The premise of this dissertation suggests that lasting peace in Zimbabwe will only be realized to the extent that the silenced victims of the Matabeleland massacres are given a public voice and permanent recognition in the historical, collective memory of this nation. Navigating the Maze of Silenced Narratives 27 Chapter 2: Literature Review – Exploring Narratives of Conflict and Peace.
Silence does not mean Consent
And people in Zimbabwe today, I don't know how we can say we are free; because you can't express your opinion. You can't speak freely about your feelings, how you feel, because you are seen as someone who has a.
The Narrative Location of this Study
Proponents of narrative reality easily subsume all life experience as it is known under the totality of the process of history and its formative power to create all that exists. The fear is that the tangible social consequences of the injustice of serious violence would be systematically 'told' away into oblivion.
Research Motivation
In her synopsis of the problem, she states that: "The issue of conflict [in Matabeleland] is often mainly presented as a 'gulf' between two parties and the years of political and military terror are played down".14. Approach the Matabeleland conflict from a narrative perspective; A socially constructed conflict reality24 offers a unique analysis that is not evident in the current body of knowledge on this topic.
Thesis Objective and Specific Aims
Specific aim three: What are the interrelational links between narrative discourse and the social construction of preferred realities, both of violence and of peace in the Zimbabwean context. How can one promote the pluralistic space of dialogue in the light of a deeply rooted society?
Thesis Structure and Overview of Chapters
Secondly, it is argued that ZANU-PF had an ideological need to create a collective regulative memory of the past (patriotic history). This chapter advances the argument that the Unity Agreement was a defining moment in the history of the United Nations.
Introduction
31 views on conflict memory; second, intersections of temporal and spatial dimensions of conflict; and third, conflict as a political arena. Part One: Practice - Social Conflict Theory and the Matabeleland Violence Practice theory is concerned with the question of what knowledge is like.
Section One: Practice - Social Conflict Theory and the Matabeleland Violence Practice theory concerns itself with the interrogation of how knowledge is
A Critique of the Ethno-Cultural Interpretation
Instead of engaging in the polarized debate about the merits of essentialist versus constructivist ethnic frames of reference, this study argues that it is essential to examine the process by which healthy differences (constructed diversities) become mutually exclusive (essentialist ideas). The personal-relational lens of interpretation concentrates on the intrigue of the individual persona and the extent of real or perceived power he/she displays in the relational context.
A Critique of the Personal-Relational Interpretation
Second, a personal-relational framework may not provide a deeper interpretation of the interconnections of the sociopolitical systems from within which these actors operate. While the personal-relational narrative is useful for understanding individual personalities, behaviors, and related motivations, it rarely considers collective action.
Political-Structural Interpretations
Suzanne Dansereau64, Brian Raftopoulis and Lloyd Sachikonye65 document the relationship between Zimbabwean trade unions and the ruling ZANU-PF. 84 An example of this is the 'authorized' ZANU-PF report on the liberation struggle by Martin, D.
A Critique of the Political-Structural Interpretation
49 ongoing dance of mutual reinforcement between the private and the public narratives and the domains of power they inhabit. The lifeblood of national history consists of the sum of all the individual stories of the citizens who inhabit its borders, and the core of social change lies precisely in the synergetic, collaborative vision of both the singular and plural narratives merging into one collective action.
Historical-Ideological Interpretations
The revolutionary force has sought a mastery of the national narrative through the machinations of re-education, indoctrination and the constant barrage of affirmative images of the state through the media. Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and Nation History: The Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe”.
A Critique of the Historical-Ideological Interpretation
Section Two: Discourse - Narrative Construction of Preferred Realities 103 Narratology (the study of narrative), does not fit neatly into any particular
- Linguistics
- Literary Criticism
- New Historicism
- Therapy, Mediation and Ritual Practice
Understanding this interplay between the actual script and the social interaction that underlies it is crucial for the deconstruction of the violence story. 63 dominion – the nature of the human beings it ruled, the geography of its domain and the legitimacy of its origins”153.
Section Three: Performance - Narrative as Dramaturgical Theatre
John Paul Lederach, 172, one of the founding voices in the field of peacebuilding, describes at least four layers of 'overlapping' conflict memory. Palestinians vs. Israelis pales in comparison to the genocidal violence inflicted by the German Holocaust against the Jews. These 'dark forests' represent the marginal places (backstage or stage wings hidden by curtains) of the conflict drama in Matabeleland.
Distorted Perceptions
Severe Conflicts: Frustration-Deprivation
Conflict as Political Theatre of Struggle
Bozzoli suggests that when theories of "dramaturgy" are applied to the study of socio-political movements, they follow certain rhythms and trajectories of activity, including. Bozzoli stimulates the imagination by identifying various unique "theatres of struggle" in the context of the Alexandra District of South Africa, such as the actual geographical boundaries of the city's enclosure. including stadiums), localized mob killings of informants on certain streets, official dramas of large public events such as funerals and protest marches, private but very. This was based on the ways in which old and new genres were used, developed or mixed, the processes of "screenwriting".
Conclusion
- Interpretive-Critical Lens
Narratology understands that interpretive meaning is found in the content (what), the form (how), the authorship (who), the motivation (why), and the time (when) and place (where) of a given text (written or spoken). ). ). 79 intimidation about the psychological and experiential life stories (texts) of the Matabeleland population in the early 1980s. First, the word “interpretive” denotes a semiotic interest in the meaning of signs, symbols, and metaphors.
Research Analysis Modalities 1. Narrative as Social Construction
- Narrative as Meaning, Form and Interaction
It means an essentialist concept, something that intuitively develops in the inner depths of the human subconscious. This means that language comes first, and then meaning is produced from the expressive act (the construction of meaning around language).218. 84 shaping reality that this study of violence in Matabeleland began and narrative analysis became the operative choice for its research method.
Research Approaches 1. Literature Review
- Document Analysis
The critic of history takes seriously the subjectivity and agency of the author of the history, as well as their worldview, values and beliefs, and the place or status they occupy within the setting from which they write. What is the nature of the sociopolitical climate in which this historical record is being recreated? First, it has been documented that some ZAPU and ZIPRA data was destroyed during the violence of the 1980s.
Open Interviews: Story Analysis
- Story as structured narrative flow
Thus, while the interview data contained large portions of free-flow scripts of the personal experience of violence in the Matabeleland conflict, the mode of analysis was guided by Burke's markers described above. Plot: This has to do with the plot formation – What are the issues involving order, duration, frequency, causation and/or conflict embedded in the events and actions of the story. Purpose: It has to do with narrative patterns - What deeper meaning can possibly be unearthed in the structural composition of the narrative itself?244 Each interview narrative was broken down into manageable pieces of writing which were then categorized under the Burke rubric of analysis. .
Narrative Analysis as Reflective of Political Theatre
Script: What scripts were used and how they were communicated by different actors in the Matabeleland conflict. These five stages of political theater provided the cues for the narrative analysis that was generated from the data gathered in the literature review, document analysis and open-ended interviews. At the conclusion of the thesis, the connections of these historical performances with the breaking points of the current conflict in Zimbabwe today are highlighted.
Integrated Research Analysis Framework
- Sample Selection Process – Purposive and Peer-Identified
- Sample Size
- Reflexivity (Field Journal)
- Member Checking and Peer Review
- Triangulation: Corroboration of Analysis Findings
Purpose – What deeper meaning can be discovered in the content and composition of the narrative itself. Part of the research sample came from the Zimbabwean diaspora now in South Africa. As mentioned in the introductory paragraphs of this section on validity, one of the key indicators of qualitative research evaluation is correspondence.
Ethical Considerations
Third, a copy of the final passed thesis document is available to those participants who request it. The final critical 'plumb' of measurement used to monitor this research project was the process of confirming analysis results through triangulation. In this way, the researcher's story 'became part of the entire narrative stream of research; sometimes engaging with, sometimes critically dissecting, and sometimes carefully interpreting the history discourse of the chosen research.
Introduction
Consequently, ethnicity has been privileged in certain corners as a central organizing factor in the analysis of the 1980s massacres. In other corners, the position of ethnicity was relegated to a marginal, if not dismissive, position in the scheme of the state-sanctioned violence that was unraveling at the time. It is very unfortunate that the events of the 1980s took place in Matabeleland and the Midlands province, which happened to be a place that was.
Ethnicity: pre-Colonial Era – Narratives of ‘Victor and Vanquished’
- Stories of Shona Origins
- Urban Violent Clashes of 1929 and 1960
- Narratives of Externalisation: The Enemy from Without
- Narratives of Internalisation: The Enemy from Within
- Narratives of Introspection: The ‘Narcissism of Minor Difference’
- Revenge Full Circle
- Undermining Ethnic Origins
- Inter-Generational Transmission of Ethnic Antagonism
115 the result of the Gukuranhundi violence, in which the Ndebele and the 'dissident' (counter-revolutionary) became friends. At the dawn of the modern liberation movement, there was a unified history verbalized in the hearts and minds of both the Ndebele and the Shona, vocalizing a dream. In the ordinary mind of the Ndebele person, a Matabele person, 'it is the Shona who killed us'.
398 Interview: FN1, Johannesburg, South Africa Ndebele Finance Manager and former employee of the ZANU-PF Ministry of Finance and the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe in the early 1980s). 415 Interview: FN1, Johannesburg, South Africa Ndebele Finance Manager and former employee of the ZANU-PF Ministry of Finance and the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe in the early 1980s).
Conclusion: Ethnicity – Disentangling Identity Formation
154 Third, if the spatial mobility of one ethnic group in the territory of another increases, then ethnic importance will increase. My wife has been a member of the Zanu village committee (PF), the lowest level of Zanu. This divergent ethnic construction crystallized when the narrative texts of ethnic hatred and severe state-sanctioned violence fused together in ZANU-PF's disastrous management of 'dissident' and Gukurahundi violence in the early 1980s.
Introduction: Betwixt and Between – The African Nation-State in Limbo
Third, in the colonial race for the 'spoils of Africa', a comprehensive exploitation of land439, mineral reserves440 and human resources was undertaken leaving behind a landless peasantry, a depleted natural wealth and an unjust people locked in a system semi-feudal. of the class war and the co-option of the elite.441 Fourth, in the fragility of the newborn. Herbst deviates from the 'vaunted' treatise on good governance in pre-colonial Africa: "Herbst's bold assertion – that the conditions facing African state-builders existed long before European penetration of the continent… flies in the face of the prevailing assumption that colonialism changed everything. There is an "Afro-pessimist" school of thought that approaches the precarious state of Africa's nation-building as a failed project.
Managing the Nationalist Discourse: From Revolt to Rule
- The Tidiness of Revolutionary Scripts
- The Untidiness of Negotiation Texts
- The Multiplicity of Independence Narratives
This rhetoric was not just in words, it was acted out wherever there appeared to be any mutiny in the ranks of ZANU/ZANLA: “Throughout the war we have submerged the minor antagonisms that have existed among us and we have made it of our recognition of the need to completely destroy the common principle enemy in pursuit of our immediate common goal - the establishment of a national democratic state."453. It is to say, however, that the handling (cause and effect) of the public and private scripts was markedly different. The Lancaster House Conference was a twisted cliff-hanger, a fitting finale to the Rhodesia saga... The Patriotic Front fought against constitutional provisions they considered racist (such as reserved seats for twenty whites), against restrictions on constitutional changes, the preservation of Rhodesian forces, the limitation on the ability of a new government to redistribute land that had been taken from Africans during the previous ninety years, the length of time given for a ceasefire and many other issues.460.
Ideological Nationalism: Manufacturing a Regulatory Memory
- A One-Party State: A Conversation with Self
- Leader Veneration
In many ways, the ZANU-PF government leadership's constant public discourse about its sacred nation. Traces of one-party statism run throughout the recorded narrative of pre-independence ZANU political formations. In the end, ZANU-PF bowed to the will of the people and suspended its efforts to officially declare a one-party state.
Constructed Nationalism: Producing a Normative Experience
Perhaps I will begin by saying what led to Gukurahundi as told in the book [Breaking the Silence]'; the training of the fifth brigade by the Koreans, it was not just by chance, it happened quietly. So you see the beginning of setting up that project in the form of the fifth brigade. 525 Interview: TM1, Johannesburg, South Africa Shona Businessman whose relative was a prominent leader in the ZANU-PF government).
