Prisoners of Rhodesia: Inmates and Detainees in the Struggle for Zimbabwean Liberation, 1960-1980 (African Histories and Modernities)

During the Zimbabwean struggle for independence, the settler regime imprisoned numerous activists and others it suspected of being aligned with the guerrillas. This book is the first to look closely at the histories and lived experiences of these political detainees and prisoners, showing how they challenged and negotiated their incarceration. Between 1961 and 1979, African nationalists engaged in a protracted guerrilla war that ultimately ended white rule in colonial Rhodesia. During the conflict, the settler regime responded by imprisoning numerous activists and others it suspected of being aligned with the guerrillas. This book is the first to look closely at the histories and lived experiences of political detainees and prisoners whose contributions to the liberation struggle have been rendered invisible by the dominant historical and political narratives of modern-day Zimbabwe. Drawing on extensive oral histories with former prisoners, it argues that the experience of imprisonment despite being an extreme version of colonial rule that combined spatial confinement with curtailed freedoms, racialized abuse, racial segregation, and heightened repression also constituted a terrain of struggle, doubly characterized by repression and subversion, upon which political prisoners were capable of actively challenging and negotiating their incarceration Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction: Suffering for the Nation: The Prison as a Site of Struggle during Zimbabwe’s Liberation War....Pages 1-25 The Growth of African Opposition and Intensified State Political Repression in Rhodesia, 1960–1970s....Pages 27-63 Getting Arrested: Oral Histories of Violence, Torture, and Arrest in Rhodesia, 1960–1979....Pages 65-120 Life in Detention: Oral Histories of Confinement in Rhodesian Detention Centers....Pages 121-153 Life Behind Bars: Oral Histories of Life inside Rhodesian Prisons, 1965–1980....Pages 155-198 Epilogue: Life Beyond Bars and Legacies of Incarceration in Colonial and Post-Colonial Zimbabwe, 1965–2000....Pages 199-223 Conclusion: Political Imprisonment and Memorializing Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle....Pages 225-231 Back Matter....Pages 233-271