New Media and Ndebele Hiraeth: Memory, Nostalgia and Ndebele Nationalism on Selected News Websites

This article examines the intersection of collective memory and Ndebele ethno-nationalism manifesting on three Zimbabwean news websites. Focusing on Newzimbabwe.com, Bulawayo24.com and Umthwakazireview.com, this article explores how Ndebele memories are recollected, mediated and transmitted in ways that shape and solidify a sense of what some writers term a hiraeth, or a longing for a homeland. Anchored upon an assumption that the media are not only sites of memory construction, but also play a key role in the formation and consolidation of national identities, this study examines the discourses on Ndebele nationhood that contest and repudiate the hegemonic Zimbabwean nationalism. This article draws upon the constructionist understanding of nations and collective memories as social constructs. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed as a qualitative method of analysing media texts that are drawn from the three news websites. Findings indicate that the discourses on Ndebele nationalism that are conjured up and reproduced in cyberspace are diverse, complex and contested. First, memories of pre-colonial Ndebele historical figures and warrior exploits are retold in ways that show a yearning for an independent Ndebele "nation." Second, the traumatic memories of the Gukurahundi genocide of the 1980s are recounted in ways that promote Ndebele secessionist politics. Lastly, this article exposes the tensions and ambiguities within the imagination of an Ndebele "nation," as there is a struggle between essentialist/primordial understandings of Ndebele nationhood, and discourses that celebrate Ndebeleness as diverse and multifaceted.