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167 6 From Buoyancy to Crisis, 1980–1997 James Muzondidya Introduction Zimbabwe’s post-colonial history has become the subject of many interpretations. This chapter examines the changes in the history of the country from the years of economic buoyancy and politics of reconciliation in the early 1980s, through the crisis of unity in the Gukurahundi period up to the crisis of the state in the late 1990s. The main themes addressed are contestations over the restructuring and reconfiguration of the state after 1980; processes of rule and state-making; questions of justice and equity with regard to land and resource ownership and redistribution; and issues of nationhood and citizenship in the post-colonial state. The chapter begins by focusing on the political economy of Zimbabwe in the first decade of independence, and then reviews the changing nature of the state, politics and society within the context of the economic hardships of the 1990s. Political and economic restructuring of the state and the nation The major challenge confronting the post-independence government of ZANU(PF) in 1980 was nation-building in a society deeply divided along the lines of race, class, ethnicity, gender and geography. The other main challenges included post-war reconstruction, restructuring the inherited colonial political economy – especially redressing its racialised imbalances – and democratising the inherited authoritarian colonial state and its institutions. The government embarked on a programme of post-war reconstruction which aimed to recapitalise and reintegrate the economy into the world economy. To redress some of the inequalities inherited from the old colonial order, it tried to broaden the economy and make it more inclusive by integrating blacks through black economic empowerment, the Africanisation of public service and the active development of a black middle class.1 In response to black popular aspirations and expectations, and in pursuit of its own developmentalist objectives, the government tried to solve both rural poverty and racial inequality in land ownership 1 I. Kaplan, ‘Zimbabwe: Ethnicity and race’, Chapter 2B: Countries of the World, 1991. ; B. Raftopoulos, Zimbabwe: Race and Nationalism in a Post-colonial State (Harare: SAPES Books, 1996). 168 James Muzondidya between blacks and whites by introducing a gradual land resettlement programme targeting peasants in congested communal areas. It also tried to empower rural peasant farmers through positive pricing, and better access to marketing services, credit and inputs. Within a few years of independence, rural agricultural output improved and communal farmers had become the largest producers of maize and cotton.2 With the help of local communities and foreign donors, especially from the Scandinavian countries, the government expanded the provision of health and educational facilities to areas previously ignored by the colonial state. It specifically built roads, schools, clinics, boreholes and established sanitation facilities in communal rural lands, which lagged behind urban areas in terms of infrastructural development. By the end of the first decade of independence, as Alois Mlambo has noted, substantial progress had been made in expanding the provision of health care and education.3 In the educational sector, for instance, enrolment in primary schools rose from 82,000 in 1979 to 2,216,878 in 1985, and in secondary schools from 66,000 to 482,000 during the same period. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of primary and secondary schools had risen by a remarkable 80 per cent from 3,358 to 6,042.4 Thegovernmentmadenotableprogressintheprovisionofwaterandsanitation to rural households, and won praise from the World Health Organisation and UNICEF for its ability to provide safe drinking water to 84 per cent of the national population by 1988.5 There were also improvements in workers’ wages and working conditions. A minimum wage was introduced, workers’ bargaining strength was improved through the introduction of collective bargaining and companies were compelled to improve living and working conditions for employees and their families.6 2 See C. Mumbengegwi, ‘Macroeconomic policies and agricultural performance’, in C. Mumbengegwi (ed.), Macroeconomic and Structural Adjustment Policies in Zimbabwe (London: Macmillan, 2002), p. 240; A. S. Mlambo, The Economic Structural Adjustment Programme: The Case of Zimbabwe, 1990-1995 (Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications, 1997), p. 4; S. Moyo, Land Reform under Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe: Land Use Change in Mashonaland East Province (Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 2000), p. 24. 3 Mlambo, The Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, pp. viii, 55-82. 4 Ibid., p. 59. 5 M. Musemwa, ‘The Politics of Water in Postcolonial Zimbabwe, 1980-2007’, Seminar Paper presented at the African Studies Centre, Leiden University, 19 June 2008, p. 6...

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