The Post-independence Zimbabwean Leadership and the Literary Imaginings of Betrayal in I.T. Mabasa’s Novel Mapenzi (1999)

Abstract

This chapter explicates the notion of betrayal in post-independence Zimbabwe. The novel Mapenzi written by the Zimbabwean author Mabasa provides an important literary space to interrogate the thematisation of political, social and economic conditions of real and imagined post-independence Zimbabwe. This chapter argues that the leadership’s ineptitude is responsible for the untold suffering of the masses. There is a glaring contrast of the hopes and aspirations of the people while waging the liberation struggle and the unfolding realities that define the post-independence space. This contrast speaks about the culture of deceit in post-independence Zimbabwe. Some of the issues the novel addresses include political polarisation and violence, corruption, partisan allocation and looting of national resources, ruinous economic policies, loss of value of the Zimbabwean currency, and a vituperative HIV and AIDS pandemic, among others. Consequently, the nation is portrayed as a conglomeration of mentally unstable people which is a result of the amorphous challenges they face. The novel aptly and succinctly shows that the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government is largely responsible for the crisis as it inherited a vibrant economy from the colonial regime which it mismanaged resulting in the collapse of social services and people languishing in extreme poverty. Also, and at the same time, it failed to liberalise the democratic space which constitutes part of the betrayal. The exegesis of the literary work is premised on Afrocentricity under which literature is inexplicably linked to the political, social, economic and cultural milieu in which it is produced.