass graves and bodily remains connected to the Gukurahundi genocide constitute symbolic representations of the ongoing political struggles in Zimbabwe. The government's attempt to appropriate, to manage and to control the Gukurahundi exhumations and reburials demonstrates its reaffirmation of necropolitics, which is an effort by the regime to obscure the massacre, to obliterate evidence and to legitimise its sovereignty. However, the government's power is not absolute since there is resistance from civic movements and ordinary people who regard the mass graves as evidence of the genocide, which is crucial to the pursuit of justice and accountability.
{"title":"Gukurahundi, Media and the “Wounds of History”: Discourses on Mass Graves, Exhumations and Reburials in Post- Independent Zimbabwe","authors":"Mphathisi Ndlovu","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1923735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1923735","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Graves are central to Zimbabwe's political landscape since they constitute sites of contestation in respect of memory and identity. Given the legacies of the Gukurahundi genocide, it is fitting to examine the debates and controversies surrounding the Zimbabwean government's plans to exhume the remains of victims from mass graves. In 1983 the Robert Mugabe-led government deployed a military unit (the Fifth Brigade) to the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces, supposedly to quash a “dissident” movement. The military unit went on to commit unspeakable crimes against civilians. By the time the Gukurahundi genocide ended in 1987, at least 20 000 Ndebele- speaking people had been killed. Memories of these horrendous crimes remain repressed and heavily guarded by the state, though there are increasing calls for justice, as well as calls to commemorate and rebury the victims of the Gukurahundi genocide. Recently, the government has been advocating the “fast-track” exhumation and reburial of Gukurahundi victims. However, some civic groups in Matabeleland are resisting this state-engineered mechanism of exhumation and social healing. Given that mass graves represent “crime scenes” and “wounds of history”, this article investigates the politics of memory triggered by the government's planned exhumation of Gukurahundi victims from mass graves. It explores how discourses on the exhumation of genocide victims from mass graves are mediated and contested in spaces of communication, such as news websites and Twitter. This article, which is informed by Achille Mbembe's theorisation of necropolitics, concludes that mass graves and bodily remains connected to the Gukurahundi genocide constitute symbolic representations of the ongoing political struggles in Zimbabwe. The government's attempt to appropriate, to manage and to control the Gukurahundi exhumations and reburials demonstrates its reaffirmation of necropolitics, which is an effort by the regime to obscure the massacre, to obliterate evidence and to legitimise its sovereignty. However, the government's power is not absolute since there is resistance from civic movements and ordinary people who regard the mass graves as evidence of the genocide, which is crucial to the pursuit of justice and accountability.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"224 3 1","pages":"115 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86192909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923695
W. Mpofu
Summary That in political conflict and war the truth becomes a casualty that is sacrificed on the altar of expediency is an observation that is traceable to the ancient Greek tragedian, Aeschylus. It is no accident that it had to be a student of tragedy and the workings of evil who noted how truth and knowledge are the first to be murdered before individuals and populations of human beings are slaughtered in armed operations by those that seek to conquer, dominate and rule others by hook or by crook. The Gukurahundi Genocide of 1983 to 1987 in Zimbabwe began with the desire by Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) political party for oneparty state rule under a life presidency. For that dark goal to be achieved the political opposition in shape of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) had to be eliminated. All manner of political constructions, naming and labelling were conducted to create the conditions for and justification of an armed operation against ZAPU and its leader, Joshua Nkomo. The political and human identities of those that had to be eliminated were changed to enemies, dissidents, snakes and chaff itself. On the Gukurahundi Genocide, scholars have prevalently dwelt on controversies surrounding the numbers of the dead and the enduring effects of the killings. This article is a consideration of the assassinations of the truth and knowledge, the epistemicide, which preceded, accompanied and followed the Gukurahundi Genocide. Truth and knowledge die before, during and after genocide.
{"title":"Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: An Epistemicide and Genocide","authors":"W. Mpofu","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1923695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1923695","url":null,"abstract":"Summary That in political conflict and war the truth becomes a casualty that is sacrificed on the altar of expediency is an observation that is traceable to the ancient Greek tragedian, Aeschylus. It is no accident that it had to be a student of tragedy and the workings of evil who noted how truth and knowledge are the first to be murdered before individuals and populations of human beings are slaughtered in armed operations by those that seek to conquer, dominate and rule others by hook or by crook. The Gukurahundi Genocide of 1983 to 1987 in Zimbabwe began with the desire by Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) political party for oneparty state rule under a life presidency. For that dark goal to be achieved the political opposition in shape of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) had to be eliminated. All manner of political constructions, naming and labelling were conducted to create the conditions for and justification of an armed operation against ZAPU and its leader, Joshua Nkomo. The political and human identities of those that had to be eliminated were changed to enemies, dissidents, snakes and chaff itself. On the Gukurahundi Genocide, scholars have prevalently dwelt on controversies surrounding the numbers of the dead and the enduring effects of the killings. This article is a consideration of the assassinations of the truth and knowledge, the epistemicide, which preceded, accompanied and followed the Gukurahundi Genocide. Truth and knowledge die before, during and after genocide.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"40 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84325275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923682
K. Khan
Summary Certain academic works and film productions on the Rwandan genocide appear to authorise a new canonicity that simplifies interracial relations between the Tutsi and Hutu people before and during the genocidal war. Kinyarwanda is a film that revises the depiction of Hutus as violent people, all eager to kill Tutsis. The film refuses to endorse this mythology and one-sided characterisations of Hutu/Tutsi relations. It shows that there were many Hutu people who perished because they had assisted Tutsi people. It is implied in the film that for film critics to label this category of selfless people Hutu moderates would be a misnomer. Hutus who assisted Tutsis are simply the heroes in the film. Mamdani has convincingly argued that, within the theatre of death in the Rwandan genocide, there were Hutu zealots, along with Hutus who were reluctant, those who we coerced and, most importantly, those who chose to hide Tutsis. The film Kinyarwanda defies the official Rwandese ideologies that stereotype Hutu people as guilty by association in respect of the Rwandan genocide. In this respect, the film’s authorial ideology is revisionist.
{"title":"Defying Stereotyping Hutu People in The Rwandan Genocide in The Film, Kinyarwanda (2012)","authors":"K. Khan","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1923682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1923682","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Certain academic works and film productions on the Rwandan genocide appear to authorise a new canonicity that simplifies interracial relations between the Tutsi and Hutu people before and during the genocidal war. Kinyarwanda is a film that revises the depiction of Hutus as violent people, all eager to kill Tutsis. The film refuses to endorse this mythology and one-sided characterisations of Hutu/Tutsi relations. It shows that there were many Hutu people who perished because they had assisted Tutsi people. It is implied in the film that for film critics to label this category of selfless people Hutu moderates would be a misnomer. Hutus who assisted Tutsis are simply the heroes in the film. Mamdani has convincingly argued that, within the theatre of death in the Rwandan genocide, there were Hutu zealots, along with Hutus who were reluctant, those who we coerced and, most importantly, those who chose to hide Tutsis. The film Kinyarwanda defies the official Rwandese ideologies that stereotype Hutu people as guilty by association in respect of the Rwandan genocide. In this respect, the film’s authorial ideology is revisionist.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":"4 - 15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84514219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923685
Wellington Gadzikwa
Summary If one analyses the genocide in South Sudan from the definition by Travis (2008: 01), according to which genocide is “often the outcome acts designed to enrich a dominant racial, ethnic, religious or political group at the expense of smaller, weaker, or supposedly ‘inferior’ groups that possess valuable lands, monies, labour, or other resources”, it is possible to argue that the current genocide in South Sudan cannot be simplistically reduced to the failure of the newest state on the African continent to establish a functional bureaucracy or reduce it simply to ethnic conflict between the Dinka and Nuer. The genocide in South Sudan is a product of a process that has a long and complex history but one which has been ignored because those who can take meaningful action are benefiting from the mass murder as an economic policy. This article rejects the current media agenda which downplays the oil factor as a key contributor to the ongoing genocide, while amplifying the ethnicity card as an escapist way of exonerating the international failure to deal with and recognise a catastrophic genocide executed purely for economic reasons.
{"title":"Ahistorical Rhetoric: Oil, Ethnicity and Genocide in South Sudan","authors":"Wellington Gadzikwa","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1923685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1923685","url":null,"abstract":"Summary If one analyses the genocide in South Sudan from the definition by Travis (2008: 01), according to which genocide is “often the outcome acts designed to enrich a dominant racial, ethnic, religious or political group at the expense of smaller, weaker, or supposedly ‘inferior’ groups that possess valuable lands, monies, labour, or other resources”, it is possible to argue that the current genocide in South Sudan cannot be simplistically reduced to the failure of the newest state on the African continent to establish a functional bureaucracy or reduce it simply to ethnic conflict between the Dinka and Nuer. The genocide in South Sudan is a product of a process that has a long and complex history but one which has been ignored because those who can take meaningful action are benefiting from the mass murder as an economic policy. This article rejects the current media agenda which downplays the oil factor as a key contributor to the ongoing genocide, while amplifying the ethnicity card as an escapist way of exonerating the international failure to deal with and recognise a catastrophic genocide executed purely for economic reasons.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"6 1","pages":"16 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84609806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923715
K. Shai, Mbay Vunza
Summary A wide body of scholarship has been developed on the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan which started in February 2003.1 Such scholarship includes various academic works by scholars such as Apiah-Mensah (2005, 2006), Deng (2007), Howell (1974), Mohamed (2007), Rankhumise (2006). Among other issues identified by these scholars and conflict resolution practitioners, was the need to establish a nexus between human security and development as a key in conceiving an understanding of human peace and security. The conflict in Darfur and its impact on human security and development also caught the attention of regional and international organisations, including the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). It is on this basis that this article seeks to employ an Africentric perspective (also read as Afrocentricity) for the purpose of analysing the place of women during the Darfur peacebuilding process with a focus on the underlying factors that led to the marginalisation of women. Methodologically, this article is heavily dependent on conversations and interdisciplinary critical discourse analysis in its broadest form. Contrary to the official narrative, this article contests the notion that in the post-genocide era in Darfur authentic women voices have found expression in peace-building. The argument established in this article is that existing domestic and inter-national legal instruments have given a false sense in terms of women inclusion in the post-genocide political life of Darfur.
{"title":"Gender Mainstreaming in Peacebuilding and Localised Human Security in the Context of the Darfur Genocide: An Africentric Rhetorical Analysis","authors":"K. Shai, Mbay Vunza","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1923715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1923715","url":null,"abstract":"Summary A wide body of scholarship has been developed on the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan which started in February 2003.1 Such scholarship includes various academic works by scholars such as Apiah-Mensah (2005, 2006), Deng (2007), Howell (1974), Mohamed (2007), Rankhumise (2006). Among other issues identified by these scholars and conflict resolution practitioners, was the need to establish a nexus between human security and development as a key in conceiving an understanding of human peace and security. The conflict in Darfur and its impact on human security and development also caught the attention of regional and international organisations, including the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). It is on this basis that this article seeks to employ an Africentric perspective (also read as Afrocentricity) for the purpose of analysing the place of women during the Darfur peacebuilding process with a focus on the underlying factors that led to the marginalisation of women. Methodologically, this article is heavily dependent on conversations and interdisciplinary critical discourse analysis in its broadest form. Contrary to the official narrative, this article contests the notion that in the post-genocide era in Darfur authentic women voices have found expression in peace-building. The argument established in this article is that existing domestic and inter-national legal instruments have given a false sense in terms of women inclusion in the post-genocide political life of Darfur.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"48 1","pages":"69 - 84"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77581089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1939569
K. Khan
{"title":"Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures","authors":"K. Khan","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1939569","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1939569","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"59 1","pages":"1 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84274699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02564718.2021.1923706
Josephine Muganiwa
Summary The article is a literary analysis of Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins tracing the effects of genocide on society as represented in the novel. Existing criticism of the novel either focuses on the poetry and lyricism of the novel or the terror and violence of the war. This article draws on genocide theories to unpack the stages of genocide and its aftermath as represented in the novel. It argues that without understanding the dynamics that led to the violence in Matabeleland, there is likely to be a repeat as people are unaware of what to avoid.
{"title":"Genocidal Action and Framing in Vera's The Stone Virgins","authors":"Josephine Muganiwa","doi":"10.1080/02564718.2021.1923706","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02564718.2021.1923706","url":null,"abstract":"Summary The article is a literary analysis of Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins tracing the effects of genocide on society as represented in the novel. Existing criticism of the novel either focuses on the poetry and lyricism of the novel or the terror and violence of the war. This article draws on genocide theories to unpack the stages of genocide and its aftermath as represented in the novel. It argues that without understanding the dynamics that led to the violence in Matabeleland, there is likely to be a repeat as people are unaware of what to avoid.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"101 1","pages":"56 - 68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76207858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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