Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences (2010) Vol 2, Special Issue No 1, 59-91 57 Neoliberal Globalization, ZANU PF Authoritarian Nationalism and the Creation of Crises in Higher Education in Zimbabwe Munyaradzi Hwami, PhD Candidate, University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) Abstract: This article examines the current crises in university education in Zimbabwe. Using contemporary accounts of neoliberalism and radical nationalism as practised in Zimbabwe, an analysis of higher education is undertaken. The paper argues that, on one side, existing literature tends to blame the Zimbabwean government, without taking into consideration the existing Western imperial pressures. Another set of literature is uncritically behind the ZANU PF government and apportions all the blame on Western imperialism. It is argued in this paper that a combination of these two vectors should be used to comprehend the magnitude of the crises in higher education in Zimbabwe. This demands an adoption of a critical colonial posture that enables one to see the destructive tendencies of both Western imperialism, in the form of neoliberal globalization, and outdated radical self-aggrandizing nationalist policies, employed by the former liberators, now in government. Radical nationalism and radical capitalism (neoliberalism) are ideologies fighting on many turfs including that of Zimbabwean higher education which remains in a state of crisis while the proponents of the two authoritarian ideologies prosper. The paper suggests that Zimbabweans, especially members of the university community, should consider drawing from local subaltern perspectives and traditional wisdom (as a source of knowledge), to construct alternatives to the dictatorships of neoliberalism and radical nationalism. 1. Introduction The problems facing the formerly colonized countries today generically referred to as the “South”, have come to be associated with Western or developed nations’ agendas and projects. Colonialism, development, and currently neoliberal globalization, it can be argued, have been Western/Northern hegemonic manoeuvres to extract the much required natural