Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Research Articles

Politics at Play: TikTok and Digital Persuasion in Zimbabwe's 2023 General Elections

Zimbabwe's August 2023 elections were held against the backdrop of outcry over the outcomes of previous elections, which opposition political parties accusedthe ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party of rigging. Access to the public media is among the issues of contestation. Opposition political parties claim that they are not given equal space for campaigning purposes. Social networking sites such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook have recently provided spaces for political communication, where all parties have unfettered access to the electorate. Recently, TikTok has emerged as a popular social networking site, rivaling established applications in terms of its uptake, particularly among youths. Research on the social media application suggests that it is largely used for trivial purposes and does not contribute to critical dialogue. However, lately there is evidence that TikTok is being used for “serious” purposes, including activism. The study sought to find out how political actors in Zimbabwe used the TikTok platform for political communication in the run-up to the 2023 elections. The paper also examines the nature of digital persuasion on TikTok and how this enriches or trivialises political discourse. Findings show that TikTok was used to urge Zimbabwean youths to register to vote as well as to provide visual evidence of the good and the bad associated with particular political parties, as they competed for voters. It was used as a politainment tool, combining political messaging with the entertainment affordances of TikTok.

The military in Zimbabwean politics

The military remains active in Zimbabwean politics, yet military practices within and outside the barracks have received scant attention, especially regarding how the military sustains political parties in power. This article argues that the military is the power behind the survival of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as a political party. Understanding the Zimbabwe military requires a detailed understanding of its relationship with ZANU-PF, but also of the ways in which the military’s economic interests inform its deep involvement in politics. The Zimbabwe military produces a political threat and then seeks to protect against the same threat it created within and beyond ZANU-PF. However, the relationship between ZANU-PF and the military is deeply rooted in history and determines the political path of the party. There has never been a period in which the military has been the apolitical and professional organisation which orthodox theories of its role would suggest.

A fart in the corridors of power: A socio-theological analysis of Evan Mawarire and Raymond Mpandasekwa’s activism

#ThisFlag movement was started by Pastor Evan Mawarire in April 2016 bemoaning the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy at the hands of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government under President Robert Mugabe. Although it started off as accidental, it, however, galvanised disparate groups and enabled them to transform anger against the state from online media to the streets. #ThisFlag movement officially started on the 20th of April 2016, when Pastor Mawarire wearing the Zimbabwean flag posted a video to his Facebook page decrying the state of the economy and what he felt was government’s neglect of its duties to serve the citizens of Zimbabwe. Although one government minister described Mawarire’s actions as a ‘pastor’s fart in the corridors of power’, the reaction by the state security agents points to the contrary. Street protests have been banned. This article interrogates the transformation of #ThisFlag movement from an online struggle to street protests that have turned violent. It also looks at other movements that are complementing #ThisFlag and how the state is responding to these protests both on the social media and on the ground. Evan Mawarire may be considered as an unusual voice from the ever mushrooming new church establishments. As such, it becomes a point of interest to find out what voice there is, which represents what is commonly viewed as mainline churches. Such a voice is identified as coming from Bishop Raymond Mpandasekwa of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chinhoyi who in one of his sermons delivered an acerbic attack on Mnangagwa’s government as a ‘blood thirsty’ government. The study explored the messages of Mawarire and Mpandasekwa using the socio-theological lenses as guided by Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience.Contribution: This study locates #ThisFlag activism in the context of toxic transformative politics in Zimbabwe. In addition, it contributes to our understanding of the relationship between religion and politics in an unstable political and economic setting. It calls for a re-thinking of the role of the church in Zimbabwean society and discusses the state’s response to those deemed to be not towing the line. It shows that while some religious organisations and groups are too keen to be co-opted by the regime, some have effectively resisted this and have become combative as they fight for people’s rights. Another important contribution is located in how these pastor-cum-activists have harnessed social media to amplify their voices and to reach huge audiences beyond the pulpit. The study is important because it contextualises the role of religion in the country’s contemporary politics, and this fits into the scope of the journal in that it is a multidisciplinary study of both religion and politics.

The politics and public administration nexus in the practice of football administration in Zimbabwe

The topical focus of the paper is to examine how national sports administration reflects the interconnectedness of politics and public administration in Zimbabwe. To achieve this aim, the paper examines the patron-client relationship between the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) and the ruling political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). The paper demonstrates how the interference of ZANU-PF in the management of the ZIFA has soiled the governance and formal administration of the national football administration body. The study reveals that due to constant political manipulation, ZIFA has been marred by allegations of corruption and maladministration, sexual harassment and the marginalization of women and the subsequent suspension by the global football governing body, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) in February 2022. The paper argues that these challenges are not unique to football administration but are reflective of the broader public administration culture in Zimbabwe, which is entangled with partisan politics. This entanglement has over the years expressed itself through transactional relationships, whereby the ruling ZANU-PF seeks to control football administration for its political and hegemonic purposes. Some individuals have used their political links with ZANU-PF as political capital to both legitimize and entrench their football administration careers. This implies that ZIFA has morphed into a subsidiary of the ruling political establishment, in the process compromising its independence as a football governing and regulatory body. Football administration is therefore a useful lens that can help us understand and theorize on the impact of politics in public administration. Methodologically, the paper utilizes a qualitative research design which included in-depth interviews and document analysis with the intent to capture and express in detail the nexus of politics and football administration in Zimbabwe.

Geographies of terror, harvest of fear: chiefs, local administration and politics in Zimbabwe in the 2000s

ABSTRACTThe emergence of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in 1999 radically reconfigured Zimbabwe's political landscape. MDC greatly challenged the electoral dominance the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front had enjoyed since independence in 1980. As literature on Zimbabwe's ‘crisis' has emphasised, throughout the 2000s ZANU-PF was predominantly preoccupied with repelling this challenge. Central to these efforts were violence and a patronage system involving all state institutions. However, the position of chieftaincy in the new politics has suffered scholarly neglect. This article examines how the government enlisted chiefs and lower-level traditional leaders, through intimidation and patronage networks, in its attempts to make rural areas an exclusively ZANU-PF vote bank. It utilises interviews, newspapers and Hansard, among other publicly available material, to argue that MDC’s hegemonic threat forced ZANU-PF to turn to the customary capital of the hitherto neglected chiefs, and that the consequent relationship became an impediment to democracy in Zimbabwe.

New Contours of Church and State Relations: The Faithfully Obedient Indigenous Churches in 21st Century Zimbabwe

This article explores the role of indigenous churches in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe. For many years, the government of Zimbabwe has been trying desperately to assert its authority over the church. Upon realising that it could not win the battle to control churches of Western origins, the government turned to the white garment worshippers, popularly known as Mapostori. It is no surprise that the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), looks to ecclesiastical institutions – particularly the indigenous Churches that used to sing the praises of Mugabe, and now of Mnangagwa – to boost its support base. The church can either legitimate the current state of affairs, or call for change of the status quo. Reconstruction and transformation are fundamental pillars of the beliefs of world-affirming Christians. Human transformation is part and parcel of the work of Jesus Christ. Through the interpretive phenomenological analysis the foundational nature and thrust of the church’s evolution of religious social thought, and its understanding of reality is explored. Christians in Zimbabwe have been increasingly working to promote the creation of democratic structures and the rule of law. Democracy and freedom are the foundations of humane existence. Without democracy and freedom, Zimbabwe cannot develop, and Zimbabweans can enjoy neither happiness nor tranquillity. The points of compatibility and incompatibility between the church and the state also depend largely on the theology of particular churches. Indigenous churches are diverse, among which are the Johane Marange Apostolic Church, Vadzidzi, Madzibaba, Johane Masowe eChishanu, Masowe enguwoTsvuku, Guta raJehova and Zion Christian Church. In local parlance, they are either termed Masowe or Mapostori, and the two terms can also be used interchangeably. This article explores the use of ecclesiastical bodies by secular authorities in 21st century Zimbabwe.

Purging the Lingering Shadow of Colonialism? Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga and the Struggle Over School Names

Drawing on a range of source material that is in public domain, chiefly newspapers and Parliamentary Debates, this article examines the efforts at renaming government schools in early 2000s in Zimbabwe, the debates surrounding the renaming and the results thereof. The renaming of schools by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government aimed at replacing names that appeared to celebrate colonialism with those that expressed Zimbabwe’s historical anti-colonial struggles. The article attempts to establish the source of this nationalist zeal—the need to purge the lingering shadow of colonialism, particularly continued British influence on Zimbabwe’s political landscape—and analyze the extent to which it was deployed. The article notes that these efforts at decolonizing school names must be understood within the broader Third Chimurenga revolutionary fervor. In doing so, the article highlights that while substantial efforts were invested in this exercise, the lingering shadow of colonialism remained, as many schools retained their colonial names. By focusing on renaming of schools, this article does not only address a neglected subject, but pulls together in one narrative the connections between the renaming of schools, anti-colonial struggles, decolonization and the post-2000 resurgent nationalism hinged on what is popularly known as the Third Chimurenga.

‘Repetition without change?’: A critical discourse analysis of selected ZANU-PF advertisements for the July 2013 and July 2018 elections

Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and anchored on CDA theory, we argue that as the ruling party’s governance record increasingly came under scrutiny in two election cycles researched, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), largely maintained its old strategies of power legitimation. However, it altered the message in order to reflect the changing intensity of political contestation, an increasingly bellicose political opposition and growing dissent within its own ranks, as well as the shifting economic fortunes of the country. Forced to campaign under these circumstances, ZANU-PF trusted, with notable variations, its old discourse strategies to produce election advertisements that legitimised its hold on power, hegemony and spread its ideology. The findings show that whereas in July, 2018, the message changed to reflect the leadership change, ZANU-PF’s legitimation strategies remained unchanged. Similarly, we note that whereas the ‘them’ that had to be de-legitimised in 2013 was unequivocally Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change Tsvangirai (MDC-T), in 2018 ‘them’ not only referred to Nelson Chamisa and MDC Alliance, but it also referred to Mugabe and curiously not ZANU-PF under Mugabe. Including ZANU-PF under Mugabe, we argue, would have also inadvertently de-legitimised both Mnangagwa and ZANU-PF.

Why sanctions have not worked: Zimbabwe’s experience from 2001-2021

ABSTRACT Zimbabwe has since 2001 been under targeted sanctions imposed by the USA, European Union, Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Canada among others. This article explores factors surrounding the failure of these sanctions to achieve their intended goals between 2001 and 2021. Arguments were drawn from investigating circumstances under which sanctions were imposed, their nature, sanctions busting methods deployed, and implications for the targets. The regime of former president Robert Mugabe and that of his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa controversially remained unmoved despite these restrictions. The ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), deliberately failed to meet benchmarks for the removal of sanctions. To understand the relationship between sanctions and targeted regime endurance, use was made of the game theory. The study found that ruling party political elites have circumvented the effects of sanctions at a heavy cost to the populace. This research is important because it demonstrates that sanctions do not harm their targets but instead pauperise, the majority which they meant to protect and prolong the political life of the sanctioned regime. The act of sanctioning therefore needs to be reconsidered.

Review: Performing Power in Zimbabwe: Politics, Law, and the Courts since 2000, by Susanne Verheul

In non-democratic regimes, law is considered merely a facade for state violence and political repression. Susanne Verheul's Performing Power in Zimbabwe challenges this assumption by exploring the constitutive and performative roles of law as a dialogue that creates, defines, and (re)negotiates the relationship between the state and citizens. Using in-depth interviews and court observations of political trials in Zimbabwe's Magistrates' Courts between 2000 and 2012, Verheul shows how law serves as a language through which conceptions of citizenship, state authority, and legitimacy are contested and where courtrooms become performative sites where political power is simultaneously reproduced and transformed. Verheul illustrates how court performances use narrative, material, and sensory dimensions to effectively disrupt state political power while simultaneously exercising and communicating the state's coercive power. Law thus serves as a “language of stateness” and a “language of legitimation,” yet also a language of meaning-making, where actors construct and contest competing truths, identities, practices, and institutions and where courts become a theater for these expressions of competing political authority.Building on the works of Sally Engle Merry, E. P. Thompson, and Susan F. Hirsch, Performing Power in Zimbabwe asks: why is the judiciary the central site of contestation, how is this contestation performed, and how does this contestation inform our understanding of the making of political power? To address these themes, Verheul offers engaging historical, social, and political accounts to situate her court observations and interviews. She locates Zimbabwe's colonial history as the key to courts being sites for contestation, explaining how colonial history produced racial segregation and exploitation where law was used by settlers to enforce and maintain the oppression of Africans. Yet, African women and nationalists consciously used the courtroom to challenge the colonial state, contest the coercive use of law, and renegotiate their position within colonial hierarchies. Thus, objections to the colonial state were performed in the court, where colonial officials were compelled to respond to these critiques. This effective utilization of courts as venues to contest and renegotiate state authority continued after independence in 1980—as did the “legal consciousness” of African nationalists, defined by substantive justice, professional and moral conduct, a rule-bound state, safeguarded rights, and citizenship based on human dignity, civility, and humanity.Both the use of courts and this “legal consciousness” remained critical as the nation struggled with political violence enacted by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) after independence. ZANU-PF maintained repressive colonial laws and sought to consolidate power through violence and intimidation, as well as by appointing partisan judicial officers to protect their political hegemony. However, ZANU-PF's patronage system, repressive laws, and corruption fragmented the judiciary by dividing lawyers, prosecutors, and judges into two groups: party loyalists following political orders to selectively enforce laws and ignore proper legal procedure, versus “rebels” who adhere to behavioral and ethical professionalism to ensure a fair trial and refuse to “embarrass” themselves by failing to uphold proper legal procedure. This failure to fully control the judiciary created key spaces for the continued use of law and courts as effective tools for contestation. It is within this context that the performances of contestation occur, where each actor uses narrative scripts as well as olfactory, auditory, visual, and symbolic props.For instance, ZANU-PF prosecution relies on a narrative that law serves to protect national sovereignty and security, which are undermined by rights activism where ZANU-PF links rights activism and discourse with the promotion of Western-backed regime change, imperialism, and colonialism. This narrative allows state prosecution to use the authority of law to legitimate repressive policies, portraying the accused as criminals who threaten national security, peace, and stability. This narrative is supplemented through sensory and symbolic props. The accused are placed under heavy guard, in leg irons and handcuffs, to demonstrate the threatening nature of the individual. The beatings and humiliation endured in detention typically include the inability to bathe, creating smells of “decay” to dehumanize the accused. The spatial layout of the courtroom separates and isolates the accused to prevent interaction with others (i.e., contamination) and to intimidate and disorient the accused through their inability to view proceedings, hearing only “booming” voices. The presence of political security officers within and around the courthouse heightens intimidation by being perpetually watched. Hence, these strategic props convey criminality and intimidate political opponents, yet they also effectively express the coercive power of ZANU-PF to inflict physical, mental, social, and economic harm on anyone. ZANU-PF thus use these cases to delimit citizenship to only those who obey state authorities and criminalizing those perceived as disloyal.The accused and defense team offer a counternarrative expressing “good” citizenship through identifying an imagined, legitimate state to which they belong. They consistently remind the prosecution about proper legal procedure, thereby highlighting how the prosecution failed to appropriately use law as a language of stateness because such reliance on the authority of law to legitimate state actions requires playing by the rules (i.e., appropriate legal procedures). Alternative claims of citizenship are expressed as moral citizenship obliged to behave in civilized, humane, and dignified manner that grant authority to a rule-bound state that is obligated to protect these values. In other words, these definitions of citizenship presuppose a legitimate, aspirational state to which ZANU-PF is compared and held accountable. Reinforcing this counternarrative, the defense uses sensory props to expose the shortcomings of the state and prosecution. For example, the material conditions of the court, due to lack of upkeep and poor economic conditions, are implemented as symbols of decay and ZANU-PF's disrespect for the rule of law. Broken clocks reflect the real and symbolic inability to hold judges accountable to starting or ending trials on time. Broken tape recorders further symbolize a broken system, as well as having real effects on judges' ability to do their jobs as they are distracted from listening and evaluating arguments by being forced to handwrite a record of the proceedings. The smells of prison entering the courtroom from the unwashed, battered bodies of the accused provide olfactory and visual props highlighting the cruelty of detention. Drawing attention to these material and sensory conditions “exposed the lengths magistrates and other judicial officials had to go in order to ‘turn a blind eye’ to state excesses of violence” (144). Thus, these props are used to interrupt the prosecution's narrative and shift the focus onto the political motivations of these cases and the real violence inflicted by ZANU-PF.Verheul's eloquent storytelling and in-depth analyses of these performances overshadow her engagement with how this contestation informs our understanding of the making of political power. She asserts that political power is dynamically negotiated, where citizens identify the (aspirational) state to which they grant legitimacy and thus authority, and where citizens seek to hold the state accountable to this ideal. Implied, then, is citizens' hope to persuade the state (i.e., judicial officials) to conform to this ideal. Yet, the discussion of the efficacy these performances and realization of this goal remains largely absent. As Verheul notes, “courts legitimize particular truths” through their decision making and record keeping and essentially “writ[e] the state” through this production of legal narratives (236). The superficial treatment of how judges respond to the performances thus leave important questions unanswered. Are these performances persuasive, or do their success merely hinge on the predisposition of a judge's political allegiance? Do these performances reinforce existing judicial independence or judicial fragmentation? Do they provide validation and support for professional judicial officials in the face of political intimidation and coercion? Do they protect or enhance the rule of law by exposing state shortcomings and embarrassing judicial officials to live up to stated ideals? Do they deter state violence? Do judges write accurate, complete, and legible court records to actually “break the silence” about state violations?Verheul argues that it is the success of engaging with the law as a shared set of ideals about justice that motivates litigation rather than the achievement of just outcomes. However, the incredibly high costs of litigation-including social isolation, humiliation, criminalization, physical abuse, imprisonment, intimidation, and psychological violence—are only worth taking on because of the hope of justice. That is, these costs of litigation can be sustained only if there is hope that, in at least some cases, justice will be served, thereby exonerating the accused and validating their expressions of citizenship and conceptions of state authority. Thus, effects upon the judiciary are imperative to explore so as to enable our understanding of the making of political power, how/whether these individual actions affect institutions, and whether these performances should be viewed as impactful acts of resistance that can restrain an authoritarian state (or as fanciful hopes of idealist individuals increasingly subdued by an authoritarian system). Without addressing these issues, it is difficult to place these individual performances of contestation in context of achieving their actual goal: building a proper, rule-bound state to which they seek to perform their citizenship.

Ruling Party Patronage, Brokerage, and Contestations at Urban Markets in Harare

ABSTRACT This study contributes to debates on varieties of clientelism through an analysis of brokerage and ruling party patronage at urban markets in Harare, Zimbabwe. Urban markets are sites of contestation between the opposition-dominated city council and actors aligned with the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Based on qualitative case study research at two designated markets, the article demonstrates how ruling party brokers are central to organizing patronage and political mobilization, thus sustaining authoritarian politics. While ruling party patronage is a deliberate strategy to control urban spaces, the article demonstrates how it is being negotiated. Factionalism within ZANU-PF shifted the power of brokers, and the lockdown enforced in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in 2020 caused a rupture, offering the city council and opposition-aligned youth the opportunity to (re)claim control over vending spaces. This article contributes to debates on clientelism in authoritarian regime settings, by showing the imbrication of coercion and patronage in the role of the broker and demonstrating how patronage is organized vertically through brokerage. This study extends the study of clientelism beyond electoral politics, since brokers are not always politicians, but nonetheless are part of the systems of ruling party patronage.

Violence, Victimhood and Retaliation: The 2008 Elections and the Cyclic Nature of Political Violence in Norton, Zimbabwe

This article is an empirical examination of ‘victimhood’ in the context of the widespread, deadly and destructive electoral violence that affected Zimbabwe in 2008. It contends that an examination of the behaviour of victims of state-sponsored political violence enhances our comprehension of ‘victimhood’ as a factor in the perpetuation of political violence. The victims were largely ignored by the justice system, the political leadership and the community, all of whom were under the coercive spell of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). The trivialisation of their situation, and the absence of legitimate avenues for redress, forced many victims to seek direct revenge. The article traces how this fomented and reproduced the already violent political atmosphere in Norton town during the 2008 election period. It relies on interviews with opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) victims of violence in Norton to consider how they attempted to make sense of their pain by claiming victimhood and exacting physical revenge against their tormentors.

Dynamics of Political Entrepreneurship among the Elites in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe

The political arena is now abounding with people who either live ‘off’ or ‘for’ politics. The ferocious competition for people’s votes is akin to economic competition and as this study submits, the politicians are just like business people. Both productive and predatory profit opportunities have pervaded the Zimbabwean political arena where politics is a type of business. Political positions have afforded some people access to economic resources, making politics the quickest way to untold and unending riches. As a result, the political landscape has invited abuse of power thereby decimating not the physical being but the entire moral fibre of the nation. This study shows how Zimbabwean political leaders have turned out to be the primary controllers and distributors of power and resources with the capacity to penetrate society politically and secure their hegemony. Reference is made to politicians belonging to the ruling party Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), where politicians from either party have exhibited, though not uniformly, patterns of misconduct characteristic of political entrepreneurship. This paper applies the theory of the entrepreneur to political behaviour for the purpose of identifying political entrepreneurs and analytically distinguishing them from other government agents.

Politicising ‘Covid-19’: an analysis of selected ZANU-PF officials’ 2020-2021 media statements on the pandemic in Zimbabwe

This paper examines the politicisation of Covid-19 in Zimbabwe through discourse analysis of selected media statements released by Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) officials on the Covid-19 pandemic between March 2020 and February 2021. Theoretically, the paper employs Foucault’s theory of biopower to interpret the state- citizen power relations that surfaced in the Zimbabwean government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It argues that the ZANU-PF-led government used Covid-19 as an excuse to pursue its political interests. This is politics that protected ZANU-PF’s social, political and economic interests by using Covid-19 as an excuse to pulverise various forms of opposition. The argument advanced herein is that while the implementation of the lockdown in Zimbabwe was necessary to save lives, one of its consequences was the protection of self-interests through selective application of lockdown regulations and the passing of laws to silence critics. This resulted in the prohibition of political gatherings, arbitrary arrests, labelling and name-calling of the opposition and the West by ZANU-PF officials who were safeguarding their party’s waning support resulting from their mismanagement of the pandemic.

Narratives of women in politics in Zimbabwe’s recent past: the case of Joice Mujuru and Grace Mugabe

ABSTRACT This study analyses media narratives of Joice Mujuru’s fall from Zimbabwe’s political hierarchy and Grace Mugabe’s speeches during the “Meet the People” rallies that were held in Zimbabwe’s ten political provinces between 2015 and 2017. Media texts about Joice Mujuru’s political demise are analysed as reproductions of gender stereotypes used to justify women’s marginalisation in politics, while Grace Mugabe’s speeches are read as political performances of her power(lessness) as the wife of the then president (the late Robert Mugabe) and leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)’s Women’s League. Drawing on ideas of female political representation, this paper discusses representations of the political experiences of Joice Mujuru and Grace Mugabe between 2014 and 2018 to highlight the gendered aspects of politics, and explores whether women’s presence in political leadership in Zimbabwe translates into substantive representation of women.

The Orchestration of Postcolonial Zimbabwe: The Soundtrack of the Three Zvimurenga and the Present

In many African countries, music became an essential vehicle of communication and social expression in order to build new postcolonial states. Further, throughout their independence, many African states reconsidered the direction of national culture towards a decolonisation process. As part of the broad subject of decolonial studies, this article offers a critical approach to the relationship between music and the state during a crucial period of decolonisation in Zimbabwe, with specific reference to the nation-wide land occupations which spread across the country from 2000. In particular, the article examines the representation of musical culture during the fast track land reform programme in Zimbabwe, referred to as the Third Chimurenga. It was the most recent in a series of zvimurenga (or wars of liberation against colonialism). The First Chimurenga refers to the anti-colonial struggle against British colonial intrusions in the 1890s; and the Second Chimurenga to the liberation struggle for independence during the 1970s. According to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party, full decolonisation only took place because of, and during, the Third Chimurenga. In this context, the notion of Chimurenga music has been defined as a form of cultural resistance against colonialism since the end of the 19th century. The article examines music during the Third Chimurenga by considering it historically and in relation to the post-Mugabe era from 2017. Thus, it focuses on music emanating from both Shona-speaking and Ndebele-speaking artists in favour of land reform, and from emergent musical perspectives outside the popular Chimurenga musical style as expressed in various kinds of Zimbabwean popular music during the 2000 era.

Religious and political intersections: the instrumentalisation of Christianity during Zimbabwe’s 2018 presidential elections

ABSTRACT This article discusses the critical intersection of Christianity with Zimbabwean politics during the 2018 harmonised elections. Christianity and politics play an important role in organising or polarising society. Major problems arise when the church becomes more “political” than spiritual or becomes silent on political matters affecting society. Religion has been used for various purposes in Zimbabwean politics, such as holding on to power, contesting power, rebuking leaders and silencing opponents. In the current research, my interest lies in two specific aspects; how, firstly, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and, secondly, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance (MDC-A’s) Nelson Chamisa evoked Christianity in their national electoral campaign through rallies and posts on social media, before the 2018 harmonised elections and during the disputation of the results. The article concludes that Chamisa and Mnangagwa instrumentalised Christianity differently as a political tool.

Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: An Epistemicide and Genocide

Summary That in political conflict and war the truth becomes a casualty that is sacrificed on the altar of expediency is an observation that is traceable to the ancient Greek tragedian, Aeschylus. It is no accident that it had to be a student of tragedy and the workings of evil who noted how truth and knowledge are the first to be murdered before individuals and populations of human beings are slaughtered in armed operations by those that seek to conquer, dominate and rule others by hook or by crook. The Gukurahundi Genocide of 1983 to 1987 in Zimbabwe began with the desire by Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) political party for oneparty state rule under a life presidency. For that dark goal to be achieved the political opposition in shape of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) had to be eliminated. All manner of political constructions, naming and labelling were conducted to create the conditions for and justification of an armed operation against ZAPU and its leader, Joshua Nkomo. The political and human identities of those that had to be eliminated were changed to enemies, dissidents, snakes and chaff itself. On the Gukurahundi Genocide, scholars have prevalently dwelt on controversies surrounding the numbers of the dead and the enduring effects of the killings. This article is a consideration of the assassinations of the truth and knowledge, the epistemicide, which preceded, accompanied and followed the Gukurahundi Genocide. Truth and knowledge die before, during and after genocide.

From ‘Defending Sovereignty’ to ‘Fighting Corruption’: The Political Place of Law in Zimbabwe After November 2017

In this article, I examine the shifting language of debates over law and justice in Zimbabwe in the run-up to, and following, the November 2017 coup. I argue that the rhetoric Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) drew upon to secure its authority and negotiate legitimacy through law, shifted from a focus of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘protection’, to one of battling ‘corruption’ and ‘criminality’. At the same time, there remained a consistency in the manner that the legal system was used to target a select part of the country’s population, those opposed to ZANU–PF and its vision for the future.

Spiritualised political theology in a polarised political environment: A Pentecostal movement’s response to party politics in Zimbabwe

This article interrogates the interface between the older Pentecostal movement and politics in Zimbabwe. The country continues to face political violence and a breakdown in rule of law. The Zimbabwean populace is asking whether the Zimbabwean Pentecostal movement is ready and able to exercise its prophetic role in promoting real peace and democracy. Many Zimbabweans are asking this question, because the track record shows that whilst most mainline churches have been consistent in becoming the voice of the voiceless, some Zimbabwean Pentecostal churches seem to have been sitting on the fence for too long by adopting a middle of the road stance, thereby avoiding a head-on confrontation with the corrupt Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) government. In this article, I argue that for many decades the Zimbabwean Pentecostal movement has taken what one might refer to ironically as a ‘smart approach to politics’–in which the image of the ZANU–PF government is sanitised by espousing what I call a ‘spiritualised political theology.’ I use this critique, whilst remaining cognisant of the fact that the primary motivation of the movement on which I focus in this article, was evangelism, not politics. Thus, for the purpose of this research, the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa (ZAOGA) of Apostle Ezekiel Guti was sampled to investigate its prophetic voice in a polarised political environment. This article examines the history of Apostle Guti’s political subterfuge based on the reflections of his pastoral letters referred to as the ‘Ten-days prayer letters’ issued since 1975 up to the time of writing this article. It is important at this early stage to outline that these letters were not political statements or meant to address politics only but theological letters addressing different social ills including politics. Thus, reading this letter one shall see that Apostle’s political subterfuge demonstrated a continuous oscillation of a theological position on how the church should relate to politics. Furthermore, I undertake a brief examination of other few millennial Zimbabwean Pentecostal churches to see if this political subterfuge transcended elsewhere thereby propagating a spiritualised political theology. Contribution: What is key to note is the fact that the Zimbabwean Pentecostal movement remained insignificant with regard to democratization agenda even after the removal of President Mugabe. The above claim is evidenced by the Zimbabwean Pentecostal church founders’ continuous political subterfuge authenticated by a propagation of a spiritualized political theology.