https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1986-3362
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ABSTRACT
This conceptual article falls within the scope of the politics applied to the Covid-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. The central argument is that the state authority’s redeployment of liberation war ideology in its efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic tends to marginalise what the state authority refers to pejoratively as ‘ordinary Zimbabweans’. Using critical theory as theoretical framework, I argue that the deployment of liberation war ideology as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic concurrently reinforces the dominance of state authority while marginalising ordinary Zimbabweans. Liberation war ideology is premised on the assumption that the state authority has the sole mandate to actively deploy weaponry and personnel to eliminate an enemy on behalf of its citizens. The application of liberation war ideology to the Covid-19 pandemic suggests that the state authority has monopolised and politicised the measures taken against the pandemic.
Disclosure statement
No conflict of interest has been reported by the author.
Notes
1 The author interviewed Zimbabwean medical doctor Dr Hans Schales on Covid-19 on 18 April 2020.
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Notes on contributors
Joseph Pardon Hungwe
Joseph Pardon Hungwe is a post-doctoral research fellow in the College of Education, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. A PhD holder in education from the University of Johannesburg, his interests are internationalisation and continentalism of higher education in Africa; contextualisation of critical thinking, student protests and violence; land reform in Africa; Fourth Industrial Revolution and African higher education, decolonisation and epistemic justice; and ethnic imperialism and social justice. He has vast experience in lecturing in higher education institutions in Zimbabwe and South Africa.