2.2. Section One: Practice - Social Conflict Theory and the Matabeleland Violence Practice theory concerns itself with the interrogation of how knowledge is
2.2.5. Political-Structural Interpretations
In contrast to the personal-relational lens of analysis, the political-structural framework privileges collective agency above individual agency. For the first two decades after Zimbabwe’s independence, the structural interpretation dominated most political thought and analysis from both internal and external sources. The reasons for this are at least three-fold: first, a political-structural analysis is foundational to
revolutionary ideologies; second, to analyse the socio-political climate in Zimbabwe from any other framework smacked of anti-revolutionary sentiments; and third, the political-
57 Chan, S. 2003. Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence. (Back cover).
39 structural interpretation justified early repressive attitudes by the State. Thus, the
political-structural explanation was used to bolster and nurture the meta-narrative of the newly elected mass-based liberation government of ZANU-PF.
For instance, in 1990, Victor De Waal wrote in glowing terms about the quest for unity in Zimbabwe one decade into independence citing the most urgent reconciliation agenda being that of “forgiving those blacks who were part of the internal settlement of 1978-9”58 referring to the breakaway black political leaders Abel Muzorewa and
Ndabaningi Sithole. Likewise, in 1991 Ibbo Mandaza and Lloyd Sachikonye59 opened up a highly intellectual and well-tempered debate on the merits and demerits of a one-party state, with an underlying assumption that there will always be the ‘democratic space’ for this contentious debate and that finally, the ‘will of the people’ will be honoured. Both of these writings exemplify the dominant political-structural belief that the Unity Accord of 1987-8 had resolved the Matabeleland conflict to the extent that De Waal did not feel it necessary to include Gukurahundi as one of the reconciliation agendas of Zimbabwe in 1990, while Mandaza and Sachikonye assumed that the democracy was taking root in Zimbabwe in 1991 despite the state-sanctioned violence unleashed against the dissident movement in Matabeleland between 1980-88:
“However, if the state is also indeed a terrain of struggles – and the last eleven years demonstrate this - then some of the pessimism or dismissiveness towards the potential and trajectory of on-going democratic struggles are overdrawn…the abandonment of the intention to install a de jure one-party state is only one example where the state has had to make a concession to pressure from the civil society. This provides grounds for optimism for the outcome of related
democratic struggles in the future.”60
Even more recently, Fay Chung’s memoirs of the ‘Second Chimurenga’ released in 2006, unabashedly rehearses the ideological script of the ZANU-PF’s liberation rhetoric.
Preben Kaarsholn of the Nordic Africa Institute, who writes the introduction for Chung’s book, produces no apology for his critique of her stance: “In her memoirs, Fay Chung seems to support Robert Mugabe’s and the ZANU(PF)’s attempt – through the ‘Third Chimurenga’ – to monopolise the history of the liberation struggle, pose themselves as its
58 De Waal, V. 1990. The Politics of Reconciliation – Zimbabwe’s First Decade. London & Cape Town:
Hurst & Co. & David Philip, 99.
59 Mandaza, I & Sachikonye, L. (Eds.) (1991). The One Party State and Democracy – The Zimbabwe Debate. Southern Africa: Sapes Books.
60 Ibid, 15.
40 only rightful heir, and dismiss the challenge of democratic opposition as something alien and hostile to this historical mission.”61
Thus, while the political-structural frame was utilised to encourage a status quo view of the state, one that made criticism of the state very unfashionable in the first few decades of independent Zimbabwe62, variations of the same frame of analysis became a vital form of evaluation used to critique and deconstruct the state apparatus and the ruling party starting in 1998 and onwards. For example, Timothy Scarnecchia makes the strong case for the parallels between the formations of a fascist cycle in Italy between the years of 1920-1924 and Zimbabwe between the years 2000-2005:
“[Scarnecchia’s] comparison focuses on the following areas: the state’s use of paramilitary organisations, or militias, to maintain or regain control; the abuse of legislative and judicial powers to protect ruling party interests; party membership as a prerequisite for involvement in basic areas of social and economic life; and the primacy of political survival over strategic economic planning.”63
Volumes of analysis on the current Zimbabwe dilemma have cascaded into the public purview since 2000, exposing the many and varied battlegrounds on which the narratives of the Zimbabwean people and the narrative of the ruling elite has been pitted against each other over issues such as unionization, economy, militarization, land redistribution, opposition politics, war veterans, human rights, justice, detainment and torture and women’s roles and concerns.
Suzanne Dansereau64, Brian Raftopoulis and Lloyd Sachikonye65 document the relationship of the Zimbabwe Unions and the ruling ZANU-PF. Starting with a highly amicable relationship directly after independence, these authors chart the widening chasm that developed over time as ZANU-PF struggled to keep control of the unions which were becoming increasingly independent in their critique and even shrill in their
61 Chung, F. 2006. Re-living the Second Chimurenga – Memoirs from the Liberation Struggle in Zimbabwe.
The Nordic Africa Institute and Weavers Press, 24.
62 There were assuredly few exceptions to this trend, however they are worth noting. Saul, J. 1977.
“Transforming the Struggle in Zimbabwe”, Southern Africa, February and Saul, J. 1980. “Zimbabwe: The Next Round”, Monthly Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, September; Astrow, A. 1983. Zimbabwe: A Revolution that Lost its Way? London: Zed Books; and Moore, D. 1991. “The Ideological Formation fo the Zimbabwean Ruling Class”, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3, September; 472-495.
63 Scarnecchia, T. 2006. “The ‘Fascist Cycle’ in Zimbabwe, 2000-2005”. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32 (2): 221-237.
64 Dansereau, S. 2002. Liberation and Opposition in Zimbabwe. Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.za
65 Raftopoulos, B. & Sachikonye, L. (Eds.) (2001). Striking Back: The Labour Movement and the Post- Colonial State in Zimbabwe 1980-2000. Weaver Press
41 condemnation of the economic policies of ZANU-PF, especially as it related to workers rights. The rift between the narrative of the government and the narrative of the unions in describing the Zimbabwean workers’ reality became so contradictory that the ZANU-PF intervened by force and replaced the union leadership; the disenfranchised remnant union leadership fomented the opposition movement into what it is today.
On Zimbabwean economics, Patrick Bond and Masimba Manyanya caution readers not to fall into the binary debate of ‘exhausted nationalism’ or ‘neo-liberalism’, both of whose narrative discourses no longer hold sway with the poor and their daily conditions of hunger and suffering: “Separating the truth from the myth-making in ZANU’s repertoire is important, for the contestation of political rhetoric and reality remains profound”66. Bond and Manyanya, in striving to define a new narrative, believe there is a third way of ‘social justice struggle’: “…it is eminently feasible for genuinely democratic social forces in Zimbabwe to engage in social struggle that serves the interests of the majority and puts deeper political-economic dilemmas (such as debt) on to the table for debate”67. Echoing Bond and Manyanya, Brian Raftopoulos68 also speaks of the crisis in Zimbabwe whereby rightist neo-liberal policies have been shrouded by leftist socialist rhetoric; this is commonly referred to as ‘talking left and acting right.’
Raftopoulos also touts an alternative economic narrative, a discourse that he believes could have taken care of the structural-land and material-economic needs while at the same time securing human rights and the necessary democratic space for all
Zimbabweans. However, in its all-consuming effort to retain and entrench itself in power, ZANU-PF never provided the necessary space or time for this kind of comprehensive narrative to emerge. This lost opportunity could explain the mystifying disconnect between the abundant intellectual capital resident in the ZANU-PF government and their inability to find their way out of the present day political-economic crisis.
66 Bond, P. & Manyanya, M. 2002. Zimbabwe’s Plunge – Exhausted Nationalism, Neo-liberalism and the Search for Social Justice. Durban: University of Natal Press, 68.
67 Ibid. xvi.
68 Raftopoulos, B. 2006. “The Zimbabwean Crisis and the Challenges for the Left”. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32 (2): 203-219.
42 Authors Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni69 and Muchaparara Musemwa70 locate the debate on political economies in Zimbabwe within the frame of ‘disciplinary’71 nature of development practices driven by politics. Ndlovu-Gathsheni explores the disciplinary nature of the geo-political economic system on the development of Zimbabwe as a nation: “…[the author] situates the Zimbabwe crisis within the current global
environment, which is characterised by triumphant neo-liberalism and its concern with maintaining the status quo through aggressive ‘disciplining’ of any alternative way of imagining the world.”72 Musemwa illustrates a ‘disciplinary’ development process by tracking the political neglect of Bulawayo and the Matabeleland region by the ZANU-PF government. Of special significance is the failure of ZANU-PF leadership to act in good faith to complete the Zambezi Water Project, a promised development project conceived at independence and still outstanding today. Despite on-going financial and bureaucratic reasons stated by the authorities to explain this delay, Musemwa maintains that this situation is a prime example of the politicisation of development, with the ZANU-PF elite masterfully using this denial of development in order to entrench its power and to
‘discipline’ and isolate the political opposition rooted in Matabeleland. This specific form of ‘discipline’ becomes even more sinister when one considers that the Matabeleland is a climatically arid region which has historically suffered from cyclical seasons of drought.
To understand the Matabeleland violence of the early 1980s, it is necessary to also interrogate the militarisation of Zimbabwean society as whole. The militarization analysis of Matabeleland would need to consider pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras of time. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s work around civil-military relations and the nationalist- military alliance in Zimbabwe provide important scholarly insights into the structures of militarisation and their far-reaching implications for life in Zimbabwe today. In regards to pre-colonial times, Ndlovu-Gatsheni debunks the ‘mythology’ that he claims surrounds the Ndebele military violence history: “The Ndebele nation is said to have survived by
69 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 2006. “The Nativist Revolution and Development Conundrums in Zimbabwe”.
ACCORD Occasional Papers Series, 1 (4): 1-40.
70 Musemwa, M. 2006. “Disciplining a ‘Dissident’ City: Hydropolitics in the City of Bulawayo, Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, 1980-1994”. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32 (2): 239-254.
71 The conception of the ‘disciplinary’ power of the dominant social narrative was coined by Michel Foucault in his seminal work: Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977.
Pantheon Books. 1980.
72 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 2006. “The Nativist Revolution and Development Conundrums in Zimbabwe”: 3.
43 plunder, pillage and violent raids upon their neighbours.”73 While Ndlovu-Gatsheni acknowledges the military organisation of the Ndebele nation, he takes pain to show that what was mistakenly interpreted as a highly organised military system was more often connected to civilian structures (e.g. cultural formations by age-groups) primarily existing as units of social production: “... [These] groups performed important civil and community services like building homes, herding cattle and cultivating crops.”74
In another work, Ndlovu-Gatsheni75 traces the twinning together of the nationalist-military agenda in Zimbabwe. After outlining the theoretical dangers of involving the military in politics, he identifies the forerunners to the birthing of a military-state in independent Zimbabwe. Throughout the war of liberation, the guerrilla armies of ZIPRA and ZANLA regularly utilised coercive force on the peasants,
immersed themselves in the doctrines of nationalist ideology and maintained their operational base from within the civilian population.76 Pointing to the recent
developments of election rigging, fast-track land reform, and the revival of youth militia (referred to as the ‘Green Bombers’), Ndlovu-Gatsheni establishes the primary pillars that buttress the nationalist-military ‘oligarchy’ in Zimbabwe: Ethnic manipulation, material resource perks, political power co-option and ideological indoctrination.77 The
‘industrial-military complex’78 of Zimbabwe became the structural extension of the voice of the grand political narrative of the ZANU-PF elite and as such it acted as the
constructed mechanism through which this homogeneous political view of reality was enacted upon the people of the nation.
Another key structural analysis of the Zimbabwean conflict is generated from the implosion of the state as a result of the surfacing of internal oppositional forces. Liisa
73 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 2003. The post-colonial state and Matabeleland: Regional perceptions of civil- military relations, 1980-2002, in Williams, R., Cawthra, G. and Abrahams, D. (Eds.) Ourselves to Know – Civil-Military Relations and Defence Transformation in Southern Africa, Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 17-38.
74 Ibid:18.
75 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. 2006. “Nationalist-Military Alliance and the Fate of Democracy in Zimbabwe”.
African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 6 (1): 49-79.
76 Ibid: 55.
77 Ibid: 75-76.
78 Mills, Wright C. 1968. The Power Elite. Beacon Press, 5.
44 Laakso79 discusses three distinct periods of political opposition in Zimbabwe. First, ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union), until its amalgamation with ZANU-PF in 1987-8, represented a strong regional opposition that having founded and launched the independence struggle could legitimately challenge the liberation war credentials of the ZANU-PF and its apparent ‘right’ to rule: “The [ZAPU] party’s resistance of intimidation and violence for more than five years, helped foster a climate of political pluralism in the country…”80. Second, ZUM (Zimbabwe Unity Movement) arose in 1990 declaring its defiance to the government proposition of a one-party state and touting itself as a safe- guard for multi-party politics and a watch-dog against corruption. Third, the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) launched in 1999 in direct response to at least four crises in the Nation: a new generation of young people who had lost the liberation memory and who were demanding change, a growing discontent with the leadership of ZANU-PF, a country in economic turmoil, and the masses calling for drastic
constitutional reform. Each of these formalised oppositional entities represented the different strands of the subjugated narratives of the ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe.
The current regime’s intolerance of any form of opposition expressed itself in 2005 with the State-sanctioned ‘Operation Murambatsvina’ (translated as ‘clean out the rubbish’ or ‘take out the trash’). In this operation approximately 700,000 urban poor were displaced.81 While the government attempted to entrench a public narrative that revolved around the need to deal with illegal shack dwellers and street vendors, those affected by the forced removals retained a counter-narrative of being politically punished and intimidated for having voted against ZANU-PF in the Presidential election polls. Victor Shale82 concurs with this view: “Operation Murambatsvina is therefore widely seen in Zimbabwe and afar as a direct act of retribution against the urban electorate who are known or suspected for having voted against ZANU-PF.”83 In sum, as the clandestine
79 Laakso, L. 2003. “Opposition Politics in Independent Zimbabwe”. African Studies Quarterly 7, no. 2&3:
Retrieved from the web 2007/11/07. [online] URL: http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i2a6.htm: 1-16.
80 Sibanda, E. 2004. The Zimbabwe African People’s Union, 1961-87 – A Political History of Insurgency in Southern Rhodesia. New Jersey: Africa World Press, preface ix.
81 Solidarity Peace Trust. 2005. “Crime of Poverty”: Murambatsvina Part II incorporating “Hide and Seek”:
An account of finding the forcibly displaced in rural Matabeleland, July – September 2005, 5.
82 Shale, V. 2006. “Operation Murambatsvina: The Dynamics and Escalation of Zimbabwean Intra-state Conflict”. African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 6 (2): 107-125
83 Ibid: 120.
45 narratives of the urban poor became amplified through the electoral process, the State
heightened its instrumentalities of violence to forcibly silence these contradictory texts.
There remain ironic, paradoxical pockets in Zimbabwe where support for, and opposition to ZANU-PF are in juxtaposition one to another. These include the war veterans (and their agency in the land reform question), the media and various women’s movements. Much of the scholarship surrounding the liberation war veterans is aimed at demystifying the nationalist discourse that consciously subverts certain aspects of the historical record and elevates that which is favourable to the ruling party.84 While the ZAPU-ZIPRA contribution to the armed struggle has been almost erased from the official ZANU-PF history, Jeremy Brickhill commends the ZIPRA fighting contingent as an army recruited from the proletariat which had so much favour with the peasants that they rarely needed to use force, and which had, by the end of the war, made the successful transition from a guerrilla army to a strategic military force poised to liberate Zimbabwe from Rhodesian rule through conventional warfare.85
Central to the successful re-write of Zimbabwean war veterans’ experience is to resist the polarising pull of the ‘good guys / bad guys’ narrative that so easily entices nationalist liberation rhetoric. The plot of the drama of war and the motivations of the chief protagonists must never become monolithic; they must be layered and complex so as to keep at bay the temptation to seek revenge among the generations to come. Teresa Barnes has recorded and transcribed the narrative stories of many Zimbabwean ex- combatants in order to expose the depth of emotions, motivations and actions that drive these soldiers:
“A further complexity is the common historiographical treatment of war. Wars are often summed up as the decisions of leaders and the movements of armies. It is often forgotten that these depend on ordinary soldiers, who make personal sacrifices to achieve advances and victories, and who suffer the consequences of retreats and defeats physically. But their experiences are usually obliterated in the manufacture of histories and may even be lost to popular memory. The result is
84 A case in point here is the ZANU-PF ‘authorised’ account of the liberation struggle by Martin, D. and Johnson, P. 1981. The Struggle for Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: Raven Press.
85 Bhebe, N. and Ranger, T. (Eds.) (1995). Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications, 7-8.
46 the propagation of an official mythology of war, with heavy emphasis on its abstract and ‘glorious’ aspects.”86
Norma Kriger makes a strong case for the opportunistic partnership between the ZANU- PF and the war veterans in two parallel seven year periods of time 1980-87 and 2000-07:
“…veterans and the ruling party were both collaborators and antagonists, often
simultaneously. Each sought to build power and privilege through mutual manipulation of the other…”87 In both time periods mentioned above the regime and the veterans collaborated for mutual gain in several ways: first, power mongering (purging of ZIPRA ex-combatants from National Army, monetary benefits and seizure of land); second, liberation war appeals (forcing legitimacy through divisive rhetoric on hero/dissident soldiers, authentic/fake veterans, and counter-revolutionary accusations); and three, use of violence and intimidation to bring about change (Matabeleland civilian massacres, youth militia threats, abductions, severe torture and killings).88
The fast-track land reform programme enacted in the year 2000 is no less nuanced than the war veteran’s world of needs, interests and realities. In a study on the Zimbabwe land issue conducted by Bevlyne Sithole, Bruce Campbell, Dale Dore, and Witness Kozanayi,89 peasant narratives on the land are dissected and state-peasant relations are interrogated to provide a stinging indictment of political relations over land. Instead of making the peasants more receptive to the State, this study found that there are so many anomalies in the land redistribution effort (conflicted ownership over familial capital resources, contrary traditional communal practices and disputed processes around subsistence farming) that it has had the opposite effect; rural peasant communities have become increasingly disengaged as opposed to engaged with the State. Thus, despite the ZANU-PF’s recent sloganeering and the revived liberation discourse on ‘bringing the
86 Barnes, T. 1995. The Heroes’ Struggle: Life after the Liberation War for Four Ex-combatants in Zimbabwe, in Bhebe, N. and Ranger, T. (Eds.) (1995). Soldiers in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War. Harare:
University of Zimbabwe Publications, 118.
87 Kriger, N. 2003. “War Veterans: Continuities between the Past and the Present”. African Studies Quarterly 7, no. 2&3: Retrieved from web 2007/11/07. [online]
URL: http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i2a7.htm: 1-12; 1
88 Kriger, 2007: 7.
89 Sithole, B., Campbell, B., Dore, D., and Kozanayi, W. 2003. “Narratives on Land: State-Peasant Relations over Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe”. African Studies Quarterly 7, no. 2&3: Retrieved from web 2007/11/07. [online] URl: http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i2a4.htm: 1-14.