This week we will examine several nationalist and anti-colonial movements which turned towards violence in order to overthrow intransigent colonial regimes. We will focus on the liberation movements which developed in colonial Zimbabwe and Mozambique and our analysis will centre on the composition of these movements, the experiences of combatants and the regional and international contexts in which these wars of liberation unfolded.

Core Reading

N. Kriger, ‘The Zimbabwean War of Liberation: Struggles within the Struggle’, Journal of Southern African Studies 14,(1988), pp. 304-322.

J. Alexander, and A. McGregor, ‘War Stories: Guerrilla Narratives of Zimbabwe’s Liberation War’, History Workshop Journal 57, (2004), 79-100.

Jonna Katto, 'Landscapes of Belonging: Female Ex-Combatants Remembering the Liberation Struggle in Urban Maputo', Journal of Southern African Studies, 40, (2014), pp. 539-557.

Daniel Kaiser, ‘Makers of Bonds and Ties’: Transnational Socialisation and National Liberation in Mozambique', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 29-48.

Seminar Questions

1. Who joined the Zimbabwean and Mozambican liberation movements and why?

2. How were the Zimbabwean and Mozambican liberation movements shaped by issues of race, ethnicity, gender and class?

3. How did southern African liberation movements engage with regional and international politics?

4. How useful is oral history as a source for examining the history of the Zimbabwean and Mozambican liberation movements?

Primary Sources

Samora Machel, Mozambique: sowing the seeds of revolution (1975)

E. Mondlane, The Struggle for Mozambique (London, 1983)

Shimmer Chinodya, Harvest of Thorns (1989)

The Warwick Library contains a number of pamphlets and materials produced by and in collaboration with Southern African liberation movements. See for example: 'Revolution in southern Africa: papers', National Student Conference (1968); Liberation Support Movement: interview [with] Sixth Region Commander, Seta Likambuila, Moviemento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (1971) and Interview with Paulo Jorge- Director of MPLA's Department of Information and Propaganda (DIP) (1972)

Emerging Nationalism in Portuguese Africa, 1959-1965, USC Digital Library - a collection of documentary ephemera on emerging nationalism in Portuguese Africa (Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau).

'Displaced Women in Harare, 1974-1980': this is a collection of oral histories conducted with women who were displaced during Zimbabwe's liberation war. Interviews were conducted by Joyce Chadya. The full collection is available via the JSTOR Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa collection.

Displaced Women in Harare, 1974-1980 essay

Interview with Esther Kanhinge

Interview with Jenet Kerekedu

Interview with Jessica Chenga

Interview with Maria Domingo

Further Reading

Jocelyn Alexander and JoAnn McGregor, 'African Soldiers in the USSR: Oral Histories of ZAPU Intelligence Cadres’ Soviet Training, 1964–1979', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 49-66.

Allina, E., Slavery by Any Other Name. African Life under Company Rule in Colonial Mozambique (Charlottesville, 2012).

Bender, G. J., Angola under the Portuguese. The Myth and the Reality (London, 1978).

Bhebe, N., and T. O. Ranger (eds), Society in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (Oxford, 1996).

Jesse Bucher, 'Cold sweats and furtive listening in Angola', Africa is a Country, 4 November 2019.

Chabal, P. et al., A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa (London, 2002).

Clarence-Smith, G., The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975 (Manchester, 1985).

Dumiso Dabengwa, 'Relations Between ZAPU And The USSR, 1960s–1970s: A Personal View', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 215-223.

Isaacman, A. and B., Mozambique. From Colonialism to Revolution, 1900-1982 (Boulder, 1983).

Norma Kriger, Zimbabwe's Guerrilla War: Peasant Voices (Cambridge, 1992).

Lan, D., Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe (London, 1985).

Lloyd-Jones, S. and Costa-Pinto, A. The Last Empire. Thirty Years of Portuguese Decolonization (Bristol, 2003).

Marcum, J.A., The Angolan Revolution Vol. I: The anatomy of an explosion, 1950-1962 (Cambridge MA, 1969).

Marcum, J.A., The Angolan Revolution Volume II: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare, 1962-1976 (Cambridge MA, 1978).

Marcum, John A, Conceiving Mozambique (2018).

Gerald Chikozho Mazarire, 'ZANU’S External Networks 1963–1979: An Appraisal', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 83-106.

Alois S. Mlambo and Neil Parsons, A History of Southern Africa (London, 2019), chapter 10, pp. 200-226.

Wazha G. Morapedi, 'The Dilemmas of Liberation in Southern Africa: The Case Of Zimbabwean Liberation Movements And Botswana, 1960–1979', Journal Of Southern African Studies, 38 1 (2012), pp. 73-90.

Morier-Genoud, E. (ed.), Sure Road? Nationalism in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique (Leiden, 2012).

Morier-Genoud, Eric, Michel Cahen and Domingos Manuel do Rosário (eds), The War Within: new perspectives on the civil war in Mozambique, 1976-1992 (2018).

Newitt, M., Portugal in Africa. The Last Hundred Years (London, 1981).

Newitt, M., A History of Mozambique (London, 1994).

Walter C. Opello Jr., 'Pluralism and elite conflict in an independence movement: FRELIMO in the 1960s', Journal of Southern African Studies, 2, 1 (1975), pp. 66-82.

Justin Pearce, 'Global Ideologies, Local Politics: The Cold War as Seen from Central Angola', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 13-27

Raeburn, M., Black Fire. Accounts of the Guerrilla War in Rhodesia (London, 1978).

Ranger, T. O., Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe (Berkeley, 1985).

T. O. Ranger, ‘Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History, and the History of the Nation: The Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 30 (2004), pp. 215-234.

Roberts, George, 'The assassination of Eduardo Mondlane: FRELIMO, Tanzania, and the politics of exile in Dar es Salaam', Cold War History, 17 (2017), 1-19.

Scarnecchia, T., The Urban Roots of Democracy and Political Violence in Zimbabwe: Harare and Highfield, 1940–1964 (Rochester, 2008).

Scarnecchia, Timothy, 'Front Line Diplomats: African Diplomatic Representations of the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front, 1976–1978', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43 (2017), pp. 107-124.

Shaw, Timothy M., 'International Organizations and The Politics of Southern Africa: Towards Regional Integration or Liberation?', Journal of Southern African Studies, 3 (1976), 1-19.

Schmidt, H., ‘Healing the Wounds of War: Memories of Violence and the Making of History in Zimbabwe's Most Recent Past’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23 (1997), pp. 301-310.

Vladimir Shubin, 'Moscow And Zimbabwe’s Liberation', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 225-233.

Joanna T. Tague, 'Displaced Agents of Development: Mozambican Refugees and Tanzanian Nation-Building Projects, 1964–1975', International Journal of African Historical Studies, 50, 1 (2017), pp. 121-145.

Joanna T. Tague, Displaced Mozambicans in Postcolonial Tanzania: Refugee Power, Mobility, Education and Rural Development (2018).

Natalia Telepneva, 'Mediators of Liberation: Eastern-Bloc Officials, Mozambican Diplomacy and the Origins of Soviet Support for Frelimo, 1958–1965', Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 67-81.

Tendi, Blessing-Miles, "Transnationalism, Contingency and Loyalty in African Liberation Armies: The Case Of ZANU’s 1974–1975 Nhari Mutiny", Journal Of Southern African Studies, 43 (2017), pp. 143-159.