From the January 2003 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 50,
No. 3) 
How Can Zimbabwe Be Saved?
by Iden Wetherell
Zimbabwe Independent (opposition weekly), Harare, Zimbabwe,
Dec. 6, 2002 

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned
to repeat them, it is said. I was pondering this maxim
recently and wondering why so few commentators have picked
up the obvious fact that Zimbabwe is replete with lessons
from its own struggle for liberation that have application
today. The South African experience also is salutary. 

The Rhodesian and South African regimes had by the mid-1960s
closed off all avenues of peaceful protest against their
narrow exclusivist rule. The Suppression of Communism Act in
South Africa in 1950 and subsequent laws directed against
the African National Congress and Pan-Africanist Congress
made civil protest impossible. 

Defiance campaigns and demonstrations against the pass laws
that had been a feature of civic protest in the 1950s proved
impracticable after 1960, as the machinery of the state was
mobilized to crush protest of any sort. The result was the
formation of underground structures as revealed at the
Rivonia trials. [The 1963-64 trials of 10 anti-apartheid
leaders in South Africa, which sentenced Nelson Mandela to
life in prison.--WPR] 

In Southern Rhodesia, the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act,
passed in 1960 but extensively amended thereafter, which
suffocated dissent, and the refusal of the Rhodesian Front
regime to countenance democratic reforms led to an exodus of
young Zimbabweans who were organized outside the country in
what eventually became the Patriotic Front. 

Today we are witnessing the suppression of civic protest on
much the same scale. Many would argue that conditions are in
many respects worse than those prevailing in the 1960s. The
government has declared war on the democratic opposition; it
has subverted the justice system and made legitimate protest
impossible. Twenty-nine members of the National
Constitutional Assembly were arrested and detained over the
weekend for doing nothing more than exercising their
constitutional right to demonstrate for a new constitution. 

The Public Order and Security Act, little different in form
and content from the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, makes
it an offense to denigrate the president who, as head of
government and the ruling party, is a major player on the
political stage who doesn't hesitate to denigrate his
opponents. 

Another law passed this year, the Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act, seeks to prevent the press from
performing its watchdog role on behalf of society. 

Thousands of Zimbabweans are leaving the country every year
because it is governed by a party that has destroyed their
job prospects and made it an offense to complain. 

But while some comparisons are valid, with important lessons
to convey, the situation today is obviously not identical to
that of 30 years ago. There are now 10 times as many
Zimbabweans living outside the country as there were at the
height of the liberation war in the late 1970s. 

Under Ian Smith, the economy held up well despite sanctions.
Today it is a wreck, and 7 million people face starvation. 

Despite such adversity, there is fortunately no possibility
at present of a civil war along the lines of the
insurrection that took place here after 1972, in which
30,000 lives were lost. The main opposition party, the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is committed to
peaceful and democratic means in its quest for change. 

But the nation is being dangerously divided along a number
of lines. Anybody under 30, apart from a handful bought by
the ruling party, is likely to support the opposition. So
are urban residents who are mostly not amenable to the
facile blandishments--not to mention insults--of the
president and his party. People living in towns with access
to information (the real sort) know how national resources
have been squandered by what one writer to our Letters
column this week describes as a "kakistocracy"--government
by the worst people. The residents of Harare and Bulawayo
know perfectly well that President Mugabe is anything but a
national savior. 

Educated people are overwhelmingly opposition supporters.
Nobody with a modicum of intelligence is going to swallow
the daily diet of puerile propaganda put out by the ruling
party. Go to any campus and ask students what they think
about ZANU-PF and they will frankly tell you. 

This unanimity of views is hardly surprising. The political
process at present consists of nothing more than ZANU-PF
attempting to break out of the rural cul-de-sac to which it
was confined by the electorate in 2000. It is trying to beat
and buy its way out of that political exile by the abuse of
state power, including selective food distribution. At the
same time it is illegally crushing dissent. That is a recipe
for strife. No government can indefinitely sustain its
tyranny by resort to force. 

So what do we do? How does a democratic movement committed
to civic values, including parliamentary and judicial due
process, confront a regime that holds those values in
contempt and is prepared to use force to prevent peaceful
mobilization? The obvious answer is to put tens of thousands
of people on the streets, as the South African mass
democratic movement did in the 1980s. What is needed is a
critical mass that cannot be bludgeoned into submission. 

This is not going to be an easy business. The police clearly
have orders to break up even the smallest gathering despite
the fact that freedom of expression and assembly are
constitutionally guaranteed. The problem is compounded by
the fact that Zimbabwe, unlike South Africa, has no culture
of civic protest. The images of South African clerics and
trade union leaders marching peacefully arm in arm through
Johannesburg and Cape Town in the 1980s are unlikely to be
repeated here. Can you imagine our cowardly prelates from
the Catholic Bishops' Conference or the Zimbabwe Council of
Churches venturing out of their episcopal burrows? 

We need to do more to lay a civic foundation before street
protest can succeed. Civic awareness can take a number of
forms, from advocacy of a democratic constitution to worker
education. Lawyers, academics, students, trade unionists,
and business people all have a role to play. 

Cowards and collaborators with ZANU-PF's tyranny need to be
exposed as such. As the regime's legitimacy inexorably
evaporates--as is currently happening--and its incapacity to
deliver necessities like food or fuel is revealed, civil
society will be better placed to mobilize the masses who
have already, in 2000 and March 2002, demonstrated
resistance to despotism. Those taking to the streets will
understand what they are doing there and will respond
nonviolently to police provocation. Events this week in
Venezuela, where the people are confronting another populist
demagogue, should be instructive. 

This is a learning process. But it has to be undertaken. The
sooner the better. Ask yourself as 2002 draws to a miserable
close: What organization am I a member of that is working
for change? What have I done this year to make a difference? 

The author is editor of the Zimbabwe Independent and World
Press Review's 2002 International Editor of the Year.  

 

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