A Hunhu-Ubuntu Informed Critique of Patriotic History Discourse and Chimurenga Nationalism

Abstract

This thesis critiques the political discursive hegemony of Patriotic History and Chimurenga Nationalism from the year 2000 from the perspective of the ethics of Hunhu-Ubuntu philosophy. I ask, while claiming to offer deliverance from colonial and neo-colonial rule, has the paradigm managed to successfully generate a sense of belonging and a collective human subjectivity while promoting peace and stability? I find that peace and stability have been impermanent because it fails to formulate a clear and shared ideological direction. It has stalled the nation building project because it mistreats issues around race relations and national unity, citizenship and political identity, ontological security and belonging, leadership and power, violence and politics, modernization and institutional development. I argue that Hunhu-Ubuntu philosophy offers a resource for a thoroughly decolonized, peaceful and stable modernization better suited to centrally accommodate plurality and cultural heritage within Zimbabwe’s nation building and development agenda