The book of Micah and the land question: an application of Delbert R. Hillers’ relative deprivation theory to the land question in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The project focused on appraising the centrality of the land issue in both the first and Second Chimurenga liberation wars in Zimbabwe. A general ideological claim associates land with both the first and Second Chimurenga liberation narratives. This study employed the use of Delbert R. Hillers’ social scientific model of relative deprivation as a theoretical framework and two concepts, namely, relative deprivation and Latifundialization to find meaning to the social political and-economic phenomena of land in the Book of Micah and the Zimbabwean context. Hillers is of the conviction that the peasants in eighth-century Judah lost land to the rich people, most likely the merchants of the time. This study hypothesised that the poor peasants must have lost their land to the ruling class and the military that supported the rulers, which must have been a major cause of deprivation and discontent. A similar situation occurred in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), when the white ruling minority used military forces to evict t