The Rhodesian Bush War, that lasted from July 1964 to December 1979, is a significant event that provided historical context to Tsitsi Dangarembga when writing Nervous Conditions because the war prompted the end to the colonization of South Rhodesia. This freedom from colonization gave South Rhodesians freedom to express their native values without the pressure to confirm to Western ideology. Though this freedom brought countrywide healing, the remnants of colonization were still felt in the form of education.
This aligns with Nervous Conditions as it is set within the timeframe of the war, on the cusp of freedom. Dangarembga demonstrates this through Nyasha’s “rebellion” when she was “going through a historical phase” (Dangarembga 141). By framing Nyasha’s interest in the world as a rebellion against her native culture, Dangarembga connected Nervous Conditions to the real-life events of the time and showed that Nyasha’s desire for knowledge was her way of gaining a sense of herself in the changing world. In this way, Dangarembga presents education as a valuable tool for her countrymen, by asserting that education about the current situations in their country could help them heal from the ideology that colonization enforced. Rufus Ruth Livingston Jakki and Dr. B. Chandra Shekar describe this healing as “sporadic, fragmented, and primarily symbolic. It is not depicted as a chronological or comprehensive process, but rather as an attempt to restore voice and agency” (3), to demonstrate how Dangarembga presents education as a force that would give the Rhodesians their individual native culture back.
Works Cited
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. London: Women's Press Limited, 1988. Print.
Jakki, Rufus Ruth Livingston and Dr. B. Chandra Shekar. "Survival, Resistance, and Healing in Tsitsi." International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research 7.2 (2025): 1-4. https://www.ijfmr.com/papers/2025/2/41374.pdf.