The Moral Law of Ngozi Crime in Two Zimbabwean Novels: The Case of Emmanuel Ribeiro’s Muchadura (1967) and Solomon Mwapangidza’s Rebel Soldier (2013)

Beauty Vambe

doi:10.25159/2663-6565/16824

Authors

Beauty Vambe University of South Africa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/2663-6565/16824

Keywords:

Muchadura, Rebel soldier, Ngozi, literary imagination, transitional justices

Abstract

The modern Western-inspired Literature and Law movement has inspired African works of art in which the creative imagination perceives itself as a form of moral law. In Africa, a literature and law movement has given rise to dynamic discourses of human rights. Human rights scholars have then tended to read imaginative works with a legal handbook on the side to try to verify the veracity of legal acts in works of art. In these legal-literary perspectives, the question regarding the extent to which the literary imagination imagines itself as a source of indigenous law is undervalued. This current desktop study examines what can be gained by prefacing African and indigenous literature as the point of departure when debating the elements of a contemporary literature and law movement in Africa. My unit of analysis consists of two novels, Muchadura (You shall confess) by Emmanuel Ribeiro, and Rebel Soldier (2013) by Solomon Mwapangidza. My argument is that in the two novels the narrativisation of the ngozi crime challenges current understandings of transitional justices such as retributive, compensatory, restorative, distributive, and emancipatory justices and denies the stability ascribed to them in African legal scholarship.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Aristophanes. 1962. The Complete Plays of Aristophanes. Translated by R. H. Webb, edited by Moses Hadas. New York: Bantam.

Benyera, Everisto. 2014. “Exploring Zimbabwe’s Traditional Transitional Justice Mechanisms.” Journal of Social Sciences 41 (3): 335–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2014.11893368. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2014.11893368

Burkert, Walter. 1985. Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Butler, Judith. 1988. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40 (4): 519–531. https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893

Butler, Judith. 2006. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.

Chabata, Lovejoy. 2021. “Matthew 1:1–17: Cultural Subjugation of Women in Shona Communities in Zimbabwe: A Hermeneutical Study.” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 47 (2): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/8174. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/8174

Chennels, Anthony J. 1999. “Essential Diversity: Post-Colonial Theory and African Literature.” BRNO Studies in English 25: 109–126. https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/sites/default/files/pdf/104498.pdf.

Chitauro, Moreblessing, Caleb Dube, and Liz Gunner. 1994. “Song, Story and Nation: Women as Singers and Actresses in Zimbabwe.” In Politics and Performance: Theatre, Poetry and Song in Southern Africa, edited by Liz Gunner, 112–138. Johannesburg: Witswatersrand University Press.

Chivasa, Norman. 2019. “Kuripa Ngozi as a Conflict Resolution Model in Shona Communities of Zimbabwe: A Conceptual Analysis.” Critical African Studies 11 (2): 159–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2019.1657028. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2019.1657028

Chiwome, Emmanuel M. 1996. A Social History of the Shona Novel. Eiffel Flats: Juta.

Dimock, Wai Chee. 1996. Residues of Justice: Literature, Law and Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520336858. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520336858

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 2014. Crime and Punishment. London: Penguin.

du Toit, Francois. 2014. “Roman-Dutch Law in Modern South African Succession Law.” Ars Aequi 278–285. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/62635332.pdf.

Eze, Chielozona. 2019. “Ethics and the Politics of the Ordinary in African Literature.” In Routledge Handbook of African Literature, edited by Moradewun Adejunmobi and Carli Coetzee, 35–46. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315229546-3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315229546-3

Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin.

Fluck, Winfried. 2003. “Fiction and Justice.” New Literary History 34 (1): 19–42. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2003.0004. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2003.0004

Furniss, Graham, and Liz Gunner. 1995. Introduction to Power, Marginality and African Oral Literature, edited by Graham Furniss and Liz Gunner, xi–xiv. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521164. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521164

Gikandi, Simon. 2012. “Realism, Romance, and the Problem of African Literary History.” Modern Language Quarterly 73 (3): 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-1631415. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-1631415

Gikandi, Simon, and Maurice Vambe. 2016. “The Reinvention of the Novel in in Africa.” In. The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean Since 1950, edited by Simon Gikandi, 3–19. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goyal, Yogita. 2016. “Romance and Realism.” In The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean Since 1950, edited by Simon Gikandi, 301–215. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gunner, Elizabeth. 1994. Politics and Performance: Theatre, Poetry and Song in Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Hines, Catherine. 1999. “Rebaking the Pie: The Woman as Dessert Metaphor.” In Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse, edited by Mary Bucholtz, A. C. Liang and Laurel A. Sutton, 145–162. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195126297.003.0008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195126297.003.0008

Kahari, George P. 1986. The Rise of the Shona Novel. Gweru: Mambo Press.

Konyana, Elias. 2016. “When Culture and the Law Meet: An Ethical Analysis of the Interplay between the Domestic Violence Act and the Traditional Beliefs and Cultural Practices of the Ndau People in Zimbabwe.” DPhil, University of KwaZulu-Natal. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/15159.

Kittay, Eva F. 1988. “Woman as Metaphor.” Hypatia 3 (2): 63–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1988.tb00069.x. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1988.tb00069.x

Lan, D. 1985. Guns & Rains: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House.

Lang, Berel. 1990. Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Magezi, V., and T. Myambo. 2011. “Pastoral Challenges and Responses to Fear of Avenging Spirits (Ngozi) in Africa: A Biblical Evaluation and Response—A Case of the Shona People.” In die Skriflig 45 (1): 161–187. https://doi.org/10.4102/ids.v45i1.10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ids.v45i1.10

Makanda, Arthur Pascal Takawira, and Maurice T. Vambe, eds. 2016. Ndangariro dzeHondo dzeVachakabvu muZimbabwe. Harare: Africa Institute for Culture, Peace, Dialogue and Tolerance Studies.

Mamdani, Mahmood. 2015. “Beyond Nuremberg: The Historical Significance of the Post-Apartheid Transition in South Africa.” Politics and Society 43 (1): 61–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329214554387. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329214554387

Masaka, Dennis, and Munamato Chemhuru. 2011. “Moral Dimensions of Some Shona Taboos (Zviera).” Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 13 (3): 132–148. https://jsd-africa.com/Jsda/V13No3_Summer2011_A/PDF/Moral%20Dimensions%20of%20Some%20Shona%20Taboos.pdf.

Marx, Karl. 2024. Capital: Critique of Political Economy. Translated and edited by Paul Reitter. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691240466. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691240466

Mbazira, Christopher. 2008. “Enforcing Socio-Economic Rights as Individual Rights: The Role of Corrective and Distributive Forms of Justice in Determining ‘Appropriate Relief.’” ESR Review 9 (1): 1–8. https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.10520/AJA1684260X_296.

Mbembe, Achille. 2017. Critique of Black Reason. Translated with an introduction by Laurent Dubois. Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv125jgv8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv125jgv8

Mboti, Nyasha. 2022. Apartheid Studies: A Manifesto. Trenton: Africa World Press.

Musanga, Terrence. 2017. “‘Ngozi’ (Avenging Spirit), Zimbabwean Transnational Migration, and Restorative Justice in Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009).” Journal of Black Studies 48 (8): 775–790. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934717720563. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934717720563

Mwapangidza, Solomon. 2013. Rebel Soldier. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.

Norridge, Zoe. 2013. Perceiving Pain in African Literature. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137292056. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137292056

Onwuegbuchi, Nneoma. 2019. “A New Woman: Nihilism and Unsilence in Ibrahim’s Season of Crimson and Blossoms and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” In Perspectives on Language, Literature and Human Rights; Essays in Honour of Professor Florence Onyebuchi Orabueze, edited by T. M. E. Chukwumezie, L. C. Ogenyi, F. C. Ononye and O. A. Ejesu, 122–128. Ibadan: University of Nigeria Press.

Pfukwa, Charles. 2001. “Unwritten Ethics and Moral Values: The Human Face of Chimurenga II.” In Orality and Cultural Identities in Zimbabwe, edited by Maurice Vambe, 25–36. Gweru: Mambo Press.

Porsdam, Helle. 1999. Legally Speaking: Contemporary American Culture and Law. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Ribeiro, Emmanuel F. 1967. Muchadura. Gweru: Mambo Press in Association with the Literature Bureau.

Sartre, Jeal-Paul. 2004. The Imaginary. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203644102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203644102

Schmidt, Elizabeth. 1992. Peasants, Traders, Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870–1939. Harare: Baobab Books.

Seekings, Jeremy. 2005. “The Colour of Desert: Race, Class and Distributive Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” CSSR Working Paper No. 126. Cape Town: University of Cape Town.

Shklar, Judith N. 1990. The Faces of Injustices. New Haven: Yale University.

Slaughter, Joseph R. 2016. “The Novel and Human Rights.” In The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean Since 1950, edited by Simon Gikandi, 198–216. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Smith, Elroy Eugene, Noxolo Eileen Mazibuko, and Viwe Mrwebi. 2019. “Assessing Perceptions Regarding Distributive Justice in the South African Financial Services Industry.” African Journal of Business Ethics 13 (1): 37–61. https://doi.org/10.15249/13-1-206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15249/13-1-206

Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. https://doi.org/10.3917/dio.201.0127. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/dio.201.0127

Tirivangana, Augustine Maruva. 2011. “Towards a Theory of African-Centred Metaphysics: A Critical Exploration of the Ngozi Theme in Selected Zimbabwean Fiction.” PhD diss., University of Zimbabwe.

Tirivangana, Augustine Maruva. 2013. Ngozi in the Zimbabwe Novel. Harare: Africa Institute for Culture, Peace, Dialogue and Tolerance Studies.

Vambe, Beauty. 2009. “Crime and Deterrence in an Indigenous Law of Zimbabwe: The Case of Ngozi Myth.” The Icfai University Journal of Commonwealth Literature 1 (2): 68–77.

Vambe, Maurice T. 2004. African Oral Story-Telling Tradition and the Zimbabwean Novel in English. Pretoria: Unisa Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305707042000215347. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0305707042000215347

Wielenga, Cori, Mike Batley, and Ruth Murambadoro. 2020. “Beyond Restorative Justice: Understanding Justice from an African Perspective.” Ubuntu: Journal of Conflict and Social Transformation 9 (1): 43–69. https://doi.org/10.31920/2050-4950/2020/9n1a3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31920/2050-4950/2020/9n1a3

Yankah, Kwesi. 1995. “Power and the Circuit of Formal Talk.” In Power, Marginality and African Oral Literature, edited by Graham Furniss and Liz Gunner, 211–214.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521164.017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521164.017

Zhuwarara, Rino. 2001. Introduction to Zimbabwean Literature in English. Harare: The College Press.