Majaivana and Protest Music in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the appropriation of music by a marginalized minority tribe to challenge political authority in Zimbabwe. It examines how music is used to arouse the people's nationalistic feelings; exploit their grievances through memory, collective identity, and emotions; and spur them to action against their local colonialists. Using cultural memory and subaltern public sphere theories, it examines how Majaivana's music is utilized by the Ndebeles in post-colonial Zimbabwe to challenge authority and assert their minority, collective identity. Although this chapter does a critical discourse analysis of the IsiNdebele language protest music as a socio-political commentary and “weapon of the weak” for the Ndebeles in Zimbabwe, lessons drawn therefrom can be extrapolated to other countries in Africa where minority groups face the authoritarian force of the majority tribe in power.