‘Zimbabwe in transition’: A review

Community healing implies a transitional process: the divisive events have passed, but their effects still linger, their resolution incomplete. The title of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation’s new collection on Zimbabwe is, therefore, something of a misnomer. ‘Zimbabwe in Transition’ assembles work from eleven lawyers, development experts, and academics, with the stated aim of “preparing the ground for enhanced national reconstruction.”

That much is admirably accomplished. The book provides a nuanced overview of the political, social, and economic dynamics shaping contemporary Zimbabwe. But, though the Zimbabwe described in these 300 pages is populated with many brave and willing figures, it is not yet a nation in transition; rather, it is a nation desperately in need of the political closure that precedes transition, and, eventually, healing.

There are nine chapters in the book; six focus on variations of community, two on political processes and one on the media. The chapters on media and politics best encapsulate the reasons for Zimbabwe’s current stasis. Despite the Global Political Agreement (GPA) and power-sharing Government of National Unity (GNU) formed after the violent 2008 elections, Zimbabweans are still under the thumb of a brutal dictatorial regime. The ZANU-PF leadership, erstwhile liberators and vocal proponents of single-party government, are ensconced with the military.

These “securocrats” – officials who dictate defence policy and who have infiltrated most productive areas of the economy – resist all reforms. Concerned only for themselves, they obstruct progress on every article of the GPA and plunder the country’s natural resources. Though ostensibly a unity government, the junior MDC-T party has its hands tied, able to do little more than arrest a precipitous economic decline and foster development in a few areas such as education and the media.

The piecemeal liberalisation of the media since the GPA was signed is promising, but both James Muzondidya and Juliet Thondhlana identify the establishment of an effective free press as key to Zimbabwe’s future. Since independence, Mugabe has abused subaltern language and anti-imperialist rhetoric to whip up popular support and garner sympathy from other parts of the developing world.

The West’s “clumsy” reaction to Mugabe’s policies, such as offering open support to the then-opposition MDC, “bolstered ZANU-PF’s claims that it is a victim of Western hegemonic designs.” Mugabe’s speeches are distributed widely by the state-run media, and his is a persuasive demagoguery. Arnold Chamunogwa recalls the ZANU-PF youths who, even today, decry the “counter-revolutionary” and “pro-settler” MDC. Ideals die hard; a robust free media is needed before Zimbabweans can begin to properly deal with their shared past.

The essence of this book, then, is the importance of honest communication. Zimbabweans have many wrongs to right; the tricky bit is accounting for different viewpoints, particularly when so much of the violence is undocumented. In the 30 years since independence victims have become perpetrators, and perpetrators have become victims.

In one story, a young man who was brutally beaten up by a group of ZANU-PF supporters almost poisoned the thugs’ village well in retaliation. Confronting this past requires acknowledgment that history contains multiple truths. The crimes of confessed murderers will need to be proved, complicity will need to be determined, and metaphysical guilt – why did I do nothing? – will need to be confronted. All of this is impossible without honest communication, and the media will be tasked with communicating honestly between millions of people.

Of course, many remarkable people never stopped; building a new Zimbabwe is their daily life. Otto Saki and Washington Katema describe the huge role civil society organisations played in creating the MDC as viable political opposition. Chamunogwa outlines the continual struggles of youth movements and the national student union, ZINASU – in many ways the vanguard of physical and intellectual resistance.

Ezra Chitando and Molly Manyonganise show that faith-based groups have provided a reservoir of hope, and have, on occasion, critiqued the government more incisively than any politically-oriented organisation. In 2005 a collection of Christian churches released a statement which said that “the vision of Zimbabwe as a free nation has stifled. The people are frozen in war mode with the language and practices of a command structure. All this we have lived each day, prisoners in a concentration camp from the Zambezi to the Limpopo”. Neither the MDC or ZINASU had the temerity to call Zimbabwe a national “concentration camp”.

Kudakwashe Chitsike laments the plight of women, who have been consistently marginalised despite bearing the brunt of repression. Women housed and fed rebel soldiers fighting Ian Smith’s settler regime, women do most of the caring for the sick and abused today, and groups such as Women of Zimbabwe Arise lead thousand-strong protests. All this despite lacking proper political representation and in a nation with a casual attitude towards violence against women. The “culture of impunity” surrounding gender-based abuse in Zimbabwe violates women’s human rights; unless this is stamped out in the courts, Chitsike argues, attitudes towards women will not shift.

Attempts to let “bygones be bygones” are not just detrimental to women; they litter Zimbabwe’s thirty-year history. And they do not work. Despite much hard work, civil society, women, youth, faith-based, and diaspora communities have all become over-politicised by the struggle between ZANU-PF and the MDC. The MDC emerged from civil society, and yet has subsumed it, creating a toxic environment in which each person is either for or against another. The authors in this book urge unity, arguing for a restorative justice that addresses past wrongs but emphasises the need for healing. This will take time, and it will take communication between and within different communities.

Mbofana Wellington’s chapter on community healing best encapsulates the collective path the authors want Zimbabweans to take. Community healing, we learn, is “a process which aims to help communities deal and come to terms with a divided and violent past....[It"> suggests processes that come after an end to, or at least cessation of, the violence or abuses.”

Unfortunately, the violence and abuses have not stopped; there is new evidence the securocrats’ enforcers are being regrouped and sent to the villages as another election campaign approaches. Some fear a military coup. It is encouraging, then, to see the SADC increasing pressure on Zimbabwe’s politicians to adhere to the terms of the GPA; particularly after the regional-association’s ineffectual “quiet diplomacy” under Thabo Mbeki. It is also important to remember that, as Chitando and Manyonganise put it, “it is much easier for political gladiators to hug and make peace than for neighbours who may have committed atrocities against each other to do so.”

But it is because the people who have suffered the most are ordinary Zimbabweans who are neighbours and friends, who share the same history, and who drink from the same wells, that the political environment must enable the healing process, not hinder it. Political rhetoric must give way to careful construction of a constitution that benefits all Zimbabweans; egos and personal interest must take the backseat, and building the capacity of local leaders to create spaces in which Zimbabweans can openly share their stories must be a priority. The nation must be allowed to pull in the same direction. Community healing will begin when the securocrats’ power is removed, but in the meantime this collection provides crucial reading for anyone concerned with helping Zimbabwe’s future transition.

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* Steve Eldon Kerr is a journalist with The Zimbabwean newspaper.

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