Playing the politics of erasure: (post)colonial film images and cultural genocide in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Cultural genocide is much maligned and often simply ignored. Yet it is an epistemic condition powerful enough to cause a physical elimination of a targeted “tribe” or group of people. The aim of this article is to highlight cultural genocide and explore how this type of genocide was used in images in European colonial films to destroy or “erase” some important cultural and traditional activities of black people in Africa. It also critically examines how images in some postcolonial films, directed and produced by white film-makers, are used to perpetuate cultural genocide. Special reference will be made to the film Strike Back Zimbabwe (2010), produced by white film-makers, which insinuates the possible assassination of Zimbabwe’s president. This article will argue that it is critical to study the nature and manifestations of cultural genocide, which is often relegated to the margins, as a way of understanding the genesis of this condition.