Reading Robert Mugabe through the Third Chimurenga: Language, Discourse, Exclusion

Abstract

This article interrogates narrow forms of nationalism and nativist ideologies that are hidden beneath post-colonial African political leader statements and rhetoric about reversing colonial imbalances. The focus is on Zimbabwe's Third Chimurenga spearheaded by Robert Mugabe during the last ten years of his presidency. An analysis of the linguistic and discursive aspects of economic nationalisation, land reform and indigenisation programmes in Zimbabwe—also known as the Third Chimurenga—enables us to see the elements of policy discord and inconsistencies that characterised the second half of Robert Mugabe's nearly four-decade rule. The argument is that the reified and reductionist framing of the Third Chimurenga resulted in two unintended consequences: (i) alienating the majority of the very same black people that the policy sought to empower and (ii) diminishing opportunities for beneficiaries to contribute towards realisation of the ideals and aspirational goals of pushing back the frontiers of colonially inherited social and economic inequalities. I conclude by suggesting that Robert Mugabe's language and discursive rhetoric around social transformation in Zimbabwe betray unhelpful commitment to political exigencies at the expense of sustainable economic empowerment of ordinary men and women.