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Why
there won't be a North African revolution in Zimbabwe
Professor Brian Raftopoulos, OSISA
June
30, 2011
http://www.osisa.org/openspace/zimbabwe/why-there-wont-be-north-african-revolution-zimbabwe
Given the economic and political convulsions that have marked Zimbabwean
politics for the last decade, it is not surprising that the momentous
events in North Africa have been internalised and constructed in
contested ways by the major political players in Zimbabwe. With
the Zimbabwean landscape torn by the polemical rupture between the
redistributive language of the Zimbabwean African National Union
Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which has monopolised the legacy of the
liberation struggle, and the two Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) factions and the civic movement, which were formatively shaped
by the politics of human rights and constitutionalism from the 1990s,
the complex events of the Maghreb have resonated differently within
Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's
ZANU-PF has responded with renewed coercion of opposition and civic
leaders and combined this with the launch of its campaign for the
next election, which could take place in either 2011 or 2012. Soon
after the events in Tunisia and Egypt, ZANU-PF organised a form
of pre-emptive demonstration and violence demanding a greater indigenization
of the economy. This action and its accompanying demand need to
be understood within the context of the attempt by Mugabe's
regime to construct the 'sanctions' or 'targeted
measures' imposed by the European Union and the United States
on key ZANU-PF figures as a regime change strategy, which amounted
to broader economic sanctions against the people of Zimbabwe. The
anti-sanctions campaign has thus become the central focus of the
party's strategy not only to win the next election but also
to mobilise popular opinion to give the impression that the real
heirs of the events in North Africa are not opposition forces but
ZANU-PF itself. In this scenario, the popular uprisings in North
Africa have been interpreted as struggles against authoritarian
regimes propped up by Western imperialism and thus share a common
vision with ZANU-PF's anti-imperialist message.
In the words
of one of its key media messengers, Tafataona Mahoso:
"In what
ways can the anti-sanctions launch be compared and contrasted with
what people have been trying in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan,
Yemen and Libya? The answer is imperialism, made up of the imposition
of neoliberal corporatist policies expressed in our region as structural
adjustment programmes; made up of the unilateral NATO-driven security
programme called the 'war on terror' in the Middle East
and masquerading as Africom in the rest of Africa; made up of the
global financial crisis and Western efforts to prescribe responses
to the crisis for other regions of the world; made up of the myth
of 'change' and 'democracy' which tries
to substitute mere words for real work, production and livelihoods;
and made up of strenuous efforts to impose and maintain the Western
media template on the rest of the world."
Furthermore,
as one of ZANU-PF's chief ideologues, Jonathan Moyo, writes,
the fight against the 'regime-change sanctions' strategy
is the latest in a long-line of anti-colonial struggles to 'reclaim'
the right of 'indigenous people' to the resources of
their country. Thus, the battles against the colonial regime were
continued in the land struggles of the post 2000 period and currently
find their embodiment in the fight to impose majority indigenous
control over the entire economy. Key to this final struggle, cast
in a Fukuyama style 'End of History' gambit, is the
intent to mobilise the youth as the key beneficiaries of the process.
In Moyo's words:
"In the
same way that the armed struggle in the Second Chimurenga was necessary
to fulfil the objectives of the first Chimurenga against colonialism,
the transformation of the ownership of the majority equity in our
economy through indigenization is necessary as an expression of
the Last Chimurenga to complement the economic gains of the third
Chimurenga against neo-colonialism...
The...key factor
of the Last Chimurenga is that its demographic content is defined
by young Zimbabweans, most of them in their teens, twenties and
thirties and others in their forties who are not only in the trenches
of the struggle for economic empowerment through indigenisa- tion
but also who, along with their offspring, are the main beneficiaries
of that struggle."
In such articulations,
the battle for democratisation and human rights in North Africa
is either ignored or denigrated as a foreign, Western agenda. Moreover,
there has been selective coverage of the events in North Africa
with limited coverage in the state media of the events in Libya
compared to the much wider reportage of the events in Egypt and
Tunisia. Because of the close relationship between Mugabe's
regime and Gaddafi, the state media has largely parroted Gaddafi's
interpretation of the popular demonstrations in Libya as a Western-
sponsored ploy to effect illegal regime change. Once again in Jonathan
Moyo's words, "evidence abounds showing that the US
and its European allies wish that what is happening in Libya could
happen in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Southern Africa where former
liberation movements are in power."
Armed with such
interpretations of these events, the ZANU-PF state arrested
45 activists in early March 2011 who had gathered to watch a
video on the North African protests. 39 of these activists were
later released but the rest have been charged with treason. Aside
from this incident, there have been two bogus campaigns calling
for mass protests through social networking websites, which have
predictably come to naught. This is because whatever the similarities
in the authoritarian regimes confronting the peoples of North Africa
and Zimbabwe, there are also crucial differences.
The 'Egypt
moment' in Zimbabwe occurred in the late 1990s when a strong
alliance of trade unions and civic forces confronted the Mugabe
regime in a series of strikes, stay-aways, demonstrations, the creation
of a vibrant constitutional movement and the formation of a strong,
national and multi-class opposition party, which effectively challenged
the ruling party at the polls throughout the 2000s and in 2008,
against great odds and a long history of state violence, defeated
the party of liberation in the elections. The decisive difference
between the current events in North Africa and the situation in
Zimbabwe was the role of the military, which in Zimbabwe effectively
blocked the popular vote from being translated into a change of
state power.
At the current
time, it is highly unlikely that any such uprising will occur again.
The least important reason for this is the low levels of internet
penetration in Zimbabwe. More fundamentally, the livelihood structure
of the Zimbabwean economy has been completely deconstructed in the
period of the crisis, with the formal working class effectively
decimated. This has undercut a key constituency of the opposition
movement. Moreover, there has been a movement of some 2 million
Zimbabweans into the Diaspora, which has in some ways displaced
the crisis at national level onto a broader regional and international
plane. In addition, the land occupations of the post 2000 period
have not only caused displacement and economic disruption but they
have also created a constituency for ZANU-PF through the substantive
numbers of Zimbabweans who have received land. Thus the Mugabe regime
has countered the challenge to its sovereignty in elections, by
calling on the legitimacy and sovereignty it claims from the legacy
of the liberation struggle and by taking land from the former settler
community. This conflict of sovereignties, underwritten by persistent
state violence and coercion, has complicated the democratic struggles
in Zimbabwe and made any simple comparison with events in North
Africa, which have their own enormous complexities, untenable.
However, the
impact of the North African events has been felt more indirectly
in Zimbabwe, through their effects on the mediation by the Southern
African Development Community (SADC). Prior to these events the
South African-led SADC facilitators had for the most part followed
former South African President Thabo Mbeki's mode of 'quiet
diplomacy', which amounted to some level of criticism of the
Mugabe regime behind closed doors, while providing that regime with
regional solidarity in officials statements. For the past decade,
Mugabe has been able to wield his anti-imperialist, Pan African
rhetoric effectively in the region, and more recently to gather
the region behind him in his attacks on the Western imposed 'sanctions'
as a regime change strategy. Thus, the shield of SADC and the African
Union (AU) was a central part of Mugabe's diplomatic strategy
to avoid isolation.
In the aftermath
of the events in North Africa and the Ivory Coast, the regional
body took a much more critical approach to ZANU-PF. At the SADC
Troika summit held in Livingstone, Zambia
on the 31st March 2011, the organisation confronted Mugabe's
obstruction of the Global
Political Agreement (GPA) in a much more head-on manner.
Noting with
'grave concern' the political polarization in Zimbabwe
characterised by the 'resurgence of violence, arrests and
intimidation', the summit produced five resolutions:
- There must
be an immediate end to violence, intimidation, hate speech, harassment,
and any other form of action that contradicts the letter and spirit
of the GPA;
- All stakeholders
to the GPA should implement all the provisions of the GPA and
create a conducive environment for peace, security and free political
activity;
- The Inclusive
Government should complete all the steps for the holding of the
election including the finalization of the constitutional amendment
and the referendum;
- SADC should
assist Zimbabwe to formulate guidelines that will assist in holding
an election that will be peaceful, free and fair, in accordance
with the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections;
and,
- The Troika
of the Organ shall appoint a team of officials to join the Facilitation
Team and work with the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee
to ensure monitoring evaluation and implementation of the GPA.
The Troika shall develop the Terms of Reference, time frames and
provide regular progress reports, the first, to be presented during
the next SADC Extraordinary Summit. The Summit will review progress
on the implementation of the GPA and take appropriate action.
The major import
of these resolutions was that they broadly repeated the demands
that had emerged from the two MDCs and the civic movement since
2009, and importantly refrained from any mention of the sanctions
issue. Moreover, they appeared to be addressing the securocrats
in ZANU-PF, who have been the main obstacle to a more democratic
transition, particularly since the 2008
elections, and who also represent one of the key factions in
the succession battle in the party. The SADC position was emphasized
by words of the Chair of the Troika, Zambian President Rupiah Banda,
who warned that a major lesson of the North African events was that
the legitimate expectations of African citizens could not be taken
for granted.
The immediate
response of one of ZANU-PF's key spokespersons and strategists,
Jonathan Moyo, was to launch a furious attack on SADC and the South
African President, Jacob Zuma. In a statement that reflected the
panic of the ZANU-PF faction that was hoping for an early election
since the SADC position clearly presented a major obstacle to that
strategy, Moyo ranted that:
"Zimbabwe
cannot be expected to accept an intrusive SADC team of so-called
officials funded by regime change donors to come and work in our
country to plot the so-called electoral map with a view to ensuring
that the forthcoming general election is decidedly organised in
a manner that ensures regime change with President Zuma's
endorsement simply because he has been used to make the ridiculous
proposal. We will not allow that. Never ever!"
Sensing the
extreme danger in alienating SADC, senior ZANU-PF officials quickly
distanced themselves from Moyo's foolishness. The Minister
of Foreign Affairs stated that the Zimbabwean Government "has
never and will never attack SADC. We are friends and allies. If
there was any attack, it was not from Government but from somewhere."
In his speech
on the 31st anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence, Mugabe
confirmed this conciliatory tone by a renewed commitment to the
GPA, and an expression of gratitude for SADC's "continued
support in our efforts at ensuring the unfolding implementation
of the Global Political Agreement."
Conclusion
While Zimbabwe
is unlikely in the immediate future to experience the kinds of popular
struggles we have witnessed in North Africa, the effects of these
events have nevertheless transformed the context in which the SADC
mediation and the GPA are unfolding. In the present context, particularly
in the light of Mugabe's deteriorating health, it has become
much more difficult for SADC to provide the kind of regional cover
that has granted the Mugabe regime the space it needed to obstruct
a more substantive democratic transition in Zimbabwe. The recent
demonstrations in Swaziland have added to the pressure on SADC to
confront the authoritarian legacies in the region. However, the
real test will be whether SADC has the political will to implement
the Livingstone resolutions in the face of ZANU-PF's continued
attempts to undermine those landmark decisions.
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