Paper long abstract:

This paper explores shifting invocations of nationalism in the past and present in Zimbabwe as revealed through the various representations of the life and death of Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo’s political story was a central aspect of nationalism and the politics of evolution of the country from a colony to an independent republic. The focus of this paper is on the changing ways in which Nkomo has been represented in the pre- and post-independence history of Zimbabwe. We argue that his death on the 1st of July 1999 became an important occasion for elite reflections on the entire history of nationalism as Nkomo posthumously received the much contested title of ‘Father Zimbabwe.’ These representations of Nkomo are contrasted with the way in which he represented his own role in the nationalist drama in his autobiography, Nkomo: The Story of My Life, which was published in 1984. In this paper, we seek do four things. The first task is to briefly introduce the emergence of nationalism within which Nkomo’s political career evolved. The second task is to track how Nkomo was represented by other nationalists prior to 1980. The third task is to examine how ZANU-PF fought to delegitimize provincialise, criminalise and even physically eliminate Nkomo in the period 1980-1987 as they represented him as the ‘Father of Dissidents’. The third task is to capture how Nkomo was politically rehabilitated into the position of vice-president of Zimbabwe until his death in 1999 including how after death he re-written back into history and commemorated as the founder of the nation of Zimbabwe. Lastly, we compare these representations of Nkomo with the way in which he rebutted these processes of ‘Othering’ through his autobiographical self-representation in his 1984 book.