Independence, a Sheer Letdown in Harvest of Thorns by Shimmer Chinodya

Published in 1990, Harvest of Thorns serves as a bully pulpit through which Shimmer Chinodya unearths and lambasts at once the colonial pangs and the colonial legacy his people are doomed to carry and grapple with for the longest of time. Chinodya has brought to the surface the dead hand of Christianity aimed at breeding passivity and disguising colonial shenanigans. Its bringing about opposing and opposite mindsets draws a wedge between indigenous. As well, the dashed cruel and rough chickening out of fighters captures both the depth of social havoc and the level of traumatic exposure in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe. Delving deep as well into the Zimbabwean post-independent era, the issue of “failed independence” is given undivided attention. Thus being, this paper has, from a critical perspective, glared at the Chimurenga fighters’ gall and remorse. Forsaken by their new government and fellows that overtly gang up on them at a time-honoured liberating role of Zimbabwe, one-time fighters have been stuck with the stinking stains of history in a neo-colonial state. Bearing the stamp of murderers or rapists after war, that stigma has been an open sesame to their diverse trials and tribulations. Veteran’s plight as well goes beyond the pale due to families blaming them [veterans] for their own predicament.