Back to Index

A disempowered people - Zimbabwe
Sokwanele
January 18, 2006

http://www.sokwanele.com/articles/sokwanele/disempowered_18jan2006.html

Dumisani - not his real name - is a young man in his early 30's. He is but one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Mugabe Tsunami, officially called "Operation Murambatsvina" - another "moment of madness" in which the dictator destroyed the homes and livelihoods of 700,000 of the poorest of the poor, with severe consequences for another 2.4 million Zimbabweans. Dumisani himself lost a wife, a home, and a source of livelihood in that man-made disaster. Less tangibly but of no less significance, he also lost his dignity as a human being and any hope for the future.

A clearly troubled Dumisani stands on the pavement outside a Bulawayo Church, waiting to see his pastor who has been summoned from a meeting. In his arms he carries the only thing he cares for in the world - his baby son, Themba. The baby is a little under three months old, thin-faced, clearly malnourished and restless in his father's embrace.

The Pastor emerges from the Church. Pastor Andrew - again not his real name -greets Dumisani and enquires after the baby's state of health. Despite the courtesy he can see well enough for himself the grim state of both father and child. He has been their pastor ever since Dumisani and his late wife were living at the Killarney informal settlement on the outskirts of the city. Pastor Andrew has a vivid memory of that fateful day in June 2005 when Dumisani and his young wife, pregnant at the time, together with hundreds of others were violently herded together like so many cattle by Mugabe's uniformed thugs, who then torched their makeshift dwellings. On that sad day the poor but once-contented community of Killarney was brutally destroyed, the 1000 or so resident families ruthlessly dispersed.

Dumisani and his wife had been rescued by one of the Bulawayo churches that bravely offered hospitality and a place of refuge to the displaced residents of Killarney and Ngozi Mine. But that blessed tranquillity had lasted only until midnight on July 21 when Mugabe's armed militia invaded the church sanctuaries and violently abducted the startled victims. In the case of Dumisani and his wife they were forcibly removed, first to a temporary holding camp and then on to what became a squatter camp mid-way between Pumula and St Peter's Village. There in the bitter cold of mid winter they were abandoned by the state, without food, water, shelter or any provisions whatsoever. And there, some months later, and in those wretched conditions Dumisani's wife gave birth to their first child, Themba. Miraculously the baby survived though, soon after the birth, Dumisani's wife finally succumbed to the trauma and unremitt ing hardship.

Pastor Andrew knew all this well enough, as he could recall the plight of countless others of his flock. What he did not know however was how the young father had managed to protect and provide for the baby. Dumisani explained. He himself was earning a few dollars a day by selling vegetables on the streets. (Back in Killarney he had earned significantly more, as well as having a modest home to call his own). His new life as a street vendor however meant that he could not care for his infant son any more.

He had therefore come to an arrangement with another destitute Murambatsvina victim, a young woman who agreed to care for Themba during the day in exchange for a share in the pathetic daily meal purchased with his meagre earnings as a street vendor. He had been coping said Dumisani until the young stand-in mother had informed him that she was going back to her ancestral home in Malawi. This news was the rea son for his obvious consternation.

The compassionate pastor listens attentively to the tale of woe - not unlike so many others he hears every day. Then he asks quietly, "What help do you want?"

"Tell me what I should do, Pastor", says an anguished Dumisani. What indeed should a young father do - a widower, homeless and destitute himself - with a little baby, scarcely weaned, to care for?

A long conversation ensues between the pastor and the desperate parent. In the end it is agreed that that Dumisani should take the baby to his grandmother (Dumisani's own mother) to see if she can care for him. They talk about an arrangement for a few months though both know it may continue indefinitely. What resources Gogo (the grandmother) has and how many other grandchildren she has already have taken on responsibility for, the pastor dares not ask. The fact is there is no realistic alternative for Dumisani. He cannot himself provide the care and nurture little Themba requires.

But where does Gogo live and how is Dumisani to reach her? Another problem emerges at once because she lives at Buhera, more than 350 kilometres to the east. The journey will cost well over a million dollars each way and of course Dumisani has nothing to put towards it. Who will pay? Can the church assist? Pastor Andrew is not sure if the much depleted reserves of his church will be sufficient but he refers Dumisani to the secretary's office to find out...

Such is the daily struggle to survive for Dumisani, Themba and countless thousands like them in Zimbabwe. This is what it means to be so poor and vulnerable that you lose control of your own life and are forced to rely completely on others on a daily basis - assuming that is, someone will be there for you. This is what it means to be one of the disempowered people of Zimbabwe who have lost hope of any better future.

And, make no mistake, this is precisely what the dictator intends. A major thrust of the Mugabe regime's socio-political programme of the last five years has been the progressive disempowerment of the people of Zimbabwe. From the chaotic land invasions orchestrated by ZANU PF in 2000 to what U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the "catastrophic injustice" of Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, this has been the regime's one overriding objective. In the most cynical and calculating manner the ruling elite has first identified every section of the community thought to pose an immediate or potential threat to its hold on power, and then systematically set about disempowering that group. This has been ZANU PF's grand strategy.

In the year 2000 it was the turn of the farm workers. Justice for Agriculture (JAG) estimates that prior to the land invasions some 350,000 workers were employed full-time and a further 250,000 as casual workers on a seasonal basis on the commercial farms. They with their families numbered about 2 million people which translated into close on 1 million votes. ZANU PF was probably correct in supposing that the farm workers' employers were largely MDC supporters and that they, the workers and their families, would also tend to vote for the opposition. Hence the brutal and calculated displacement of these people from the farms. At a stroke they became unemployed and homeless and between 1.5 and 2 million people were added to the list of destitute internally displaced persons. As Pius Wakatama wrote in 2002 in a moving piece describing their plight,

they have become part of the 'wretched of the earth', described so graphically by Franz Fanon. The only difference is that their wretchedness is not caused by white xenophobia, but by the heartless cruelty and greed of their own black brothers and sisters.

A section of the community who, on any reckoning, have made a major contribution to the development and prosperity of the country, find themselves displaced, disenfranchised and disempowered.

So it was again in 2005 with the victims of Operation Murambatsvina. Accepting the figures of the U.N. Special Envoy Anna Tibaijuka whose estimate has never been seriously questioned, this upheaval produced another 700,000 internally displaced people, without home or livelihood. Here was a major segment of the population, this time drawn largely from the urban centres in which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)'s influence was greatest, again displaced, disenfranchised and effectively disempowered. Aware no doubt of the seething discontent at the increasing hardships caused by their own misrule - aware also that popular revolutions tend to start in the cities rather than in rural areas - ZANU PF moved decisively to counter the perceived threat Never mind the appalling suffering inflicted on so many of the poorest of the poor - in the final analysis never mind the huge damage inflicted on their own already besmirched reputation in the international community - it had to be. According to the grand strategy it simply had to be in order to remove another potential threat to ZANU PF's hold on power.

One can of course trace the same grand strategy all the way back to the Gukurahundi genocide in the early 1980s. Aware that he could never hope to win the willing support of those who had rallied behind the ZAPU leadership both in the liberation struggle and subsequently, Mugabe took the action he deemed necessary to neutralise the potential threat he saw from this quarter. Never mind that it was to cost an estimated 20,000 lives and that the barbarities perpetrated by his Fifth Brigade were to traumatise a whole generation of those living in Matabeleland and the Midlands, it was a price Mugabe was quite willing to pay in order to disempower those who might otherwise have challenged his own supreme authority one day. And with the so-called Unity Accord of 1987 the emasculation of ZAPU was complete.

The problem for Mugabe and his strategists has always been that as one perceived threat to his rule has been removed so another has sprung up in its place. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" and, with apologies to Shakespeare, we should perhaps rephrase that: "uneasy lies the paranoid head that wears the stolen crown"! ZANU PF has therefore felt obliged to attack, covertly if possible though openly if necessary, one group after another in society. Just in the last few years, in addition to the millions of farm workers and the urban poor, they have taken on teachers, students and women's groups, to say nothing of a wide range of civic groups, the whole trade union movement and the MDC. After 25 years of corrupt, elitist and increasingly authoritarian rule the ruling ZANU PF clique finds itself in a state of undeclared war with virtually the whole of civic society in Zimbabwe.

It is this essential fact that Zimbabweans must not lose sight of as they battle the pervading sense of hopelessness resulting from the systematic disempowerment of the population. Otherwise we shall be doomed to remain helpless spectators before the unfolding tragic drama - the collapse of the rule of law, meltdown of the economy and last dying spasms of the education and heath-care systems. If we ever forget that we who oppose this destructive tyranny are the majority - the vast majority - and that those driving the nation to the edge of the precipice are a tiny, tiny minority, we shall of course give up hope.

Frankly, this is where many Zimbabweans are today - without hope. They watch the tragic drama moving into the final scenes with a sense of fatalistic despair, not thinking for a moment that they have it in their own power to avert the final tragedy and bring about some different outcome. They watch like so many dazed spectators observing a national catastrophe, thinking that only the too-long delayed death of the dictator or some spectacular divine intervention might change the pre-determined ending. Yet in so doing they overlook the elementary fact that they who oppose the trashing of Zimbabwe are the vast majority.

Those who courageously fought against the Smith regime (that is the previous dictatorship) did not forget.

They knew that they were the majority and that knowledge gave them untold strength. They knew that one day they would wear down Smith-the-dictator and his minority forces, and sooner rather than later, they did just that. By the same token we, black and white, Shona and Nedebele, young and old, who oppose the new form of tyranny, know that one day we shall wear down Mugabe-the-dictator and his small clique of reactionary supporters. The future is ours, not his. The days of the dictator are numbered. The future belongs to those who believe in - and yes, are ready to sacrifice for - freedom, democracy and peace. One day Zimbabwe will be a proud nation again, a nation not run for the exclusive benefit of a small ruling elite but in which all the little people - including the likes of Dumisani and Themba - will have a share in the sunshine of security and opportunity.

Mugabe has almost succeeded in creating a disempowered people whom he and his chosen successor might keep in bondage for ever. Almost - but not quite. For we know that WE ARE THE MAJORITY. What is more we have truth and justice on our side. Therefore we know WE SHALL OVERCOME!

Anti-Mugabe protests in Bulawayo
Early on Monday 16 January on the approach roads to Bulawayo from the western suburbs groups of protesters tried to turn the traffic back, away from the city. Protesters were out on the roads from 7.00 a.m. at the time when commuters are normally heading to work. On Luveve Road approaching the high density suburb of Mzilikazi protesters were attempting to block the traffic and stoning vehicles that would not stop or turn back. At the same time they were chanting slogans such as "Mugabe must go". It is understood that the protest may have been related to a letter that was circulating covertly, urging workers to stay away from work when commerce and industry would otherwise have returned to full strength after the Christmas and New Year break.

By 2.00 pm Monday the protesters had left the streets but for the rest of that day and the day following a heavy police presence was noted in both the city centre and the western suburbs. Riot police, armed and in full combat gear, were observed patrolling the streets in large numbers.

Our enquiries have revealed that there were several other incidents of youths throwing stones at passing vehicles in the western suburbs of Bulawayo the previous week. The riot police again intervened to restore order. It is not known if any of the protesters were arrested or charged.

The state media are yet to report any of the protest incidents.

Visit the Sokwanele fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP