Insurgent Empires

Question 1

J. Alexander & J. McGregor

Answer 1

Liberation war narratives contested

Independence war 1980 ruling ZANU-PF institutionalised narrow heroic version erasing ZAPU and internal tensions

presented a unifying national experience

Question 2

What did J&J oral histories uncover?

Answer 2

oral histories with former guerrilla fighters - fear, betrayal, violence, forced recruitment, sexual exploitation.

myth of ideological purity

memory as site of struggle

violence as transformative, white men can be killed

Question 3

David Lan overall argument

Answer 3

Spirit Mediums were not peripheral or symbolic, but central to authority and legitimacy of guerrilla fighters.

rooted in the ancestral cosmologies of the Shona people.

“spirit mediums sanctioned the actions of the living”

Question 4

Lan on ties to the past

Answer 4

Continuation of ancestral struggle - first Chimurenga 1880s - guerrilla warfare historicised within Shona cosmologies

Question 5

Lan - what was the effect of these spirit mediums?

Answer 5

colonialism was cast as a violation of spiritial order, ancestral wisdom instead of party ideology “alternative source of knowledge”

Question 6

Franz Fanon two works

Answer 6

Wretched of the Earth 1961

Black Skin, White Masks 1952

Question 7

Wretched of the Earth 1961 key argument

Answer 7

Colonialism as violent and dehumanising, calls for complete psychological and political rupture from colonial systems

Question 8

Black Skin, White masks 1952 key argument

Answer 8

what colonialism does to the black psyche in a world built by white norms and superiority.

Question 9

Black Skin, White Masks key quote

Answer 9

“to speak a language is to assume a world, a culture”

Question 10

5 main points Wretched of the Earth

Answer 10

1. violence necessary
2. psyche internalised inferiority and self-hate
3. Bourgeoisie dangerous elite who inheret colonial structure and prioritise own class interests
4. Cultural, language, education, and identity. must be rooted in own history
5. must be solidarity and a global south, must have a world revolution

Question 11

3 main points Black Skin, White Masks

Answer 11

1. cost of assimilation ‘white mask’ but never truly accepted (Algeria, French) must reclaim cultural identity
2. Racw is a historical construct, not natural, not inferior by design, made to be “other”.
3. Psychiatry is a tool of empire and a tool for freedom. western pathologised black identity. mentally unstable by default. “new humanism” not on colonial categories but mutual respect.

Question 12

fanon background

Answer 12

1947 university of Lyon
1950 French communist party
1951 trained to be psychiatrist

Question 13

Fanon in Algeria

Answer 13

1953 Blida-Joinville Hospital
1954 Algerian National Liberation Front launch attacks
1956 speaks at world congress of Black writers and Artists in Paris argues struggles world lead to total liberation of the national territory

exiled in tunisia

Question 14

Fanon and “African Revolution”

Answer 14

1958 All-African Congress, Accra:
- defends FNL’s armed struggle
- fear of neocolonialism
- called for “African League”

1959 Congress of Black Writers and Artists, Rome:
- Focucses on national liberation

Question 15

Zimbabwe context

Answer 15

1896-7 First Chimurenga
1950s emergence of policial movements
1959 state emergency
1960 National Democratic Party formed
1961 Zimbabwean African People’s Union ZAPU, break away, Zimbabwean African National Union ZANU

Question 16

Zimbabwe liberation war timeline

Answer 16

formation of ZIPRA and ZANLU 1960s
1975 Portuguese decolonisation
1976 US diplomatic efforts intensify war
Internal settlement and Zimbabwe-Rhodesia 1978
Lancaster house Agreement 1979

Question 17

Norma Kriger

Answer 17

Success of ZANLA due to peassant ‘support’

guerrilla forces used coercion and violence to mobilise rural populations

Question 18

Terrance Ranger

Answer 18

How histotical experiences and cultural beliefs shaped peasant participation in the guerrilla war, Makoni district

peasants developed distinct political consciousness

highlights spirit mediums in legitimising guerrilla struggle

framework to understanding and participating in the war

peasants have more profound historically rooted engagement with liberation (compared to Kenya)

Question 19

Internal Settlement date

Answer 19

March 1978

Question 20

what sparked the bitter guerrilla war

Answer 20

white minority settler government under Ian Smith declared the Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1965

they demanded majority rule

Question 21

internal settlement what was it and what did it do

Answer 21

agreement between white minority regime and moderate black leaders, excluded nationalist movements ZANU and ZAPU who were fighting liberation war

created power sharing framework, paving teh way for majority rule

Question 22

what did the internal settlment promise?

Answer 22

an end to white minority rule
new elections open to black citizens
maintenance of white economic and military privileges

Question 23

Why was internal settlement flawed

Answer 23

lacked legitimacy seen as sell-out deal

attempt to retain white settler control under a new name

guerrilla war continued as ZANU and ZAPU rejected the deal

Question 24

what is Zimbabwe-Rhodesia 1979

Answer 24

outcome of internal settlement

not internationally recognised, even Britain and the UN refused to acknowledge it

real power remaiend with the white military and civil service elite

continued fighting and sanctions forced to return to negotiations

Question 25

When was the Lancaster House Agreement?

Answer 25

December 1979

Question 26

What was the Lancaster House agreement 1979

Answer 26

peace agreement negotiated in London, chaired by the British government included all parties, ZANU-PF and ZAPU-PF

Question 27

key outcomes of the Lancaster House agreement 1979

Answer 27

1. ceasefire and end to the bush war 2. agreement on new constitution that guranteed one person, one vote, 20% parliamentary seats for whites for 7 years 3. British oversight of the transition 4. free election schedules for February 1980

Question 28

Legacy of Lancaster House Agreement 1979

Answer 28

ZANU-PF won the 1980 election Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, ending white minority rule the Lancaster Hosue Agreement is see as compromise, protected white settler interests in the short run, but enabled a peaceful transition to majority rule.