And in this judgment there is no partiality
So arm in arms, with arms
We'll fight this little struggle
'Cause that's the only way
We can overcome our little trouble"
The Republic of Zimbabwe is a landlocked southern African country. Famous recently for tension between its former President Robert Mugabe and the United Kingdom over land issues. Was formerly the British colony of Southern Rhodesia; in 1965, under the leadership of Ian Smith it declared unilateral independence and spent 14 years under a conservative white government likened to The Apartheid Era. This led to an armed struggle with several partisan groups, most notably the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and its offshoot, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
The white government was dismantled in 1979 and the country was renamed "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" and then just to "Zimbabwe" in 1980, when the world recognized its independence. Robert Mugabe, then chairman of ZANU, became the nation's first black prime minister. This continued until 1987, when the office of the prime minister was abolished by a constitutional amendment, and he assumed the presidency.
At first, there was some progress during the early years of Mugabe's rule, with programs that provided better healthcare and education to the population, greatly reducing illiteracy and disease (Zimbabwe actually has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, with a literacy rate of over 90%). But good times were not to last: in 1982 Mugabe launched the Gukurahundi note , a persecution campaign against the Ndebele people, who were staunch supporters of ZAPU, the guerilla organization headed by Mugabe's political opponent Joshua Nkomo. Up to 20,000 people were killed, and some have classified this crime as genocide.
By the mid-90s, now-President Robert Mugabe (upon becoming president, he abolished the PM post but kept all its powers) had gone Ax-Crazy and turned the country into a totalitarian dictatorship — hyper-inflation, economic ruin and mass poverty ensued, as well as persecution of ethnic minorities and of all opposing political organizations (including the Movement for Democratic Change, who formed in response to Mugabe's crazy dictatorial actions). Future United Nations ambassador Samantha Power reported just how bad the situation had become in her now-memorable 2003 article How To Kill A Country in Ten Steps
for The Atlantic. A botched election in 2008, which Mugabe secured via massive electoral fraud (with a healthy dose of intimidation by his militants), threatened to escalate into an all-out bloodbath.
Eventually, the MDC managed to negotiate a power sharing arrangement with Mugabe; Morgan Tsvangirai took the reconstituted post of Prime Minister, while Mugabe remained as President with reduced powers. Several years on, times are still very tough, with rampant poverty, famine, undevelopment, and a devastating exodus of skilled nationals to other countries, namely South Africa.
Used to be the "bread basket of Africa" before its current economic woes. The reason for the nickname was because Zimbabwe traditionally had a lively agricultural sector and was a net food exporter to neighboring African states. Most of this food was produced on commercial farms managed by white landowners. In 1998, Mugabe introduced a chaotic redistribution campaign which saw war veterans attacking the farms and forcibly evicting their occupants. Unfortunately, these veterans (and Mugabe) failed to realize that productive farming is actually pretty damn complicated. With little knowledge of how to use modern farm equipment and NO knowledge of effective commercial agriculture — since they'd, y'know, gotten rid of the people who knew what they were doing — the expropriated farms quickly went to seed. Food shortages followed, helped along by the worst drought in decades. To deal with the slump, Mugabe decided that the best way out would be printing more money, which led to Zimbabwe's infamous hyperinflation. This also led the neighbouring nation of Zambia to claim the title “breadbasket of Africa” by welcoming the evicted farmers in their country and receiving a huge boost to their agricultural sector as a result.
On November 14, 2017, the Zimbabwe National Army staged a coup by blocking the streets of the capital with tanks and armored vehicles. They placed Mugabe and his wife Grace under house arrest and both were expelled from the ruling ZANU-PF party. Mugabe formally resigned the presidency (under threat of impeachment) on November 21, 2017; his former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was designated as successor. Mnangagwa subsequently won the next presidential election eight months later, beginning his own five-year tenure.
It must be pointed out that, like the rest of Africa, Zimbabwe had a history before being conquered by Europe; and it's a very impressive one. In medieval times, (about 1220-1450), it was the heart of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, perhaps best remembered these days for its stone cities, the biggest of which, Great Zimbabwe, served as their capital and is the largest manmade stone structure in all Sub-Saharan Africa. They controlled the gold and ivory trade on the southeastern African coast, and enjoyed commerce with Arabic and Asian traders. From the 15th to 17th centuries, the land was controlled by the the Kingdom of Mutapa. Contact with the Portuguese led to trade, but eventually brought about the kingdom's downfall; but the lands would not fall entirely under European control until the arrival of the British in the 19th century. Information about the Zimbabwe and Mutapa kingdoms, and the stone city of Great Zimbabwe is available on The Other Wiki. There is also a very good chapter on the Zimbabwean ruins in Henry Louis Gates's Wonders of the African World.
Famous Zimbabweans:
- Johnny Clegg had a Rhodesian Jewish mother and lived in Zimbabwe until he was six before moving to South Africa, where he famously became an anti-apartheid singer.
- MF Doom was born in the UK to a Zimbabwean father.
- Thandiwe Newton was born in the UK to a Shona mother from Zimbabwe.
- Charlene, the current Princess of Monaco (formerly Charlene Lynette Wittstock), was born and raised in Zimbabwe before moving to South Africa at the age of 11.
- Olympic gold medalist swimmer Kristy Coventry.
- Liverpool FC goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, who had fought in the Rhodesian army as a conscript defending white rule in the civil war, was committed to Zimbabwe after independence. He opted to play internationally for the Zimbabwe national side, symbolising his commtment to a new Zimbabwe where black and white people were equal partners.
- Danai Gurira's parents immigrated to the US from Zimbabwe in The '60s.
- Toby Kebbell's father is a white Zimbabwean immigrant to the UK.
- Rick Cosnett was born and raised in the country until he was 17, when he moved to Australia.
- Tinashe was born to a white American mother and a black Zimbabwean father. "Tinashe" means "God is with us" in the Shona language.
Zimbabwe in Fiction
- Nervous Conditions and This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
- The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu
- The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer
- The lost civilization in King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard was inspired largely by the stone ruins of Zimbabwe.
- Zimbabwe plays a small but significant part in the science fiction novel Alien in a Small Town, as the site of Earth's capital city and the home of one of the main characters.
- Its Discworld alternate, set in the equivalent of pre-1980 Rhodesia, is visited in the fan work Gap Year Adventures. note
- One of the protagonists of Blood Diamond, Danny Archer, is a white Zimbabwean, though he adamantly refers to the country as Rhodesia even though the film is set in 1999.
A list of books set in Zimbabwe is available on goodreads.com, here.
The Zimbabwean flag
, a soapstone sculpture of an African Fish Eagle found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe.
outside of the country has had issues since just before the country's independence in 1980. The flag depicted here is the correct rendering, with a longer, more upright neck (the incorrect version is somewhat short with the head somewhat slouched), a rounded beak (instead of the incorrect version's pointed beak), and a more evenly balanced soapstone perch (the incorrect version slightly curves towards the right of the bird's render). Furthermore, the incorrect version's star behind the bird is irregular and somewhat flattened, whereas the correct version uses a regular star.
The Zimbabwean national anthem
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Government
- Unitary dominant-party presidential constitutional republic
- President: Emmerson Mnangagwa
- Vice-President: Constantino Chiwenga
Miscellaneous
- Capital and largest city: Harare
- Population: 15,092,171
- Area: 390,757 km² (150,872 sq mi) (60th)
- ISO-3166-1 Code: ZW
- Country calling code: 263
- Highest point: Mount Nyangani (2592 m/8,504 ft) (89th)
- Lowest point: Confluence of Runde River and Save River (162 m/531 ft) (60th)
