Afrique-à-midi: Archiv

16. Mai 2002:
Gespräch mit Terence Ranger
über Zimbabwe (in englischer Sprache)

Prof. Terence Ranger ist emeritierter Geschichtsprofessor von St. Antony's College, Oxford. Er war während der letzten 2 Jahre als visiting Professor in Zimbabwe. Er hat in den 60er Jahren die wesentlichen Werke über den Ersten Chimurenga (Widerstand gegen Eroberung 1890) geschrieben, auf den sich die zimbabwischen Nationalisten später und auch heute berufen. Er wurde ausgewiesen und hat dann in Dar es Salaam an der Uni weiter gewirkt und afrikanische Geschichte betrieben. In den letzten Jahren hat er Werke über den Befreiungskampf, vor allem aber über Matabeleland veröffentlicht, über die Bedeutung von Shrines usw. Er ist auch massgeblich an der British-Zimbabwean Society beteiligt. Terence Ranger war während den diesjährigen Präsidentschaftswahlen in Zimbabwe.

 
Terence Ranger:
Auswahlbibliographie

Lieferbare Bücher bei addall.com

Terence Ranger et al., "Violence and Memory"
Besprechung im Daily Mail and Guardian:

In fact, Zimbabwe does not conform to easy stereotypes, as its leading historian, Terence Ranger, and two co-authors pointed out in an illuminating recent study, entitled Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the "Dark Forests" of Matabeleland. In contrast to the violence in other parts of post-colonial Africa, they say Zimbabwe's problems after independence in 1980 were not the product of a disintegrating or failed state, or of a retraditionalisation of politics round the concept of a strong leader, the Big Man.

Rather, they were the consequence of an excessively strong state inherited from colonial Rhodesia. An already powerful security system became even more centralised and entrenched after Smith's unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 as the settler regime imposed unity in the battle against international sanctions and later against the guerrilla armies.

Ranger and his co-authors also point to the problems caused by the "commandist" ideology and the belief in a one-party state and a strong executive presidency that Zimbabwe's African leaders took from European Leninism. These were shared by Joshua Nkomo's Zapu as much as Mugabe's Zanu-PF. This, they write, explains why "Zimbabwean nationalism turned out to be authoritarian rather than emancipatory, and we are under no illusions that had Zapu won the 1980 elections things would have been very different".

(www.mg.co.za/mg/za/archive/2001aug/features/23aug-zim.html)