Beyond dramatic revolutions and grand rebellions

Abstract

In the context of the Zimbabwe crisis of the early 2000s, both popular and academic accountsfrequently discussed Zimbabweans as passive victims of their government, hereby suggestingthat the extensive efforts of the state to create a ‘patriotic’ citizenry through the cultural project ofthe Third Chimurenga were largely successful. This article argues that the absence of physicalprotests in the streets should not be equated with an absence of resistance. By adopting a narrowfocus on the forms of resistance associated with dramatic revolutions and grand rebellions,journalists and scholars neglected the everyday forms of resistance - such as popular humour andrumour - by means of which Zimbabweans sought to challenge the state. These nascent forms ofresistance could have been drawn upon in a more sustained way by the political opposition andcivil society in order to provoke political change.