4 - The Roots of Political Violence in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfiled, 1940-1964
by Timothy Scarnecchia, University of Rochester Press, 2008

Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores self-respect’, argued Frantz Fanon in his popular book, The Wretched of the Earth. That work became a handbook for revolutionaries. Likewise, Timothy Scarnecchia’s The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe is every scholar and activist’s dictionary, giving meaning to various pages and vocabulary in the Zimbabwean book
of violence. In other words, if you have always sought to find out the author of Zimbabwe’s violence, you have the answer in the pages of Scarnechia’s clear, concise and explosive exposé. Many of us have always argued that Zimbabwe’s violent nature was scripted in the years leading to the struggle for independence. We did not always have the evidence or data to support these claims. Now, we have a well-researched study that takes the reader back to the early formations of democratic spaces in Zimbabwe and how those spaces were eventually closed to make way for violence, manipulation...