"This chapter explored the linguistic dimensions of Gukurahundi to show the centrality of language before, during and after the genocide. We drew on online testimonies from survivors and statements from government officials as well as visible language planning and language practices in the post-Guku...rahundi era. In doing so, we have shown how the Shona language was weaponised and continues to be deployed as a tool for perpetuating the legacy of Gukurahundi in symbolic forms. Languages are more than neutral instruments of communication; they reflect important symbolic and identity roles, particularly in post-conflict societies. In post Gukurahundi Zimbabwe, the issue of language has remained topical as language is an important means of maintaining, legitimating, effectuating and reproducing unequal relations of power. The foregoing suggests that the presentation of the Shona language within the Zimbabwean state, state-aligned institutions and in Zimbabwean society at large reflects the cultural and political antagonisms dating back to the preindependence era. It is in fact a subtle form violence that undermines everything that is different. As a continuation of conflict in symbolic and cultural ways in supposed times of peace, this has implications for processes of reconciliation. Consequently, for victims and survivors, the term gukurahundi has become a synonym and a metaphor for the structural violence and subjugation experienced contemporaneously." (Conclusion) more

"Memory and Erasure brings together young and established Zimbabwean scholars and activists who explore with fresh eyes the failure to overcome the terrible legacies of this period. At its heart is recognition that justice cannot be achieved while Gukurahundi’s perpetrators remain in power and sti...ll seek to control the memory of that period. The chapters explore the failures of peacebuilding, finding only a negative peace, the weighty obstacle to reform of the ‘securocratic state’, and the weaknesses of transitional justice efforts and institutions, from the late 1980s to the present. They focus on ‘linguistic genocide’, noting not only the use of linguistic difference to violently divide and target during Gukurahundi, but the use of Gukurahundi as metaphor for a structural violence that has carried on in the daily life of Ndebele speakers into the present. A highly original chapter focuses on the layered and gendered silences, powerfully rooted in shame and humiliation, that continue to shroud victims of sexual violence. The book ends with an important chapter on popular efforts at making counter-memory, through public lectures, the subversion of official celebrations, the reclaiming of statues, and above all an ongoing battle over the memorialisation of Bhalagwe camp, where thousands of people were detained, tortured and killed by state agents. This is a lonely, dangerous struggle, but it also underlines the ultimate failure of the party-state’s ‘anti-memory’. This book engages with wide-ranging theoretical work on transitional justice and memory, and makes revealing comparisons with cases from the former Yugoslavia to Namibia and South Africa." (Publisher) more