The Munhumutapa empire collapsed 200 years before colonization so who decided which kingdom to resurrect?

Amid the noise, we must keep asking the tough questions.


Today marks the inaugural “Munhumutapa Day,” a national public holiday declared by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to fall on his own September 15 birthday.

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Across state media, a carefully curated narrative is being deployed, casting the president as the modern incarnation of the Munhumutapa—a living bridge to Zimbabwe’s glorious past.​
Or, as prominent Zimbabwean theatre guru, film producer, and social justice activist Daves Guzha corrected me this morning: Mwenemutapa.

The sovereign wealth fund has been rebranded as the Mutapa Investment Fund, and state rhetoric increasingly leans on the imagery of a revived pre-colonial empire to project political legitimacy and uninterrupted sovereignty.

Supporters of this royal transformation—led by self-styled Pan-Africanists like Joshua Maponga—frame the move as an essential act of decolonization.

Their argument sounds compelling on the surface: Western imperialism destroyed our Indigenous state systems and forced alien democratic institutions upon us.

Consequently, they contend that the Western government system should have been completely dismantled at independence in 1980 to restore our ancestral kingdoms, rather than embracing Western democracy.

Yet this ideological defense relies on a glaring historical fabrication: the Mwenemutapa Empire collapsed on the Zimbabwean plateau in the 1690s—a full two centuries before British colonial forces marched into the territory.

This 200-year historical void completely undermines the “decolonization” narrative and demands an uncomfortable question.

Who decided which pre-colonial kingdom gets to be resurrected to define a 21st-century republic, and why were the kingdoms actually defeated by colonial powers erased from the equation?

When British imperialists occupied the land in 1890, they did not overthrow the Mwenemutapa.

That empire had long lost its dominance on the plateau, driven into the Zambezi valley by the Rozvi Empire under Changamire Dombo.

For over a century, the Rozvi established a formidable state that constructed intricate stone polities, unified vast territories, and successfully kept foreign powers at bay.

When the Rozvi state weakened in the 19th century, it was succeeded by the Ndebele Kingdom under Mzilikazi and later Lobengula.

It was King Lobengula’s state centered at Bulawayo that directly confronted, negotiated with, and was ultimately destroyed by Cecil John Rhodes’ British South Africa Company.

If the goal were truly to “restore the indigenous governance structures destroyed by colonization,” logic dictates that the nation would look to the Ndebele Kingdom or the Rozvi state—the actual sovereign entities dismantled by European invasion.

Instead, the self-appointed guardians of Pan-Africanism and their political patrons perform a massive historical leapfrog.

They jump backward past two hundred years of living, documented history to exhume a 17th-century feudal empire.

This selection is neither accidental nor an innocent celebration of heritage; it is a calculated political maneuver.

The Rozvi and Ndebele states represent complex histories of regional power shifts, ethnic integration, and direct anti-colonial resistance.

But the Mwenemutapa title serves a far more calculated purpose.

First, it relies on a deliberate historical fabrication that ignores both geography and chronology.

The Great Zimbabwe state was centered in the southern highveld and peaked between the 13th and 15th centuries.

In contrast, the Mwenemutapa empire emerged later as a distinct polity hundreds of kilometers to the north in the Zambezi Valley.

Second, it weaponizes the myth that the Mwenemutapa were the ones who constructed Great Zimbabwe, framing them as Karanga ancestors centered in Masvingo who ruled over a vast superpower stretching into modern-day Zambia and Mozambique.

By directly linking Mnangagwa—himself a Karanga from Masvingo—to this manufactured legacy, the regime constructs a tribalist origin story to justify exclusive Karanga hegemony today.

By selectively resurrecting the Mwenemutapa and crowning a modern political leader with its sacred royal mantle, advocates like Maponga are not decolonizing Zimbabwe.

They are using distorted history and Karanga tribal supremacism as a shield to attack constitutional democracy.

Dismissing multi-party politics as “Western” while romanticizing absolute rule through a fabricated Karanga royal lineage is a calculated ploy to enforce one-tribe dominance.

It convenient ignores that modern constitutionalism exists precisely to protect citizens from absolute power, whether that power claims its mandate from a colonial Governor-General or an ancient feudal Emperor.

Furthermore, this selective resurrection actively divides the nation.

Bypassing the Ndebele state and the Rozvi era to elevate a single ancient lineage as the sole symbol of state authority signals to millions of citizens that their own ancestral histories are secondary.

It replaces the inclusive promise of a multi-ethnic, democratic republic with a top-down tribal hegemony.

Replacing modern constitutional democracy with 17th-century feudal autocracy is not liberation—it is simply swapping democratic rights for centralized tribal dominance.

As state media sings praises to the new “Munhumutapa,” Zimbabweans must reject this false retreat into feudal monarchy.

History is not a buffet where political elites and court philosophers can pick and choose which century to resurrect to justify present-day rule.

The demise of the Mutapa state over three centuries ago cleared the way for new eras, and ultimately, the shared struggle of all Zimbabweans for a free republic.

Zimbabwe does not need a revived 17th-century empire, nor does it need self-styled Pan-Africanists peddling royal authoritarianism as decolonization.

Thousands of brave sons and daughters of the soil did not sacrifice their lives in a grueling liberation struggle just for Mnangagwa to be crowned king.

It needs a political leadership committed to the hard work of constitutional democracy, equality, and genuine national unity.

Ideals that belong to a modern sovereign nation, not an ancient court. 
● Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com