Neocolonialism, higher education and student union activism in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is often singled out as the only conspicuous social organization that has consistently enunciated an anti-Mugabe government agenda since the beginning of the new millennium (the popular refrain of the movement is, “Mugabe must go”!). Challenged by neoliberal policies adopted in higher education during the 1990s, students became the most outspoken critics of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) government. The University of Zimbabwe has become a site for demonstrations and violent confrontations between students and state riot police. Based on a case study of the University of Zimbabwe (including ZINASU/member perspectives) conducted in 2010, this paper deploys a neocolonial and internal colonial analysis considering the twin trajectories and imbrications of neoliberal globalization imperatives and ZANU PF authoritarian nationalism for understanding the politics of ZINASU. The main proposition being advanced here is that the emergence of student activism and the current mis/directions of ZINASU can be better understood and informed by a historical and contemporary colonial analysis.