This article examines the deployment of political aesthetics of mobilization at ZANU-PF rallies during the Third Chimurenga, 2000–2008. Broadly, I ask: What impact was generated by the ritualization of performances at rallies? The article contends that the impact was, first, in engendering a particular Ranciere[an] “distribution of the sensible” in which ZANU-PF continued reign and violence were valorised. Second, this helped in the “democratisation” of agency, to the lower-level party structures, in the commission of violence. While the primary focus will be on the Third Chimurenga when the adulteration of aesthetics became apparent, the article, however, will draw comparisons with the precolonial Zimbabwe and the Second Chimurenga practices in order to fully delineate the turns the performances have undergone over time.
AlexanderJ. (2003). Squatters, veterans and the state in Zimbabwe. In HammarA.RaftopoulosB.JensenS. (Eds), Zimbabwe’s unfinished business: Rethinking land, the state and nation in the context of crisis. Harare: Weaver Press.
2.
AlexanderJ.ChitofiriK. (n.d.). The consequences of violent politics in Norton, Zimbabwe.
3.
BakhtinM. (1984). Rabelais and his world (IswolskyHelene, Trans.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
4.
BarberK. (1999). Obscuring the exegesis in African oral praise poetry. In BrownD. (Ed.), Oral literature and performance in Southern Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press.
5.
BeachD.N. (1980). The Shona and Zimbabwe, 900–1850. Gweru: Mambo Press.
6.
BennettT.W. (1993). Human rights and the African cultural tradition. Transformation, 22, 30–40.
7.
BhebeN. (1999). The ZAPU AND ZANU guerrilla warfare and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe. Gweru: Mambo Press.
8.
BrechtB. (1977). Against George Lukacs. In BrechtE.LukacsG.BrechtB.BenjaminW.AdornoT.Aesthetics and politics (TaylorRonald, Trans.). London: Verso.
9.
CampbellH. (2004). Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The exhaustion of the patriarchal model of liberation. Cape Town: David Philip.
10.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) (2008, May22). Zimbabwe: 2008 Elections and the implications for US Policy. Retrieved January12, 2010, from fpc.state.gov/documents/organisation/106142.pdf
11.
EyreB. (2005). Playing with fire: Fear and self-censorship in Zimbabwean music. Retrieved February14, 2013, from http://www.freemuse.org/sw8663.asp
12.
FeldmanA. (1991). Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
13.
FinneganR. (1992). Oral poetry: Its nature, significance and social context. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
14.
FoucaultM. (1978). The history of sexuality: An introduction, Volume 1 (HurleyRobert, Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books.
15.
FoucaultM. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (SheridanAlan, Trans.). New York: Routledge.
16.
FoucaultM. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings: 1972–1977 (GordonColinGordonColinMarshallLeoMephamJohnSoperKate, Trans.) New York: Pantheon Books.
17.
FoucaultM. (1997). Society must be defended: Lectures at the College de France 1975–1976 (BertaniMauroFontanaAlesandroMaceyDavid, Trans.) New York: Picador.
18.
GilmanL. (2009a). Genre, agency, and meaning in the analysis of complex performances: The case of a Malawian political rally. Journal of American Folklore, 122, 485.
19.
GilmanL. (2009b). The dance of politics: Gender, performance, and democratisation in Malawi. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
20.
KahiyaV. (2010, February). Editor’s memo: Hate-slogans cannot win the day anymore. Zimbabwe Independent.
21.
KarlstromM. (2003). On the aesthetics and dialogics of power in the post-colony. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 73, 1.
22.
KrigerN. (2003). Guerrilla veterans in post-war Zimbabwe: Symbolic and violent politics, 1980–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
MakinaD. (2010). Historical perspective on Zimbabwe’s economic performance: A tale of five lost decades. Journal of Developing Societies, 26(1), 99–123.
24.
MamdaniM. (2001). When victims become killers: Colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda. Fountain Press, David Philip, and James Currey, Kampala, Cape Town, and Oxford.
25.
MbembeA. (1992). Provisional notes on the post colony. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 62, 1.
26.
MlamboA.S. (2010). “This is our land”: The racialization of land in the context of the current Zimbabwe crisis. Journal of Developing Societies, 26(1), 39–69.
27.
MoormanM. (2004). Duelling bands and good girls: Gender, music and the nation in Luanda’s musseques, 1961–1974. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 37, 2.
28.
MtisiJ.NyakudyaM.BarnesT. (2009). War in Rhodesia, 1965–1980. In RaftopoulosB.MlamboA. (Eds), Becoming Zimbabwe: A history from the pre-colonial period to 2008. Harare & Auckland Park: Weaver and Jacana.
29.
MudengeS.I.G. (1988). A political history of Munhumutapa c. 1400–1902. London, Harare, New Jersey: Zimbabwe Publishing House & Heinemann Educational Books.
30.
Ndlovu-GatsheniS.J. (2009). Do Zimbabweans exist? Trajectories of nationalism, national identity formation and crisis in a post-colonial state. Bern: Peter Lang AG.
31.
Ndlovu-GatsheniS.J.WillemsW. (2009). Making sense of cultural nationalism and the politics of commemoration under the Third Chimurenga in Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 4.
32.
PandyaParesh (1988). Mao Tse-Tung and Chimurenga: An investigation into ZANU’s strategy. Braamfontein: Skotaville Publishers.
33.
QuashigahE.K. (1999). Legitimate governance: The pre-colonial African perspective. In QuashingahE. K.OkaforC. (Eds), Legitimate governance in Africa: International and domestic legal perspective. The Hague, London, Boston: Kluwer.
34.
RaftopoulosB. (2009). The crisis in Zimbabwe, 1998–2008. In RaftopoulosB.MlamboA. (Eds), Becoming Zimbabwe: A history from the pre-colonial period to 2008. Harare & Auckland: Weaver Press and Jacana.
35.
RanciereJacques (2006). The politics of aesthetics (RockhillGabriel, Trans.). London: Continuum.
36.
RangerT. (Ed.). (2003). Introduction to volume Two. In The historical dimensions of democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe: Nationalism, democracy and human rights. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.
37.
Report of the Pan African Parliament Election Observer Mission: Presidential Runoff and House of Assembly By-elections, Republic of Zimbabwe (2008, June27).
38.
RockhillG. (2011). Ranciere’s productive contradictions: From the politics of aesthetics to the social politicity of artistic practice. Symposium: Canada Journal of Continental philosophy, 15, 2.
39.
RuddickS. (2010). The politics of affect: Spinoza in the work of Negri and Deleuze. Theory, Culture and Society, 27(4), 21–45.
40.
SachikonyeL. (2011). When a state turns on its citizens: 60 years of institutionalised violence in Zimbabwe. Auckland Park: Jacana.
41.
SchmidtE. (1992). Peasants, traders, and wives: Shona women in the history of Zimbabwe, 1870–1939. Harare: Baobab.
42.
SibandaM. (2012). Explosive cocktail when music is mixed with politics. In Music freedom Report No. 5, p. 6, March3, 2012. Retrieved June25, 2012, from musicfreedomday.org
43.
Solidarity Peace Trust (2006). Operation Taguta/Sisuthi: Command agriculture in Zimbabwe – Its impact on rural communities.
44.
TekereE. (2007). A lifetime of struggle. Harare: SAPES.
45.
TungamiraiJ. (1995). Recruitment to ZANLA: Building a war machine. In BhebeN.RangerT. (Eds), Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s liberation war (pp. 36–47). Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications.
46.
VailL.WhiteL. (1991). Power and the praise poem: Southern African voices in History. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
47.
VambeM.T. (2000). Popular songs and social realities in post-independence Zimbabwe. African Studies Review, 43(2), 73–86.
48.
Wai-TengLeong, L. (2001). Consuming the nation: National day parades in Singapore. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 3(2), 5–16.
49.
WhiteL. (2003). The assassination of Herbert Chitepo: Texts and politics in Zimbabwe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
50.
WillemsW. (n.d.). Producing loyal citizens and entertaining volatile subjects: Imagining audience agency in colonial Rhodesia and post-independence Zimbabwe. Unpublished paper.
51.
WolfeK. (n.d.). From aesthetics to politics: Rancière, Kant and Deleuze. Retrieved September20, 2012, from http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=382
52.
Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN) (2008). Pre-election Update No. 3, January 22 to February 6, 2008. Retrieved February20, 2011, from http://www.zesn.org
