114 DOUNIA, revue d'intelligence stratégique et des relations internationales National Identity and the Question of Sovereignty in the SADC Regional Bloc: Rhetoric, Experiences and the way forward Innocent Chirisa* INTRODUCTION his paper posits, rather candidly, that Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) leaders have over the years been putting some efort in trying to achieve the goals and objec- tives set out in the values of the initiation of regional body. From the time when the body was founded in 1980 in Lusaka, Zambia as the Southern Africa Develop- ment Coordination Conference (SAD- CC) to date, the focus has a bit shifted from its original raison d’être (SARDC, 2001). he original idea was simply of coordinating development in the region. On 17 Augut 1992 in Windhoek, Na- mibia, member tates signed the treaty which transformed the organization into SADC. Although evidence shows that it had had fruitful results in its early years of infancy, SADC, through the various leaders of country members, has to a large extent faulted. In the subjet of regional integration as discussed in the forthcoming paragraphs, it may have failed on the basis of incompatible val- ues embedded in the notion of national sovereignty and the politics of patriot- ism intead of regionalism (Kindleberg- er, 1958; Tanaka and Inoguchi, eds. 1996). he article attempts to unravel some of the processes and paradigms in the di- retion of the extent to which SADC countries are trying to achieve the aims of regional integration. It is prudent to try and deine certain key terms for this discourse – national sovereignty, re- gional integration and rhetoric. In this paper both sovereignty and rhetoric are * Department of Rural & Urban Planning, University of Zimbabwe, PO Box MP167, Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zim- babwe. Email: chirisa.innocent@gmail.com