CHAPTER 5 SEEING AND THINKING LIKE A STATE- DIFFERENTIAL LIFE WORLDS IN
5.3 Legibility, state craft and the reincarnation of the modern state at Chingwizi
As we saw in the historical background of the Tokwe Mukosi displacement explicated in the foregoing section, the state’s conduct at Tokwe Mukosi resonated well with that of a traditional state. This conduct had devastating implications on the displacement and subsequent relocation of the affected residents at Chingwizi.What we have here is a scenario where we have an ambiguous relationship between the state and the Chingwizi villagers. On one hand we have the state that is craving for high modernism and development and on the other hand we have the
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Tokwe Mukosi residents who are lethargic to enter high modernism (Scott 1998). In order to stamp authority and ensure submission of the agitated villagers, the state had to mutate and act like a modern state. Legibility became the driver of the second resettlement phase among the Tokwe Mukosi people. The objective here was to arrange or organize the residents in such a manner that makes it easier for the state to superintend and control the subjects. Legibility particularly in the Zimbabwean context was done under the guise of resettling the villagers to help them get social amenities like clinics, roads, schools and clean water supply. Reflecting on the acrimonious relations as well as the state’s wish to have an orderly resettlement one of the key informants said,
”Vanhu ava vanzwisisei ndozvavari, nhoroondo yavo huru ndeyekuoma musoro pese pese. Ko vanorambirei kugariswa zvakanaka nemamiriro akaita zvinhu muChingwizi. Hurumende iri kuda kuvapa zvikoro, zvipatara, mvura yakachena nezvimbuzi mukugariswa kutsva uku asi ivo voramba, Izvi zvakangofanana nekuda kubvisa nguruve mumadhaka, haimbofi yakabvuma.”
(You ought to understand these people for what they are, they have a history of being a stubborn people all the time, and how can they reject an offer for proper human settlement given the circumstances at hand. The state is offering social amenities in addition to human settlement. It is like a situation where you want to move a pig from a pig stay, it obviously resists).
Based on the dictates of legibility, Scott (1998) opines that a modern state thinks and acts in a different way which is guided by the following principles, which are hitherto ingredients for disaster in developmental projects like the Tokwe Mukosi dam project and the displacement that ensued.
There is severe administrative ordering.
There is an inevitable high modernist ideology that is couched in a strong belief in science and technology.
There is the desire by the state to exercise power and enforce implementation of developmental projects.
There is the existence of an incapacitated Civil Society to provide checks and balances to the toxic developmental projects implemented in the interest of “The Greater Good”.
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Criticism has nonetheless been raised against Scott’s (ibid) evaluation of the behavior of the modern state on the basis that his primary focus was on the primordial, anarchical and atavistic state compared to the less vicious and more liberal states that are illustrative of the behavior of the modern society (Deepak 2000).While such criticisms may be justified, my experience on the state people-relations in the Tokwe Mukosi dam project and the penultimate relocations warrants a reconsideration of Scott’s analysis and evaluation of the state vis-à-vis the local people. As argued in the previous section the state in this developmental project has been viewed in a very negative and suspicious manner. This is also linked to the history of violence underlying the displacements at Tokwe Mukosi. Such violence is heavily linked to the desire by the state to exercise power and ensure submission of the militant Tokwe Mukosi residents.
Based on the benefit of hindsight and the inevitable vision of acting like a modern state, in the second phase of the relocation of the Chingwizi villagers, the state had to act differently. The ubiquitous relocations were aimed at relocating the villagers from the Chingwizi holding camp to the designated I hectare plots. Consequently, there was a spirited effort to make such relocations legible compared to the previous approach. The state endeavored to organize the villagers in a more classic resettlement. This novel resettlement would possibly be a proactive strategy that is also aimed at preventing revolts by the agitated Tokwe Mukosi villagers, who up to this point have been evaluated by the state as ‘people in the way of modernism.’
Legibility in this context became a new administrative approach and social knowledge, facilitating the imagination and organization of the revolting villagers in a very specific way that would also foster absolute surveillance by the state and its subsidiaries like the, military and local leadership at Chingwizi. The local leadership responsible for facilitating surveillance included the village heads, ZANU PF chairpersons and party youth leaders. This surveillance in the Zimbabwean context becomes total surveillance in the sense that there is a blurred line between the state on one hand and the ZANU PF and local leadership on the other hand. The local leadership, village chairpersons, the police, militia and ZANU PF youths were actually state representatives in this developmental and displacement paradox.
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In line with the goal of achieving legibility in the proposed one hectare plots there was also deliberate naming of the resettlement areas to make them traceable. The new areas were Masangula (with relative stability), Bongo, Tokwe Mukosi and Nyuni. These areas went on to house a number of villages. The villages went on to retain their original names and leadership.
Some of these villages included Mudzungudzi, Jawa, Chekai, Madzivire and Tsikisai. Although the naming of these areas was beneficial to the villagers for identity and adaptation purposes (I will explore this aspect in the preceding chapter), there were statecraft and legibility components imbued in this political development. The villagers were then tasked to select I hectare plots that corresponded with their original places prior to their relocation. This had an unintended consequence of capacitating the state to locate villagers in case of future rebellion based on the villages, names and records of households in the state’s possession.
When I visited the District Administrator’s office at Mwenezi one of the Assistant District Administrators indicated that, contrary to the haphazard arrangement at the holding camp, they now have records and names of household heads matching with a particular village. This he said was very important for administrative purposes but in practical terms, I observed that this was an important mechanism for surveillance and subjugation of the villagers. Whereas I pointed out the uniqueness of the Tokwe Mukosi experience, the use of the aforementioned tools for surveillance is akin to the post colony in Africa. Mbembe (1992) acknowledges the continuities of domination and punishment from the colony to the post colony but in many ways the post colony has devised novel and subtle methods of surveillance and punishment. In the post colony power is therefore deliberately invested in the leader who then diffuses the same power into the party (ZANU PF), administrators, soldiers, the police, government officials inter alia. Given such a situation, in the post colony the state has aimed to institutionalize itself in the quest for legitimation and the birth of such institutions and related state machinery then constitute a new regime of violence (Mbembe 1992).
The above mentioned reorganization of the villagers created a platform and strategies that forced
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by way of observing or surveillance, making it possible to induce the effects of power by the state among the displacees (Scott 1998). This kind of arrangement in the interim has a knock on effect of making the Tokwe Mukosi residents traceable and submissive to the whims and caprices of the state. At the micro level, ZANU PF village chairpersons working in cahoots with the youths and the militia are part of the structures put in place by the state to control the villagers in the new settlements. In most cases these agents rely on the use of symbolic violence to ensure submission. It is very important to note that in Zimbabwe it is very difficult to delineate the state from the ZANU PF party. Thus many of the party structures and machinery among the Tokwe Mukosi people work to advance the interests of the state. In support of this new strategy deployed by the state, Comrade Muchaparara (not real name), one of the ZANU PF village chairpersons. Said,
“Kubvira patakabviswa kumatende tichiuyiswa kuno kumahectare ndinoona kuti runyararo nekugarisana zvakanaka zvave nyore kuwanikwa kubudikidza nemapurisa edu. Musiyano uripo mukuru ndewekuti kuno kumahectare nhubu hadzinetse kubata, nezuro chaiko pakamboita mhirizhonga pachikoro cheMukosi. Nhubu dzacho dzakangozikanwa kuti dzabva kuNyuni saka vakabva vateverwa nemapurisa pamikova yavo vakasungwa kwakuendeswa kukamba kuTriangle.”
(Ever since we were moved from the tents to the one hectare plots, I have observed that peace and order are now very easy to maintain for the police. Unlike what happened at the tents the culprits are easy to identify, just last night there was some chaos over food distributed by the government at Mukosi school and the hooligans were identified as the youths from Nyuni, so they were apprehended by the police at their places of residence and taken to Triangle police station).
The foregoing strategy bordered on making the Tokwe Mukosi people docile and identifiable compared to the higgledy-piggledy kind of settlement at the Chingwizi holding camp. While Foucault (1970) was commenting on architecture rather than legibility his ideas on power and discipline can be linked to this discourse. He says,
“Architecture (legibility) renders visible those who are inside in more general terms, an
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architecture that would operate to transform individuals to act on those it shelters, to provide a hold on their conduct, to carry the effects of power right to them, to make it possible to know them …….” Pge 70.
As mentioned earlier on, the process of achieving legibility was by no means a smooth process for the state as it faced serious resistance from below. The Tokwe Mukosi villagers as rational and knowledgeable actors deployed agency to resist the said relocations. Taking it from Long (1998), the state just like the Tokwe Mukosi residents should also be conceptualized as a rational and calculative actor. As a rational actor the state had to use strangulation and stimulation processes to achieve legibility in the second phase of relocating the displaced persons. (See Arrighi 1970). Stimulation entailed providing incentives that would attract the defiant residents to move to the new settlements. Conversely by strangulation the state had to use force or remove the benefits that would eventually push the villagers to move to the selected plots.
In the beginning the state decided against the traditional culture of the use of institutionalized violence against the displacees. Stimulation therefore became a fashionable strategy to lure the defiant Tokwe Mukosi villagers into accepting the 1 hectare plots. The state then instituted some form of positive corruption to hoodwink the villagers into accepting its position. As a result, the office of the minister for provincial affairs is said to have dangled USD$40 as an incentive for those who accepted the state’s offer of the 1 hectare plots. While this amount at face value appears to be very little, it meant a lot for the villagers who had been deprived of their livelihoods and sources of income. A significant number of residents particularly the youths therefore capitalized on this offer. The hardcore Tokwe Mukosi household heads remained adamant and insisted on their usual demands. I also observed that there were some opportunists that benefited on the disorganized way in which the resettlement exercise was conducted. It was reported that during the evacuation of the Tokwe Mukosi villagers to Chingwizi, some people who were anticipating future benefits of the resettlement then masqueraded as flood victims.
Many of these were ready to accept whatsoever the state could offer in the new territories. In line with this one of my respondents who identified himself as Baba Nelson (not real name), had this to say,
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“Panga pakandiipira ndiiri kwachivi mwana wamai saka panga pasina chekumirirara, pakabviswa vanhu nemafashamu ndakangojoinawo kuuya kuno uye pakatanga nyaya yemahekita ndakatomhanyira kutora, ndakatopinda kutaura kuno apa mari ndakapiwa.
Hapasisina musiyano neavo vakadzingwa nemvura, izvozvi pachanzi hurumende yavekupa ma4 hekita ndopinda futi.”
(Life was tough back in Chivi my brother, I just joined the displaced persons to benefit from the state, as a result when the talk of the 1 hectare plots started I had to accept it quickly. As it stands I am relatively better, moreover I got the money from the state. I now have similar status with those that were actually affected by flooding to the extent that when the state avails the 4 hectare plots I will also benefit).
Those who were willing to move to the new plots were also promised the much needed food relief in the one hectare plots. This strategy however falls under what Machingura (2012) terms
‘the Messianic feeding of the masses’. In a Machiavellian way, the state collects resources from the general citizenry and in turn gives it to the marginalized citizens like the Tokwe Mukosi people. In this context the state positions itself as the philanthropist and selfless savior to achieve the goal of political capital and legitimacy.
In addition to the food relief and monitory incentives, the state also persuaded BHASO to construct boreholes and pit latrines in some of the 1 hectare plots to attract the villagers to accept the offer. It is interesting to note that those who accepted the plots went on to achieve the matangwe (first born) status. This is a symbolic status signaling the pioneers of great relief from the Chingwizi disaster, at least from the state’s lifeworld. As I interacted with the villagers I however observed serious divisions in the Tokwe Mukosi community which are attributed to this development. Despite this achieved status, many of the initial beneficiaries of the one-hectare plots are branded vatengesi (traitors) by the bonafide Tokwe Mukosi flood victims. Thus in the final analysis, the state’s attempt to stimulate the villagers in question into accepting its offer was a monumental disaster.
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The failure to stimulate the villagers left the state with no option but to revert to the culture of institutionalized violence against the citizen. The state then decided to strangle the Tokwe Mukosi villagers into submission by wantonly removing the clinic at Chingwizi holding camp to the new area in the Nuanetsi ranch. As noted earlier on in this chapter, this Machiavellian tactic did not achieve the projected outcomes. It actually became the immediate cause of revolt that left a trail of destruction in the Chingwizi holding camp.
Following the failure of the aforementioned strategy, the state went on to suffocate the already suffering residents by denying them access to food aid from donor organizations operating in the area. It should be noted that up to that point the displacees were surviving solely on donor driven food aid, particularly from organizations such as Red Cross Society of Zimbabwe, OXFAM, Catholic Relief Services, BHASO inter alia.This direct attack and strategic removal of humanitarian support obviously fly in the face of the United Nations guidelines on internally displaced persons. The guidelines clearly stipulate that starvation and politicization of humanitarian aid as strategy to coalesce the displacees into submission should be discouraged (UN guidelines on Internally Displaced Person 1998). Just like the previous attempt this Machiavellian strategy backfired as the residents maintained their position and demands for compensation and 4 hectare plots as promised by the state before their displacement. Given this background the state then resorted to the use of force and threats for the villagers to move out of this camp.
In the midst of all the struggles some residents particularly the youths used social media platforms to gain sympathy locally and globally buy posting photos and videos related to their situation. As part of the many strategies used to strangle the villagers into submission, the state then marginalized the villagers from the wider society by disconnecting network Chingwizi.Up to the time I completed my fieldwork mobile network connectivity in the area understudy remained a serious challenge.
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