ABSTRACT
Zimbabwe’s fallout with the West largely stems from its controversial fast track land reform policy announced in 2000, with the intention of acquiring land from white commercial farmers for redistribution to poor and middle-income landless black Zimbabweans. Zimbabwe experienced tectonic shifts in its politics as a result of the November 2017 coup which ousted President Robert Mugabe, who had been in power since Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980. The bones that rose to fight a guerrilla war that liberated Zimbabwe are embodied in Gushungo/Karigamombe, the breaker of bulls. The nexus between the totemism, land and pre-and post-colonial Zimbabwean history in this case speaks to a cultural turn that informs how normative values such as sovereignty are understood and acted upon, using different modes of rationality and worldviews in foreign policy. A coup led by the current president of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa dethroned Mugabe in 2017.
