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ABSTRACT
This article examines the inter-ethnic hierarchies among ‘Black Zimbabweans’ and the potential of tension and conflict over land in Zimbabwe. The land reform programme executed in 2000, with the intention of restoring land to its ‘rightful’ owners (read blacks/Africans), has accentuated this tension and conflict. However, ‘black Zimbabweans’, irrespective of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front’s (ZANU-PF) patriotic history and nationalist rhetoric of ‘sameness’ and ‘oneness’, are not monolithic as they are divided along class, ethnic and gender lines. This division is key in negotiating and accessing national resources such as land as it translates into ‘national cultural’ capital. Ethnic conflict and tension is rife in Zimbabwe and this makes it possible to consider the inter-ethnic dimensions of what it means to be a ‘black Zimbabwean’ and how this inter-ethnicity might have influenced or affected Zimbabwe’s land reform programme. I use the Ndau ethnic group of the Chipinge District as a case study as the majority of the Ndau feel marginalized in the allocation of redistributed A2 farms in Zimbabwe’s Natural Regions 1 and 2 chiefly characterised by dairy and agricultural farming. This marginalization disadvantaged them as it privileged ‘outsiders’ (read ‘other’ ethnic groups in Zimbabwe).
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The majority of the interviewees underscored this feeling of marginalization.
2. This statement was provided by an interviewee 1 and is part and parcel of Ndau oral history of the origins of the Ndau people.
3. Interview carried out with interviewee 1
4. Interview carried out with interviewee 1
5. Interview carried out with interviewee 5
6. The Media, especially print media, reinforces this stereotype of the Ndau as most of the news on the Ndau focus on sensationalised stories of witchcraft and ‘famous’ traditional doctors such as Ndunge.
7. Interview with interviewee 2
8. The statistics were obtained from the Ministry of Lands, Chipinge District Offices.
9. Interview with interviewee 3. Interviewee attributed this to the fact that Ndau language seems ‘peculiar’ to other ethnic languages in Zimbabwe.
10. Statistics obtained from the Ministry of Lands, Chipinge District Offices.
11. Statistics obtained from the Ministry of Lands, Chipinge District Offices.
12. In the 1980ʹs and 90ʹs a pint of Dairibord Steri Milk 500 ml was written ‘Made in Harare’ when it was manufactured in Chipinge. This is one example among many that the Ndau use to express and concretise their sense of marginality. However, the pint of Steri Milk 500 ml is now written ‘A product of Dairibord Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd. Chipinge Factory (46-ZW)’.
13. Interview with interviewee 4 who is closely related to Chief Mutema and is one of the Lands Officers in the district told the researcher this.
14. Joseph Chinotimba is the ZANU-PF Member of Parliament for Buhera South constituency. The Chihosa farm ‘wrangle’ was covered in the media. See: NewsDay January 82,015 ‘Chinotimba’s son in farm wrangle’. www.newsday.co.zw/2015/01/chinotimbas-son-farm-ownerhip-wrangle/; NewsDay 9 October 2015 ‘Chinotimba, Son win farm wrangle’, www.newsday.co.zw/2015/01/chinotimba-son-win-farm-wrangle/
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Notes on contributors
Terrence Musanga
Terrence Musanga Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literature and Cultural Studies, Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. Research Associate in the Department of English, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.