White male voice and the struggle for political legitimacy in Zimbabwe in Ian Smith’s autobiography, The Great Betrayal

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse how privilege affects the construction of heroic identities and legitimacy. The intersection and divergence of gender/sex and race are critiqued in relation to identity construction and perceptions of legitimacy and illegitimacy. Identity is an inseparable aspect of autobiographical writing and criticism. The ultimate function of autobiographical writing and reading is self-location, according to Bruner and Weisser (1995). Self-location is identification. It is only through sexualisation that one can know one’s life and self (ibid.). Textualisation is both written and oral. It gives coherence to memory. This research seeks to add that even the reader of the autobiography develops skills of life conceptualisation. Life conceptualisation determines who we become. Therefore, autobiographical writing and reading influence life trajectories–future identities. In addition, identity involves personal investment. People are willing to die to assert or construct identity (Woodward 2002). Self-narration is also a personal investment. Identity is historically situated, located in culture, space and time (ibid.). In this study Woodward’s observations were applied to the construction of heroic and legitimate identities in the selected texts. Woodward (ibid.) also notes that identity is relational. It is about sameness and difference, ‘us’ and ‘them’. This binary dualism affects every sphere of life. I agree with Woodward’s observation but seek to contextualise it in the construction of political, leadership, welfare, spiritual, military, masculine, intellectual and hereditary identities. How this difference and sameness is managed is also examined. To further enrich Woodward’s analysis, the setting of identity boundaries is interrogated. This includes the fluidity, temporality and spatiality, historical and cultural locatedness of these boundaries. The politics of inclusion and exclusion as well as the role of war in narration and identification are examined.