“Coming Here, I’m Like a Soldier”: Masculinities Fortified Against Neocolonialism in Zimbabwe’s Second Decade

Scholarship on gender and African nationalism has examined how postcolonial states guarded the fruits of liberation by regulating black women’s sexuality. Less has been said however, about the types of masculinities which were required of the men who would be defenders of the revolution. Moving beyond Zimbabwe’s initial independence moment in 1980, this paper examines how the fortification of masculinity became central to what Kwame Nkrumah called the second stage of the revolution: the defense against neocolonialism. Political independence was not the pinnacle of freedom. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, Africa’s struggle not only continued, it intensified. In the 1970s and 80s, apartheid South Africa engaged in a regional destabilization campaign which targeted the vital transportation infrastructure that Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Botswana used to circumvent South African ports. Funded by apartheid South Africa, rebels in the National Resistance Movement in Mozambique (Renamo) took up arms against the Mozambican state. In turn, Zimbabwe deployed over 15,000 troops to Mozambique to defend Samora Machel’s revolution. Using Zimbabwean state archives, film, and news media, this paper examines the construction of a “fortified masculinity” which would stand as a bulwark against neocolonial incursion. This masculinity was forged in opposition not only to the threat posed by South Africa, but to the feminizing effects of Western consumption and the emergent HIV/AIDS epidemic.