Abstract
Drawing on a range of source material that is in public domain, chiefly newspapers and Parliamentary Debates, this article examines the efforts at renaming government schools in early 2000s in Zimbabwe, the debates surrounding the renaming and the results thereof. The renaming of schools by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government aimed at replacing names that appeared to celebrate colonialism with those that expressed Zimbabwe’s historical anti-colonial struggles. The article attempts to establish the source of this nationalist zeal—the need to purge the lingering shadow of colonialism, particularly continued British influence on Zimbabwe’s political landscape—and analyze the extent to which it was deployed. The article notes that these efforts at decolonizing school names must be understood within the broader Third Chimurenga revolutionary fervor. In doing so, the article highlights that while substantial efforts were invested in this exercise, the lingering shadow of colonialism remained, as many schools retained their colonial names. By focusing on renaming of schools, this article does not only address a neglected subject, but pulls together in one narrative the connections between the renaming of schools, anti-colonial struggles, decolonization and the post-2000 resurgent nationalism hinged on what is popularly known as the Third Chimurenga.
Keywords
Introduction
This article historicizes the meaning and significance of the renaming of government primary and high schools in post-colonial Zimbabwe in the context of a tumultuous post-2000 political and socio-economic terrain. At the turn of the millennium, the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government, through the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, then headed by Aeneas Chigwedere, launched a campaign to rename government primary and secondary schools. We note that the move to rename government schools was driven by an aggressive nationalism that re-emerged in 2000. It was an offshoot of, and fed into, the Fast Track Land Reform Program, and the broader Third Chimurenga project, which were both started in 2000. At the same time, the renaming project, initiated and implemented by Chigwedere, the Minister of Education, a historian, and a self-acclaimed culturalist, was an effort at purging the lingering shadow of colonialism—the continued presence of British influence on Zimbabwe’s landscape.
It must be noted that this was not the first time ZANUF-PF had renamed colonial spaces. In the early post-colonial period, some cities, towns, government buildings and streets, for example, were given new names or had colonial sounding names indigenized. Yet, as we note in the paper, unlike the early post-colonial efforts at renaming towns that largely went uncontested, the post-2000 project experienced mixed results, with some supporting it and others resisting the name changes. Indeed, the exercise received variegated results. While substantial efforts were invested in the exercise and some schools were renamed, the colonial shadow remained as many schools maintained colonial names.
We argue that the study of toponymic redescriptions with a particular emphasis on school names in early post-2000 Zimbabwe opens a window into examining the deeper forces affecting the nation at the time. Besides the rise of opposition politics that shook to the core the ruling party’s stronghold on national politics and the resurgence of narrow and exclusive nationalism, an examination of onomastic practices—renaming school names allows us to interrogate, inter alia, the commitment of some elites (even those within ZANU-PF) to the project, and to also appreciate the impact of the early post-2000 economic crisis. Thus, the mixed results of the exercise are inextricably intertwined with the issues underscored above. The renaming of schools experienced mixed results due to the narrow and partisan approach the exercise took. Because it was driven by the ruling party, which claimed to be under siege from the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Britain and the west, it ceased being a national project. It sidelined those whose political views were not aligned to the ruling party. Indeed, debates became polarized, with those aligned to the ruling party supporting the exercise with tenacity and the opposite for those supporting the opposition party. Furthermore, the case of trust and private schools that maintained colonial names bring home the unwillingness of the elites, even those within the ruling party, to part ways with what Muchemwa has termed “colonial remains” (Muchemwa quoted in Nyambi & Mangena, 2016, p. 3). In this case, the “revolution” was sacrificed at the altar of prestige and financial expediency. Last but not least, in the early phases of Zimbabwe’s post-2000 economic crisis, which in part was a result of the Third Chimurenga, onomastic practices were viewed as wasteful. Instead, the government was supposed to concentrate on arresting the economic decline.
Scholarship on the 2000s rejuvenation of Zimbabwean nationalism points to various strands such as culture, religion, land reform, linguistics, and diplomacy. The impressive literature by critics such as Hammar et al. (2003); Bond and Manyanya (2003); Moyo and Yeros (2007); Moore (2001); Ranger (2004); Raftopoulos and Phimister (2004); Muponde and Primorac (2005); Dombo and Gwande (2016); and Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems (2009) considers the above-mentioned aspects of Zimbabwe’s resurgent nationalism. This article builds upon this body of literature, but shifts the angle of vision in its examination of the important but less-considered dimension—the policy on names and (re)naming of schools. This theme straddles these other “nationalisms” active on the Zimbabwean political landscape. Nationalist consciousness about names, as Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems (2009, p. 947) observe about Zimbabwe’s cultural nationalism, existed “ever since the idea of a Zimbabwean nation first emerged in the 1960s.” It was carried over and expropriated into the post-colonial era to conjure up national consent. Torino emphasizes the importance of social symbols and images on political landscapes: “Nation-building—the forging of national sentiment—largely involves cultural and artistic domains, with language, music-dance, sports, food, religion, and clothing style often being central” (Torino in Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, 2009, p. 947). Unmentioned in these domains of cultural nationalism is toponymic redescription, which was adopted by the ZANU-PF government. For ZANU-PF, renaming symbolized, in a visible way, a break with colonial history and past (Utset, 2011, p. 88) in order to foster ideological unity in the context of a state under foreign siege and at the cusp of being “recolonized.”
This article is divided into four substantive sections. The first section historicizes the resurgent nationalisms and early efforts at renaming colonial spaces in the immediate post-colonial period. The second section examines the political landscape by 2000 and puts under scrutiny the politics of renaming. While the third section examines the renaming process, the fourth section discusses the debates surrounding the entire exercise and explores the reasons why some colonial school names remained.
Resurgent Nationalism and Renaming in the Early Post-colonial Era
Zimbabwe entered a new historical phase from 2000 onwards that was characterized by a forceful wave of ZANU-PF sponsored inward looking and Black Nationalism. This nationalist agenda permeated all aspects of Zimbabwean life—social, economic and political—and left no individual or constituency unaffected. The base of this nationalism was the government’s land reform program—the Third Chimurenga—a fast-paced process of transferring land from minority whites to the majority black Zimbabweans.
As land was at the core of Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial struggle, popularly termed the Chimurenga, 1 land reform was presented as final leg of the process of liberation. 2 Raftopoulos (2009, pp. 211, 219) saw in this a convenient and instrumental attempt to reactivate the nationalism which had failed to take off the ground at independence. The 2000s nationalism, dubbed a struggle against whites and foreigners particularly those of British background, had identity and belonging politics at its core. It appealed to “Zimbabweaness,” “Africanness,” and “blackness,” among other markers of “indigeneity” expressed by ZANU-PF politicians in public speeches. ZANU-PF linked these ideas to national memories of both the pre-colonial and colonial past, and the liberation war of the 1960s and 1970s. These historical eras and the struggles they represented—the pre-colonial struggles to found the nation (1500s to the 1880s), primary resistance to colonialism (1893–1897) and the nationalist and liberation war phase (late-1950s to 1980)—had key identifiable characters that came to be touted by the subsequent generation of black Zimbabweans as heroes. The founding leaders of early pre-colonial Zimbabwe empires and states like the Rozvi and Mutapa; early resistance fighters to colonialism like Nehanda, Mapondera and Mukwati; African reformists, labor unionists and leaders of cultural societies of the 1940s and 1950s such as Benjamin Burombo, Masotsha Ndlovu and Charles Mzingeli; and leaders of the 1960s to 1970s mass nationalism and liberation war, provided the heroes that were to be celebrated post-colonial, some of whose reverence is again highlighted in the 2000s nationalist discourses and performances.
While the land question was central to the Third Chimurenga, for ZANU-PF, enhanced independence and freedom had to be pursued in other dimensions. One way was “Zimbabwenising” and “Africanising” the names of Zimbabwe’s public spaces. 3 In 2001, the government adopted a policy that sought to rid all its schools of names that celebrated or had links with colonialism and replace them with the ones that celebrated Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial struggle and heroes as defined by ZANU-PF. As Oliver Nyambi and Tendai Mangena underscore, in postcolonial societies, name changes are fundamentally connected to post-colonial transformation projects in society (Nyambi & Mangena, 2016, p. 2). Indeed, the new names had to contribute to the national project of renewal and restoration of a mass consciousness about the country’s long and arduous struggle for independence, reflect its aspirations for full sovereignty as a black-ruled state, and highlight the existence of the post-colonial political dispensation. As a result, the names of individual heroes, those that referenced historical sites, monuments, natural-geographic iconography, and events connected to both Zimbabwean state-building and expressed revulsion against colonialism were to be used.
To understand the revulsion against colonialism, one has to go back to the rise of African nationalism and liberation movements. A brief glance at Partha Chatterjee’s observations in the unfolding of anti-colonial nationalism is instructive. Chatterjee placed national liberation thought into three phases: departure, maneuver, and arrival (Field, 2017, p. 19). In the moment of departure, elites familiar with western concepts such as culture, nationalism and progress used western artistic instruments to resist western domination and to advocate for social and political reform. In Zimbabwe, the moment of departure was when nationalist leadership began to emerge in the late 1950s and early 1960s, demanding independence from colonial rule. The movement was buttressed by high cultural, linguistic and ethnic consciousness and epitomized by, for example, the desire to replace the name of the colony, Rhodesia, named after the country’s colonizer, Cecil John Rhodes, with Zimbabwe. 4 Since the early 1960s, several nationalist political parties and movements appended the name Zimbabwe, rather than Rhodesia, to their names. These include Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), Zimbabwe United People’s Organisation (ZUPO), Zimbabwe African National Union—Ndonga (ZANU-Ndonga), and Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (FROLIZI). As Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems and Garlake concurred, the name Zimbabwe was a product of the nationalist protest to the “cultural aggression” of colonialism which sought to “deny Africans’ historical achievements.” Indeed, a name such as Rhodesia was central to the colonial culture and, just like, for example, colonial cadastral documents, was an inseparable element of the “technology of imperial domination” (Utset, 2011, p. 88). Hence, by choosing the name Zimbabwe, nationalists were tapping into African culture steeped in African history. As intellectuals of the day, nationalists, to borrow from Fanon’s (2004) chapter “On National Culture,” were journeying into the bowels of their people, connecting the struggle for culture with the struggle against colonialism (pp. 149–151). The toponymic redescription of the country to Zimbabwe gave “historical validity to the nation” that Africans aspired for (Garlake, in Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, 2009, p. 948). By the time of independence, the country’s name had already been resolved.
Yet, even at the height of Zimbabwe’s liberation effort (Charterjee’s “moment of maneuver”) and at its independence (“moment of arrival”), it sometimes appears colonial nomenclature, besides the name of the country was not at the heart of the nationalist struggle. Indeed, white rule in colonial Zimbabwe made it difficult for Africans to force through the renaming of places and institutions in a manner that reflected their aspirations of a post-colonial state. This colonial condition must have disappointed those, like “Wind of Change,” who, in a Letter to the Editor in April 1980, hoped for immediate displacement of the colonial imagery: I see no reason why Salisbury, Gwelo, Umtali, QueQue and Enkeldoorn should remain with those names associated with oppression . . . I also advocate a complete change in the name of streets, for example, Allan Wilson Street in Fort Victoria could be called Zimbabwe Street or Masvingo Street. We are tired of seeing Rhodes’ statue with its imposing colonial gaze over our nation. Replace [them] with those of Nehanda and Kagubi (The Herald, 1 April 1980).
There is no doubt that the euphoria of independence was accompanied by the genuine need for immediate change on the part of many a Zimbabwean. However, the slow pace of radical change was to disappoint some. It is indeed ironic that the radicalism exhibited by ZANU-PF during the struggle years was followed by an adoption of a restrained approach to this issue when they were in control.
Regardless, ZANU-PF remained conscious of the legacy of place-naming that white rule had bequeathed on the country. A Renaming Commission was established in 1982 to reconsider the names of some institutions, towns and streets in order to reflect the new political dispensation and power relations, and to rid the country of what Magudu et al. (2014, p. 72) termed “alien identity.” The new government changed some Rhodesian or foreign names of roads, public buildings, towns, and parks, and replaced them with African and nationalist-oriented ones, particularly those of “heroes” fashioned out of ZANU-PF’s interpretation of the Zimbabwean and African past. Heroes were perceived by the party as people who actively contributed to the two Chimurengas, distinguished themselves through other forms of anti-colonial expression, or added value to the idea that ZANU-PF was central to the emergence of the nation in 1980. The heroes are found in a wide range of spaces and historical epochs which include the 1890s resistance, African unionism of the 1920s to 1940s, and mass nationalism and guerilla war of the 1960s and 1970s. 5 Thus, at independence Rhodes Avenue was renamed Herbert Chitepo, Stanley Avenue was changed to Jason Moyo and Victoria Street became Mbuya Nehanda. 6 As regards government buildings, Earl Grey in Harare was renamed Mukwati, while Andrew Fleming Hospital was renamed Samuel Parirenyatwa. However, the Commission’s efforts and the associated name changes were, as discussed above, piecemeal and did not go far “to demonstrate that the blacks were no longer a subjugated people” (Magudu et al., 2014, p. 74).
This initiative failed to mask the fact that the government did not invest enough in the renaming efforts it had promised to undertake in the immediate post-colonial period. Its approach seemed to align with S.M. Southon and F.J. Garrat’s respective Letter to the Editor of The Sunday Mail newspaper warning the government to shun “the gusty spirit of Wind of Change” and advise the government that “Rome was not built in a day” (The Herald, 4 April 1980). The number of institutions and roads renamed under a “decolonial,” nationalist, and black government that had “arrived” was by far fewer than of those that maintained colonial names. Right up to the 2000s, for example, many roads, parks, suburbs, police stations, and military barracks continued to carry names such as King George, Chancellor, Rotten Rowe, Bradfield, Rhodesville and Ascot. 7 Various primary and secondary schools retained names celebrating colonial and western heroes/key political figures such as Cecil John Rhodes and Allan Wilson, members of the British monarchy and British politicians such as Prince Edward, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria and Winston Churchill, and even former American president Franklin Roosevelt. The place-renaming project of the early 1980s clearly ran out of steam, as it sometimes appeared abandoned, and at best proceeded in an inchmeal fashion.
The fact that some of these colonial/western names remained is not due to resistance by ordinary Zimbabweans, but should be located within the political and socio-economic dynamics of the day. Scholars have attempted explanations about this lack of verve in “decolonizing” the names of public spaces. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Willems (2009, pp. 950–951) and Magudu et al. (2014, p. 80) are among some who link this to the government’s need to maintain social, economic and political stability. This goal would be enhanced by appeasing whites who were still hurt by losing power and anxious about their status and yet controlling a major portion of the economy. It was feared that policies that would arouse the insecurities of whites and capital would lead to capital flight, economic sabotage, and aggravate political problems. 8 It is partly in this respect that infrastructure and places in the hospitality industry retained English names. A good example is the Victoria Falls Town. Nyambi and Mangena (2016, p. 2) underscore how economic considerations played a significant role in not renaming the town to Mosi-oa-Tunya (translated - The smoke that thunders), the local name of the falls. Besides the scholars cited above, Magudu et al. (2014, p. 80) reaches similar conclusions when they argue that, places such as Victoria Falls, “largely patronised by white colonialists and tourists,” continued with their old names because of the need to “foster a spirit of national reconciliation” and to avoid needlessly antagonizing the white community. Furthermore, there was an international dimension to the stalled approach to naming. The government intended to win the confidence of the international community of nations by demonstrating that it was not made of ultranationalists who hated everything white or colonial or sought revenge. Thus, Zimbabwe, with most of its foreign investment capital coming from Britain, the United States and South Africa, the cloud of Cold War politics still visible, as well as being neighbors with a regionally aggressive apartheid South Africa, had to be wary of complicating its international relations and balance its Africanist nationalist politics—the politics of “arrival”—with realpolitik.
ZANU-PF sought to legitimize its rule primarily by adopting a social developmental agenda directed at redressing the colonial injustices faced by the majority Africans since the 1890s. With an overwhelming election victory to back its governing mandate, it did not find it necessary to forcefully pursue or follow through such “none-core” initiatives as the renaming of schools only to satisfy nationalistic emotions. In the 1980s its rule had to be defined in economic terms and as “developmental nationalism” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, pp. 949–950). It was undergirded by elaborate socio-economic development plans, such as Growth with Equity and the Transitional National Development Plan, which sought to narrow the stark developmental gap between rural and urban areas and between whites and Africans through land reform and other interventionist measures in social sectors such as health and education (Sibanda, 2021). While occasionally flashing vanguard radicalism, the government “remained locked within fiscally conservative, export-oriented structures inherited from colonialism,” thus relying on global capital to oil its economy. In this context, nationalist projects that emphasized such social aspects as culture and renaming state institutions remained peripheral and it was perceived, could be set aside without much consequence. Many institutions that appealed to white sentiment—schools, buildings, roads, parks, tourist resorts—were allowed to keep their colonial/white names.
However, from the start, the economy never took the expected upward trajectory. The existing 1980s jumble of non-performing policies, state-interventionism, private enterprise, and the growth of state nepotism, corruption and patronage visibly strained the economy. By the beginning of the 1990s, it had become clear that the state could not deliver on its war and post-war material promises. 9 It is in this context that Zimbabwe adopted the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in the hope that the measures will turn around the fortunes of the economy (see broadly, Mlambo, 1997). 10 However, the program failed in this endeavor. In fact, it became the target of hostile students, workers and the general populace, who petitioned the government to suspend it. According to Zvobgo (in Matereke, 2012, p. 90), there was a quick shift “from exuberant optimism to disenchantment.” By the late-1990s, the widespread anger had begun to provoke both sporadic and organized anti-government protests that by 1999 morphed into a huge regime change agenda. In the context of Zimbabwe’s “exhausted nationalism,” as postulated by Bond and Manyanya (2003), the protests signaled a quest for a post-nationalist dispensation divorced from ZANU-PF and responsive to global governance trends. The challenge to ZANU-PF’s legitimacy was led by the MDC, a party which was formed in September 1999 and immediately enjoyed immense electoral support across the country. 11
Shifting Political Landscape and the Politics of Renaming
The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed ZANU-PF’s developmental nationalism project suffering fatigue and a resultant decline in support especially in urban areas. Its loss was MDC’s gain, the MDC received support from white Zimbabweans and western powers such as the United States, Britain, Australia and some Scandinavian governments. ZANU-PF was compelled to turn to nationalism to re-justify its rule. The new brand of nationalism that it propagated reflected a state under siege and exposed to another colonial encounter. ZANU-PF conjured up the populist Third Chimurenga project, which heavily drew on Zimbabwe’s colonial history and castigated white Zimbabweans, particularly farmers, and the MDC, for spurning Zimbabwe’s liberation process and fronting western efforts at recolonizing the country. The new nationalism was powered by a sanitized version of the past, which Ranger (2004) terms “patriotic history.” The version imagined the nation in binary terms: black and white; Zimbabweans and white foreigners; revolutionaries/patriots/heroes and traitors/sell-outs; ZANU-PF and MDC/rights-oriented civic society organizations. Therefore, the post 2000 idea of “independence” no longer strictly referred to the “moment of arrival” in 1980 but became associated with Zimbabwe’s “post-arrival” struggles against “empire.”
While the Third Chimurenga was essentially a land agenda, its emphasis on the politics of identity and belonging triggered a number of sub-nationalisms. Central to this article is the state’s reactivation of the long-abandoned agenda of renaming government schools that carried white, colonial and foreign names. The ZANU-PF government had to demonstrate that “blacks were no longer a subjugated people” by replacing “a colonial heritage which was meaningless to the black majority” (Magudu et al., 2014, p. 74). It did not bode well for the national project that the name Rhodesia was removed for its colonial connotations and yet the colonial shadow lingered on through some schools and school halls that were still named after colonial figures such as Cecil John Rhodes. 12 Thus, ZANU-PF re-asserted its anti-colonial discourse and here, the party was traveling on a well-traversed road. It is common across Africa for struggling post-colonial regimes to adopt cultural nationalism that includes renaming of institutions in order to renew themselves. For example, Mobutu Sese Seko’s “return to authenticity” of the late 1960s Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Togo’s Gnassibe Eyadema’s “return to earth” of the 1980s were attempts to use cultural symbols to gain political consent. (See Aithnard, 1976, pp. 30–31; Stewart, 2000, pp. 171–172). In postcolonial Zimbabwe, the vanguardism of the early 1980s, which fizzled out as years progressed, indeed returned in 2000. Its rhetoric placed more emphasis on the need to defend the nation, complete the revolution, promote economic growth and push the welfare agenda as it had done at independence.
The renaming of schools was ensconced in the nationalist strand that targeted the wider education system. Whilst efforts to change school names were underway, simultaneous efforts were being made in 2001 to make history a compulsory subject in secondary schools and to restructure the history curriculum so that it reflects the interests of the new post-2000 political order and, as Robert Mugabe told parliament “to ensure that the History of Zimbabwe is rewritten . . . accurately” and that, as Chigwedere concurred, youths “look at their nation and themselves with pride” (Parliamentary Debates, 24 December 2001, c. 1958–1959). In addition, there were attempts by the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture to impose a Juche-style school uniform policy that would make students across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe wear a similar uniform. 13 All this was part of the broader efforts by the ruling regime to attain mass political consent and to reactivate Zimbabwe’s dying revolutionary tradition. Perceiving itself to be under internationally coordinated attack, ZANU-PF’s post-2000 nationalism was an existential project.
The renaming of schools was a historical project that placed Zimbabwe’s heroes at the center of “performing the nation” and involved a “romanticism of the past and characters historically aligned to the ruling party in a manner that discredits elements challenging its hegemony” (Askew, in Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, p. 952). 14 The renaming would confront what Tafataona Mahoso, a ZANU-PF-aligned media practitioner, termed the British Empire’s “bogus universalism” (Ranger, 2004, p. 222). As Sikhumbuzo Ndiweni, ZANU-PF Information and Publicity Secretary for Bulawayo, indicated, his party had made a “mistake” by allowing educational institutions “to be turned into anti-Government mentality factories” (Ranger, 2004, p. 10). The renaming of schools in a manner that spoke to the running “revolution”—rehashing Zimbabwe’s troubled colonial history, revealing its “enemies” and pointing to ZANU-PF as its savior—would be expected to leave a powerful impression on the consciousness of school children. School names such as Nehanda and Kaguvi (heroes of the First Chimurenga), Sally Mugabe (Robert Mugabe’s first wife) and Josiah Tongogara (Commander of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army—the military wing of ZANU-PF) not only “corrected” a history that celebrated colonial rule and condemned indigenous Africans, but also made schools “truly African [and] exorcised the ghosts of white people who used to dominate all aspects of our lives” (The Patriot, 14 April 2016). Among hundreds of such schools were Simon Mazorodze High School, Herbert Ushewokunze, Mkwati Primary School, Maurice Nyagumbo Primary School, and Rekai Tangwena High School.
Hero status was conferred to individuals by ZANU-PF in accordance with the hero’s role in the liberation war and their post-colonial political posture. The formula shunned those who challenged ZANU-PF or its confrontational strategy to win independence. It is for this reason that in the 2000s school renaming exercise the government did not rename schools with nationalists that include Ndabaningi Sithole, one time leader of ZANU who later fell out of favor, Abel Muzorewa of the United African National Congress and Jeremiah Chirau and Kayisa Ndiweni of ZUPO, among others. Throughout the 2000s ZANU-PF taunted MDC and its members for having no viable links with the liberation war, and for associating with and receiving funding from the “enemies” of Zimbabwe in its pursuit of an “anti-revolutionary” agenda (The Sunday Mail, 3 March 2002; The Sunday Mail, 24 February 2002). It was unimaginable that there could be schools named after Morgan Tsvangirai (the then MDC President), Tonderai Ndira (an MDC activist who died in mysterious circumstances in 2008) or Jestina Mukoko (a human rights activist held in high esteem by the nation’s ordinary citizens). How ZANU-PF perceived people who existed outside the party was made clear by Mugabe in 2003 in his statement that those who associated with Zimbabwe’s “enemies” “cannot at the same time want to march alongside us as our partners in the nation-building efforts that are underway” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, p. 957). In addition, Mugabe reiterated in 2005 that: “We do not want stooges and puppets working day and night to effect regime change with our former colonial masters . . . ZANU-PF is a revolutionary party while the MDC are counter-revolutionaries and reactionaries” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, p. 957). Therefore, the renaming of schools picking the names of people aligned to ZANU-PF and its version of the past, was clearly a self-serving exercise which betrayed the promise of an all embracing national project the government made at independence. 15
It should be noted that, some individuals, despite their crucial role in the liberation struggle and mass nationalism, could not be recognized as heroes for associating with opposition politics. For example, William Mhanda, a renowned veteran of the liberation struggle, was not recognized by ZANU-PF as a hero for being critical of the party’s post-2000 politics. Therefore, the decision on who were the heroes and by extension, who could have their name on schools, was a one-dimensional and partisan affair that rejected diversity of thought. The concepts of national “unity,” “harmony,” “oneness,” and patriotism that ZANU-PF often harped about actually meant compliance with the ideology of the party and ostracized the obstinate. In addition, it is intriguing that while the 1980s version of the nation either ignored or downplayed the contribution made by Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU during the liberation of Zimbabwe, in the 2000s the key enemy became the opposition party leader Tsvangirai and his MDC party. The national imaginary that was advanced was that these individuals and their parties were villains, sell-outs, and Afro-pessimists, and hence, in accordance with this study, not worthy of having schools named after them.
The Renaming of Schools and Identity Politics
Exclusionary identity politics, a feature of Zimbabwe’s post-colonial political landscape, was central to both the broader Third Chimurenga and the renaming of schools. This brand of politics was deployed and intensified in the 2000s in response to the MDC-inspired political challenge to the ruling party and emphasized race (black or white), origin (Zimbabwean or non-Zimbabwean), history (pro- or anti-liberation struggle), and political affiliation (ZANU-PF or MDC). It produced insiders and outsiders, that is, whites and sellouts on one hand and heroes and patriots on the other. ZANU-PF prided itself on being a black and authentically Zimbabwean party, with an impeccable liberation struggle record, and presented MDC as a party lacking historical legitimacy as it fronted foreign interests and was sponsored by whites. Failure to conform to one of these markers of identity excluded many people from being accorded the status of a hero, or from having schools named after them. To some, the removal of white and colonial names from government schools indicated that the racial reconciliation touted in the 1980s was being abandoned in favor of the racialized liberation struggle-era discourse. As Raftopoulos (2007, p. 101) argues about the early 2000s political crisis, ZANU-PF’s existential politics hinged on “a revived nationalism delivered in a particularly virulent form, with race as a key trope,” and a biased version of colonial history “deployed as an ideological policing agent in the public debate.”
ZANU-PF desired to authenticate its liberation credentials by imposing itself into the nook and crevice of every social and economic space that involved white people. The school renaming process ran parallel with the economic emasculation of Zimbabwean and foreign whites, many of whom had openly expressed support for the MDC. Besides losing land, white-owned non-farm investments suffered invasions by ZANU-PF-aligned war veterans and economic activists, with owners forced to cede shares to black ZANU-PF aligned people or, at times, to let go of entire investments. Furthermore, the amended Citizenship Act (2001), which banned dual citizenship, was clearly aimed at whites, most of whom held Zimbabwean citizenship and that of another country, usually South Africa, Britain and the United States. The renaming of schools on ZANU-PF terms, therefore, was not an isolated exercise, but part of a concerted hegemonic effort against whites. It brought the struggle to “defend” Zimbabwe into schools which, according to the ruling party, was one of the “factories” for “anti-government mentality” (Ranger, 2004, p. 10). Chigwedere made clear the government’s direction as regards the policy of renaming of schools, declaring that they had to do something about the “so many offensive names that some of our government schools bear” which resembled “the continued colonial influence of Britain” (The Herald, 1 December 2001). This discourse accounts for the renaming of schools, such as Cecil John Rhodes Primary School in Gweru, Alfred Beit Primary in Harare or Victoria High School in Masvingo whose original names invoked British imperialism. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture—Thompson Tsodzo, called the process a “revolution” to rid the country of “appalling obscenities which do not reflect the African heroism” (The Sunday Mail, 11 November 2001). The intensifying “nativist discourse,” as Matereke (2012, p. 93) called it, and its slogans such as “the white man is not indigenous to Africa,” “Africa is for Africans,” and “Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans,” informed who can be heroes and found practical expression in the renaming of schools.
The government did not attempt to hide the fact that the schools renaming policy was essentially a ZANU-PF project. Yet, when it was convenient, it sometimes sought to dispel suggestions that this was a partisan, anti-white and sometimes ethnic affair. The case of ZAPU is instructive.
16
In the context of the 2000s hegemonic contest, and as a reward for signing the 1987 Unity Accord, which essentially was the swallowing of ZAPU by ZANU-PF, some ZAPU or Ndebele historical and political actors had their names adopted by schools. Some schools were given names of Ndebele and ZAPU heroes such as Joana Mafuyana for a school formerly known as Coghlan Primary, Sidney Malunga for Milton Junior, Nikita Mangena for St Christopher’s Primary, Mqabuko Nkomo for St Joseph’s Secondary and Lookout Masuku for King George VI School.
17
This was also to appease the people from the Matabeleland provinces, ZAPU’s stronghold, who had suffered hostile acts perpetrated by the ZANU-PF government that include the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres.
18
The ZANU-PF discourse had shifted from the 1980s labeling of the vanquished ZAPU and its supporters as dissidents, to the 2000s characterization of them as important actors in the liberation of the country. This enhanced attention to Matabeleland regions was prompted by its need to outmaneuver the MDC, which had defeated ZANU-PF in the 2000 constitutional referendum and parliamentary election. The message carried by ZANU-PF was that voting for the MDC was “abandoning Nkomo’s belief in unity.” For example, in a speech during a visit to a school that had been recently renamed from St Joseph’s Secondary School to Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo High School in Matobo District, Matabeleland (Nkomo’s birthplace), Mugabe was enraged that MDC had enjoyed electoral success in the area: You gave your school the name Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo . . .. On the other hand, you say you want the MDC and Tsvangirai. What contradiction is that? Do you still have Nkomo in mind? . . . We should show that he is still alive in our hearts, in our minds, in our whole lives. . .. He also taught us to be the owners of our land and to suffer for our land . . . so it is not sold to the enemy (Ndlovu-Gatsheni & Willems, 2009, pp. 962–963).
ZAPU politicians who were unacknowledged in the 1980s, and under-acknowledged in the 1990s, became in the 2000s “heroes” and “patriots” who valued national “unity, peace and development” as embodied by the ZANU-PF motto. 19 Thus, ZANU-PF sought to mediate “oneness” and “consensus” by, among other ways, memorializing their names through the renaming of school names.
However, a number of Nkomo’s colleagues, some of whom by the 2000s were still disgruntled by the Unity Accord, condemned ZANU-PF’s efforts to appropriate Nkomo as a national hero.
20
In 2007 Dumiso Dabengwa, former Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) head of intelligence and later Minister of Home Affairs, commented thus: Some of us were very reluctant to sign the unity agreement with ZANU then. We were convinced that there was no serious commitment to the unity cause on the part of our comrades on the other side . . . but were convinced by our leader [Joshua Nkomo] that signing would bring about good things . . .. It was like a forced agreement (The Zimbabwe Times, 24 December 2007).
Former secretary-general of ZAPU and former Matabeleland North governor, Welshman Mabhena, protested against ZANU-PF’s drive to profit from Nkomo’s name, saying when he was alive, he was not given “the reverence he deserve[d]” (The Standard, 1 July 2002). Max Mkandla, a former ZIPRA commander was more direct: “My heart bleeds when I see ZANU-PF trying to get political capital out of a man who was forced to go into exile, fleeing from the very same party that wants us to believe that he was its stalwart” (The Standard, 1 July 2002). Gukurahundi was still perched on the memories of many Matabeleland people that they saw the use of Nkomo’s name on public institutions, including Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo High School in Matobo, Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Polytechnic in Gwanda and Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Airport in Bulawayo, as cheap politicking intended to appease those aggrieved by how he was persecuted by the government at independence.
The Third Chimurenga also produced new heroes. While those “heroes” who had their names replacing colonial ones at schools usually had mass nationalism and liberation war credentials, there emerged a new crop of heroes recognized for their post-2000 service to the ZANU-PF agenda. For example, although they did not possess viable liberation war credentials, Chenjerai Hunzvi (the Chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans [1997–2001]) and Border Gezi (the Provincial Governor of Mashonaland [1996–2000] and Member of Parliament [2000-2001]) were declared national heroes upon their deaths in 2001. This was in recognition of their central roles in the land occupations that became characteristic of the early 2000s. Warren Park Primary School, in the southern and working-class suburb of Warren Park in Harare, was renamed Chenjerai Hunzvi Primary School. Umvukwes Primary School in Mvurwi was renamed Border Gezi Primary School. Therefore, what constituted a national hero no longer referred solely to past contributions, but also to contemporary efforts at saving ZANU-PF’s “revolution” from foreign-sponsored “sell-outs” and “villains.” Beyond the land invasions, these new heroes were also central to mobilizing electoral support for ZANU-PF in post-2000 elections, often through violence and coercion. Border Gezi was renowned for setting up the National Youth Service, which churned out youth militia who terrorized opposition political parties, a factor which to some accounts for ZANU-PF’s continued hold on power.
However, some names adopted for schools under this initiative did not always make explicit reference to ZANU-PF or the liberation struggle, or to the anti-MDC campaign. Names of characters widely perceived as non-political actors like Jairos Jiri (a philanthropist social worker known for establishing centers that catered for the disabled) and Safirio Madzikatire (musician and actor) were used for schools because of their “internationally recognised work” and “outstanding service to Zimbabwe” (Kriger, 2006, p. 1155). Fairbridge Primary in Bulawayo was renamed Jairos Jiri Primary School while Queensdale Primary School in Harare was named after Madzikatire. Some white people known for championing the African cause on different fronts, including promoting African education, and challenging the colonial government and its racialized laws and policies also had their names adopted or retained for school names. These include Grace Todd (a missionary and the wife to the Rhodesian Prime Minister Garfield Todd. As missionaries, the Todds ran Dadaya Mission where some of the nationalists taught /learned) and Guy Clutton-Brock (an English social worker who was also involved in Zimbabwean nationalism). The above move was an attempt to appeal to wider sections of the public, and did not challenge the ethincized, racialized and politicized identity politics at play in the 2000s.
Public Debates—Support and Resistance
The schools renaming policy attracted impassioned public debate, which mainly played out in newspapers as opinion pieces, editorials and letters to the editor. It must be noted that the media in the post-2000 era in Zimbabwe tended to be polarized—with the public media supporting the government and demonizing the opposition and the private media doing the opposite (See Dombo, 2014; Mano, 2008; Ranger, 2005). Hence, the views that emerged from different platforms ended up adopting partisan lines with pieces that supported the renaming policy mainly appearing in government-controlled newspapers such as The Herald and The Sunday Mail, while those that opposed the policy were found in privately-owned and largely anti-ZANU-PF newspapers such as The Standard and The Daily News. Within these debates, ZANU-PF supporters agreed with the “decolonization” and “Africanisation” of school names, while MDC supporters believed it was another of ZANU-PF’s “misplaced priorities” at a time the country was facing various social, political and economic crises. The argument by ZANU-PF supporters rode on the narrative set up by the party that justified the renaming of schools carrying “colonial” names as “curing the colonial hangover,” “a patriotic idea,” and an opportunity to allow Zimbabwe “to recognize historical developments” and reflect on its “political and cultural aspirations.” Martin Stobbart’s Letter praised Chigwedere for “doing a fine job”: His innovative actions . . . clearly serve national interests. When one considers that this change is coming 21 years since independence, one gets angry. Indeed we want our land but along with it there ought to be practical indegenisation of every facet of Zimbabwean life – social, economic, educational, traditional and cultural (The Herald, 7 November 2001).
In another Letter, Ephet Pundo described colonial names on schools as “offensive,” arguing that “we still have a pool of heroes in our country who deserve to be recognized. The renaming of our schools is another evolution and no stone should be left unturned” (The Herald, 9 January 2002). While another supporter, O.K. Kondo protested: “Where in Britain or America do you find a road or a school named after an African hero . . . Our school names, roads, building and hospitals must now reflect our new thinking . . . our heroes deserve honour” (The Herald, 1 October 2002). ZANU-PF-aligned public intellectuals such as Sheunesu Mpepereki imagined “the plight of the black students at Allan Wilson School,” named after the leader of one of the expeditions that fought against the 1893-1894 Ndebele anti-colonial uprising (The Patriot, 14 April 2016).
The voices dissenting against the renaming of schools ranged from the substantive to the trivial and mundane. One of the prevalent concerns was not about the idea per se but the timing considering that the nation was undergoing a serious economic crisis as the majority was grappling with issues of basic survival. Unemployment was at an all-time high, companies were scaling down or closing shop, inflation levels were unprecedented, social infrastructure was crumbling, and there were acute shortages of basic commodities in shops, among other indicators of a country in crisis (Jones, 2010, pp. 285–299). It is in this respect that an opinion piece in The Daily News (4 September 2001) remonstrated that ZANU-PF had a habit of wasting time, fiddling in trivia while Zimbabwe continues to burn. The fundamental issues affecting people are not in doubt: food, inflation and prices continue to escalate at a galloping rate . . . the security of teachers in the rural areas is a more urgent matter than merely changing the names of those schools.
As one newspaper letter writer concurred, renaming schools was an “overzealous suggestion” that ignored core “pencil and paper issues” in schools. Another wanted an explanation on how “the change of school names . . . will improve our cultural appreciation and our education system, increase employment and put food on our tables” (The Daily News, 3 September 2001). In addition, as the economy stalled, the quality of education, particularly in government schools, was greatly affected. The weekly newspaper The Standard (26 May 2002), in this context, saw the school renaming exercise as driven by “insanity” and failure to realize that “what is important is the improvement of the quality of education in schools rather than concentration on unproductive and sterile projects such as name changes.” Low teacher morale, departure of highly experienced teachers to the private sector or the diaspora, and increased labor actions due to poor salaries, crumbling school infrastructure, in addition to shortage of learning material, afflicted the education sector. In short, the economic downturn as well as the deteriorating quality of education became a rallying point for those who were against renaming of schools.
The other theme that emerged in rejecting school name changes was that the policy was “cheap posturing” by a party whose political fortunes were floundering. The argument is that ZANU-PF resorted to the use of signs, symbols and images to further its exclusionary and narrow form of Zimbabwean nationalism and a sanitized version of the past. Innocent Sithole, in a letter to The Financial Gazette (14 February 2001), objected to history in service of ZANU-PF: [This is] an attempt to edit the nation’s collective memory . . . By virtue of being the government of the day ZANU-PF has access to and control over the recorded signs and symbols that denote and connote our history as a nation. . .. Central to ZANU-PF’s election campaign is the political commodification of the legacy of the liberation war. Amid the choking fumes of aggressive political campaigns, history lets out a piercing wail as Big Brother relentlessly attempts to weave past, present and future into [Mugabe’s] person.
Clearly, some appreciated the rationale of renaming schools but were repulsed by ZANU-PF’s attempt to deploy manipulated history for its political advantage. Popular political activist, Alex Magaisa, wrote in a letter to The Daily News (27 February 2002) that: “I do not see anything wrong with changing colonial names. It is the motive behind changing those names that is wrong . . . It is not a question of principle, but a stupid and shameless political maneuver.” The renaming of schools, so went part of the argument, would not have been a problem had it not been motivated by “racist, outdated calls for nationalism” (The Daily News, 27 May 2002).
The government’s attempts to fall back on history to support its legitimacy was called out by sections of the public for its inherent “hypocrisy” and contradictions. Responding, Grace Mutandwa invoked an imagery of the renaming of schools as synonymous with a return to the “primeval era.” Mutandwa challenged Chigwedere to: lead by example and get rid of his first name, start wearing skins and stop being driven in a Mercedes Benz. He must move out of the “mansion” he lives in and build a mud hut somewhere in the woods. He must divest himself of all things colonial (Magudu et al., 2014, pp. 78–79).
To Mutandwa, ZANU-PF’s decolonial revolution was impracticable and impossible to implement.
The sentiment, which was prevalent in public discourse, emphasized that almost every aspect of Zimbabwean society was inextricably influenced by the colonial past. Some argued that government officials were “more colonial than most of us” (The Daily News, 3 September 2001), some advised that they “cast off your colonial names first” (The Daily News, 16 January 2002) and to stop sending their children “to London or Washington” for education (The Daily News, 13 February 2002). Some jokingly warned that if the government was not stopped it would eventually “remove our English names and replace them with local ones” (The Sunday Mail, 26 May 2002). Others argued that if the government felt strongly about challenging the legacy of colonial rule through changing place names, the most logical way was to start with courts, prisons, police stations and military barracks—“more graphic symbols of colonial expression” (The Daily News, 4 October 2001). This pointed to, for example, Rotten Rowe Court, Rhodesville Police Station and Llewellin Barracks. The argument was that there was no reason for urgency to act on school names, which had actually “played a positive role against colonialism” by planting ideas of independence and human rights in the minds of eventual nationalist leaders.
Clearly many black Zimbabweans were unconcerned about the existence of school names with colonial connotations. The reasons were wide ranging. They included the fact that it would change neither the past nor the obtaining bleak economic trajectory the country was contending with. Others pointed out that if ZANU-PF was that much concerned about preserving history, there was no better way than maintaining the old school names. It is in this vein that Saul Ndlovu opinionated in The Daily News (13 February 2002) that the government’s aim was to “try and forget history,” while Lycha Saidi argued that the former names “are part of our history,” and another reader intimated that “whether you like it or not those whites you despise so much are part of our history.” The fondness for colonial names was revealed by one parent: “How will I tell my children that I went to Fletcher [High School] if the name is changed?” Another said African names such as Chenjerai Hunzvi and Safiro Madzikatire “Mazita asingakomborere” [are cursed names] (The Daily News, 25 January 2002). The suggestion here is that African names supposedly devalued places. In a newspaper contribution, Shylock Makonese stated that Our children prefer these colonially-named schools . . . If their names are changed, their traditions would sink into oblivion. The school would go under. The enthusiasm that inspired our pupils to perform their best, would probably wane (The Daily News, 22 January 2002).
It is not only the general members of the public who objected to the “revolutionary” school names. Even the schools themselves, mainly those white dominated, elitist and known for propagating British social etiquette, appeared reluctant to change their colonial names. A letter by N. Kondo had warned that the project “will meet stiff resistance from the white dominated schools” (The Herald, 1 October 2002). This is clear when one considers the response of the schools on being ordered by the government to have come up with new name suggestions by December 31, 2002. According to Dan Moyo, the Matabeleland North Regional Director of Education, of the “three or so suggestions” individual schools put forward, the old colonial name would be there, sometimes at the top, and other schools sought to change one colonial name for another (The Sunday Mail, 30 December 2001). Other schools did not even respond to the call, prompting the government to resort to ultimatums. Others, rather than picking a “revolutionary” name, opted for the name of the place the school was located. For example, Admiral Tait Primary School, Oriel Boys’ High School and Lord Malvern High School became Eastlea, Highlands and Waterfalls, respectively.
What clearly emerges from these statements and dynamics is that some people felt an impending sense of loss as the plan of replacing colonial names began to be rolled out. They felt history was being falsified and believed the future generations of Zimbabweans were about to be misled. Despite such spirited campaigns against the school name changes, the supporters of the policy continued to push for its full implementation. Mupepereki represents this side of the divide: We should not preserve history by perpetuating in our children colonial mentalities or legacies based on a false sense of superiority anchored on culturally meaningless associations with white names and symbols. We should allow our children and the born-free generations to be truly free of the colonial mentality that views white culture and symbols as superior to African ones (The Patriot, 14 April 2016).
Ephet Pundo’s Letter to the Editor of The Herald buttressed this standpoint: “For how long shall we continue to keep these offensive colonial names at the expense of our own heroes?” (The Herald, 18 May 2002). But this position was overwhelmed by the dissenting voices. However, the government did not terminate the policy of decolonizing the names of its schools.
How far the government pursued the issue of renaming schools is an important question. Indeed, hundreds of government schools across Zimbabwe that carried “offensive” names adopted new ones. Notable are those that carried the names of the most important colonialists in Zimbabwe like Cecil Rhodes, Robert Moffat, Alan Wilson, Ian Smith, Leander Jameson, and Courtney Selous, and those with names that celebrated key British historical actors included Queen Elizabeth, King George VI, Winston Churchill and Louis Mountbatten, among others. These were replaced by a range of names dominated by founders of pre-colonial Zimbabwean states, heroes of the 1890s colonial resistance efforts and leaders of the mass nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, for instance, Warren Park 4 became Edison Sithole Primary School, Sunningdale 2 became Enerst Kadungure Primary School, Churchill became Josiah Tongogara High School, Prince Edward became Murenga Boys’ High School, Allan Wilson became Mutapa Boys’ High School and Moffat became Basil Nyabadza Primary School. However, the program was not entirely seen through. As it sought to change only the names of government schools, private schools were seemingly immune to the policy. The government resolved that as Zimbabwe was a constitutional democracy that recognized the right to private property, private schools had to be allowed to continue with their old names. This was despite voices such as that of O.K. Kondo, who believed that private property also needed to be decolonized. He wrote in a letter to the editor: “These are schools that are owned and dominated by diehard Rhodesian whites who are obviously against change. The renaming of schools, the indigenisation of the economy and black empowerment through land distribution are part of [this] revolution” (The Sunday Mail, 12 May 2002). Across Zimbabwe, Rhodes Estate Preparatory, Bryden and Cornway, are examples of the private schools that were not affected by the school name changes.
The renaming of trust schools in a nationalistic manner presented itself as more complex than the government had imagined. Although trust schools are owned by the government, they receive extra support from charitable legacy trusts connected to the people whose names they carry. Schools such as, Prince Edward, Alfred Beit and Allan Wilson received annual grants from trust funds and these contributed to the running of the schools. The widespread fear was that such support from trust funds and other well-wishers would be terminated with the change of name. One observer expressed their concern thus: “Prince Edward (school) thrived and expanded through donations from famous Old Edwardians . . .. I wonder what the feelings would be to the name changing to that of a “High Spirit” and what the general reaction is going to be” (Magudu et al., 2014, p. 79). It should be noted that Old Boys Associations have a significant say on how their former schools are run. This could be the reason that, despite the efforts at renaming Prince Edward and Allan Wilson as Murenga and Mutapa Boys’ High School, the two are currently being officially referred to by their colonial names. As regards some schools, the new names were hardly used by the public, school staff or the students. These include Prince Edward and Allan Wilson High Schools themselves. That a number of trust and private schools maintained their white or colonial names was sometimes explained by the fact that a significant number of political elites in Zimbabwe had their children enrolled in these schools and they themselves were not keen on the “names revolution.” Mpepereki, a close associate of the ZANU-PF regime accused his “comrades in both Zimbabwe’s Parliament and Cabinet” of preferring to cling on to European school names and symbols (The Patriot, 14 April 2016).
It is difficult to come to a firm conclusion about the fate of the school renaming policy. What is clear is that some schools with colonial names dropped them to conform to the new nationalism. However, others, despite “revolutionary” names having been suggested to them, preferred to continue with the old colonial “white” names. What worried pro-name change advocates as regards trust and private schools is that on this score the state seemed to have “developed cold feet” (The Patriot, 14 April 2016). Some schools retained colonial, foreign and white names even in the era of this intense nationalism. Overall, it can be argued that efforts at renaming schools had mixed results. The colonial shadow, therefore, continued to linger on.
Conclusions
This article has illustrated one neglected aspect in discussing the Third Chimurenga—the renaming of schools. The article noted that the failure of ZANU-PF’s developmental nationalism witnessed the ruling party transforming to become highly ideological again from the start of the 2000s, and adopting a kind of nationalism that was supported by “elite memorialism” in order to survive the growing legitimacy crisis. The strategy hinged on the narrative that the party and the state were under siege from both Zimbabwean and foreign whites and nations that used opposition political parties, particularly the MDC, as their proxy. Hence, changing school names that carried white and “colonial” baggage was one way of pushing back and asserting the ruling party’s idea that it was the only genuinely Zimbabwean political organization. Renaming of schools was an effort at what we call the purging of the lingering colonial shadow.
We have demonstrated that the renaming of schools conveyed multiple premises. First, in the 2000s foreign, white, and colonial symbols, framed in this paper as the colonial ghost, still dominated Zimbabwe’s social and economic landscape, reminding the government that the liberation struggle was not yet over. Second, the post-Cold War global ideologies of human rights, democracy and neo-liberalism, and related ideals of pluralism and cosmopolitanism, also converged to challenge ZANU-PF rule at the turn of the millennium. As whites and foreign states and organizations were substantially involved in promoting these ideas, the party perceived it as strategic to take the fight to them wherever they were in Zimbabwe. Third, ZANU-PF took history more seriously, “far more than in any other southern African country,” as postulated by Ranger (2004, p. 234) and as such, the party was keen to have its version represented and propagated in schools. The names that it imposed on schools, mainly of primary resistance fighters, leaders of mass nationalism and the liberation war, and enforcers of the 2000s land invasions, plotted the anti-colonial struggle trajectory. They represented a history, but that which cast aside versions that did not sufficiently place ZANU-PF at the center of Zimbabwe’s liberation processes. Such memorialization, based on heroes selected through an exclusively ZANU-PF criterion, became a sub-arena on which the anti-colonial project was performed. It indicated the return of Afro-radicalism and nativist conceptions of the nation, and the departure from the 1980s promise of a “civic and plural” state. The ultimate aim of bringing symbols and images closer to the center of nationalistic politics was to conjure allusions of broader national consent in the face of an intense hegemonic contest.
Revealed in this article, was the process of purging the lingering shadow of colonialism. Yet the response was as variegated as the Zimbabwean society itself. Indeed, the article has noted that while one section of Zimbabweans supported the exercise, another resisted it. As much as substantial efforts were invested in renaming schools, the colonial shadow was not fully purged, as many schools retained colonial names.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
