Chimurenga

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Chimurenga is a word in Shona. The Ndebele equivalent is not as widely used since most Zimbabweans speak Shona; it is Umvukela, meaning "revolutionary struggle" or uprising. In specific historical terms, it also refers to the Ndebele and the Shona insurrections against administration of the British South Africa Company during the late 1890s, the First Chimurenga—and the war fought between African nationalist guerrillas and the predominantly-white Rhodesian government during the 1960s and the 1970s, the Rhodesian Bush War, or the Second Chimurenga/Imvukela.

The concept is also occasionally used in reference to the land reform programme undertaken by the Zimbabwe government since 2000, which some call the Third Chimurenga. Proponents of land reform regard it as the final phase in what they hold to be the liberation of Zimbabwe by economic and agrarian reforms that are intended to empower indigenous people, despite the economic collapse that soon followed, which some have labelled the "Third Chimurenga" as being the catalyst.

In a modern context, the word may denote a struggle for human rights, political dignity and social justice.^[1] The expression is also used in context with modern Zimbabwean music, Chimurenga music.