"Mai VaDhikondo": echoes of the requiems from the killing fields. (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Maedza, Pedzisai
• Is Part Of: Social dynamics. Volume 43:Number 2(2017)
• Page Start: 215
• Page End: 229
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: "Mai VaDhikondo" -- gukurahundi -- pungwe -- memory -- Fifth Brigade; Africa -- Culture -- Periodicals; African literature -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 960.05
• DOI: 10.1080/02533952.2017.1364470
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0253-3952

Abstract

Abstract: This account departs from the focus and consensus on the centrality of song in pungwes for mass mobilisation during Zimbabwe's war for independence. It traces the less commented upon dystopian continuities between the usage of pungwe during the liberation war and the gukurahundi (1982–1987). It suggests that music is a mnemonic device through which experience is narrated, facilitating the storage, transfer and remembering of memory. It uses the song " Mai VaDhikondo " to position gukurahundi pungwes as sites of state-sanctioned mass violence against ethnic minorities. The song's reception and symbolism has morphed from the 1980s when it was composed for and sang by the Fifth Brigade and introduced to gukurahundi victims, to being recorded for public broadcast and becoming a hit with people who were oblivious and or indifferent to its gukurahundi usage in the mid-1990s, to the spirited 2012 campaign that stopped its remixing and rebroadcasting. The 2012 uproar lifted the veil of silence that shrouded public discussion about the Fifth Brigade's gukurahundi conduct. The history and reception of the song curates the memory of the gukurahundi . As a song that remains from the killing fields, " Mai VaDhikondo " embalms time and history as an unintended and undesignated requiem.