Zambezia (1996), XXIII (i).HEROES, HERETICS AND HISTORIANS OF THEZIMBABWE REVOLUTION: A REVIEW ARTICLE OFNORMA KRIGER'S 'PEASANT VOICES' (199Z)1S. ROBINSDepartment of Anthropology and Sociology, University of the Western Cape... Mrs M, 43, said she was arrested at her home ... She said the CIO waslooking for her brother, and had arrested every member of her family,including four sisters and another brother, a number of her brother'semployees, her niece, and two friends Š eighteen people in all. She saidall of them were taken to Stops Camp ..."At Stops the CIO took me into an empty room. The place was terrible.The floor was covered with water and blood. The CIO man said, 'Whereis your brother?' I said, i don't know.' Then they tortured me. Theymade me sit down on the floor. My hands were handcuffed behind myback, my legs manacled in front. They took a post office bag, a canvaspost office bag, filled with water, and dunked my head into it. Then theypulled the string tight around my neck, so tight that when you sit up, thewater doesn't drop out. Not one drop of water leaked out. They thenstarted choking me with their hands, their thumbs, their fingers. Theman said, 'Where is your brother?' There were so many officers, aboutfive of them. You choke, gag, swallow the water, choke on it, blow it outthrough your nose and ears. The water goes down your windpipe, yougag, blow it out again. It was about two minutes before I passed out.Then they took the bag and revived me... The last time, they had to useartificial respiration to revive me ..." (Lawyers' Committee for HumanRights, 1986), 92-94.A SOUTH AFRICAN prison In the dark days of apartheid? No, Matabeleland,Zimbabwe, in the early 1980s. These voices go on and on recollecting thepain and terror while the human rights lawyers tape the testimonies.Pages and pages on torture, detention without trial, political intimidation. . . However, we will never hear the testimonies of the multitudes ofNdebele-speakers who disappeared at the hands of the notorious FifthBrigade during the 1980s. The official silence on these atrocities isdevastating, but equally disturbing has been the silence of many academicswho have written about Zimbabwe's recent past. The 1990s have, however,witnessed the beginnings of a break in this academic silence (Werbner,1991; Ranger, 1992; Bhebe and Ranger, 1995). In the age of South Africa'sTruth Commission, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, and thekilling fields of Rwanda and KwaZulu-Natal, it is critical for academics to1 This article benefited from the constructive comments of M.F.C. Bourdillon, N. Bhebe andM. Last.7374 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESaddress questions of political violence and state terror. The reasons forpast silences in Zimbabwe's historiography need to be explored anddisclosed.The recent history of post-war Matabeleland raises troubling questionsabout how historical narratives are constructed under conditions ofnationalist triumphalism, and how scholars may find themselves unwittingaccomplices in producing these heroic accounts that become 'nationaltruths' that children learn in text books such as Zimbabwe: A New History:History for Upper Primary School (1982) written by G. Seidman, D. Martinand P. Johnson. While individual scholars are beginning to write aboutpost-independence Matabeleland (see Werbner, 1991), official accountscontinue to remain focused on the heroic liberation narrative thatculminated in ZANU's triumph. However, traces of the memories of thebeatings, torture, death and disappearances of countless Ndebele-speakersare likely to continue to haunt Zimbabwe much like angry and restlessamadlozi (ancestors) who have not been properly laid to rest. Similarly,the biases in the official accounts of the role of ZAPU and ZIPRA in theliberation struggle need to be addressed. While these revisits to the pastare in fact beginning to take place in academic historiography (see Bhebeand Ranger, 1995), it remains to be seen how, if at all, these academicinterventions are reflected in public histories, archives, museum exhibits,art, television documentaries, theatre and school text books.The Zimbabwean state has incorporated influential academic accountsof the guerrilla war by T. 0. Ranger (1985) and David Martin and PhyllisJohnson (1981), incorporated into a mythology of nation-building thatprivileged the role of ZANU in the anti-colonial struggle. In this account,the guerrilla violence was represented as heroic resistance in a sanitisedform that elided references to the killings of alleged 'sellouts' and witches,whereas in South Africa the television, radio and print media have givenprominence to the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) and have opened up a highly visible public accounting of thecomplexities and ambiguous character of 'the struggle'. While officialnarratives of South Africa's liberation struggle continue to highlight itsheroic and triumphant character, the TRC hearings allowed a multiplicityof voices to be heard that testify not only to the torture and killing of anti-apartheid activists by agents of the South African state, but also thepainful memories of White victims of ANC bombers, the violence of ANCtorture camps and the mob terror, 'necklacings' of alleged informers and'enemies of the people' by people's courts. Although it was initiated by theANC-led government, the TRC hearings have complicated and decentredthe heroic struggle narratives and allowed for a far less monologic accountof the past than was initially anticipated. Journalist reports of the hearingsreferred to the 'rivers of tears' that flowed from the testimonies of violenceS. ROBINS 75against civilians situated on all sides of the conflict. This multiplicity ofharrowing testimonies by victims of violence was beamed into the homesof millions of South Africans as part of a nation-building exercise that wasseen to depend on national catharsis and the public revelation of thedevastating impact of violence deployed against civilians.No equivalent process has been dealt with in post-independentZimbabwe. Neither guerrilla violence nor the state terror unleashed againstcivilians during the 'dissident war' in Matabeleland in the 1980s has beendealt with along the lines of a Truth Commission. Instead, the officialsilence continues. This official silence is maintained by media censorship,for example, in the case of the initial banning of Ingrid Sinclair's filmFlame, a documentary that demythologises the guerrilla struggle byrevealing the rape of female fighters. The Zimbabwe War VeteransAssociation was outraged by the film and demanded that it be banned.The film was initially confiscated on the grounds of being pornographicbut was later officially passed without cuts. As the Mail and Guardian (May10, 1996) reviewer Andrew Worsdale commented, 'This [film] is not thevitriolic stuff that endorses heroes; rather it's a real, down-to-earth andpoignant drama about the realities of war.' Zimbabwe's historiographyhas its fair share of texts that have disregarded the grim 'realities of war'and produced instead heroic narratives about African nationalism that arereadily appropriated as official history by post-colonial Africangovernments.This article reviews Norma Kriger's Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War PeasantVoices2 (1992) with the intention of using her work to interrogate academicsilences on violence and coercion during and after the Zimbabwe liberationstruggle. While Kriger concentrates on the period of the liberation struggle(c. 1970-80), she also suggests that practices of guerrilla violence andcoercion forged during this period influenced the authoritarian characterof the state during the post-war era. While Kriger is correct to point toofficial and academic silences about the use of violence during the liberationstruggle, my own research in Matabeleland in 1990-92 challenges bothRanger's and Lan's representations of an over-arching radical peasantconsciousness as well as Kriger's depiction of a reluctant peasantry coercedinto supporting the guerrillas. The life history material 1 presentdemonstrates that local responses were so variable over time and placethat no generalisation about peasant support or coercion is possible.Instead, local villagers entered into complex, contradictory and ambiguousrelationships with guerrillas that often included both voluntary support2 I use the term 'peasant' with reservations. Except In cases where the authors refer specificallyto the term, I will use alternative terminology, for example, 'rural Africans'. For an overviewof debates on the term, see Frederick Cooper's seminal article (1980).76 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESand acquiescence to guerrilla coercion. Villagers deployed a rich repertoireof survival tactics in their encounters with potentially dangerous andviolent 'outsiders', including the Rhodesian Security Forces, youthful'messengers' of the guerrillas (mijibd) and the two guerrilla armies. Playingthe wrong card in such encounters could result in death.Silences in the accounts of Matabeleland's recent past arise from thedichotomous characterisation of the war of liberation by historians suchas Ranger and Lan in terms of which the guerrilla armies are seen to be'totally heroic' and the Rhodesian Security Forces 'totally repressive'.While by no means wishing to deny the blatantly repressive measuresdeployed by the Security Forces, it seems that these dichotomiescontributed to the academic silence throughout the 1980s about 'ethniccleansing' in Matabeleland. This bipolar vision produced a failure on thepart of historians to recognise the continuity in a culture of violence andauthoritarianism that emerged during the guerrilla war. Yet, this bipolarvision of the liberation struggle produced accolades and praise from thescholars and former guerrillas who now run the post-colony.Scholars such as T. 0. Ranger (1985), David Lan (1985) and DavidMartin and Phyllis Johnson (1981) became the more than willing scribes ofa celebratory African nationalist history that profoundly shaped officialaccounts of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle. Martin and Johnson's TheStruggle for Zimbabwe: the Chimurenga War, provided an unambigouslyheroic narrative that was incorporated into school text books. Throughoutthe 1980s, these scholars showed no signs of reflexivity about theproblematic ways in which their work was appropriated by ZANU (PF).Following independence, when the state turned to violent repression inMatabeleland, they had very little to say about the sweet revolution thathad turned so sour. It was only over a decade after independence thatRanger 'confessed' to having neglected this violent episode of post-independence Zimbabwe history. As a result, Ranger (1995) and studentsof his such as Jeremy Brickhill (1995) have recently begun to redress thesilences in Zimbabwe's historiography.In an article in Bhebe's and Ranger's edited volume, Soldiers inZimbabwe's Liberation War Vol. One (1995), Dumiso Dabengwa, a formerZIPRA intelligence officer and presently a Minister in the MugabeGovernment, makes a passionate and eloquent call to address the silencesand biases of academic narratives of Zimbabwe's recent past.For too long historians have failed our people because of their timidity,sectarianism and outright opportunism. Conditions should be created inZimbabwe wherein a new breed of social scientist... can emerge. Thisclass of scholars should be capable of withstanding threats andintimidation and will rise above those racial, ethnic and tribalconsiderations [and] oppose the suppression of any information ... AS. ROBINS 77complete history of the struggle for national liberation is a long way frombeing produced and will only be achieved when the chroniclers of thestruggle are no longer afraid to confront the truth head-on and openly,and have rid themselves of biases resulting from our recent politicalpast Š a past which saw the brutal killings of innocent people in thename of unity, peace, stability and progress. Unless our scholars can riseabove the fear of being isolated and even victimized for telling the truthwe shall continue to be told half-truths, or outright lies which will nothelp unite our nation ... Anything short of a tradition of selfless inquiryand exposure of the truth will certainly lead to a nation of sycophantsand robots who do not possess the power of independent thought whichwe should all cherish ... ( p. 24).Norma Kriger is one of the few scholars who appeared to have had thecourage and independence of thought to write against the grain at a timewhen most scholars refrained from challenging the officially sanctionedheroic narratives of the liberation struggle. Richard Werbner's Tears of theDead (1991) is another book that falls outside the genre of 'praise texts'.3Werbner's book addresses the human rights violations and'disappearances' in Matabeleland in the 1980s, and like Kriger's book, isunlikely to win friends within the ZANU (PF) inner circle.By drawing attention to violent and reactionary tendencies within theliberation movement, Kriger opened herself up to criticisms by 'progressive'scholars of Zimbabwe, many of whom I heard dismiss her as a 'WhiteSouth African reactionary', a 'sell-out'. While in the mid-1990s it is moreacceptable and fashionable to be critical of Zimbabwe's ruling party andits revolutionary past, and one can do this without any danger of beingbranded a 'sell-out', when Kriger's book was published this was certainlynot the line amongst influential scholars of Zimbabwe, and her book wasnot received favourably. While one expected such a response from thedefensive post-independent government, it was surprising that progressivescholars were so intolerant of a study that demythologised the liberationstruggle. In focusing on coercive peasant mobilisation by the guerrillaarmies, Kriger ended up being accused by some of the more 'patriotic'scholars as having 'betrayed the revolution'.One of the more legitimate criticisms of Kriger's zealously revisionistapproach is that by focusing on guerrilla violence and coercion, she failsto recognise the variety and complexity of the responses of rural Africansduring the war. Despite this shortcoming, Kriger does draw attention tothe consequences and legacies of violence, and thereby points to thesilences of the 'praise texts' of the 1980s, which all ignore both guerrillaviolence and the authoritarian culture of state terror in post-warI borrowed the term from Murray Last, whose insightful comments assisted me in thinkingthrough some of the issues raised in the article.78 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESMatabeleland. While questions of violence both during and following thewar are beginning to be addressed (Bhebe and Ranger, 1995), there remainsa dearth of studies on the long-term consequences of the culture of terrorforged by both the Rhodesian Security Forces and the guerrillas.Despite my criticisms of the failure of historians to challenge officialpublic history, formerly taboo topics do indeed appear in Bhebe's andRanger's edited volumes, Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation War, Vol. One(1995) and Society in Zimbabwe's Liberation War, Vol. Two (1995). In theintroduction to the first volume, the editors write that the book challengesan orthodoxy 'which gives all the credit to ZANLA and none to ZIPRA, andwhich hightlights some elements within ZANLA while denigrating others'(p. 3).. . . The 'authorised' account (of the liberation struggle) by Martin andJohnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe, which was distributed to allZimbabwean secondary schools, constitutes, in David Moore's words, 'asingular and celebratory narrative buttressing ZANU (PF)'s claims topower'... (p. 6).The articles in Bhebe's and Ranger's Soldiers deal with the complexitiesof the liberation struggle and the violence deployed by all parties to theconflict. While these books are to be welcomed for finally addressingthese questions, we need to continue to reflect upon Dumiso Dabengwa'scomment, 'Historians have failed our people'. Why did so many scholarsremain silent about Zimbabwe's recent past?Now more than ever before there is a need for historians ofMatabeleland to break the official silence about the torture rooms at StopsCamp where Ndebele-speakers such as Mrs M were choked and gagged.The voices of people such as Mrs M have, like the history of post-independence Zimbabwe itself, been gagged and silenced by fears of adefensive Zimbabwe state. Is there ever going to be a Truth Commission inZimbabwe to retrieve these memories of violence and suffering? Perhapsthis work has already begun, thanks to the efforts of scholars such asRichard Werbner (1991).4VOICES FROM 'THE FIELD': CHALLENGES TO THE 'PRAISE TEXTS'Kriger's Peasant Voices challenges influential studies such as T. 0. Ranger'sPeasant Consciousness and the Guerrilla War (1985), David Lan's Guns and4 Scholars concerned with political violence could benefit enormously from studies of violencesuch as Allen Feldman's Formations of Violence (1991). In his study of political violence inProtestant and Catholic working-class districts of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Feldman observesthat transactions in violence are located in bodily practices rather than at some Archimedeanpoint or site of origin Š such as Nationalist ('Catholic") or Loyalist ('Protestant") ideologyŠ removed from the actual performance of violence on the body. This performativeperspective on violence would allow us to consider how practices of state, guerrilla and'dissident' violence were forged during violent transactions during the liberation struggle.S. ROBINS 79Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (1985) and Martin andJohnson's The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War (1981). It alsochallenges scholars whose support of African nationalism resulted in theproduction of 'praise texts'. Drawing on oral interviews in Mutoko district,north-eastern Zimbabwe, in the early 1980s, Kriger argues that peasant-guerrilla interactions were generally experienced as coercive.5 Moreover,far from viewing the peasantry as an undifferentiated mass of heroicparticipants in the liberation struggle, Kriger concludes that the arrival ofthe guerrillas in villages in the 1970s exacerbated serious, and at times,violent cleavages and conflicts within these communities based on gender,age and lineage.Kriger's interviews also lead her to infer that the authoritarian natureof the post-colonial state and party relations with the peasantry can onlybe understood in terms of the legacy of coercive guerrilla-peasant relationsforged during the war. In other words, coercion and authoritarianismduring the guerrilla struggle shaped post-war political tendencies andoutcomes. I would suggest that this also perhaps accounts for why, sosoon after independence, ZANU was able to mandate the Fifth Brigade('Gukurahundi')6 to crush violently opposition to the ruling party inMatabeleland.There is an urgent need in Zimbabwe to uncover and confront theshadow side of the liberation struggle. Yet, drawing attention to the darkside of liberation does not deny the genuinely heroic and courageoussacrifices of many African nationalists and ordinary citizens, many ofwhom were not complicit in coercion and political violence against civilians.Neither should it blind us to the moral and ethical justification for wagingthe liberation struggle in the first place. These issues, however, becomeblurred and at times elided in Kriger's account due to what I regard as anover-zealous and excessive concentration on guerrilla coercion andviolence. Nevertheless, Kriger's work raises important ethicalconsiderations concerning public history, the politics of representationand the character of structures of academic silence. It also draws attentionto the problems that may arise when expatriate students, scholars andkey academic gatekeepers practice self-censorship for fear of jeopardisingresearch clearance permits and academic careers. These considerationscan all impact upon what is written and what is excluded from academictexts.5 In contrast to Kriger's conclusions, however, my own research in Matabeleland in 1990-92suggests that many villagers did not characterise peasant-guerrilla interactions in negativeand coercive terms. Although there were no doubt incidents of coercive recruitment anddemands for logistical support for the guerrillas, many Ndebele-speaking villagers portrayedthe ZIPRA guerrilla army as a popular liberation army.6 In their book, Zimbabwe: A New History: History for Upper Primary School (1982), G. Seidman,D. Martin and P. Johnson, refer to 'Gore reGukurahundi' as the 'Year of the Storm'. The useof this term is attributed to Robert Mugabe, who used it in 1979 to refer to the liberationwar. In the mid-1980s, Gukurahundi was used to refer to the Fifth Brigade.80 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESRanger has recently conceded that his 1985 book, PeasantConsciousness and the Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe, uncritically celebratedthe liberation struggle from ZANU's perspective.7 This 'confession', comingfrom such an accomplished and respected historian, is of extremesignificance and needs to be taken seriously. He now acknowledges thatPeasant Consciousness not only marginalised the role of ZAPU and ZIPRA,but was also silent about the state terror in Matabeleland in the 1980s.Ranger's attempt to redress these shortcomings has led him to re-examinean earlier tradition of pre-1960s proto-nationalist politics in Matabeleland.He finds that earlier more pluralistic political traditions were erased anderadicated with the rise of hegemonic 'Maoist-Leninist-Marxist' nationalistpolitics in the 1960s. His desire to 'rediscover' earlier, more plural politicaltraditions is a response to his current distaste for ZANU's uncompromisingand authoritarian mode of political mobilisation based on 'unity at allcosts'.This earlier pluralist tradition of alliance politics, with its tolerance ofideological, cultural and religious diversity, is more compatible with thecontemporary intellectual environment, as well as Ranger's moraldiscomfort with the violent excesses and authoritarianism of the liberationstruggle. What this shift in perspective indicates is the point, perhaps bynow quite obvious, that history is written with political, intellectual andethical considerations of the present in mind. It also points to the need fora more reflexive historical engagement that acknowledges and makesexplicit these considerations and contexts. During the liberation strugglethere was little space for criticism of the liberation movement, even forthose scholars politically opposed to the Rhodesian regime Š you wereeither part of the solution or part of the problem. Now, more than adecade after independence, it has become acceptable to criticise whatwas once viewed by some scholars as a pure and glorious revolution.Norma Kriger took the brave plunge into this critical role before it wasfashionable.In the following section I discuss some of the key themes and insightsof Kriger's book, as well as its shortcomings and limitations. I include adiscussion of her theoretical ruminations on the character of peasantpolitics and revolutions.STORIES OF GUNS AND RAINKriger claims that most studies of peasant revolutions tend to privilegethe nationalist agenda of the peasant elite leadership. By concentrating on7 Ranger spoke about these issues in 1995 at a seminar in the Department of History,1 Jniverettv ni Hw WmlBm Taru"University of the Western Cape.S. ROBINS 81the nationalist project of these revolutionary organisations, such studiesend up silencing the voices of the peasantry (1992,29). To counteract thistendency, Kriger focuses on peasant experiences and perceptions of theguerrilla war in Zimbabwe. This focus on 'voices from below' seeks tochallenge 'history from above' by providing what Kriger perceives as anecessary corrective to studies that fail adequately to take into accountthe multiplicity of motives, intentions and aspirations of individualsinvolved in the nationalist struggle. However, I will suggest through lifehistory material that Kriger is also unable to do justice to this quest totake into account multiple motives. This shortcoming arises from hercommitment to a theoretical perspective in terms of which coercionassumes central significance. Her peasant voices become necessaryevidence for her thesis that not all successful revolutions require voluntaryparticipation.Peasant Voices touches a raw nerve with scholars sympathetic to thenationalist project by questioning the existence and efficacy of a radicalnationalist ideology. She argues that while Ranger and Lan imagine a'radical peasant consciousness' and popular support for the guerrillas,her peasant interviewees speak of villages ruptured by intra-communitycleavages, and of peasants constantly seeking to evade the onerousdemands of the guerrillas. It was only by resorting to coercion, sheconcludes, that the guerrillas were able to mobilise the rural masses.Kriger's analysis of the linkages between this coercive form of guerrillapolitical mobilisation and post-war outcomes for the peasantry lead her tothree controversial and provocative conclusions. First, she claims that theguerrillas were unable to mobilise openly due to the pervasive presence ofthe Rhodesian Security Forces and were therefore compelled to usecoercive means of ensuring peasant compliance and logistical support.Second, the authoritarian nature of the post-colonial state and partyrelations with the peasantry in Zimbabwe in the 1980s can be explained asa legacy of coercive guerrilla-peasant relations during the war. Third, thislegacy is held responsible for the submissive and passive character ofpost-war peasant politics in Zimbabwe. Kriger concludes that peasants inthe post-colony continue to fear the ruling party 'because of theirexperience of coercion from its guerrilla representatives during the warand because local party representatives often continued to coerce peasantsafter the war' (1992,8). Kriger's observations about the legacy of coercivepeasant-guerrilla relations are also relevant in terms of understanding theauthoritarian character and top-down implementation of rural developmentschemes in contemporary Zimbabwe.However, Kriger's work is based on research done in a Shona-speakingpart of the country and her findings may not be applicable to other partsof the country. In Matabeleland, for example, there were two competing82 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESguerrilla armies. Whereas ZIPRA were generally regarded by Ndebele-speakers as the 'homeboys' (bafana or obhuti), ZANLA guerrillas wereoften regarded by Ndebele villagers as Shona-speaking 'outsiders' (ppasior amadzakudzaku). My own field work findings in Matabeleland SouthProvince in 1990-92 suggest that the specific configuration of guerrillaforces in Matabeleland shaped peasant-guerrilla relations and post-waroutcomes in ways that were significantly different to Shona-speaking partsof the country. On the basis of conversations in Gwaranyemba CommunalArea, I found that ZAPU allegiances had remained relatively intact despiteits integration into ZANU (PF) following the signing of the Unity Agreementin 1987. Former ZAPU Members of Parliament continued to be voted intooffice, and Joshua Nkomo was still held in high esteem, especially amongstolder Ndebele-speakers. Hidden loyalties towards ZAPU and its militarywing also seemed to have survived despite individual experiences ofguerrilla violence, intimidation and coercion.Apart from the problem of generalising from a specific locality, anothereven more problematic aspect of the book emerges from Kriger's tendencyto draw on dichotomies between resistance and compliance, and betweencoercion and popular support. Before addressing this problem, however,I will briefly discuss Kriger's critique of the literature on guerrilla wars.PEASANT CONSCIOUSNESS AND THEORIES OF STRUCTURE ANDAGENCY: 'VOICES' THAT DEBUNK POLITICAL SCIENCE THEORIESResearch on peasant mobilisation and guerrilla-peasant relations duringthe war has received considerable attention in recent years (Ranger, 1985;Lan, 1985; Kriger, 1988, 1992). In Peasant Consciousness and the GuerrillaWar in Zimbabwe (1985), Ranger writes about the emergence of a radicalnationalist consciousness in the countryside during the liberation war.Ranger traces the evolution of radical peasant consciousness toaccumulated grievances that include colonial conquest and the alienationof land, as well as authoritarian colonial state intervention from the 1930sonwards, especially the Native Land Husbandry Act of 1951. The LandHusbandry Act was largely responsible for unpopular conservation policiessuch as compulsory contour ridging, destocking, as well as 'centralization'policies which sought to end the practice of shifting cultivation amongstits numerous other objectives. Ranger traces the rise of a radical peasantconsciousness to the progressive undermining of the 'peasant option'resulting from these unpopular state interventions. A burgeoning class ofbetter-off 'master farmers' were increasingly alienated from the colonialadministration by the adverse economic consequences of theseinterventions, culminating in their embrace of the nationalist cause.Acknowledging that the Zimbabwean peasantry has always beendifferentiated, Ranger's definition of peasant is sufficiently broad to includeS. ROBINS 83worker-peasants, small peasant producers, rural entrepreneurs, teachers,storekeepers and businessmen. Ranger suggests that a cohesive peasantconsciousness was forged in response to a common experience ofexploitation and discrimination at the hands of an authoritarian colonialstate. He stresses the efficacy of a radical peasant-guerrilla ideology thatwas capable of fusing together the divergent interests and agendas of adifferentiated peasantry and a guerrilla army.Ranger, like David Lan (1985), attributes to spirit mediums a pivotalrole in the process of peasant mobilisation and the legitimation of theguerrillas. Lan argues that this process made possible the ousting oftraditional leaders such as the chiefs and headmen, who had becomediscredited by their intimate association with the colonial administration.Michael Bourdillon has noted, however, that 'mediums derived at least asmuch status from the guerrillas as the other way round' (personalcorrespondence). Neither Lan nor Ranger seem seriously to entertain thepossibility that mediums 'cooperated' with guerrillas either out of fearand intimidation and/or because of the power and legitimacy that accruedfrom such an 'alliance' (Bourdillon, 1984).Without wishing to deny cases of voluntary cooperation betweenmediums and guerrillas, I remain sceptical of the rhetorical deploymentby Lan of romanticised imagery of spirit mediums as uncontested'authentic' owners of the land. In my opinion, the symbiotic relationshipthat was apparently forged between 'traditional' and 'modern' agents,between mediums and guerrillas, depends upon the persuasiveness ofLan's romantic representation of mediums and their legitimacy. It is only ifwe believe in their cultural authenticity that we can imagine mediums andguerrillas merging symbiotically through a process of revolutionarystruggle. Fear of guerrilla violence and the lure of their power are notforegrounded by Lan as possible reasons for this 'alliance'.Kriger challenges Ranger's and Lan's accounts of the rise of a radicalnationalist consciousness, and argues instead that gender, generationaland lineage tensions precipitated 'struggles within the struggle' (see Kriger,1988), and that these divisions undermined any attempts to forge anationalist consciousness and solidarity in the countryside. Even morecontroversial, Kriger claims that it was not political mobilisation, persuasionand a radical peasant consciousness that won the war, but rather a coerciverecruitment by the guerrillas. In other words, Kriger challenges the verynotion that peasant mobilisation was successful due to a shared peasant-guerrilla ideology. Instead, she emphasises, and in my opinion over-emphasises, guerrilla coercion as the necessary ingredient for a successfulrevolution in Zimbabwe (1988, 312).Kriger substantiates her argument with oral testimony that suggeststhat peasants only provided food, clothing, money and information to84 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESguerrillas under duress. In addition, she argues that political mobilisationin the countryside failed to forge a nationalist solidarity, but merely servedto heighten and exacerbate local conflicts and tensions.Looking at how the guerrilla war affected rural society, I found gender,generational and lineage tensions to be at least of equal importance toclass tensions within rural society... these local level struggles preoccupiedpeasants (and) this leads me to challenge Ranger's concept of peasantradical nationalism. Because of the importance which I attribute to localstruggles, and the considerable civilian and guerrilla violence and forcethat were employed by contestants, I am willing to talk of civil war . . .What I am describing is a revolution within a revolution (1988, 307 Šemphasis added).These observations by Kriger are deployed to overthrow structuralisttheories that deny human agency, motives, intentions, dreams and hopes.In her critique of Theda Skocpol's 'States and Social Revolutions' (1979),Kriger challenges her contention that revolutions cannot be attributed tothe mobilisation of a revolutionary movement but rather to thecontradictions that emerge between particular structures, therebyprecipitating crises. In Kriger's words,Structures appear in her (Skocpol's) work as determinate relations Š ofstates, of the landed upper class and the state, of peasants and landlordsŠ that are objective and impersonal (p. 6).Skocpol's line of argument is that these structures shape the behaviourof differentially situated actors, and that the intentional actions ofindividuals may bring about unintended outcomes, which may reproduceor transform the structures that shape social action. From Skocpol'sperspective, the beliefs, values, aims and intentions of participants inrevolutions do not necessarily Shed any light on revolutionary outcomes.This type of structuralist theorisation, Kriger argues, ignores the voiceand agency of participants in such political processes. While Krigerrecognises the problems inherent in relating such outcomes to the ideas,intentions and actions of individuals, she nevertheless still takes up thechallenge of establishing the motives and interests of peasants participatingin Zimbabwe's liberation struggle.Kriger also criticises 'voluntarist' approaches (Migdal, 1974; Popkin,1979) which suggest that revolutions do not succeed without 'popularsupport' and legitimacy. Samuel Popkin's The Rational Peasant portraysthe peasant as a rational, cost-calculating individual who is unlikely topartake in costly collective action to bring about a revolution even thoughit would be in the common interests. This decision is shaped by therealisation that the public good derived from a revolution would be an'open access' public good. Popkin suggests that the leadership can resortto two options. First, it can use coercion, threats of violence or withdrawalS. ROBINS 85of benefits in order to ensure peasant participation in collective action.Second, it can provide incentives and tangible benefits for participation incollective action, for example land reform, progressive tax and so on.Kriger challenges the assumptions of the 'voluntarist' theorists such asPopkin and Migdal for having failed to consider seriously the first option(coercion) as a 'viable' strategy in terms of a successful outcome forrevolutionary mobilisation, that is revolution without popular supportand legitimacy.Kriger argues that Zimbabwe's revolution was successful in spite of alack of popular support for the guerrillas. On the basis of oral interviews,she concludes that peasants did not on the whole support the guerrillawar and 'invented ways to avoid positions in the organisations becausethey perceived the work to be physically demanding and very risky' (p. 7).This evasivenes is attributed to the risks involved as well as the burdensomematerial and financial contributions demanded by the guerrillas. Sinceneither the ZANLA nor ZIPRA forces could offer tangible material andlogistical incentives to induce 'rational peasants' voluntarily to participatein the war, the guerrillas were forced to opt for coercive methods toensure active peasant participation. In addition, since the repressivecapacity of the state prevented guerrillas from freely and openly mobilisingthe peasantry, they were forced to resort to a combination of coercionand cultural nationalist appeals. Hence the calls by the nationalists for areturn to 'traditional' religion, customs, names, food, music, dress, andcoercive methods of ensuring peasant compliance.According to Kriger, coercion was an integral part of the nationalistprogramme of civil disobedience. Those that were in any way associatedwith the settler government, including 'master farmers', agriculturalextension workers, storekeepers, the self-employed etc, were subjected toguerrilla surveillance and violent reprisals and retribution. The guerrillasalso coerced peasants into defying regulations of the Native LandHusbandry Act of 1951, for example, contour ridge building, dipping cattle,destocking and so on. On the basis of such evidence of coercion, Krigerclaims to have disposed of 'voluntarists', such as Migdal and Popkin, whoerroneously assume that successful revolutions require popular support.Kriger then proceeds to haul Eric Wolf (1969) and James Scott (1985)over the coals for focusing on peasants' relations to states, markets andlandlords, to the exclusion of issues relating to internal peasant structure,that is social divisions along class, gender and generational lines. Accordingto Kriger, Wolf's peasants participate in revolutionsto restore their precapitalist institutions [and moral economy values]eroded by an exogenously imposed world capitalism .. . Peasants wishto free themselves of state control and subjection to the laws of markets[while] revolutionary organizations seek to extend the interventionistrole of the state and centralize power further (p. 21).86 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESKriger criticises Scott's portrayal of peasants as striving to maintainpre-capitalist social institutions and values, and only being driven torevolt when their subsistence ethic and moral economy is violated, therebythreatening peasant security. She provides an alternative to both Wolfsand Scott's interpretations of peasant motives for participating inrevolutions.Women, youth, subject clans, and the less well-off all had differentmotives for participating (in the Zimbabwe liberation struggle) becauseof their different structural positions in society. Both structuralists andvoluntarists assume that markets, states, capitalism, imperialism, andother classes are the primary source of peasant woes. Peasant voicessuggest peasants are more likely to blame their neighbors for their woesand act on this understanding of the source of their problems ... Even ifone chooses to see peasant anger turned inwards against other peasantsas irrational, their ideas and actions are important for understandingrevolutionary processes and outcomes (p. 21).Kriger's work provides a detailed investigation into the ideas andactions of peasants generated by intra-village gender, generational andlineage tensions and competing interests and agendas. It is this aspect ofher work that is most directly relevant to understanding the complexcharacter of peasant-state relations in the post-war period. Her workraises a number of important questions. Under what conditions doindividual peasant producers participate in acts of resistance to unpopularstate intervention? Are the (male) large-scale cattle-owners, teachers andlocal businessmen usually the most articulate and politicised members ofrural communities, as Ranger (1985) suggests, and are these generally thesame individuals who participated in the nationalist struggle? Has thiscategory of better-off farmer also usually been the most vocal andvociferous opposition to unpopular state interventions in the post-warera? These questions are important but Kriger does not really provide uswith the answers.WHOSE VOICES COUNT?While Kriger's book provides some important observations that challengeheroic accounts of the liberation war, her evidence of systematic guerrillacoercion needs to be treated with considerable circumspection. Narrationsof particular incidents of guerrilla coercion do not adequately reveal thecomplexities of peasant-guerrilla interactions and the extent of boundarycrossing between compliance and resistance, and between coercion andvoluntary participation. In drawing upon dichotomies between guerrillacoercion and peasant compliance, as well as between peasant resistance(and avoidance of guerrilla demands) and voluntary participation, Krigerfails to recognise the complex and subtle motivations, perceptions andS. ROBINS 87actions of peasants who deployed a variety of tactics of survival in theirdealings with both the guerrillas and the Rhodesian Security Forces. Forexample, individual peasants may have supported the nationalist causeand yet been critical of the coercive methods deployed by guerrillas toextract logistical support and participation. In addition, while somepeasants may have attempted to avoid the more burdensome guerrillademands, this 'resistance' does not in any way imply a complete withdrawalof support for the nationalist cause.My own research in Matabeleland indicates that peasants attemptedto negotiate their participation in the war in a context where they oftenfound themselves caught in the cross-fire of three armies Š ZANLA, ZIPRAand the Rhodesian Security Forces. While I too came across accounts ofguerrillas having resorted to coercion and violent reprisals against alleged'sellouts', this did not in itself prove that the official strategy of theguerrillas was to deploy such practices against the civilian population. Iwould argue that Kriger fails to provide convincing evidence of the motivesand objectives of either peasants or guerrillas. She also fails to problematisethe relatively arbitrary and partial nature of her selection of the peasantvoices.The problem with Kriger's focus on a relatively small number of'peasant voices' is that there are many possible Zimbabwe war narratives,and it is problematic to privilege either stories of coercion or those ofvoluntary participation.8 In other words, there needs to be a recognitionof the diversity of these war narratives. While Kriger does indeed provideconvincing evidence that peasants resisted and evaded the demands ofthe guerrillas, she says very little about the tremendous sacrifices madeby African peasants in supporting the struggle. Peasant evasiveness wasmerely one facet of a repertoire of peasant tactics for survival in a violentwar. Over the past few decades Zimbabwean villagers have had to negotiateon a daily basis a dangerous, complex and shirting web of relations betweensuspicious neighbours, guerrillas, Rhodesian security forces, and agentsof the colonial and post-colonial state. These dangers were brought hometo me in 1990 by David Ncube,9 a Gwaranyemba school teacher whorelated how he had survived the war.8 This raises a number of thorny methodological problems in terms of Kriger's attempt tofocus on 'direct peasant voices' (1992, 5-50). Which voices do you choose; are yourinformants using you as a vehicle for their own agendas, how can you bridge the gapbetween what people say and what they think and do? In what ways have informantsshaped their responses to what they perceived Kriger's interests to be? While thesequestions may apply equally to all oral interview material, it is particularly relevant in thisstudy. For example, the researcher is a White woman who did her research amongst peoplewho were exposed to Rhodesian propaganda that attempted to convince Black Zimbabweansthat 'terrorists' relied exclusively on violent coercion. This does not mean that her evidenceought to be discarded, but rather that it needs to be situated and contextualised.9 This name is fictitious, as are all the names of villagers in this article.88 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESWhen the White soldiers came I would tell them the guerrillas had comeduring the night but I did not know where they had gone in the morning.When the guerrillas came I would tell them the soldiers had come andasked questions. If I lied to them they would find out and I would befinished. That is how I survived the war (Sengezane Village, 1991).Ncube's son had joined the guerrillas after being recruited or 'abducted'by guerrillas along with 200 other Manama Mission School pupils. Hespoke of the fact that many neighbouring villagers had provided shelterand food to the ZIPRA guerrillas 'because they were our sons'. The guerrillasspent many a night at Ncube's homestead, including the night prior to thesuccessful ZIPRA raid on the nearby Guyu administrative centre in the late1970s. Ncube had also almost been killed by ZIPRA guerrillas because avillager had alleged that he was a 'sell-out'. Ncube was taken to a meetingin the bush where ZIPRA guerrillas interrogated him at length. Eventually,he was told he could return home. He told me he had thought that hewould be killed that night. Shortly thereafter Ncube became a member ofthe ZAPU War Committee. His two younger sons, both of whom weremessengers or runners (amajibd) for the guerrillas, used his car to transportguerrillas to the Botswana border. Despite Ncube's involvement on theZAPU War Committee, when he received a message that the guerrillas(pafand) wanted money from him, he dressed in his most tattered clothesand went to tell them he had no cash. When they demanded a few pairs ofshoes from the local store, he explained that this would not be wisebecause the shopkeeper would become suspicious. The guerrillaseventually accepted this argument and left with a small cash contribution.While David Ncube may appear to have at times been evasive andreluctant to support the guerrillas, he allowed his children to use hisvehicle to transport the guerrillas, and was also active on the ZAPU WarCommittee. Even though he had almost been killed by ZIPRA soldierswhen a neighbour accused him of being a collaborator, he neverthelesscontinued to support the guerrillas, albeit on terms that he attempted tonegotiate from his position of relative weakness. During my field work inMatabeleland in 1990-92,1 was told on numerous occasions that villagershad voluntarily given assistance to the guerrillas. Yet, there were alsooccasions when villagers sought to evade contributions. Respondentsrecollected that there was widespread support for the bafana (ZIPRAguerrillas) during the war and that the villagers were the sea in which thefish (bafana) swam.Many Ndebele-speakers claimed that it was the Shona-speaking ZANLAforces (ppasi) that relied upon coercion to obtain logistical support fromthe villagers. The local name for ZANLA guerrillas, opasi, refers to ZANLAslogans that villagers had to repeat: 'down with the settlers' they weretold to chant. The name amadzakudzaku refers to the ZANLA soldiers'S. ROBINS 89demands for chicken and sadza. Would Shona-speakers in Mashonalandhave represented ZANLA guerrillas in similar ways? Kriger's argumentsuggests that they probably would have, yet she does not provide sufficientevidence to substantiate such a sweeping generalisation. Neither canKriger account for the fact that whereas Ndebele-speakers generallyregarded ZANLA as a coercive guerrilla army, they referred with pride tothe ZIPRA soldiers as bafana 'our boys'.To conclude, Kriger provides a less romanticised and heroic accountof the liberation war than earlier work. However, a major shortcoming ofher book is that, because of her commitment to the argument that theguerrillas deployed coercion to mobilise the peasantry, she is unable toaccount for the ways in which villagers crossed the boundaries between'resistance' and 'compliance'. Neither is she able to show how villagersnegotiated their complex and ambivalent relations with the two guerrillaarmies and Rhodesian Security Forces. Instead, she sets up a dichotomybetween 'coerced' and 'voluntary' participation that does not take intoaccount the fluid and shifting political and military terrain within whichthe war was fought. Finally, Kriger generalises from 'her voices' withouttaking cognisance of the multiplicity of Zimbabwe war narratives fromother times and places. One of these alternative stories could well be theaccounts of the many Africans who made enormous sacrifices in voluntarilysupporting the guerrillas. Another could be the collection of anecdotes ofDavid Ncube that reveal his repertoire of tactics of survival as well as hiscomplex and ambiguous relations with dangerous outsiders in a warwhere a slight error of judgement could mean a violent death.Despite the shortcomings of Kriger's generalisations about guerrillacoercion, her work has provided a corrective to the heroic and triumphalistnarratives that dominated academic accounts of the liberation struggleduring the 1980s. The mid-1990s have witnessed a reassessment of the'praise texts' produced during the heydays of independence. Ranger writesthathistorians are seeking to heal through the recovery of the total experienceof the war rather than the selective version on which the ZANU (PF)regime has drawn for its legitimacy (1992, 706).Kriger's work may have indirectly served as a catalyst for such projectsof recovery. It may also serve as a catalyst for further debate about thepolitics and ethics of nationalist historical writing and the character ofmass mobilisation, peasant revolutions, and practices of violence andhealing (See Reynolds, 1990; Brickhill, 1995). To conclude, Kriger'srevisionist work may have succeeded in enabling historians to take upDumiso Dabengwa's challenge to look at Zimbabwe liberation narrativesthrough less romantic and triumphalist lenses.90 A REVIEW ARTICLE OF NORMA KRIGER'S PEASANT VOICESBibliographyBHEBE, N. AND RANGER, T. (eds.) 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