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‘Personalization or fictionalization of national history in Zimbabwe?’ A re-evaluation of the Political careers of Ian Smith and Ndabaningi Sithole

The historiography concerning the making of Zimbabwe as an independent nation has been written from various perspectives and by using different sources, both primary and secondary ones. The study constitutes a re-evaluation of the political careers of Ndabaningi Sithole and Ian Douglas Smith against the background of their autobiographies as forms of primary resources of national history for Zimbabwe. It will be noted that autobiographical writing is a fruit of an arduous process of human construction, de-construction and re-construction done in the shadow of some interlocking interests, fears and pressures that surround the autobiographer. The present study contends that every personal engagement in the writing of history of a particular people or nation is a moralizing crusade or enterprise, whether by default or by design. Evidently, that is how the characteristic elements of objectivity and subjectivity come to the fore vis- a- vis the status of autobiography as a source and resource of national (or patriotic) history.