QUESTION

Explore the thematic concerns and issues raised at least three literary texts that deal with the
Gukurahundi issue. Basing your answer from the observations you made from the texts, how
would you advise the Zimbabwean government in 2021.

In Zimbabwe in the post-colonial era like other African nations, history embraces a critical
place in discourses on construction and reconstruction of national identity. The history of the
Gukurahundi the bloodbath of civilians in Matabeleland and Midlands regions of Zimbabwe
in the early to late 1980s remains to dominate debates on the politics of ethnic exclusion in
contemporary Zimbabwe. Gukurahundi is a Shona term referring to the first rain that washes
away chaff before the spring (Eppel 2008:1). The term has been simultaneously adopted to
refer to the massacres of over twenty thousand people and dehumanising acts against
thousands by government endorsed security forces in the Midlands and Matabeleland regions
between 1980 and 1987. Various texts were written during this period as a way to describe
the incidents that took place and also the raising issues which affected the people at large.

The massacres were initiated by clashes in 1980 at Entumbane demobilisation camp in

Bulawayo between the former ZANLA, the military wing of ZANU, and ex-combatants of
ZIPRA. These two army groups were elements of the newly integrated army, the Zimbabwe
National Army (ZNA) (CCJPZ 1997:6). Widespread conflict in the region ensued after the
discovery of arms caches in Matabeleland at ZAPU-owned properties in 1982. An altercation
in parliament between ZANU-PF and ZAPU, which led to the expulsion of ZAPU officials,
exacerbated tensions leading to the defection of ex-ZIPRA combatants into the bush in
Matabeleland and Midlands (Chitiyo and Rupiya 2005:340). The defected ex-ZIPRA
combatants, who were mostly comprised of Ndebele speaking people, easily blended with the
population in the two regions, as they are largely Ndebele speaking. The terms ‘dissidents’,
‘bandits’ and ‘Super-ZAPU’ were therefore used by the government to depoliticise all
defected ex-ZIPRA combatants (CCJPZ 1997:34). Suspicions of the government that
‘dissidents’ were receiving undercover support from South Africa under the code name
‘Operation Drama’ further destabilised the already volatile security situation in the region
(CCJPZ 1997:29). The government regarded the ‘bandits’ as terrorists because during the
liberation struggle the insurgent group ZIPRA had been trained by Russia and had
operational tank and air units, which made it possible for the ‘dissidents’ to cause
widespread terror (Mlambo 2014:161). A government official among the research
participants shared that: ZIPRA was a credible threat to the ZANU government because
during the liberation struggle the Russians and Cubans had trained the former in guerrilla
warfare methods. Therefore, ZAPU members were always associated with their military wing
ZIPRA and whenever disagreements occurred in the new government, ZANU felt threatened
that ZAPU would end up using its military wing. Gukurahundi was an opportunity to
diminish ZAPU and its military wing, and the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade and Police
Intelligence did its best to ensure that the threat was eliminated. This seemingly warranted the
government to declare a state of emergency in 1982 and to deploy security forces to uproot
the so-called ‘dissidents’, but the witch hunt exercise was extended to unarmed civilians who
were suspected of having links with the ‘dissidents’. Eppel (2008:2–3) challenges the actions
of the government by arguing that the motive of the government to repress the so-called
dissidents was misguided because it emanated from Mugabe’s interest to create a de facto
one-party state. She recalls that arms caches were also discovered across the country,
including the territories controlled by ZANLA, but ZANU-PF used the discovery of arms in
Matabeleland as a reference point to unleash a long-held political agenda. Eppel (2008:4)
observes that the amount of force (about 5 000 armed footmen) used by the government was
not proportional to the claimed threat of ‘dissidents’ (about 400 people). More so, the actions
of the Fifth Brigade (who were predominantly Shona speaking) were unjustified because they
associated being Ndebele with being a ZAPU supporter and a sympathiser of the ‘dissidents’
(CCJPZ 1997:44) The fact that such atrocities occurred and that the government did not take
adequate measures to prevent them, renders the government responsible for committing
crimes against humanity. The Gukurahundi massacres were not part of a just war because the
government used excessive force before it had exhausted negotiations with ZAPU officials
who it accused of instigating its military wing to destabilise the country (Eppel 2008:4).
Gukurahundi destabilised the region and created a negative impression amongst victims and
survivors that the government had a vendetta against the non-Shona speaking population. The
Matabeleland massacres officially ended with the signing of the negotiated Unity Accord on
22 December 1987 between ZANU-PF led by Robert Mugabe and ZAPU led by Joshua
Nkomo, which led to the amalgamation of the two parties into a de facto one-party state
under Robert Mugabe’s party (Mlambo 2014:199).

Themes

Moral degradation

Moral degradation is experienced in different societies and cultures around the world.
Behaviours such as rape, sexual abuse, robbery; school violence, drug abuse, etc. have
become endemic among adults, youths and children around the globeSigogo addresses the
issue of moral decline in his novel under study as he shows the conditions of the Mzilikazi
location where MaMkhwananzi lived. The novel exposes the society as a society with weak
morals. Sigogo introduces the reader to MaKhuphe and the Makhanye girls who share the
same block of flats with MaMkhwananzi. MaKhuphe owns an illegal tavern in her house
where people come and drink and participate in all sorts of immoral behaviour. The
MaKhanye girls are involved in prostitution whereby they provide sexual services to men in
exchange for money. This is evident when MaMhlanga says to MaMkhwananzi: ―‗ngabantu
mhlobo bani labo bantu, Mamkhwananzi?‘‖ (p.14), ―(What kind of people are they,
MaMkhwanzi?).‖ The people who are refered to here are the Makhanye girls. This
articulation by MaMhlanga shows that people in the society are living a promises life which
makes the moral status of the particular society to be regarded as questionable. MaKhuphe,
the tavern owner is the main character in the novel who seems to fuel immorality in the
society. Firstly, she promotes alcohol abuse as it is unveiled that she sells alcohol illegally for
the whole night till the next morning. People drink in her tavern and make a lot of noise
which irritates the neighbours, thus promoting the issue of immorality in the society (p.10). If
MaKhuphe was a moral, considerate woman she would not decide to operate a tavern in her
house in the vicinity of her neighbours. Alcohol abuse goes hand in hand with prostitution
which is frowned upon and regarded as immoral behaviour in the Ndebele society. The novel
unveils that men in the tavern would buy drinks for women then afterwards take those
women to their houses, which is also a sign of immorality, (see for example, p. 14).
Moreover, the novel introduces the reader to two girls who were MaMkhwananzi‘s
neighbours. These girls seemed to live an immoral life as they were involved in prostitution.
It is said that one of the girls was once arrested by the police during an operation against
prostitutes in the area (p. 14). MaMkhwananzi tells MaMhlanga that the girls seem to be
well-known to most of the powerful men in the city of Bulawayo because of their line of
business. She also states that they bought expensive furniture which she could not afford
herself because of their immoral ways of getting money. This is evident when
MaMkhwananzi says: ―kwazana lezikhulu zonke ezigange njengakho lapha koBulawayo.
Yizo esezagcwalisa indlu yakhona ngefenitsha thina esiyikhangela Sihle sizibonele ukuthi
kasiyifufa sayithenga‖ (They are well-known to mischievous men here in Bulawayo. They
have bought expensive furniture which I look at and tell myself that I won‘t manage to afford
in my life).

Domestic violence

Domestic violence is an issue which should be significantly addressed by all role players of
the post-colonial society including literature. It entails push factors which include the sexual,
emotional, psychological, economic, political and social dimensions. It is said that the main
perpetrators of domestic violence are men, whereas women and children are the main
victims. This section will address the issue of domestic violence in the post-independence
Zimbabwe suggesting that the economic crisis of the country is one of the main causes of this
tragic element of domestic violence.
. In the paragraphs below, it will be illustrated how authors like Ezekiel Hleza and David
Magagula show how the same gun that won the people‘s independence has been used to
demolish the same people's freedom. The gun is no longer a weapon of peace but one of
destruction. This is illustrated by incidents such as ―Gugurahundi‖ massacre where Ndebele
people were killed by government soldiers (Walle, 2009:35).

Mlalazi effectively uses dramatic irony to portray both the absurdity and horror of the
unfolding “genocide”. The literary characters are naïve in their reasoning and perception of
what is happening. At the beginning of the story, Rudo, her mother, and aunt are convinced
that the soldiers killing people in their village are simply soldiers who have gone rogue. They
are convinced that if they alert the police and the authorities, these soldiers will be arrested
and stopped from continuing their indiscriminate killing and maiming of the villagers. On the
first day of the “genocide”, the three hide and listen to a transistor radio hoping they will hear
something about what is happening in their village. To their dumbfounded amazement and
dismay, there is a deafening silence concerning the mass killings that are occurring in their
village. As Rudo and the two remaining members of her family run away from their village in
search of safety in the surrounding bushes, the reader is taken on a journey of the awakening
of the characters to the senselessness of the killings that are being perpetrated by the soldiers.
It also slowly dawns on the characters that it is only the Ndebele villagers who are being
killed and Rudo’s mother laments at one point: “The soldiers said they’re just killing all the
Ndebele people, maiwee zvangu! What are people like us, who are married to Ndebele
husbands, going to do?” (23). What is fascinating in this quotation is the manner in which the
writer uses words in Shona at a moment in which it has been revealed that it is Shonas who
are perpetrating the killings of the Ndebeles. This use of Shona, insignificant as it may seem,
serves to destabilize the tribal tension that exists at this moment in time. The Shona fits in
harmoniously with the rest of the sentence whereas in the real world Shona had been elevated
to a level of supremacy.

After the initial horror and flight from the village, the story, like the mind of its young
narrator, meanders. Rudo narrates different stories about her school, her friends, and her
family. Although these sub-stories do not seem to have any connection with the main plot,
this can be explained as a way of the young narrator trying to divert attention from the
gruesome issues at hand as well as make sense of them. This is a sign of the trauma that the
young protagonist-narrator experiences and Eva Hoffman describes such trauma as “suffering
in excess of what the psyche can absorb, a suffering that twists the soul until it can no longer
straighten itself out, and so piercingly sharp that it fragments the wholeness of the self”
(2005: 54). The narratological diversions mirror the emotional and psychological
fragmentation of the narrator in the face of the unravelling horror. Moreover, the fragmented
diversions which present themselves in the form of childish stories contrast the sombre events
that the narrator and the remaining members of her family are experiencing. This detour in
the plot prepares the reader for the apogee of the violence perpetrated by the soldiers towards
the end of the novel. It is also interesting that as they flee, Rudo and her family end up
finding shelter in a cave at the top of a mountain. This location allows them to look back at
their village and neighbouring villages which are slowly plundered and burnt down. They see
from a distance as trucks and helicopters dump many corpses into disused mines. What is
fascinating about this secure position in which the characters find themselves is that it
paradoxically reduces them to hopeless and impotent observers and witnesses of the horrific
events that befall their village.

One similar aspect that can be observed in the depiction of Gukurahundi in the novels The
Stone Virgins and Running with Mother is the gendered implication of the portrayed
violence. In both texts violence and suffering seem to be directly targeted at women.
Although the father in Running with Mother is shown being tortured by the soldiers and
thereafter ritualistically removed from the plot, it is the suffering of Rudo, her mother, and
her aunt that forms the greatest part of the novel. One possible explanation could be that the
women symbolize the nation (fertility and promises of bounty) and its hardships at the hands
of hyper-masculinized nationalism. In Vera’s novel, Thenjiwe can be considered as the nation
leading up to and soon after the attainment of independence. The hopes she had of a fulfilling
relationship with Cephas can thus be read as the possible future which ZANU PF and PF-
ZAPU, or Shonas, Ndebeles, and people of different ethnic and racial groups could have had,
had they been able to communicate, integrate, and work in solidarity. However, all hopes of a
future are dashed by the hyper-masculine figure of Sibaso who decapitates Thenjiwe in cold
blood. The name Thenjiwe is itself important in this context. Thenjiwe means trust(ed) and
the decapitation of this character can be read as the symbolic dismembering of any trust that
might have previously existed between the two political parties. The raping and slicing off of
Nonceba’s lips can be read as the imperishable silencing of ZAPU and the minority Ndebele,
in themselves a shorthand for the subaltern of different forms in Zimbabwe. At the end of
Mlalazi’s novel, we are unsure of what the future holds for these women. However, there has
been a tearing of their being, where they have lost parts of themselves: Rudo — half Shona
and half Ndebele — symbolizes this. All we know is that they are in a military truck headed
for Bulawayo. This can certainly be seen as the future of post-independence Zimbabwe,
which hangs in helpless limbo and is certainly at the mercy of male soldiers who have
terrorized their village. Moreover, the running away and displacement of the female
characters as they try to find safety is a significant allegory of the post-independence nation.
The motif of the journey in this case attempts to capture the strenuous processes that post-
independence Zimbabwe has had to undergo in the pursuit of finding infinite peace and
prosperity for all its citizens, particularly the subaltern. Such an allegorical reading of the
suffering and torment endured by the female characters in these two novels challenges the
emancipatory assertions and discourses that suggest that independence had ushered in
liberation for all. In fact, the suffering of the female characters reveals the revived suffering
by Zimbabwe’s minorities and subaltern peoples.

John Eppel has also attempted, through the medium of poetry, to recuperate the socio-
politically repressed phenomenon that is Gukurahundi. In the book Together: Stories and
Poems (2011), which he co-published with the late Julius Chingono, Eppel gives voice to the
survivors of Gukurahundi. Eppel, alongside writers such as Peter Godwin and Cathy Buckle,
stands as one of the leading white prose and poetry writers in post-independence Zimbabwe.
His literary works pay particular attention to the Matabeleland region of Zimbabwe and
capture the precarious condition of not just white Zimbabweans but also the inhabitants of
Matabeleland. Drew Shaw, in his introduction to Together: Stories and Poems, explains
Eppel’s engagement with Gukurahundi:

As part of his ambitious project to document all of Zimbabwe’s troubled recent history, and
believing that “breaking the silence” can lead to national healing, John Eppel addresses the
taboo subject of Gukurahundi. Drawing on testimonies from actual survivors, Eppel seeks
through fiction to identify with the victims — to commemorate them as thinking, feeling
people rather than mere casualties who have now become statistics. (2011: xix)4

In the poem “Shards”, Eppel contrasts the atrocities of Gukurahundi to those committed by
the “plunderers, from the Trekker” (119). He compares the “stains of imperial ink” to the
horrors committed “in more recent times” (119). The second stanza of the poem is
particularly telling of the gruesome killing of people during Gukurahundi:

Rare too are the human bits that in

more recent times, still adorned with skin,

in that low country of thorns and spines,

just clear of the hills, long worked-out mines

like Antelope, there discovered,

dropped down abandoned shafts and covered

with leafy branches, clumps of grass, stones –

because the police have moved the bones,

some muscle still attached to a groin,

and a 1980 five cent coin. (119)

In this stanza, Eppel shows the inhumanity of Gukurahundi by literally dismembering the
human body and scattering it across the stanza. Skin, spines, bones, and muscles are stripped
of all significance when they are detached from each other. The power of the stanza,
however, resides in the last line, where there is an evocation of the year 1980. This year is
supposed to represent the celebratory year of the attainment of independence and freedom.
Nonetheless, independence and freedom as depicted, degenerate into violence in which
people are ruthlessly and inhumanely butchered and maimed in post-independent Zimbabwe.

In another poem, “Bhalagwe Blues”, Eppel captures in an extraordinarily musical and lyrical
manner the harrowing savagery. The title is evocative in reference to Bhalagwe, which is an
area in the Matobo district of Matabeleland. Bhalagwe Concentration/Detention Camp was
used by the Fifth Brigade as a base to carry out its torture, rape, and killing activities. The
fact that the poem is called “Bhalagwe Blues” has a direct effect on the structure of the poem.
Like classical blues music, the poem is composed of three-line verses in which the first two
verses are identical (AAB). This blues structure plays a pivotal role in fortifying the ideas
carried in the two initial lines of each stanza. Let us analyse the four stanzas below:

They laugh, call me dissident, spit in my face,

they laugh, call me dissident, spit in my face,

they force me to go to a terrible place.

We dig many graves every day in the sun,

we dig many graves every day in the sun,

they tease us then kill us, they do it for fun.

We cook for them sadza, we polish their boots,

we cook for them sadza, we polish their boots,

red beret, he laughs, then he shouts, then he shoots.

They tie rubber strips round my balls, and then beat,

they tie rubber strips round my balls, and then beat,

when they burst cannot pray, cannot sleep, cannot eat. (118)

What is evident in the above extract, as in the rest of the poem, is the spectral gap between
the perpetrators and the victims of the violence. This separation between “they” and “we”
accentuates the insufferable violence not just of the acts but also of the power that is
possessed and exerted by the formidably forceful “they” over the evidently defenceless and
helpless “we”. The lexical field, replete with vocabulary invoking brute violence (“force”,
“kill”, “shout”, “beat”, etc.), contrasts sharply with the jovial psyche of the perpetrators who
simply “laugh, shout and shoot”.

Eppel’s repetitive insistence on the savagery of the violence, quite like Vera’s description of
Sibaso’s immoderate sadism, is deferred by images of seemingly mundane and harmless
actions. For example, “they tease us” is immediately followed by “then they kill us” and “he
laughs” is instantaneously trailed by the brutality of “then he shouts, then he shoots”. Eppel’s
poetry, unlike Vera and Mlalazi’s prose, finds its power in the evocative potency that is
cocooned in the economic yet lyrically musical expression.

What makes these literary works important is the manner in which the authors “write against
blindness” (Veit-Wild, 2006: 194). Blindness in this regard refers to the deliberate omission
of Gukurahundi “from the official historiography of the country” (Veit-Wild, 2006: 195). In
addition to writing against blindness, these authors write against selective amnesia, which has
made of Gukurahundi an event which almost never happened. Such writing against amnesia
is necessary in order “to acknowledge, turn, bend towards the victims rather than away from
them. There can be no other recompense, no other closure” (Hoffman, 2005: 233). These
literary works present a counter narrative to the hegemonic national discourse which has
sought to brush aside Gukurahundi from the memory of the nation. Through their diverse
depictions and handling of Gukurahundi, the literary narratives that we have examined bring
to the fore the ghastly events, which the hegemonic political narrative simply refers to as a
“moment of madness”, adamantly refusing to accept that a significant historical event can be
completely annihilated from the memory of the nation. In fact, these literary works are
involved in what Preben Kaarsholm describes as the “de-silencing of the past” (2005: 14).
Kaarsholm explains that such literary texts work towards “de-silencing, and thereby helping
to remove the fears and mental distortions that continue to make people un-free” (2005: 14).
In their different ways, these writers show bravery in broaching a subject which has left many
artists in Zimbabwe arrested and imprisoned.

The novels examined in this article, like numerous others which deal with Gukurahundi, have
the potential to open up the public space on the discussion of this period of Zimbabwe’s
history. Open discussion of Gukurahundi has hitherto not only been criminalized, but it has
also been vilified. Maria Pia Lara in her work Moral Textures proposes an insightful analysis
of the creation and reception of literary works within the public sphere. She contends that
literary works are laced with an “illocutionary force” which allows the texts to create a
discursive space that subsequently leads to the emergence of “emancipatory institutional
transformations in which the boundaries of what should be considered public and private
need to be redrawn” (1998: 7). Lara also posits that literary texts possess “disclosive
potentialities” through which “contestatory discourses, or narratives, are necessarily tied to
strategies of resistance vis-à-vis strategic power and ideological domination” (1998: 5). The
literary texts we have analysed can thus be read against this theoretical framework because
they, on several levels, redraw the boundaries of what should be said and what should remain
unsaid. Moreover, they recalibrate the borders of what should be remembered and what
should be forgotten. In this redrawing and reshifting of boundaries, there is indeed a
questioning of the hegemonic discourses and structures which unilaterally decide what makes
it into the collective memory and narrative of the nation. As such, the literary edifice
becomes “a veritable site of overt discussion and contestation of issues” (Ncube, 2014: 478),
which are of importance should a real unity be envisaged in Zimbabwe. Writing, and reading,
these potentially transgressive narratives can thus be interpreted as an effort to fight and
speak back to the stifling environment that does not allow any sort of discussion of events
surrounding Gukurahundi. By daring to represent the unrepresentable and the under-
represented, these fictional narratives can conceivably mould “the national consciousness,
giving it forms and contours and flinging open before it new and boundless horizons” (Fanon,
1961/1980: 193).

The redrawing of lines between the said, unsaid, and unsayable would imply a reading of the
aforementioned literary narratives as a process and act of remembering. This concept of
remembering can be viewed from two standpoints. In the first instance, the process and act of
remembering involves bringing to the fore that which dominant political and cultural
discourses have pushed beyond even the margins. Remembering suggests a creation of “a
space for the otherwise forgotten or absent to be commemorated, documented, narrated and
even felt” (Dodgson-Katiyo, 2012: 117). Such remembering, by design or by chance,
involves a challenging of state hegemony whose narrative of Zimbabwe is founded on
egotistical and self-interested retelling of the history of the country. Secondly, remembering,
or rather re-membering implies a reconstruction, reconstitution, and a bringing together of
elements which had been fragmented. In our case, re-membering is the process of bringing
together stories about Gukurahundi that had been scattered due to wilful omission and forced
forgetting. The process of re-membering has the potential to critique the dominant discourses
and thereby create and make possible alternative narratives of Zimbabwe’s history and
national identity.