History-Making as Othering: Perspectives on Zimbabwe’s Patriotic History from Matabeleland

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU(PF)) has long used history-making to construct citizenship hierarchies. This chapter explores how the party’s control over the country’s official history has marginalized the Matabeleland region, doubly marked as Other, in political and ethnic terms. Drawing on interviews, secondary literature, and an analysis of high school history textbooks, the chapter reveals the varied, context-specific forms that othering has taken, and explores its effects in sustaining a sense of exclusion and second-class citizenship among members of Zimbabwe’s Ndebele-speaking minority. Further, discussing recent productions of public counter-histories, the chapter demonstrates how exclusionary state narratives can mobilize those who feel alienated by them and thus politicize the very histories and identities the state has attempted to silence or exclude.