The role of narratives, intellectuals, and the media in the construction of Zimbabwean Nationalism

Abstract

This qualitative study , which relied on document analysis, evaluates how African nationalism was constructed in the struggle for  Zimbabwe’s independence through narratives, intellectuals, and media motifs. African nationalism provided Africans with respite from  Rhodesian colonialism. Still, as many scholars from different intellectuals have argued, the divisive and often tragic modus operandi of  the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) became consequential in producing the  exemplary and inherent instability in the concept and conceptualization of nationalism. What is more, despite the touted interpretation of  the African media as a public space to problematise the national question and also as venues for political legitimacy and authenticity, ZAPU and ZANU continued to use the media as avenues and extensions for their destructive political contestations. By the same token,  the study focuses on the response of critical African intellectuals to the development of nationalism. The study argues their failure to  disentangle internecine party politics. It argues that their conception of African nationalism was punctuated by political myths and  narratives that militated against a common approach to nationalism.