C
Comment
Why there won’t be a
North African revolution
in Zimbabwe
Professor Brian Raftopoulos
84
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.
Professor Brian Raftopoulos is a leading Zimbabwean scholar
and activist. Formally an Associate Professor of Development
Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, he moved to Cape
Town at the end of March 2006 and is currently the Director
of Research and Advocacy in the Solidarity Peace Trust, an
NGO dealing with human rights issues in Zimbabwe. He has
published widely on Zimbabwean history, labour history,
historiography, politics, and economic issues. At present,
Prof. Raftopoulos is also Mellon Senior Research Mentor at
the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the
Western Cape and he serves on the Advisory Board of the
Journal of Southern African Studies.
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. 1
Why there won’t be a North African revolution in Zimbabwe — 85
“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.”
Furthermore, as one of ZANU-PF’s chief ideologues,
Jonathan Moyo, writes, the fight against the ‘regimechange 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 indigenisation but also who, along with their offspring, are the main
beneficiaries of that struggle. 2
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 Westernsponsored 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.”3
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,
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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:
1. 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;
2. 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;
3. The Inclusive Government should complete
all the steps for the holding of the election
including the finalization of the
constitutional amendment and
the referendum;
4. 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,
5. 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.4
Why there won’t be a North African revolution in Zimbabwe — 87
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 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.
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! 5
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.”6
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.” 7
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
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Endnotes
1. Tafataona Mahoso, ‘Why Zimbabwe is neither Egypt nor Tunisia.’
www.zimpapers.co.zw/index.php?view=article&catid=48%3Ablogs&
id=2165% Accessed on 11/3/2011.
2. Jonathan Moyo, ‘Indigenisation: The Last Chimurenga.’ www.zimpapers.co.zw/index.php?view=article&catid=39%3Aopinion&id=2347
Accessed on 14/3/2011.
3. Jonathan Moyo, ‘Zimbabwe not Tunisia or Egypt.’ The Sunday Mail
27/2/2011.
4. Communique: Summit of the Troika on Politics, Defence and Security
Cooperation, Livingstone, 31st March 2011. For a fuller discussion of the
GPA see Solidarity Peace Trust, The Hard Road to Reform, Johannesburg, 13 April 2011. See also Derek Matyszak and Tony Reeler, ‘Article of
Faith: Assessing Zimbabwe’s ‘GPA’ as a mechanism of change: A Legal
Perspective.’ RAU, Harare, May 2011, for an assessment of the legal
constraints of the GPA.
5. Jonathan Moyo, ‘Unmasking SADC Troika Circus in Zambia.’ www.
zimpapers.co.zw/index.php?view=article&catid=39%3Aopinion&
id=2629% Accessed on 04/04/2011.
6. Herbert Zharare, ‘Zim will never attack SADC.’ Herald, 15/04/2011.
7. ‘President Mugabe’s 31st Independence Day address.’ www.herald.
co.zw/index.php?view=article&catid=39%3Aopinion&id=7997%3 Accessed on 19/04/2011.