430 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Vol. 42, No. 2, 2022 • doi 10.1215/1089201X-9987918 • © 2022 by Duke University Press Editorial Note W hat is the sound and feel of South-South political theory in action, as a conversation on the ground? We sat down in February 2021—at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the outbreak of civil war in Ethiopia—with Imraan Coovadia (Revolution and Non-violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela), Panashe Chigumadzi (These Bones Will Rise Again), and Bongani Kona (Zimbabwean essayist and short story writer) to test the parameters of this question. We wanted to rethink the category of revolution, along a razor’s edge, with- out falling into the abyss of reactionary politics that oppose revolution outright. These authors’ works, we sensed then, intimate that simply to defend an older anti-colonial generation through a nostalgic form is reactionary in its own right. Is it possible to generate conversation among thinkers across multiple geographies and generations, and, in doing so, to fnd new language addressing the question of violence and nonviolence in revolutionary change? 1 This conversation is frmly located in the context of Southern African political strugle. At the same time, it invites us to draw lessons more generally about the “microsociology” of violence, as well as about “civil” interactions produced by racist systems of colonial power. Bongani Kona begins by asking about the enduring place of ancestral voices in South Africa and Zimbabwe. As the conversation unfolds, a productive tension emerges about the specifc- it of the now and the wisdom of history. The speakers assert sharp generational diferences across time periods and yet call for attention to pasts that travel like spirits in us all. We ask—knowing all too well that this is asking yet once again—what is revolution in the formerly colonized world? When does it begin and when does it end? —Arash Davari and Elleni Centime Zeleke ••• Bongani Kona: Earlier this week Stacy Hardy told me a story about the journalist Jason Stearns: “He is working on his magnum opus, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War for Africa, an ambitious tome that sets out to try to explain the Congo’s history of violence. The book is ten years in the making, based on personal and lived experience and in-depth interviews. The word death runs like a litany, a dirge on every page. One Congolese man laughs in Stone’s face, telling him he will never be able to understand the Congo because his West- ern mind cannot comprehend the liminal space between life and death, and how the dead live on among us.” When I read that, I immediately thought about you, Panashe, and the title of your book, These Bones Will Rise Again. Those were the last words uttered by Mbuya Nehanda before she was hanged by colonial settlers in 1898. How crucial are the voices of ancestors and memory to your project? Could you address the title of your book and the signifcance of its prophetic words? Bound to Violence A Southern African Conversation Panashe Chigumadzi, Imraan Coovadia, Arash Davari, Bongani Kona, and Elleni Centime Zeleke Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-pdf/42/2/430/1633058/430chigumadzi.pdf?guestAccessKey=a392c29d-4eea-49f2-8544-96c6a8d82da9 by guest on 24 January 2023