In his Do Zimbabweans Exist?: Trajectories of Nationalism, National Identity Formation and Crisis in a Postcolonial State, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that postcolonial Zimbabwean nationalism has failed to promote a true sense of nationhood among the country's population. Instead, it has fostered an undemocratic, violent, and inhumane dispensation driven by narrow parochial political interests.Footnote ¹ Similarly, A. Mlambo argued that Zimbabweans are currently struggling with national identity issues, given the current ruling elites’ penchant for defining some groups as outsiders and political opponents as unpatriotic ‘sell-outs’ and puppets of the West and others as the true patriots. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Zimbabwe is, in reality, a ‘nation’ of immigrants comprising the Bantu-speaking people, the ancestors of the Shona-speaking majority, who displaced the indigenous San communities, followed by the Nguni from the south in the mid-nineteenth century and whites in 1890. Migrant labourers from Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia, added to the mix in the early twentieth century.Footnote ²

Given this complex ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and racial composition, it was always necessary to have a responsible ruling elite that actively fostered an inclusive national sense of belonging. Instead, the colonial white ruling elite deliberately promoted a racist dispensation that excluded the black majority and enforced the separation of citizens (white Rhodesians) from the ‘Natives’. In their turn, postcolonial ruling elites have adopted a similar formula, which now defines whites as the new outsiders. Worse still, the ruling party now makes a distinction between Shona speakers, ostensibly vana vevhu (children of the soil), and the others (the Nguni and descendants of migrant workers, who are now exhorted to go back where they originally came from). The origins of this toxic parochial nationalism are clearly analysed in Ruramisai Charumbira's very timely and insightful book under review.

The book shows that the exclusive nationalist narrative and paradigm characteristic of Zimbabwe's recent experience has deep roots in the early years of white colonialism when the population was divided and ruled separately on the basis of race and the white version of history was privileged over the African past. Charumbira traces how the making of history and memory by the white settler community took a chauvinistic form in which the African past was dismissed as worthless, while new heroes, in the form of Cecil Rhodes and members of the Pioneer Column, were created and eulogised, even though their celebrated achievements caused much suffering to the indigenous peoples. Through the establishment of public holidays, such as Occupation Day and Rhodes and Founders Day, whites created a new imagined identity for ‘their’ country in order to celebrate their accomplishments and to legitimise their colonial occupation.

A similar process of imagining the past and memory construction also occurred among the Zimbabwean nationalists who eventually won independence from white rule in 1980. Inspired by the promotion of African history as a distinct discipline in the decolonisation era of the 1950s and 1960s, with its emphasis on African agency, as propounded, for instance, by Terence Ranger in his earlier publications, African nationalists made use of the early resistance figures of 1896–7, such as Sekuru Kaguvi and Mbuya Charwe wokwa Hwata to mobilise support for the anti-colonial struggle, and built them up until they became larger-than-life figures who were presented as the epitome of bravery, patriotism, endurance, and perseverance, even though in real life, they did not really do that much. Their version of history, unfortunately, excluded groups with different traditions and to whom Mbuya Charwe or Nehanda meant little. The memorialisation of liberation heroes at the Heroes Acre shrine perpetuated this exclusion.

Also in both manifestations of parochial nationalisms and the memorialisation of the past, women were systematically marginalised and included in the historical narrative as mere appendages of men. Hence, the white women who died in the Mazoe Patrol incidents remain nameless, while only Mbuya Charwe receives attention from the nationalists.

Imagining a Nation is a must read for all those wishing to know the forces that have shaped Zimbabwe's recent lived experience. Departing from the conventional historical factual narrative approach, the book looks at Zimbabwe's past through a gendered lens that casts a refreshingly new light on what is already familiar and provides fresh insights into the key developments in the country's history. The book is a very welcome contribution to Zimbabwean historiography, in particular, and to gender studies, in general.