OPERATION RESTORE ORDER: RE-COMPREHENDING ZIMBABWE’S 2005 URBAN SLUM CLEARANCE IN VALERIE TAGWIRA’S AWARD-WINNING NOVEL THE UNCERTAINTY OF HOPE

Authors

  • Oliver Nyambi Lecturer, Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe

Keywords:

Operation Restore Order, Anna Tibaijuka, compassion, egoistic reprocity

Abstract

Coming in the wake of yet another (2005) disputed election, the slum clearance controversy in Zimbabwe in 2005 created a ruinous setback to the government’s concerted efforts to construct and reassert its legitimacy.  The state narrative, being one of the establishment’s hegemonic apparatuses for power retention tends to be characterised by omissions and inflations and to some extent a discernible mendacity that serves the government’s political grand plan.  The spin inherent in the conception of such narratives constructs and retraces conventions and patterns that guide the social and political conduct of the citizens, consequently reconfiguring perceptions of reality.  But the potency of literary narratives to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct power relations in the public sphere makes them a cultural site for the reformulation and criticism of dominant (state) narratives. This paper is concerned with the evocative representation of the 2005 urban slum demolitions code-named “Operation Murambatsvina” in the novel The Uncertainty of Hope (2006)The paper gives especial emphasis on the value of novelistic description in the swaying of emotions and the representation of arresting scenes of the ensuing violence, homelessness, child labour, HIV/AIDS and the deterioration of the victims’ everyday life, which can potentially sway the reader to alternative apprehensions of the urban slum clearances and lead them to doubt the state’s versions of the event and its aftermath.

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References

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Published

02-09-2021

How to Cite

Oliver Nyambi. (2021). OPERATION RESTORE ORDER: RE-COMPREHENDING ZIMBABWE’S 2005 URBAN SLUM CLEARANCE IN VALERIE TAGWIRA’S AWARD-WINNING NOVEL THE UNCERTAINTY OF HOPE. Researchers World - International Refereed Social Sciences Journal, 3(3(2), 1–9. Retrieved from https://researchersworld.com/index.php/rworld/article/view/651

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