Download or read book Mugabe s War Machine written by Paul Moorcraft and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2012-02-17 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mugabe's War Machine is the first full account of one man's military ambitions. It contains shocking stories of massacre and murder at home and powerful accounts of neighbouring wars and international intelligence intrigues. This revealing book tracks the rise of Robert Mugabe and decodes his psychology in the context of Zimbabwe's military history. His leadership of a guerrilla army against white rule explains how Mugabe continued to rule Zimbabwe as though he were still running an insurgency. Mugabe used military power - the armed forces, militias, police and the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization - to enforce his will against a series of perceived enemies. Along with inflicting massacres in Matabeleland in the early 1980s, Mugabe's forces also fought a covert war against apartheid South Africa. A large army was sent to intervene in the civil war in Mozambique. After 1998 Zimbabwean troops engaged in the massive conflict in the Congo, dubbed Africa's First World War. Domestically, Mugabe crushed all his alleged opponents from the Ndebele to white farmers, and then the media, judiciary, civic groups, churches, unions and homosexuals. The book recounts South African attempts to keep the current government of national unity alive, despite the growing oppression. It also considers how Zimbabwe can be saved from its own self-destruction. Professor Paul Moorcraft is a prolific author and war correspondent who has served in the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean Police and worked closely with the British Armed Forces. His book, The Rhodesian War (Pen and Sword 2008) has been a huge success.
Download or read book Robert Mugabe and the Will to Power in an African Postcolony written by William J. Mpofu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a philosopher’s view into the chaotic postcolony of Zimbabwe, delving into Robert Mugabe’s Will to Power. The Will to Power refers to a spirited desire for power and overwhelming fear of powerlessness that Mugabe artfully concealed behind performances of invincibility. Nietzsche’s philosophical concept of the Will to Power is interpreted and expanded in this book to explain how a tyrant is produced and enabled, and how he performs his tyranny. Achille Mbembe’s novel concept of the African postcolony is mobilised to locate Zimbabwe under Mugabe as a domain of the madness of power. The book describes Mugabe’s development from a vulnerable youth who was intoxicated with delusions of divine commission to a monstrous tyrant of the postcolony who mistook himself for a political messiah. This account exposes how post-political euphoria about independence from colonialism and the heroism of one leader can easily lead to the degeneration of leadership. However, this book is as much about bad leadership as it is about bad followership. Away from Eurocentric stereotypes where tyranny is isolated to African despots, this book shows how Mugabe is part of an extended family of tyrants of the world. He fought settler colonialism but failed to avoid being infected by it, and eventually became a native coloniser to his own people. The book concludes that Zimbabwe faces not only a simple struggle for democracy and human rights, but a Himalayan struggle for liberation from genocidal native colonialism that endures even after Robert Mugabe’s dethronement and death.
Download or read book Politics and Religion in Zimbabwe written by Ezra Chitando and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book illustrates how religion and ideology were used by Robert Mugabe to ward off opposition within his own party, in Zimbabwe and from the West. An interdisciplinary line up of contributors argue that Mugabe used a calculated narrative of deification – presenting himself as a divine figure who had the task of delivering land, freedom and confidence to black people across the world – to remain in power in Zimbabwe. The chapters highlight the appropriation and deployment of religious themes in Mugabe’s domestic and international politics, reflect on the contestation around the deification of Mugabe in Zimbabwean politics across different forms of religious expression, including African Traditional Religions and various strands of Christianity and initiate further reflections on the interface between religion and politics in Africa and globally. Politics and Religion in Zimbabwe will be of interest to scholars of religion and politics, Southern Africa and African politics.
Download or read book The End of an Era Robert Mugabe and a Conflicting Legacy written by Munyaradzi, Mawere and published by Langaa RPCIG. This book was released on 2018-11-17 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguably, one of the most polarising figures in modern times has been Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the former President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. The mere mentioning of his name raises a lot of debate and often times vicious, if not irreconcilable differences, both in Zimbabwe and beyond. In an article titled: ‘Lessons of Zimbabwe’, Mahmood Mamdani succinctly captures the polarity thus: ‘It is hard to think of a figure more reviled in the West than Robert Mugabe… and his land reform measures, however harsh, have won him considerable popularity, not just in Zimbabwe but throughout southern Africa.’ This, together with his recent ‘stylised’ ouster, speaks volumes to his conflicted legacy. The divided opinion on Mugabe’s legacy can broadly be represented, first, by those who consider him as a champion of African liberation, a Pan-Africanist, an unmatched revolutionary and an avid anti-imperialist who, literally, ‘spoke the truth’ to Western imperialists. On the other end of the spectrum are those who – seemingly paying scant regard to the predicament of millions of black Zimbabweans brutally dispossessed of their land and human dignity since the Rhodesian days – have differentially characterised Mugabe as a rabid black fascist, an anti-white racist, an oppressor, and a dictator. Drawing on all these opinions and characterisations, the chapters ensconced in this volume critically reflect on the personality, leadership style and contributions of Robert Mugabe during his time in office, from 1980 to November 2017. The volume is timely in view of the current contested transition in Zimbabwe, and with regard to the ongoing consultations on the Land Question in neighbouring South Africa. It is a handy and richly documented text for students and practitioners in political science, African studies, economics, policy studies, development studies, and global studies.
Download or read book Robert Mugabe written by Sue Onslow and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe sharply divides opinion and embodies the contradictions of his country’s history and political culture. As a symbol of African liberation and a stalwart opponent of white rule, he was respected and revered by many. This heroic status contrasted sharply, in the eyes of his rivals and victims, with repeated cycles of gross human rights violations. Mugabe presided over the destruction of a vibrant society, capital flight, and mass emigration precipitated by the policies of his government, resulting in his demonic image in Western media. This timely biography addresses the coup, led by some of Mugabe’s closest associates, that forced his resignation after thirty-seven years in power. Sue Onslow and Martin Plaut explain Mugabe’s formative experiences as a child and young man; his role as an admired Afro-nationalist leader in the struggle against white settler rule; and his evolution into a political manipulator and survivalist. They also address the emergence of political opposition to his leadership and the uneasy period of coalition government. Ultimately, they reveal the complexity of the man who stamped his personality on Zimbabwe’s first four decades of independence.
Download or read book The Cold War 5 volumes written by Spencer C. Tucker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 4179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.
Download or read book Breaking the Colonial Contract written by Everisto Benyera and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-05-22 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book exposes various mechanisms and methods by which covert colonial mechanisms are employed to perpetuate colonialism, especially in Africa. Less overt and more covert perpetuation of colonialism is done through the use of networks. The main achievement of the initial phase of colonialism was the establishment of networks that are nefarious and omnipresent; constituting “distributed presence,” which allows for “action at a distance.” As a result, colonial subjects became willing participants in these processes, unbeknownst to them, which perpetuated their own colonialism. The book exposes forms of colonialism where manufactured consent is used to perpetuate colonialism. Trapped in this capitalist, Western, Christian language and moral world order without sovereignty, African countries continuously sink deeper into the colonial quagmire.
Download or read book Zimbabwe s Military Examining its Veto Power in the Transition to Democracy 2008 2013 written by Rupiya, Martin R. and published by The African Public Policy & Research Institute. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political transition and democratisation challenges have been noted in African countries including Angola, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulting in the African Union (AU) intervening on behalf of citizens, using tried-and-tested mechanisms of imposing a power-sharing agreement to preside over a transitional period, during which there are key changes to the constitution and the political conduct of the incumbency, and partisan institutions are weaned from seeking to perpetuate the status quo. This book focuses on Zimbabwe's military and its perceived veto power in the transition to democratisation from 2008 until 2013. The objective was to analyse, monitor and comment on the unique democratic transformational challenges faced by Zimbabwe's Government of National Unity. One of the book's key findings is that every time partisan forces carry out an operation in the name of a political party, there is a direct correlation in which the same loses its national character. This is the context of the challenge facing Zimbabwean forces when used for partisan gain and why the Southern African Development Community (SADC), in its last communique in Maputo on 15 June 2013, sought to compel a written undertaking from the generals that they would desist from playing a direct role in the politics of the country. The AU had earlier expressed its deep regret when faced with the results of serious human rights abuses that were committed with impunity.
Download or read book Mugabe written by Stephen Chan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 21st November 2017 Robert Mugabe resigned as President of Zimbabwe after 37 years in power. A week earlier the military had seized control of the country and forced him to step down as leader of the ruling Zanu-PF party. In this revised and updated edition of his classic biography, Stephen Chan seeks to explain and interpret Mugabe in his role as a key player in the politics of Southern Africa. In this masterly portrait of one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, Mugabe's character unfolds with the ebb and flow of triumph and crisis. Mugabe's story is Zimbabwe's - from the post-independence hopes of idealism and reconciliation to electoral victory, the successful intervention in the international politics of Southern Africa and the resistance to South Africa's policy of apartheid. But a darker picture emerged early with the savage crushing of the Matabeleland rising, the elimination of political opponents, growing corruption and disastrous intervention in the Congo war, all worsened by drought and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Stephen Chan's highly revealing biography, based on close personal knowledge of Zimbabwe, depicts the emergence and eventual downfall of a ruthless and single-minded despot amassing and tightly clinging to political power. We follow the triumphant nationalist leader who reconciled all in the new multiracial Zimbabwe, degenerate into a petty tyrant consumed by hubris and self-righteousness and ultimately face an ignominious endgame at the hands of his own army.
Download or read book Fast Track Land Occupations in Zimbabwe written by Kirk Helliker and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first detailed scholarly examination of the nation-wide land occupations which spread across the Zimbabwean countryside from the year 2000, and led to the state’s fast track land reform programme. In an innovative way, it highlights the decentralized character of the occupations by recognizing significant spatial variation around a number of key themes, including historical memory, modes of mobilization and gender. A case study of the land occupations in Mashonaland Central Province, based on original research, adds empirical weight to the argument. In further identifying and understanding the specificities and complexities of the land occupations, the book also frames them by way of a nuanced comparative-historical analysis of the three zvimurenga. It thus examines the land occupations (referred to, likely controversially, as the ‘third chimurenga’) with reference to the original anti-colonial revolt from the 1890s (the first chimurenga) and the war of liberation in the 1970s (the second chimurenga). Further, the book engages critically with the ruling party’s chimurenga narrative and the hegemonic understanding of the land occupations within Zimbabwean studies. This book is a crucial read for all scholars and students of post-2000 land and politics in Zimbabwe, but also for those more broadly interested in historical-comparative analyses of land struggles in Zimbabwe and beyond.
Download or read book Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo of Zimbabwe written by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a pioneering study of Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, a Zimbabwean nationalist whose crucial role in the country’s anti-colonial struggle has largely gone unrecognized. These essays trace his early influence on Zimbabwean nationalism in the late 1950s and his leadership in the armed liberation movement and postcolonial national-building processes, as well as his denigration by the winners of the 1980 elections, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. The Nkomo that emerges is complex and contested, the embodiment of Zimbabwe’s tortured trajectory from colony to independent postcolonial state. This is an essential corrective to the standard history of twentieth-century Zimbabwe, and an invaluable resource for scholars of African nationalist liberation movements and nation-building.
Download or read book Civil Wars of the World 2 volumes written by Karl DeRouen Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 995 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique two-volume reference is the most authoritative, up-to-date resource available for information and data on the most volatile civil wars around the globe since World War II. At a time when historians are devoting more and more research to conflicts within nations, Civil Wars of the World: Major Conflicts since World War II is an invaluable addition to the available resources. In two volumes, it ranges around the globe to cover the most volatile and deadly civil wars of the past 60 years, including the bloody impasses in the Middle East; devastating tribal warfare in Africa; Cold War–fueled conflicts in Eastern Europe and Asia; the seemingly unbreakable cycle of rebellion and repression in some regions of Latin America; and more. Civil Wars of the World moves country by country to describe the causes, course, and consequences of internal conflicts within each nation. Coverage includes the historical background of each country, geographic and economic factors, descriptions of rebel groups and governments (e.g., regime type, size of military, capacity), terrorism, foreign and/or intergovernmental organization (IGO) intervention (UN, foreign support for rebels), foreign aid, and prospects for peace.
Download or read book Becoming Zimbabwe A History from the Pre colonial Period to 2008 written by Brian Raftopoulos and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming Zimbabwe is the first comprehensive history of Zimbabwe, spanning the years from 850 to 2008. In 1997, the then Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Morgan Tsvangirai, expressed the need for a 'more open and critical process of writing history in Zimbabwe. ...The history of a nation-in-the-making should not be reduced to a selective heroic tradition, but should be a tolerant and continuing process of questioning and re-examination.' Becoming Zimbabwe tracks the idea of national belonging and citizenship and explores the nature of state rule, the changing contours of the political economy, and the regional and international dimensions of the country's history. In their Introduction, Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo enlarge on these themes, and Gerald Mazarire's opening chapter sets the pre-colonial background. Sabelo Ndlovu tracks the history up to WW11, and Alois Mlambo reviews developments in the settler economy and the emergence of nationalism leading to UDI in 1965. The politics and economics of the UDI period, and the subsequent war of liberation, are covered by Joesph Mtisi, Munyaradzi Nyakudya and Teresa Barnes. After independence in 1980, Zimbabwe enjoyed a period of buoyancy and hope. James Muzondidya's chapter details the transition 'from buoyancy to crisis', and Brian Raftopoulos concludes the book with an analysis of the decade-long crisis and the global political agreement which followed.
Download or read book Mugabeism written by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-26 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is distinctive about this book is its interdisciplinary approach towards deciphering the complex meanings of President Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe making it possible to evaluate Mugabe from a historical, political, philosophical, gender, literal and decolonial perspectives. It is concerned with capturing various meanings of Mugabeism.
Download or read book The Land Reform Deception written by Charles Laurie and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Land Reform Deception looks at a particularly contentious period in Zimbabwe's recent history, from 2000-2008, when the government seized commercial farms using illegal and violent methods against a largely unarmed population of farmers and farm workers. Robert Mugabe's government began the seizures on a small, targeted scale in an effort to suppress political opposition groups, but they soon escalated into an out-of-control frenzy targeting all farms in the country. The state claimed that the seizures occurred in response to a public cry for land redistribution and to rectify colonial-era injustices, and were part of a structured land reallocation program. Yet, land was often distributed ad hoc to those with little or no farming experience. As a result, agricultural output contracted and inflation and unemployment rose dramatically in what became a social and economic disaster for the country. In The Land Reform Deception, Charles Laurie asks why the state would target its own agricultural industry using such violent methods and risk such dire consequences. He also seeks to uncover the major actors and their motivations and strategies. Laurie argues that the seizure of the most valuable farms was largely carried out by politically influential individuals for financial and political gain, rather than to address historical injustices. In fact, he finds that the scale on which the farm invasions were carried out and the violent methods used were never part of a planned government land policy. Indeed, Laurie shows that Mugabe initially opposed the seizures, knowing that they would wreck the economy, only to later support them in order to appease his supporters and retain political power. Incorporating unprecedented empirical evidence gathered from in-depth interviews with senior politicians, members of the secretive Central Intelligence Organization, the military and police, along with farmers and farm workers who were targeted during the invasions, The Land Reform Deception strips away official explanations and delves into the political and economic drivers that triggered the seizure of commercial farms in Zimbabwe.
Download or read book From African Peer Review Mechanisms to African Queer Review Mechanisms written by Nhemachena, Artwell and published by Langaa RPCIG. This book was released on 2019-04-22 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing recent bouts of globalised Mugabephobia to Robert Mugabe’s refusal to be neoimperially penetrated, this book juxtaposes economic liberalisation with the mounting liberalisation of African orifices. Reading land repossession and economic structural adjustment programmes together with what they call neoimperial structural adjustment of African orifices, the authors argue that there has been liberalisation of African orifices in a context where Africans are ironically prevented from repossessing their material resources. Juxtaposing recent bouts of Mugabephobia with discourses on homophobia, the book asks why empire prefers liberalising African orifices rather than attending to African demands for restitution, restoration and reparations. Noting that empire opposes African sovereignty, autonomy, and centralisation of power while paradoxically promoting transnational corporations’ centralisation of power over African economies, the book challenges contemporary discourses about shared sovereignty, distributed governance, heterarchy, heteronomy and onticology. Arguing that colonialists similarly denied Africans of their human essence, the tome problematises queer sexualities, homosexuality, ecosexuality, cybersexuality and humanoid robotic sexuality all of which complicate supposedly fundamental distinctions between human beings and animals and machines. Provocatively questioning queer sexuality and liberalised orifices that serve to divert African attention from the more serious unfinished business of repossessing material resources, the book insightfully compares Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Thomas Sankara and Julius Kambarage Nyerere who emphasised the imperatives of African autonomy, ownership, control and sovereignty over natural resources. Observing Africans’ interest in repossessing ownership and control over their resources, the book wonders why so much, queer, international attention is focused on foisting queer sexuality while downplaying more burning issues of resource repossession, human dignity, equality and equity craved by Africans for whom life is not confined to sexuality. With insights for scholars in sociology, development studies, law, politics, African studies, anthropology, transformation, decolonisation and decoloniality, the book argues that liberal democracy is a façade in a world that is actually ruled through criminocracy.
Download or read book Total Onslaught written by Paul Moorcraft and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of the Second World War may have heralded peace in Europe but conflicts in Southern Africa were about to begin. The imperial powers were weakened by the cost of war and a string of wars challenged colonial rule in countries such as Namibia, Angola and Rhodesia. Once independence was achieved, civil wars between rival factions unfamiliar with democratic principles resulted. Liberation movements such as those in South Africa demanded self-rule and end to Apartheid. Tribal feuds, corruption and the ambitions of dictators led to more conflicts such as the protracted fighting in the Congo. These were wars that ran on until both sides were exhausted often only to be re-kindled after short periods of uneasy peace. The cost in human and material terms has been devastating and in too many cases remain so. Economic development has been frustrated and the result is often poverty, abuse and genocide. The Author who knows Southern Africa as a native is superbly equipped to tell this fascinating if tragic record.
