Zambezia (1999), XXVI (ii).PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWE: AHISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWBRIAN RAFTOPOULOS*Institute of Development Studies, University of ZimbabweAbstractNationalism, as a mobilising ideology, has had a powerful presence inZimbabwean history, as it has on a global level. This article is an attempt totrace the historiography of nationalism in Zimbabwe from the 1960s to thepresent. It argues that since the celebrated nationalist inspired texts of the1960s, there has been an increasing attempt to unpackage the ideology andpractice of nationalism and nationalist politics, fracturing our view of thelatter through a more careful analysis of class, gender, ethnicity and changingrural-urban relations, as well as periodising the presence of nationalism inZimbabwean history. The result is that we now have a more complex pictureof nationalism, reflecting both its continued resonance and its uneven anddifferential presence. This has opened up the possibility for less ahistorical,essentialist notions of the subject.INTRODUCTIONIn his 1979 review of the social and economic historiography of Zimbabwe,1Ian Phimister set out to explore the path-breaking contributions of Marxistinterventions in the historical debates between 1970-1979, emphasisingalso the limitations of the existing liberal and Africanist discourse. Therelationships between structure and agency, forms of accumulation andsocial differentiation under colonialism, and the tensions between theAfricanist's emphasis on the more or less unified agencies of nationalistpolitics and the differential responses to colonial rule stressed by radicalhistorians, formed the central features of Phimister's seminal discussion.In his conclusion, Phimister lamented that there was often amethodological overlap between liberal and Africanist discourses on theone hand, and the new radical historiography. Explaining the cause ofsuch an overlap Phimister observed that such radical historians,were constrained to clear away the existing historiographicalundergrowth and to initiate construction of materialist interpretations* I am grateful for the useful comments of Dr. Patricia Hayes.1 I. R. Phimister, 'Zimbabwe: Economic and social historiography since 1970", AfricanAffairs, (1979), 78, (cxi).115116 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEof Zimbabwe political economy, but in doing so they inevitably riskedthe appearance and occasionally the substance of capture by the veryliberal problematic they were confronting.2The result of this methodological proximity was 'the failure of Marxiststudies of Zimbabwean economy and society to establish themselvessecurely as a distinct paradigm'.3 This failure of Marxist studies, referredto by Phimister, was related to the problem of understanding thenationalism-race-class triad under colonialism. While the Africanistemphasis on the celebration of African, and more broadly, nationalistagency, paid too little attention to differential struggles, the radicalemphasis on class largely subsumed issues of race and nationalism.Because of the failure of both the Africanist and radical historians toconfront the relations between these categories in more convincing ways,a common analytical problem in this area in the 1970s, the methodologicaloverlaps were not surprising as each held on to the stronger coat tails ofthe other's arguments.The issue, of course, was not only a methodological problem, butwas also located in this force field of the political dynamics of the period,1970-1979. Problematising nationalism in the context of the on-goingliberation struggle not only at a national level, but also in a regionalcontext, had serious political implications for historical analysts. Morewill be said about such political contextualisation below.The issues which Phimister raised in 1979 have continued to surfacein the historiographical debates on Zimbabwe, since that period. Thearguments have taken different forms, but the central problem of relatingnationalist hegemony to difference, and discourses of unity to thecontradictions born out of the struggles and varying perspectives ofsubordinate classes, remains. However, there was one problem in theperspective Phimister proposed for a future paradigm of historicalresearch. His emphasis on the centrality of class for future historicalwork, always contained within it the possibility of economistic andreductionist readings. He has recently emphasized this formulation bystating that unless the processes of race, nationalism, and gender 'arerefracted through class they ultimately mislead rather than inform'.4Phimister's own excellent work, like much of the radical history whichhas relied so heavily on him, myself included, has sometimes displayedsuch economism. This central focus on class perhaps also stemmed from2 Ibid., 267-268.3 Ibid, 267.4 I. R. Phimister, "Keynote Address at the Conference on 'The Zimbabwean Economy 1930-1990", 4-7 August 1997, University of Zimbabwe.B. RAFTOPOULOS 117an underestimation of the potential for fruitful growth within the liberal,Africanist paradigm. In fact there have been substantial developments inthis field centred around the work of Terence Ranger, the doyen ofZimbabwean historiography.Important work on the 'inventions' and 'social constructions' ofnationalist and ethnic discourse has emerged under Ranger's influence.These developments are still characterised by some of the problemsPhimister raised, which will be discussed below. However, their centralconcern with nationalism has provided valuable lessons for new analyticaldevelopments.In order to carry out this review of Zimbabwean historiography, thisarticle will concentrate on two periods. Firstly we will revisit briefly theperiod covered by Phimister, starting however from 1967-1979, in orderto make some additional comments on the developments in this period.However, the major focus of this discussion will be an assessment ofhistoriographical developments between 1980-1997, namely the post-independence period in Zimbabwe. In doing this we hope to review thequestions which were raised during the formative periods ofhistoriographical growth, as well as the limitations of such interventions.THE PERIOD 1967-79The year 1967 marked the publication of the formative Africanist text onAfrican agency in Zimbabwe, namely Ranger's Revolt in Southern Rhodesia.5The book had a formative influence not only academically, but alsopolitically as it helped to feed the nationalist invention of a continuousthread of anti-colonial struggle. The book dealt with African resistance tocolonial intervention in 1896-97, which in popular nationalist discourse,became known as Chimurenga I, the sequel being the liberation struggleof the 1960s and 1970s. This book was completed while Ranger wasteaching at the University of Dar-es-Salaam between 1963 and 1970, afterbeing deported from Southern Rhodesia in 1963 for his involvement innationalist politics during his seven years' stay in the settler colony.6 Foryounger aspiring historians like myself, who were also involved innationalist politics, the lure of Ranger's unified vision of early anti-colonialstruggle was strong. In 1982, a leading Zimbabwean poet paid homage toRanger, in a poem entitled 'To Terence':5 T. O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia. 1896-97 (Heinemann Educational Books, London,1967).6 For some recent biographical details on Ranger see, John McCracken, 'Terence Ranger: Apersonal appreciation', Journal of Southern African Studies, (June 1997), (23), (ii).118 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEYou were gone when I came,and yet I have metthe blood you spilledin the muscle of history.Your history, Terence,is an arrivalwhere others departed.7In 1970, this book was followed by Ranger's The African Voice* whichPhimister aptly described as 'a mature expression of the Africanistscholarship which then dominated central African studies'.9 This bookattempted to track the development of African political and socialorganisation in Southern Rhodesia up to 1945, a precursor to the study ofmass nationalism in the colony.In addition to Ranger's African work, numerous books by leadingAfrican nationalists themselves, which span both time periods underreview in this article, appeared which provided both general andautobiographical accounts of nationalist struggle. Ndabaningi Sithole,who was to become the first president of the Zimbabwe African NationalUnion (ZANU) in 1963, produced his book>t/ncan Nationalism10 in 1959 inwhich he combined his personal movement towards Nationalism, with anattempt to theorise what he termed the 'factor of nationalism.'Eshmael Mlambo's The Struggle of a Birthright (1972)11 also attemptedto provide the historical background for the emergence of Africannationalism. Autobiographies by Bishop Muzorewa (1978), MauriceNyagumbo (1980) and Joshua Nkomo (1984)12 provided interesting andvaluable insights into the lives of major nationalist leaders, within thebroad narrative of nationalist politics. In the case of Nkomo's book,appearing in the middle of the war in Matabeleland in the mid-1980s, thestory is also one of the tensions and break-up of nationalist unity. Themost interesting of this genre of work were the two books produced by7 Chenjerai Hove, 'To Terence", in Up in Arms (Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare, 1982133.8 T. O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (Heinemann Educational B(x>ksLondon, 1970).9 Phimister, "Zimbabwe: Economic and social historiography since 1970\ 253.10 Ndabaningi Sithole, African Nationalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970).11 Eshmael Mlambo, The Struggle for a Birthright (C. Hurst Company, London 1972).12 Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Rise Up and Walk (Sphere Books, London, 1978); MauriceNyagumbo, With The People (Allison and Busby, Ix>ndon, 1980); Joshua Nkomo, The Slnrvof My Life (Methuen, London, 1984). *B. RAFTOPOULOS 119Lawrence Vambe in 1972 and 1976.13Vambe's work provided a fascinatinginsight into the urban social history of nationalist politics setting in animportant precedent for the growth of urban historiography in Zimbabwein the 1980s and 1990s.Ranger's Africanist sway in the study of early anti-colonial strugglesin Southern Rhodesia dominated the field, until the emergence in the1970s of alternative analytical perspectives. Between the work of GiovanniArrighi,14 Charles Van Onselen15, Duncan Clarke16, Phimister17, Harris18and Davies19, processes of class formation, class struggle and articulationof modes of production, became a more prominent feature of the analysisof the settler formation. However, these interventions by radical scholarsfailed to seriously engage the problematic of nationalism for a number ofreasons. Firstly, much of the work by these radical scholars wasconcentrated in the period before the emergence of mass nationalistpolitics in the mid-1950s, and thus the implications of the analysis ofclass for an understanding of nationalism were not seriously explored.Secondly, the most important historical texts on class, namely the workof Van Onselen and Phimister had as their central focus, the establishmentof the existence of worker consciousness, against the moreundifferentiated focus of the Africanist and liberal schools. Thus VanOnselen boldly stated:By systematically probing the response of African workers within thecontext of a specific industry, it seems possible to suggest that therewas a well developed worker consciousness from the earliest days ofthe mining industry.2013 Lawrence Vambe, An Ill-fated People (Heinemann, London, 1972); Also, From Rhodesia toZimbabwe (Heinemann, London, 1976).14 G. Arrighi and J. Saul, Essays on the Political Economy of Africa (Monthly Review Press,London, 1973).15 C. Van Onselen, Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia 1900-1933 (Pluto,London, 1976).16 D. G. Clarke, Contract Workers and Underdevelopment in Rhodesia (Mambo Press, Gwelo1974); Agricultural and Plantation Workers in Rhodesia (Mambo Press, Gwelo, 1977);'Structural trends affecting the conditions of labour for African workers in Rhodesia',Rhodesian Journal of Economics, (January 1976), 10, (ii); 'The Under-development ofAfrican Trade Unions and Working Class Action in Post-war Rhodesia' (Oxford Workshop,Unpub. mimeo, 1974). Clarke, a prolific researcher, published much more in the 1970s.17 I. R. Phimister and C. Van Onselen, Studies in the History of African Mine Labour inColonial Zimbabwe (Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1978).18 P. Harris, Black Industrial Workers in Rhodesia (Gwelo, Mambo Press, 1974); 'Industrialworkers in Rhodesia, 1946-1972: Working class elite or lumpen proletariat?'. Journal ofSouthern African Studies, (1975), I.19 R. Davies, 'Notes on the theory of the informal sector with reference to Zimbabwe', SouthAfrican Labour Bulletin, (1977), III.20 C. Van Onselen, 'Worker consciousness in Black miners: Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1920',in I. R. Phimister and C. Van Onselen, Studies in Colonial Zimbabwe (Gwelo MamboPress, 1978), 19.120 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEMoreover, heavily influenced by social historians such as E. P.Thompson and Eugene Genovese, Van Onselen sought this expression ofworker discontent 'in the nooks and crannies of the day-to-day worksituation', which in his view were the only ways in which workers couldexpress their discontent in the context of the repressive labour conditionson the mine compounds. In this kind of analysis class tended to becomea delimited corporate framework, linked to an historical task ofproletarianation.21 The reductionist pull of such a trajectory was hardlygoing to be of much use for an understanding of the complexities ofnationalist mobilisation.The work of historians like Van Onselen and Phimister was developedwithin the context of the radical South African labour historiography ofthe 1970s, which in Lewis's words, 'followed hard on the heels of therevival of South African trade unionism in the early 1970s'.22 This growthin labour history also reflected the focus of the South African Left onlabour as an alternative focus of anti-apartheid struggle. The decisiveeffects of Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement on the politicalscene in South Africa during this period, also raised important theoreticaland political questions on race and nationalism, which may have fed aheightened concern with class on the part of large sections of the SouthAfrican Left. In such a context class could once again have the effect ofsubsuming issues of race and nationalism. In any case the influence ofthese developments could be detected in the work of the radical historiansfocusing on labour in Zimbabwe. Thirdly, even when questions of ethnicitywere dealt with by radical historians, the dynamic and construction ofethnic consciousness was located largely in the abode of production.23Thus even though the political economy interventions of the radicalsraised serious questions, absent in Ranger's work, the work of the radicalhistorians itself raised new problems and limitations.However, Ranger's work not only faced criticism from the Marxistinspired historiography. His own interpretation of the uprising of 1896/97,which fed so much nationalist nostalgia and mythology, was seriouslyundermined by the late 1970s. The work of Beach24 and Cobbing25 seriously21 In a different context, see T. Nairn's critique of E. P. Thomson's use of class, in T. NairnThe Enchanted Class: Britain and Its Monarchy (London, Vintage, 1994).22 John Lewis, 'South African labour history: A historiographical assessment', HadimiHistory Review, (1990), 46, (vii). a'23 I. Phimister and Charles Van Onselen, "The political economy of tribal animosity: A casestudy of the 1929 Bulawayo Location 'Faction fight". Journal of Southern African Studio(October 1979), 6, (i). s>24 D. N. Beach, 'Chimurenga: The Shona risings of 1896-97'. Journal of African llfctnn,(1979), 20, (iii). ry-25 J. Cobbing, 'The absent priesthood: Another look at the Rhodesia risings of 1896-07-Journal of African History, (1977), 18. (i). " ŁB. RAFTOPOULOS 121challenged Ranger's exaggerated view of the extent of unity and popularresistance in the conflicts of 1896/97. Beach and Cobbing seriouslyquestioned Ranger's view of the organisation of the Risings, underminingRanger's view of the role of the Mwari Cult in organising these Risings.Where Ranger had sought to demonstrate the unity of the Shona andNdebele in the Risings as a prelude to later, mass nationalism, bothCobbing and Beach painted a more differential, less romanticised picture.In Cobbing's view the 'problem of scale' was for the most part not solvedby the Shona or Ndebele in the supratribal sense pointed to by Ranger.26Cobbing thus concluded that it was,above all fallacious to seek in the events of those years a surge ofZimbabwean nationalism or proto-nationalism, which was only todevelop this century.27Thus by 1980 Zimbabwean historiography was faced, on the onehand with a still influential Africanist school, whose often undifferentiatedperspective on nationalism had been critically dented; on the other handthe 1970s had seen the emergence of a radical scholarship which, thoughit had raised serious issues regarding the differentiated struggles undersettler-colonial capitalism, had been unable to bring such insights to bearon a convincing problematisation of nationalism.HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE POST-COLONIAL PERIOD: 1980-97In the immediate post-colonial years Of the Zimbabwean state, therefollowed a series of studies attempting to demonstrate the unifyingcapacity of nationalism, and its ability to express and integrate a varietyof subaltern struggles. In 1981, a work by Martin and Johnson,28represented little more than a hagiography for the ruling party, anunashamed apologetic justifying th« coming to power of a section of theliberation movement. However, two much more substantive studiescelebrating the growth of nationalism, namely Ranger's PeasantConsciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe,29 and David Lan's GunsRain30 appeared in 1985. Ranger's work, located in the Makoni District innorth-eastern Zimbabwe, traced the development of a radical peasant26 Phimister, 'Zimbabwe: Economic and social historiography since 1970", summarises thecritique of Beach and Cobbing succinctly.27 Ibid.28 D. Martin and P. Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War (ZimbabwePublishing House, Harare, 1981).29 T. O Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe PublishingHouse, Harare, 1988).30 D. Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe PublishingHouse, Harare, 1988).122 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEconsciousness in this area which developed out of the experiences ofcolonial conquest, land alienation, and centralised, authoritarian stateinterventions in the agrarian questions from the 1930s. This growth ofpeasant discontent provided the basis for guerrilla mobilisation andnationalist politics. Moreover, the use of spirit mediums as symbols ofthe rights of peasants to land, was incorporated into ZANU's mobilisationstrategy. The result was that the,collective action and collective suffering of peasants and guerrillasproduced a corporate ideology in Makoni District and elsewhere in thecountry.31David Lan's work also stressed the close cooperation of guerillas andspirit mediums in mobilising peasants, with the latter legitimating theauthority of the liberation forces against discredited chiefs whocollaborated with the settler regime.A similar insistence on Ranger's 'composite ideology' can be found inthe work of Manungo who sees the guerrillas as 'an extension of peasantresistance to colonial rule' with the peasants viewing the liberation forcesas 'their children who had come to assist them in removing the burden ofcolonialism'.32In 1992 a major critique of Ranger's and Lan's perspective onnationalism appeared in the work of Kriger's Peasant Voices,33 in whichshe argued that Ranger's stress on unity ignored the differentiation withinthe peasantry along the lines of lineage, age, gender and wealth. Thus sheargued that Ranger's 'narrowly constructed concept of peasantconsciousness' based on 'shared cultural nationalist ideology' ignoredvarious levels of differentiation of peasants, and thus overstated peasantgrievances against the state and White settlers in the arena of agriculturalproduction. On nationalism she concluded:The concept of nationalism, like that of peasants is outward orientedand assumes that peasant differences with each other pale in significanceto their differences with alien others. Peasants appear as a classmotivated against an alien state, whether characterised as capitalist,imperialist, or colonialist.3431 Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe, 182.32 K. Manungo, 'The peasantry in Zimbabwe: A vehicle for change', in I'reben Kaarsholm(ed.) Cultural Struggle and Development in Southern Africa (James Currey, London, 1991)117-118; see also K. Manungo 'The Role Peasants Played in the Zimbabwe War of liberationWith Special Emphasis on the Chiweshe District' (Ph.D thesis, Ohio University, 1991)33 Norma J. Kriger, Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices (Cambridge University PressCambridge, 1992), 27. "34 Ibid., 240.B. RAFTOPOULOS 123Moreover, central to Kriger's thesis was the view that in order tomobilise a nationalist consciousness in the countryside, guerrillas wereforced to utilise coercion rather than persuasion, because of the conflictingagendas of peasant communities. Thus the guerrilla war in Zimbabwewas successful despite the lack of popular rural support.Other critiques of Ranger also emerged. Alexander,35 one of Ranger'sforemost students, argued that Ranger's study was based on an area whichwas a prime example of successful peasant production, an experiencewhich could not therefore be generalised. She proposed, in a critiquethat applied also to Lan and Kriger, that studying the national liberationstruggle in Zimbabwe differed according to the areas' experience of thewar, its geography, the political and religious institutions and the natureand extent of incorporation into the colonial political economy.36Alexander also criticised Ranger for his failure to seriously address theproblem of guerrilla violence and coercion, treating the latter 'more as anecessary condition of war than as an indication of social tensions'.37Moreover, Alexander's own work on rural struggles demonstrates the unevenrelationship between nationalism, 'traditional' authorities and peasantcommunities, in her comparative study of the liberation war experiencein areas in the north-east and south-west of Zimbabwe, respectively.38While Kriger's work posed serious questions and problems forRanger's work, her own understanding of nationalism exposed a failureto understand the hegemonic capacity of nationalist struggle. Her centralconcern with the use of coercion in nationalist struggles, disarmed herfrom confronting the passionate commitments of nationalist affiliations.Thus a few major problems can be located in Kriger's work. Firstly,referring to Alexander's earlier point about the need to understanddifferent area responses to the liberation struggle, Kriger like Ranger,sought to generalise a particular district experience to the guerrilla waras a whole. Moreover, the area studied namely Mtoko district, had aparticular potential for coercive strategies because of the rival nationalistmovements operating in the area. As Alexander points out:Kriger neglected the role of Methodism in creating support for BishopMuzorewa's UANC Towards the end of the war, a strong UANC and35 Jocelyn Alexander, 'Things fail apart. The center can hold: Processes of post-war politicalchange in Zimbabwe's rural areas', in Laurids S. Lauriden, (ed.) Bringing Institutions BackIn Š The Role of Institutions in Civil Society, State and Economy 0DS Roskidle University,1993 [a]), 35.36 Ibid., 134.37 Ibid., 135.38 Jocelyn Alexander, 'The State, Agrarian Policy and Rural Politics in Zimbabwe: CaseStudies of Insiza and Chimanimani Districts, 1940-1990' (D. Phil thesis, Oxford University,1993 [b]).124PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEIn fact the last two to three years of the war witnessed a more generalIn fact the last two to I y liberation movement, sensing apointed out, peasant criticism of guerrilla violence did not automatical*imDlv lack of support for the nationalist struggle.P 4e workZs far discussed has concentrated on the rural expensesof nationalism and anti-colonial struggle. However, in the study ofot nationalism «u relations between nationalism^^S^Z^^^^ picture of nationalistgles has begun to emerge. Phimister's recent work has continued toSS the differential and uneven process of the ^^Jfi*jfcHis comprehensive Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe 1890-1984*SPa3 on his original explanations of capital accumulation and classstmggle during this period, while his long-standing interest in the s udyof capital and labour in the mining sector has resulted in a detailed studyof Zimbabwe's largest coal mine.4'1In studies of urban social history, which began to emerge slowly inthe 1970s45 and then expanded rapidly in the 1980s, a more complexprocess o'f the differentiated and layered experiences of various urbanclasses has been presented, thus further problematising the understandingof nationalist consciousness. Such studies have sought to understandclass ethnicity, gender and nationalism in the urban areas as part of a39 Alexander, "Things fall apart, The center can hold', 135.40 The Work of D. Moore on the struggles within the liberation movement over political andmilitarist issues in the mid-1970s is a valuable contribution to an understanding of th«various trends within nationalist politics. See D. Moore, "The Contradictory Constructionof Hegemony in Zimbabwe: Politics, Ideology and Class in the Formation of a New AfricanState' (D. Phil thesis, York University, 1990).41 S. Robins, 'Heroes, heretics and historians of the Zimbabwe revolution: A review articUof Norma Kriger's Peasant Voices', Zambezia. (1996), XX1I1, (i), 86.42 Ibid., 87.43 I. R.Phimister, .An £conom/c and Social History otZimbabwe 1890-1948: Capital Accumulationand Class Straggle (Longman, London, 1988).44 1. R. PhimWer, Wangi Kolia: Cool, Capital and Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe 18!M.]<KI(Baobab Books, Harare, 1996). **45 S. Thornton, 'African History of Bulawayo' (Unpub. Mimeo, 1978).B. RAFTOPOULOS 125more general and related agrarian history of the country. The dichotomiesbetween urban and rural struggles have thus been eroded. As a result wehave a better understanding of the different types of consciousnesswhich emerged amongst workers, the range of factors affecting labourorganisation and labour mobilisation, and the changing relationshipbetween the labour movement and nationalist politics. A brief overviewof some of the works in this area will exemplify these trends.Yoshikuni's46 work on colonial Salisbury demonstrates therelationship between the changing origins of major urban migrant workers,and the growth of a territorial consciousness. As a result while migrantsfrom Nyasaland (Malawi), Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) andNorthern Rhodesia (Zambia) dominated urban life in colonial Salisburyuntil the late 1940s and early 1950s, because of the continuing peasantoption for indigenous workers, the relationship between urban and abroader rural territorial politics was tenuous. As land alienation policiesintensified in the 1940s and 1950s, and increasing numbers of indigenousworkers entered the colonial cities, the ground was prepared for a broadernationalist mobilisation.Building on the work of Yoshikuni, my own work47 has attempted tofocus on the political and ideological relations between nationalism withinthe context of both urban and agrarian history in the period after 1945.The thrust of this work suggests the following propositions:1) From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s there were demographic changesin the urban areas which resulted in indigenous Africans becomingthe dominant numerical factor in the cities. These changes were aresult of more destructive changes on the land (that is The LandHusbandry Act, 1954), which increased the movement of local Africansinto the urban sector.2) These changes were also accompanied by the increased growth of anAfrican middle class intelligentsia, who began to articulate a nationalistideology which encompassed the problems in both the rural andurban areas.3) This nationalist movement increasingly subordinated more strictlyurban based movements like the Reformed Industrial and Commercial46 T. Yoshikuni, 'Black Migrants in a Black City: A Social History of Harare 1890-1925 (1).Phil, thesis, University of Zimbabwe 1989); Also T. Yoshikuni, 'Notes on the influence oftown-country relations on African urban history: Experiences of Salisbury and Bulawayobefore 1957', in T. Yoshikuni and B. Raftopoulos (eds.), Essays in Zimbabwean UrbanHistory (Forthcoming, 1999).47 B. Raftopoulos, 'Nationalism and labour in Salisbury 1953-1965', Journal of SouthernAfrican Studies, (1995), 21, (i); See also 'Labour Internationalism and Problems of Autonomyand Democratisation in the Trade Union Movement in Southern Rhodesia: 1951-1975',Paper presented at the Conference on "The Historical Dimensions of Human Rights andDemocracy in Southern Africa' (University of Zimbabwe, September 1996).126PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEWorkers Union led by Charles Mzingeli, and which dominated Africanpol tics in Salisbury from 1945 to the early 1950s. Nationals politicsalso increasingly marginalised the emerging Southern ^-ajradeUnion Congress which came into existence from the mid-1950s. Thecri ical vofce of labour was thus increasingly subsumed in thenattonalist movement, especially once the anti-colonial juggle wascaught in the grip of serious divisions and exile politics Moreundamentally, L the focus of the liberation struggle moved to therural areas the role of the labour movement was further minimised.Within this period the role of the International Labour Federations(1CFTU) created further problems for the trade union movement,pulling it into the sphere of Cold War politicsThe relationship between gender and nationalism ,n the urban areashas been confronted in the work of Barnes^ and Scarnecchia.« Barnes swork demonstrates the complex gender struggles within the African urbancommunity in the context of changing colonial policy with regard towomen. Summarising her argument Barnes writes:African women often challenged the forces of patriarchy: they travelledabsconded, used the colonial courts, earned their own money, andtalked back to their elders. However, it would be a mistake to paintAfrican women in the colonial years as unflinchingly heroic combatantsin a fight against patriarchal oppression. African women in colonialZimbabwe generally did not seek to destroy the ties which bound themto the perspectives, hopes and visions of their fathers, husbands andsons they contributed to the shaping of urban society not so muchby confronting patriarchy head on, but rather by persisting in developingand performing tasks that enabled them to further the causes nearestto their hearts: the survival and hoped for prosperity of the cominggenerations.3"Thus Barnes attempts to show that women not only fought againstthe patriarchal authority of their husbands and fathers, but also foughtwith their men against colonial authority. She demonstrates this in heranalysis of the importance of issues raised by women in the demands ofstrikers in the 1940s. She writes:There is a great deal of evidence ... that worker understanding of howthe prevailing economic system affected their females contributed totheir willingness to strike. Lists of workers' demands show that they48 T. A. Barnes, "We Women Worked So Hard": (Sender. Labour, and .Social Reproduction iColonial Harare, Zimbabwe, 1930-1956" (I). Phil, thesis. University of Zimbabwe. 1993)49 T. I.. Scarnecchia, 'The Politics of (lender and Class in the Creation of African CotnmunttiSalisbury, Rhodesia. 1937-1957' (Ph. 1). thesis. University of Michigan. 1993) s'50 Barnes, "We Women Worked So Hard'. 416-447.B. RAFTOPOULOS 127were increasingly concerned about issues of family viability and socialreproduction. When the consideration of the role of women is added tothe equation it becomes clear African workers in Rhodesia in the 1940swere not just making economic demands. They wanted the state andtheir employers ... to shoulder a greater part of the burden of theirreproduction and that of their families.51Scarnecchia's work also deals with the Internal gender and classdivisions of African urban society, focusing in particular on the strugglesover residential space and the importance of such space in defining classand status within the African community. These divisions are expressedby Scarnecchia as follows:The climate within the Harare township in the late 1940s and early1950s reflected a growing tension between married and single workers,and further among married people, between those who aspired tomiddle class status, migrants, and those who remained tied to ruralways of living.52These tensions, according to Scarnecchia, often reflected competingperceptions of 'respectability' and 'morality', concerning how Africans,and particularly African women, should live in the city. Conflicts over theposition of women in the city could sometimes become an ugly part ofurban struggles against the colonial state, as in the case of the women,living in the newly built women's hostel, who were raped during the 1956Bus Boycott in Salisbury organised by emerging nationalist politicians.The work of the latter historians on gender has been particularly importantin highlighting the deeply gendered nature of nationalist politics. Thiscentral feature of nationalism became apparent once again in the post-colonial period, when the independent government attempted to includein its problematic discourse on the nation, selective patriarchal definitionsof 'respectable women', and homophobic attacks on 'unacceptable' sexualpreferences. These trends in the discourse were exemplified by the round-up of so-called prostitutes in the early 1980s and President Mugabe'sattack on gays and lesbians in 1995.53 Notwithstanding the varied urbanstruggles described above, the work of West has carefully charted thegrowth of an hegemonic middle class between 1890 and 1965 as part ofthe growth of urban society, which increasingly defined and articulatedthe nationalist agenda.5451 Ibid.52 T. Scarnecchia, 'The Mapping of Respectability and the Transformation of AfricanResidential Space' (Unpub. Mimeo, 1995).53 Marc Epprecht, 'Unstructural Behaviour and the Queer "Threat" to Zimbabwe' (Unpub.Mimeo. 1996).54 Michael West, 'African Middle Class Formation in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890-1965 (Ph.l)thesis, Harvard University, 1990).128 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEThus as in our discussion of nationalism in the rural areas, thecomplexity of nationalism and the urban experience has become moreapparent. In the face of these diverse and uneven experiences ofnationalism that have become apparent in the recent historiography ofZimbabwe, Ranger has pointed to an increasing contingency in therelationship between nationalist politics and popular mobilisation. Hehas observed that the connection between peasants and nationalism isfar from given and in fact 'depends upon very particular, and by nomeans enduring, convergences of peasants and nationalist interests'.55Ranger's views on the contingency of nationalist mobilisation havealso been influenced by the most traumatic event of post-colonialZimbabwe, namely the crisis in Matabeleland in the mid-1980s. It is acrisis to which some commentators believe the triumphaiist nationalisthistoriography of an earlier period contributed through 'a f-ukire on thepart of historians to recognise the continuity in a culture of violence andauthoritarianism, that emerged during the guerrilla war'.56 Certainly thebrutality of the Zimbabwean state towards a minority ethnic group, leftlittle doubt that the terms of belonging to the nation were being definedin brutal militarist fashion.Moreover central to the crisis in Matabeleland was the central thrustof ZANU (PF) to eliminate its major political opposition in the southernpart of Zimbabwe, namely the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU).The ZANU government's policy of Gukumhundi (a colloquial Shonaexpression meaning, 'the storm that destroys everything*) was, in thewords of Sithole and Makumbe, 'an undisguised, intolerant, commandist,and deliberately violent policy towards the opposition. By this policy theopposition was rendered impotent.'57 Evidence in a recent report on theviolence experienced in Matabeleland reveals the wrath of an authoritariannationalism. Reports of beatings, rape, torture and a generally forcedcompliance with a particularist version of national allegiance,characterised the Zimbabwean state's use of its 5th Brigade inMatabeleland. As an example of forced mobilisation of people inMatabeleland by the state the report recorded an incident in the Matoboarea:5 Brigade rounded everyone in the area to a local school. There wereabout 200 men, women and children. Everyone was beaten and kickedfrom sunrise to 10 a.m. Then some were made to dig two graves while55 T. 0. Ranger, 'Towards A Research Project, with IDS. 1997 to 2000' (Oxford. 1997).56 Robins, 'Heroes, heretics and historians of the Zimbabwe revolution". 7fi.57 Masipula S. Sithole and John Makumbe 'Klections in Harare: The ZANU PK hegemony andits incipient decline', African Journal of Political Science, (1997). 2. OVB. RAFTOPOULOS 129others were made to fight each other. Six men were chosen at randomand placed in groups of three. They were then shot dead. Everyone elsewas told to sing songs praising Mugabe and condemning Nkomo. Whilesome sang and danced, others were beaten.58Such state violence on a minority ethnic group called out for analysisand explanation. Richard Werbner's book on a Kalanga family inMatabeleland, sought to explain this debacle through the concept of'quasi-nationalism', an ideological practice located primarily in 'thestruggle for power and moral authority in the nation state'. Werbnerconcluded that:The catastrophe of quasi-nationalism is that it can capture the might ofthe nation state and bring authorised violence down ruthlessly againstthe people who seem to stand in the way of the nation being united andpure as one body.59Ranger's response was an attempt to historicise the development ofethnicity in order to show how such an invention had emerged as a resultof the combination of colonial state practice, missionary interventions inthe definition of African language dialectics, and migrant labour practices.60Expanding on this work later, Ranger has revisited the idea of an inventedethnicity which he perceived as paying inadequate attention to a 'fullyhistorical treatment of African participation and initiative in innovatingcustom'.61 Preferring Benedict Anderson's concept of ImaginalCommunities,62 Ranger's new emphasis on 'imagination' was an attemptto provide for a more active agency for different African voices, in which'multiple imaginations' developed by different groups, over a long periodof time, contest over the meaning of such imaginings. This process ofdiscursively constituting ethnicity and nationalism has been part of themost recent, innovative work that has emerged on nationalism.63 ThusRanger's emphasis on the historical mutations of ethnic identity, basednot only on colonial and missionary categorisations, but on the changing58 Evidence to the report 'Breaking The Silence' (The Legal Resources Foundation and theCatholic Commission for Justice and Peace, 1997).59 Richard Werbner, Tears of the Dead: The Social Biography of An African Family (BaobabBooks, Harare, 1991), 159.60 T. O. Ranger, The Invention of Tribalism in Zimbabwe (Mambo Books, Gweru, 1985).61 T. O. Ranger, 'The invention of tradition revisited: The case of colonial Africa', in T.Ranger and O. Vaughan (eds.) Legitimacy and the Stale in Twentieth Century Africa(MacMillan, London, 1993).62 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (Verso, London, 1983).63 See Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1983); also Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, BecomingNational: A Reader (OUP, Oxford, 1996); Golap Balakrishman (ed.), Mapping The Nation(Verso, London, 1996).130 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEinterventions of African agents, such as chiefs and nationalists, hasattempted to de-essentialise both ethnic and national identities.This movement away frdm essentialist characterisations has been aresponse to official state nationalism, stressing the democratic possibilitiesof both ethnic and national identities. In his most recent book Ranger hascontinued to explore the changes in nationalist practice stressing earliertraditions of pluralism and tolerance, in the early Southern RhodesiaAfrican Nationalist Congress of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Commentingon the writings of one of its leading lights, Stanlake Samkange, Rangernoted that the latter 'deplored the nationalist attempt to take over otherassociational activities, such as the trade union movement, and the cycleof violence which this precipitated'.64In summing up this section, we observe that if one looks at the workof Ranger and the various attempts, in response to him, to develop amore variegated analysis of nationalism in Zimbabwe, there appears tobe a certain convergence of perspectives. Ranger has moved away fromearlier celebratory positions on nationalism to a more nuanced concernwith divergence and diversity within nationalist politics. A two-volume~~~collection edited by Ranger and Bhebe provides a useful overview of theunevenness and diversity of the liberation struggle. This collection thusregisters the on-going process of unpackaging the categories of nationaliststruggle while continuing to assert the resonances of nationalism.65Nevertheless, Ranger has pointed to a dilemma which continues toconfront all the work on nationalism in Zimbabwean historiography. Thisis the fact that nationalism continues to provide an essential part of theframework in which political ideas and participation are imagined inZimbabwe, notwithstanding the tensions and differences in the way thatdifferent groups have experienced nationalist mobilisation. In Ranger'swords:... despite the many injunctions within African historiography not onlyto go beyond nationalist history but also to abandon nationalism as atopic, it makes no sense to do this in Zimbabwe . . . the sequence ofnationalist thought and organisation from the Bantu Congress of the1940s and early 1950s through the revived mass nationalist parties ofthe late 1950s and early 1960s and into the guerrilla war are crucial forcontemporary debate about democracy in Zimbabwe. Understandingrural nationalism is crucial for understanding Zimbabwe's rural areas.64 T. 0. Ranger, Are We Not Also Men? The Samkange Family and African Politics in ZimbabweW2OS4 (Baobab, Harare, 1995).65 N. Bhebe and T. 0. Ranger (eds.) Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation War Volume One(University of Zimbabwe Publications, Harare, 1995); and N. Bhebe and T, O. Ranger(eds.), Society in Zimbabwe's Liberation War Volume Two (University of ZimbabwePublications, Harare, 1995).B. RAFTOPOULOS 131The range of political options in Zimbabwe seems confined toemancipating pluralist nationalism on the one hand and collective,majoritarian nationalism on the other.66This position is similar to that of one of Zimbabwe's leading historians,N. Bhebe, who in his work has emphasised the formative and unifyingrole of nationalism.67In the light of the above discussion, we can therefore observe that,despite the growth of the historiography on nationalism in Zimbabwe,there are continuing problems of understanding the relationships betweennationalist ideas articulated by nationalist elites, and the contradictoryand complex ways in which subaltern classes assimilate and utilise suchideas in contending ways. Moreover, the effects of this analytical problemcan be observed in the weakness displayed in the analysis of therelationship between the ruling party and its support base in the post-colonial period. On the one hand, many analysts take note of the continuedpopulist appeal of nationalism, without critically explaining this hegemonicproject, beyond broad references to the persisting legacies of the liberationstruggle, and the welfarist policies of the post-colonial state. On the otherhand, having summarily dispensed with such explanations, analysis ofpost-colonial politics becomes focused on the factional struggles of stateand party elites.A good example of this tendency is the work of Ibbo Mandaza, one ofZimbabwe's leading political analysts. In 1986, in the first critical reviewof the post-colonial regime, Mandaza assumed the 'strength anddominance' of African nationalism, which because of its national-popularappeal was able to 'disguise the class structure of African societies, tohide the reality of the class struggle'.68 However, the ways in which thenational-popular elements were incorporated into subaltern ideologieswas given little attention. Henceforth, Mandaza's analysis has focused onthe role of elites in defining and resolving 'the National Question'. In anexample of his many statements on this issue he observes that,the African nationalist leadership must have the courage to call aspade and spade, oblivious of the ideological white mail which, inseeking to disparage nationalism and the related concerns of the66 T. O. Ranger 'Living Africa: Making and Writing History in Zimbabwe' (ValedictoryLecture, 19 June 1997, Oxford).67 N. Bhebe, Benjamin Burombo: African Politics in Zimbabwe 1947-1958 (College Press,Harare, 1989); See also N. Bhebe 'The nationalist struggle 1957-62', in C. Banana (ed.),Turmoil and Tenacity: Zimbabwe 1890-1990 (College Press, Harare, 1989). For the mostpart this volume is a celebratory nationalist text.68 1. Mandaza, (ed), Zimbabwe: The Political Economy of Transition, 1980-1986 (CODESRIA,Senegal, 1986), 8.132 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWENational Question, distracts the new state from the urgent tasks ofbuilding a nation and developing a national economy.69A similar emphasis on the role of elites and nationalism can be foundin the work of Sithole, Sachikonye and Moyo,70 where questions of thenation state and democratisation are usually dealt with in terms of intra-ellte struggles. In such analyses the state is usually viewed through adominative and instrumentalist model,71 in which questions of legitimationstrategies are largely confined to what Bayart has termed 'the reciprocalassimilation of elites'.72 As important as the analysis of elite politicsremains, we cannot understand the strengths and ambivalences ofnationalism if our focus remains at this level.CONCLUSIONTo conclude we can make the following observations. Since Phimister'sreview of Zimbabwean historiography in 1979, there has been a vastexpansion of work on nationalism in Zimbabwe. We now know muchmore about nationalism in relation to: the different experiences of thepeasantry; the labour movement; gender; class; ethnicity; and religion.The study of all these areas has provided a more divergent perspectiveon the experiences of nationalist ideology and practices. Phimister'shope that radical historians would develop a distinct paradigm, as distinctfrom the liberal and Af ricanist agendas, proved too confining a perspective.While class remains an essential modality of analysis, its tendency tosubsume issues of nationalism to an almost teleological trajectory ofclass formation in Southern African historiography, was always going tobe problematic. The complexities of understanding nationalism willdemand a much more expansive, less reductive view of the still fruitfulcategory, class.In fact what has occurred in Zimbabwean historiography has been aconvergence of interests around the diversity of the nationalist experience.69 I. Mandaza, "The National Question and Affirmative Action in Africa: Some Reflections onSouth Africa', Keynote Address presented at the Affirmative Action Workshop Natal 11October 1993. '70 M. Sithole, 'Zimbabwe's eroding authoritarianism". Journal of Democracy. (January 1997)8, (i); L. M. Sachikonye 'The nation-state project and conflict in Zimbabwe', in A 0Olukushi and Liisa Laako (eds.). Challenge to the Nation State in Africa (NordiskaAfrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 1996); J. N. Moyo. 'Civil society in Zimbabwe", '/.ambezia, (I993)71 For a discussion of Gramsci's relevance in avoiding such instrumentalist models in theanalysis of the post-colonial state see. S. Hall. "Gramsci's relevance for the study of raceand ethnicity', in D. Morley and K, H. Chen (eds.) Stuart Hall Critical Dialogues in Cu/i,,miStudies (Routledge, London. 1996). fuŽ72 J. F. Bayart, The Slate in Africa: The Politics of the llelly (Longman. Ixjndon, 1993)B. RAFTOPOULOS 133This development has occurred within the context of the fracturing ofthe nationalist alliance in independent Zimbabwe, and the increasingstrains and tensions in the legitimacy of the post-colonial state. Thesecracks in the nationalist alliance have become particularly apparent inthe 1990s as the destructive effects of the Structural AdjustmentProgramme in Zimbabwe have become an increasing reality. Variousclasses and organisational lobbies have been forced to confront the stateover a variety of grievances. Thus the labour movement called a GeneralStrike in December, 1997, while consumers in the township areas engagedin food riots in January 1998. At a different level the indigenisation lobby,representing an aspirant Black bourgeoisie, has since 1990 pressed thestate for increased government interventions to facilitate Blackinvolvement in the economy, while the War Veterans Associationthreatened the very existence of the ZANU (PF) government with itsdemands for compensation. In addition to these varying demands thestate, in response to its decreasing legitimacy, had been forced to dealwith the long neglected demands of land reform. The emergence of thesedifferent agendas represents the difficulty of nationalist politics incontaining the constituencies that have in the past made up the nationalalliance, under a unifying vision.Moreover, in the midst of the embattled state of the ruling party,there has been a greater willingness not only to confront the Zimbabweanstate, but to begin to confront and re-examine the nationalist past. Forexample, during evidence given to the commission to examine the abuseof War Veteran Funds in 1996, ex-combatants spoke not only of theirpresent distress, but of their past suffering in the liberation movement.Examples of the commandist and coercive aspects of the struggles, alreadyregistered in the historiography discussed earlier, were once again broughtto the fore. Among the most harrowing evidence presented was that ofthe women ex-combatants. The Minister of State for Gender Issues, OppahRushesha reported:Being a women it was very difficult to survive on your own at that age(17). We had thugs . . . We had these rapists taking advantage of usbeing young women.73In addition the Secretary of ZANU, Edgar Tekere, warned that thePresident was surrounded by 'imposters' who have engaged in the'falsification of the liberation war history'.74 Enraged ex-combatants furtherchallenged the legitimacy of the ruling elite, by staging a demonstration73 Vie Herald, 26/8/97.74 The Financial Gazette, 28/8/97.134 PROBLEMATISING NATIONALISM IN ZIMBABWEat the central symbol of the liberation struggle, namely the NationalHeroes Acre, during the annual celebrations in August 1997. Thus thecontemporary problems of the Zimbabwean state have placed newquestions about the past on the agenda. Our historical perspectives andagendas always relate to our contemporary political concerns. Therefore,unpacking the authoritarian notions of unity peddled by nationalistpoliticians has become as essential for understanding the history ofnationalism, as it has for current debates on democratisation in Zimbabwe.