The Origins, Context, and Political Significance of the Mushala Rebellion Against the Zambian One-Party State

Despite his notoriety during his life and continuing place in the memory of the peoples of the North-Western Province, Mushala has hitherto existed on the margins of postcolonial southern African history, mentioned in passing and in relation only to subjects more pressing to-and better understood by...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The International journal of African historical studies 2007-01, Vol.40 (3), p.471-496
Main Authors: Larmer, Miles, Macola, Giacomo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Africa
African history
African studies
Area studies
Democracy
Ethnology
Foreign policy
Historical source materials
History
International human rights
Military recruitment
Mines
Mushala, Adamson
Nationalism
One-party system
Police
Political alliances
Political campaigns
Political factors
Political history
Political parties
Postcolonialism
Rebellion
Rebellions
Single party states
Social organization, political organization and power, relations with the State
Social structure and social relations
Sources and methods
State-society relations
Villages
Violence
War
Zambia
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Summary:Despite his notoriety during his life and continuing place in the memory of the peoples of the North-Western Province, Mushala has hitherto existed on the margins of postcolonial southern African history, mentioned in passing and in relation only to subjects more pressing to-and better understood by-the authors concerned.1 Building on Patrick Wele's little-known study,2 and making use of a large body of untapped archival and oral sources in both Zambia and South Africa, this essay circumvents the standard, superficial depiction of Mushala as a South African-sponsored "terrorist" and "bandit," and contends that his insurgency must be viewed as the precipitate of the complex interaction between local, national, and regional forces and structures. [...] Berts' demotion and his replacement by a Nyanja-speaking outsider from the Eastern Province were perceived as signs that the province's resources were now too important to be left to its people to benefit from.117 Strong and potentially exclusionary forms of local identity; a cynicism bred from decades of broken developmental promises and imperfect integration into the postcolonial state; a fundamental weakness vis-à-vis the vagaries of the international political and economic conjuncture-the complex combination of local, national and regional forces by which Mushala was made (and unmade) continues to shape the destiny of his province.
ISSN:0361-7882
2326-3016