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Youth and the temporalities of non-violent struggles in Zimbabwe: #ThisFlag Movement
Simbarashe Gukurume
To cite this article: Simbarashe Gukurume (2022) Youth and the temporalities of non-violent struggles in Zimbabwe: #ThisFlag Movement, African Security Review, 31:3, 282-299, DOI:
10.1080/10246029.2022.2086476
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10246029.2022.2086476
Published online: 17 Jun 2022.
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Youth and the temporalities of non-violent struggles in Zimbabwe: #ThisFlag Movement
Simbarashe Gukurume a,b
aDepartment of Social Sciences (Sociology), Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa;bDepartment of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
ABSTRACT
Youth in fragile and conflict-ridden spaces are often constructed as violent and restless subjects who dismember the social fabric of society. Yet, many young people are using non-violent tactics and strategies to articulate their grievances and frustrations with the state of their economies. Young people in such decaying economies live under precarious and uncertain existential conditions. Drawing on the #ThisFlag movement in Zimbabwe, this article sheds light on the complex temporalities of non-violent resistance in post-colonial Africa and the place of social media in creating new and alternative forms of protest. The article examines the ways in which young people mobilising under the #ThisFlag movement deployed cyberspaces to launch concerted non-violent resistance against the Mugabe and Mnangagwa regimes. It also discusses various non-violent tactics the
#ThisFlag movement deployed to tactically navigate the precarious terrain of political activism. I argue that young people instrumentalised their techno-savviness to mass-mobilise and enact novel and defiant forms of non-violent political action which posed a serious threat to ZANU-PF’s durable political hegemony. I also argue that #ThisFlag’s use of non-violent resistance should be understood as an exercise of agency and social navigation in a context of protracted violence against government critics and opposition political activists.
KEYWORDS
Youth; activism; resistance;
nonviolence; #Thisflag; social movements
Introduction
The dominant discourse on and about youth and politics is characterised by violence. For instance, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government has always used violence to deal with political threats and opposition. This use of violence became more pronounced in the post-2000 era when opposition against the ZANU-PF regime grew due to the protracted economic crisis, which exacerbated poverty among the majority of Zimbabweans. The government’s deployment of repressive state security appar- atus to crush dissent led government critics to devise creative ways to subvert the state.
One of the many ways in which political critics confronted the brutal ZANU-PF government has been non-violence. Consequently, a growing number of scholarly works on non-violent activism in Zimbabwe has emerged.1
These studies are insightful, but focus on earlier forms of nonviolent resistance of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). As such, much of what we know about nonviolent
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Simbarashe Gukurume [email protected] 2022, VOL. 31, NO. 3, 282–299
https://doi.org/10.1080/10246029.2022.2086476
resistance in Zimbabwe is that it was driven by the main opposition party and that it was largely ineffective and did not trigger regime change. However, there is very little on nonvio- lent resistance driven by nonpartisan transnational movements such as the #ThisFlag move- ment. This article examines the non-violent tactics used by the #ThisFlag movement to articulate its frustrations with deepening poverty, skyrocketing unemployment, and state cor- ruption. The article uses a youth-led #ThisFlag movement to explore non-violent youth resist- ance and struggle in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Furthermore, the article also explores the various nonviolent techniques that #ThisFlag movement deployed to challenge the state and the ways in which the state responded. The article argues that the nonviolent resistance deployed by the #ThisFlag movement and other social movements inspired the bloodless coup that removed long-serving president Robert Mugabe from power in November 2017.
I also assert that in a context of state brutality and violence, the nonviolent tactics used by
#ThisFlag members should be understood as a form of ‘social navigation’ and ‘tactical agency’to deal with a violent state.
Conceptualising non-violent struggle in and beyond Zimbabwe
Although we intuitively seem and claim to know and understand what non-violence is, the term is inherently contested and remains conceptually elusive. Given its complexity, the term is also amenable to multiple interpretations. In fact, the concept has multiple and sub- jective meanings. However, Zunes asserts that nonviolent action should be conceptualised as a conflicting behaviour consisting of unconventional acts implemented for purposive change without intentional damage to persons or property.2Similarly, Chenoweth and Cunningham defined non-violent resistance as the application of unarmed civilian power using non-violent methods such as protests, strikes, boycotts, and demonstrations, without using or threatening physical harm against the opponent.3Chenoweth and Stephan assert that non-violent resist- ance is a civilian-based method used to wage conflict through social, psychological, econ- omic, and political means without the threat or use of violence.4 For Sharp, nonviolent struggle is a technique of conducting conflicts using psychological, social, economic, and pol- itical weapons.5Zunes further notes that non-violent action includes strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, occupations, demonstrations, refusal to pay taxes, creation of alternative and parallel insti- tutions, and other forms of civil disobedience.6Similarly, Sharp identified about 200 nonvio- lent resistance tactics and methods, which included sit-ins, protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, mass non-cooperation, and strikes.7In fact, a key characteristic of non-violence is that‘it is a process through which a large number of people come together with a common vision, setting common goals, creative strategies and employing a diversity of tactics’.8Citi- zens confronting the state through nonviolent resistance tend to utilise irregular political tactics, working outside the defined and accepted channels for political participation defined by the state.9 This was the case with the #ThisFlag movement, which organised and mobilised online and used social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and What- sApp. Social media as a new and novel way of organising proved difficult for ZANU-PF to deal with online dissent.10Consequently, ZANU-PF resorted to successive internet shutdowns.11 The shutdown of the Internet is not unique to Zimbabwe, but has become a popular way for African authoritarian regimes to deal with cyber dissent. For example, between 2016 and 2017, there were more than 119 internet shutdowns, 43 social media blackouts, and 237 days of delayed internet across the African continent.12As such, the internet shutdowns and social media blackouts in Zimbabwe and other authoritarian African countries like
Uganda and Cameroon occurred simultaneously with a global trend in digital authoritarianism.
The use of non-violent strategies to confront the state in Zimbabwe is not new. In fact, it can be traced back to the colonial era. During the liberation struggle, many nationalist groups initially resorted to non-violent resistance before shifting to armed and violent resistance.13During the colonial era, nationalist groups mobilised and engaged in boycotts, commercial shutdowns, and various types of political non-cooperation. For instance, the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress (SRANC) led by Joshua Nkomo started mass resistance campaigns that were based on a philosophy of non-violence. These non-violent acts of civil disobedience were acts of resistance to the exploitative nature of the colonial regime. Although the nationalist movements resorted to non-violence, the colonial regime often unleashed violence and brutality. This compelled the nationalist guerrilla movements to resort to violent insurgency against Rhodesian forces in the 1970s.14
Although non-violent resistance has a long history in Zimbabwe, it gained significant traction in the post-2000 period.15For instance, the United States Institute of Peace noted that the year 2003 was marked by repeated mass action in the form of job stay-aways.
Many of these job stay-aways were organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the MDC.16Scholars like Hove, as well as Hove and Chenzi, examined the non-violent resistance of the then main opposition party, MDC in its attempt to engender regime change and topple the Mugabe regime.17 However, Hove argued that the non-violent resistance only succeed in the short term and failed in the long run due to poor coordination and contestations over the aims and objectives of the non-violent action among the opposition actors.18 Similarly, Hove and Chenzi also exam- ined the of MDC-Alliance’s attempt to effect regime change through non-violent econ- omic warfare in Zimbabwe.19 They concluded that although the economic warfare caused serious challenges for ordinary Zimbabweans, these nonviolent economic warfare strategies subsequently failed to remove the Mnangagwa administration or trigger a power-sharing deal. For Hove and Chenzi, the failure of the opposition actors to carefully execute and adhere to non-violent action led the Mnangagwa regime to deploy its violent and repressive state security agents to crush the protestors.20 Focusing on three social movements that emerged in 2015, Musarurwa noted that non-violent movements in Zimbabwe enjoyed partial success due to several reasons, such as a lack of means to follow and track arrested members and limited resources to bail out imprisoned members.21 Apart from #ThisFlag, several other social movements also emerged in 2015 that challenged the Mugabe regime and sometimes worked hand in glove with #ThisFlag. For instance, movements like OccupyAfricaUnitySqauare initially led by Itai Dzamara, #Tajamuka, #ThisGown, #BeatThePot among many other groups helped to put pressure on the Mugabe government. These different groups sometimes organised joint non-violent campaigns to remand reforms and transparency from the government.
Prior studies on non-violent resistance in Zimbabwe discussed above have not paid close attention to non-violent resistance from below or what I call citizens driven nonviolent action such as that spearheaded by the #ThisFlag movement. As such, very little is known about the politics and dynamics of bottom-up citizen-inspired acts of non-violent civil disobedience.
This knowledge gap provides a point of entry for this study into the broader debates on and about nonviolent resistance in Zimbabwe and Africa.
The emergence of the #ThisFlag movement
In 2016, several social movements emerged and confronted the state. Through protests, these movements challenged the government to deal with deepening poverty, skyrocketing unem- ployment, poor service delivery, and corruption. Many of these non-partisan movements used social media to organise and mobilise support for online and offline protests. The most popular and influential of these movements was the #ThisFlag movement, which was led by a young cleric, Pastor Evan Mawarire. Pastor Mawarire drew on the symbolism of the flag and appropriated it to appeal to the political sensibilities of many disgruntled citizens, who in turn instrumentalised the Zimbabweanflag for protest.
According to Mawarire, the formation of #ThisFlag was accidental. A day after Zimbabwe commemorated its independence in 2016, Pastor Mawarire posted a poetic video on his Facebook page. In the video, Mawarire passionately bemoaned the country’s protracted socio-economic and political crisis. Little did Mawarire know that his video would cause arguably the largest social media-induced protest in post-independent Zimbabwe.22 With the country’s flag on his shoulders, he went from one flag colour to another, questioning the symbolic meanings of each colour and how they had become meaningless in light of the country’s protracted economic decay, corruption, and deepening poverty. The mono- logue video that went viral immediately galvanised citizen participation. In fact, it torched a wave of social media dissent, giving people the voice to speak out against poor govern- ance, human rights abuse, and corruption among other vices. After the overwhelming impact of Mawarire’s video, the pastor urged ordinary citizens to share their own experi- ences wearing their national flag with a #ThisFlag caption as a form of protest. There was an overwhelming response to Mawarire’s call and thousands of citizens posted selfies on Twitter and Facebook in national flag colours. Mawarire’s use of the flag and the creative invocation of the nationalism associated with it to mobilise for protests was strategic. He was aware of the affective potential and symbolism attached to the flag as a tangible object of the collectiveness of people.23
As such, the social media space provided people with a platform on which a sense of group solidarity was established. The cyberspace became a visual terrain that gave marginalised Zimbabweans a discursive space to articulate their frustrations with the state of the country. Similarly, the popularity of the movement highlighted the huge number of people who identified with the movement and the concerns it raised. As such, this strong group
‘affect’ became the rallying point of the movement.24 For instance, a participant named Nakai posted the following message on Twitter;
Thisflag represents my hopes and my aspirations. The realisation of dreams that I have been robbed of #ThisFlag.
Nakai’s message resonated with many other young people I interviewed who felt that they were economically and socially‘stuck’25and grappled with what scholars call‘waithood’.26 Waithood refers to a scenario where the transition of youth to adulthood is stalled or sus- pended due to a protracted economic crisis engendered by a neoliberal capitalist system.
For instance, in a Zimbabwean context marked by skyrocketing unemployment and dwind- ling livelihood opportunities, the attainment of the social markers of adulthood becomes elusive and sometimes impossible. Additionally, the futures of young people become uncer- tain and precarious, forcing them to vent their frustrations through social movements such as
#ThisFlag in Zimbabwe. In spite of this precariousness and uncertainty that characterise the
lives of young people in waithood, scholars assert that waithood is not synonymous with idle- ness or docility. Instead, they show how young people creatively harness and engage in mul- tiple ways of making do and getting by to transform their lives.27
For #ThisFlag, what was interesting was how the movement invoked young people’s frus- trations and appropriated the nationalflag as a form of symbolic and material resistance to a corrupt and violent state. In Zimbabwe, like anywhere else, theflag has always been framed as a symbol of national identity, but the movement appropriated the symbolism of theflag for protest mobilisation. By doing so, theflag became an instrument or space for popular protest and resistance. The act of carrying and moving around with theflag on the neck transformed from an act of nationalism or patriotism to a powerful form of protest. As such, through #This- Flag, the national flag appropriated a new meaning and form of nationalism. It became a terrain and a rallying point for popular citizen dissent. This new and subversive use of the national flag for protest led the government to ban the public sale of the flag on the streets.28The police also threatened to arrest anyone who moved in public with the national flag. Mawarire himself noted in an interview with the local newspaper that he received death threats that if he continued moving around with theflag on his neck, they are going to use thatflag to strangle him.29
According to Oberdorf, the movement believed in six key values, and these include non- violence, dignity, integrity, diversity, and citizenship. Interestingly, the movement’s use of the national flag as a symbol of dissent was itself a form of dissent. It challenged the ZANU-PF’s monopoly over the use of national symbols in asserting its patriotic historical dis- course. As such, the appropriation of the flag by the #ThisFlag movement should also be understood as resistance against the capture of national symbols by ZANU-PF.
Spirituality, resistance and Mawarire’s trial
As Mawarire’s social media campaign became international and gained enormous traction beyond the country’s geopolitical borders, the Mugabe regime began to realise its burgeon- ing political threat. On 6 July 2016, Mawarire organised a nationwide stay-at-home protest dubbed #ShutdownZim.30 This nationwide peaceful protest successfully shut down the country and rattled Mugabe and his political henchmen. At the peak of the movement in 2016, Mawarire became one of the most threatening figures for Mugabe’s power hold.31 After the successful #ShutdownZim, Mwarire’s continued call for nonviolent and symbolic forms of protests through social media. However, Mawarire’s shift from online to offline mobil- isation led to his arrest, which attracted widespread condemnation. On his trial, thousands of people, including the author, thronged the Rotten Row Magistrate Court in solidarity with the pastor. Outside the courts, people took turns to pray and sing gospel songs. The predomi- nantly youthful group demanded the release of Pastor Mawarire. Many people constantly chanted the popular mantra of the movement ‘Hatichatya and Hatichada’ (We are not afraid and we are fed up).
Outside the courts, people turned to prayer as a weapon against autocratic leadership. The people I interviewed outside the court highlighted that they were praying for divine interven- tion for the release of Pastor Mawarire. This indomitable spiritual form of protest disempow- ered the brutal and violent police that the government deployed to crush the dissenters. This scenario echoes broader scholarly arguments that nonviolence should be understood as a spirituality that takes shape in action.32In the #ThisFlag movement, non-violence configured itself as spirituality and not just a set of strategies.
Although pastor Mawarire has always promoted peaceful and nonviolent protests since the establishment of the #ThisFlag movement, he was arrested for inciting violence. This was later changed, and Mawarire was accused of trying to unconstitutionally remove a constitutionally elected president. This was a treasonous charge in Zimbabwe that attracted a sentence of life imprisonment. The change of the charges against Mawarire emboldened the resolve of his supporters, and people’s prayers became louder. People held each other’s hands in a large circle and participated in a series of prayer vigils. Despite the presence of a heavily armed anti-riot police, which are notorious for brutality, people stayed until around 7:30 pm when Pastor Mawarire was finally released and acquitted of the charges. He walked out of the courts to a cheering, ululating, and screaming crowd, and they hoisted him up like a hero.
By deploying prayer in protests, the protest action becomes spiritualised and this spiritualisa- tion of political action disempowered the brutal state apparatus that could not unleash vio- lence on praying protesters.
Research on and about youth and non-violence in Zimbabwe is not only scant, but also rare. Much of what we know about Zimbabwean politics is the violent response of the state to protests and its political nemesis. This gravitation toward violence is not unfounded because the country experienced prolonged periods of violence.33Indeed, since the 1893–4 Anglo-Ndebele war, Zimbabwe has been shaped by violence. Hove notes that since this war there has been a perpetual occurrence of violence in the country.34Following this, the country won its independence in 1980 after a violent struggle against the colonial regime of 1896 when the First Chimurenga (War of Liberation) was fought. Similarly, from 1964 to 1980 another bloody Second Chimurenga was fought, which eventually led to the attainment of independence.35Furthermore, after independence, violence erupted, leading to the Gukura- hundi atrocities in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces where an estimated 20,000 people were massacred by the North Korean trainedfifth brigade soldiers.36Indeed, many scholars argue that former president Mugabe and his ZANU-PF henchmen have always used violence against their political rivals. After the formation of a strong opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), in 1999, in which Mugabe was handed hisfirst electoral defeat since independence, the ZANU-PF resorted to using violence to win elections. In fact, pre and post-election political violence became an everyday reality in the country.37
Despite the popularity and influence of the #This Flag movement, research on this move- ment and more particularly a focus on its nonviolent campaigns is still scarce and very much isolated. Some recent studies have focused on different aspects of the #ThisFlag movement.38 For instance, there is one study that focused on how the #ThisFlag movement appropriated social media technologies to reclaim political space and voice amid growing authoritarianism in the country. In that study, the author argued that the #ThisFlag movement became a space through which citizens not only articulated their grievances but also tried to reclaim their pol- itical voice and space.39Similarly, using the concept of meaning-making, Oberdorf’s study explored the rise and decline of the #ThisFlag movement in the context of ongoing state repression.40 Oberdorf argued that Mawarire created a new wave of belligerent political claim-making in Zimbabwean society.41 For Oberdorf, the #ThisFlag movement became a space through which citizens and netizens mobilised and boldly spoke out against the gov- ernment’s social injustices.42While these studies are insightful and illuminating, they did not specifically focus on how youth activists in this movement appropriated and sustained non- violent strategies to engage a violent state and articulate their grievances. As such, this article attempts tofill this lacuna through an in-depth exploration of young people in this movement and the myriad of nonviolent strategies they used. I assert that the #ThisFlag movement
successfully created a new‘digital public’that was outside the purview of state control and with which the state struggled to deal. By showing how this movement enacted peaceful sub- jectivities among its youthful membership, I make the case for youth agency.
Authoritarianism and social movements
For many years, Zimbabwe has been classified as an authoritarian state in which citizen freedoms are suppressed and violated. This authoritarian governance worsened in the late 1990s when Mugabe and his ZANU-PF government faced growing opposition and criti- cism. The formation of a strong opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), in 1999 that inflicted Mugabe hisfirst electoral defeat since independence exacerbated Mugabe’s authoritarian leadership and led to a progressive shrinkage of civic spaces. In fact, since 2000, the ZANU-PF government has promulgated and enacted restrictive legislation and measures to suppress and eliminate citizen dissent. For some scholars, these laws were deliberately imposed to suffocate any liberal political voice and undermine freedom of expression and association.43 For example, in 2002, the gov- ernment passed the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). In particular, Chapter 11 of POSA and Chapter 10 of AIPPA severely constrained the operations of civic movements and opposition political parties. Since 1980, the state has unleashed structural violence that has instilled wide- spread fear and discontent among the citizenry. It is against this background that we should locate the emergence and growth of transnational non-violent social movements such as #ThisFlag. I assert that the #ThisFlag movement was incubated in the existential anxieties and challenges wrought by the country’s multilayered crisis. Given the author- itarian and violent nature of the state, nonviolent strategies were ideal. Nonviolent resist- ance is designed to be used against opponents who cannot be defeated through violence. The adoption of non-violent techniques for confronting an authoritarian state is neither new nor unique to Zimbabwe. In fact, there is a long history of nonviolent pro- tests in and beyond Zimbabwe.
Materials and methods
Doing ethnography and netnography with #ThisFlag
This article is based on qualitative interpretive research that triangulated ethnographic and netnographic approaches among youth members of the #ThisFlag movement in Harare.
The data that I use in this article were collected in 2016 and 2017 at the peak of the #ThisFlag movement protests. Many young people in urban areas, especially in Harare, were active members of this social movement that largely used nonviolent strategies to confront the state. During participant observation, the author joined his participants in many of the non- violent activities that were mobilised by #ThisFlag. As such, participant observation was one of the main data collection techniques I used to collect primary data. Through participant obser- vation, I was able to observe events as they occurred in their contextual setting in real-time. In fact, by participating in the nonviolent activities of the movement, I became a quasi-member of the movement. Therefore, I seamlessly straddled the insider-outsider positionality. This helped to further cement social relationships and rapport with my interlocutors, which allowed them to open up and share their experiences. To augment participant observation,
I also conducted 35 in-depth semi-structured interviews, countless informal conversations, and key informant interviews with two keyfigures of the movement.
Furthermore, I corroborated the primary data with a rigorous review of secondary data sources, especially newspaper articles, and data collection on the movement’s Facebook page and Twitter handle. At the height of the movement and protests in 2016, I maintained a constant presence on the virtual spaces created by the #ThisFlag movement. As a netnogra- pher44, I took detailed notes on comments and discussions by members on the movement’s social media platforms. This elaborate triangulation of methods allowed me to collect rich data on the movement and the various non-violent strategies that were deployed.
Data were collected from April 2016, when the movementfirst emerged, to January 2017.
Follow-up interviews were also conducted in 2021 with some youth who were active between 2016 and 2017. I recruited my interlocutors through a combination of snowballing and pur- posive sampling techniques. My contacts, who were also members of the movement on the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) campus, introduced me to many other participants on and off- campus. After exposure to a large pool of potential participants, I purposively selected those that I considered information-rich cases for in-depth interviews. Therefore, I ended up with a sample of participants who were not only knowledgeable about the movement and its non- violent tactics of resistance but also those who were actively participating in non-violent resistance.
Discussion
Stay-aways as peaceful protests
During myfieldwork in 2016, #ThisFlag members organised peaceful protests in and outside Zimbabwe. What was fascinating about the #ThisFlag movement was how it managed to vir- tually organise and mobilise people not only in different towns of the country but also in the diaspora. Indeed, the movement appealed to the political sensibilities of the country’s dia- spora in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia, Kenya, and South Africa, to mention just a few. As such, this movement allowed people’s non-violent struggles in Zim- babwe to be fought in a transnational space that was not only restricted to the localised phys- ical geopolitical space of the country. These international solidarities and alliances irked Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. As the author discussed in another paper, social media was central as a tool of political mobilisation for offline activities such as peaceful protests.45 By responding to the movement’s call to stay at home, many people actively participated in the protest without fear of harassment and brutality from state security agents. Consequently, the decision to use nonviolent stay-at-home protests was not only strategic but should also be read as an exercise of agency by the members of the #ThisFlag movement. Interestingly, the appropriation of a national symbol for protest by the movement brings to the fore the dis- course of patriotism and the questions of what it means to be patriotic. This also subverted ZANU-PF’s hegemonic use and abuse of patriotic history.46Interestingly, the #ThisFlag move- ment sought to reclaim national symbols that had been appropriated and monopolised by ZANU-PF. This resonates with Mawere who argued that #ThisFlag has made use of theflag to resist and subvert grand and naturalised dominant discourses of nationalism and citizen- ship to foster new imagi/nations of the nation.47
What particularly shook the corridors of power was a massive nationwide stay-at-home protest dubbed #ShutdownZim that brought business to a halt for the whole day in most
urban spaces.48This shutdown was organised on 6 July through social media mobilisation.
This protest coincided with kombi(public transport) protests against excessive police pres- ence, corruption, and roadblocks in Harare, which made business impossible for public trans- port operators.49However, the success of the stay-away was beyond Harare because all the other cities were deserted as people heeded the movement’s call to boycott work and stay at home. Citizens used social media to share pictures and videos from different cities showing how deserted their places were during the #ShutdownZim protest. In an interview, Ephraim, one of my youthful interlocutors explained;
I participated in this mass stay-at-home protest because I felt that it was the best strategy to make the government listen to our concerns and grievances. If you go to demonstrate in the streets, the government just unleashes anti-riot police to brutalise people, so if we just stay at home, it is safe and effective.50
Ephraim’s story resonates strongly with many other young participants I interviewed who noted that the stay-away protest was very effective and made the government realise the power of people‘povo’(the masses). Many people boycotted work in protest. Some scholars viewed this national stay-away protest as the largest contentious action against the ZANU-PF regime.51The success of this shutdown demonstrated not only the capacity of the movement to mount a successful mobilisation, but also the effectiveness of citizen non-cooperation tactics. Indeed, this strategy caused enormous panic in the ZANU-PF corridors. In a context where the state is violent, non-violent strategies such as staying at home reveal the agency of the people and their capacity to navigate risk. While aware of the possible consequences of challenging the government, many young people felt that it was their duty to engage in a cyber-struggle against gross mismanagement of the country which affected their livelihoods and prospects for upward mobility. Indeed, regarding the mass stay-at-home protests, Pastor Mawarire explained;
This protest united the citizens through nonviolence, they avoided clashes with the police. Staying home was an effective strategy in that it was not only low risk but also high impact.
In all its online and offline activities, the movement used the mantra ‘Hatichatya and Hati- chada’which means that we are no longer afraid and we are fed up. Through this mantra, citi- zens were urged to be bold and speak out against the state and its excesses. Although many people questioned the mantra after Mawarirefled the country after his release. This mantra should be understood as a means through which resistance was enacted and was an impor- tant way through which the movement gave voice and courage to a disenfranchised majority.
In an interview with an international newspaper, Mawarire asserted;
We are trying to encourage people to be courageous and to speak, to overcome their culture of silence and fear of speaking. against the government’s excesses and violations
This is in keeping with arguments made by Oberdorf who noted that the #ThisFlag-movement transformed the political subjectivities of many Zimbabweans, making them believe and do certain things that were risky and impossible before.52Speaking out against former president Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party was a precarious practice and often led to arrests, disappear- ances, abductions, and torture. This was done through the deployment of an extensive network of state security agents and government spies in various sectors of the country.53 This widespread state surveillance of everyday lives and talk of citizens created a culture of fear, silence, and suspicion among people at every level of society.54Through the movement,
Mawarire noted that he wanted to remove the fear that kept many Zimbabwean citizens from speaking out against abuses and corruption. As such, he felt that the movement would give people the requisite space and confidence to confront their problems and also challenge the government to be transparent and accountable to the citizens.
Indeed, everyday life before the emergence of #ThisFlag was characterised by what Andrea Grant called‘quite insecurity’.55In her study in Rwanda, Grant uses the term quite insecurity to capture the multiple, coded, cryptic, disingenuous, and above all indirect ways in which the state enforces security on its citizens, and how these processes paradoxically lead to greater insecurity, not only in terms of citizens’relationship with the state but also with each other.56 Grant urged us to imagine and think of ‘quite insecurity’ as ‘metastasis’ and asserts that although created by a particular political system at a particular historical moment, it spreads to all areas of social life, engendering fear and mistrust between friends and even family members.57
Similarly, in the Zimbabwean context, many people, including my interlocutors, were reluc- tant to discuss politically sensitive issues with strangers. The few who did talk about politics were careful about what they said and with whom they talked about politics. Given the per- vasiveness of state security agents and spies for surveillance, people never trusted their col- leagues, and even family members-remaining silent about sensitive politics was a self- censorship tactic used as a safety mechanism.58 However, #ThisFlag sought to dismantle this deep-seated culture of silence and passivity on the part of citizens. Instead, the movement sought to impart and inculcate engaged and active political subjectivities based on nonvio- lent principles. Writing about #ThisFlag, Jacquelin Kataneksza asserted that the influence of this movement was seen by how it emboldened Zimbabweans in and out of the country to speak out and challenge the state through nonviolent actions.59 In fact, Kataneksza further affirmed that citizens transformed from adjusting to the whims of an authoritarian and violent regime to mobilising and expressing dissent while demanding transparency, accountability and change.60Indeed, at the centre of this movement was an emphasis on fos- tering a new kind of civic subjectivity that promoted values of active citizenship, brevity and non-violence.
The foregoing findings echo Jenkins’ framing of contemporary online forms of political activism or cyber-activism as‘participatory politics’.61 Jenkins used participatory politics to articulate a new kind of youth politics, especially how young people engage in virtual political activism. Consequently, #ThisFlag should also be understood within the broader context of Jenkins’ participatory politics. Jenkins argued that participatory politics transcends our tra- ditional understanding of what constitutes the political.62 Following this, #ThisFlag, as a form of participatory politics, constructed‘counterpublics’and alternative discursive spaces through which subaltern voices articulated their grievances, but also contested state propa- ganda on and about the movement and the grievances that triggered its emergence. Conse- quently, it is important to assert that the #ThisFlag movement developed into an online public space through which marginalised Zimbabweans in and out of the country launched and engaged in a concerted moral critique of ZANU-PF and its poor governance.
Symbolic protests: Prayer vigils
One of the key non-violent strategies adopted by the movement was prayer vigils. The deployment of prayer vigils by the #ThisFlag movement was understandable given that the leader of the movement was a staunch Christian and pastor. Similarly, the use of prayer
was also strategic given that the majority of Zimbabweans are Christians.63As such, this move meant that the movement appealed to many people, especially the born again Christians who believed that they are soldiers in God’s army.64Some of these religious youth members of the movement felt that their warfare was not only spiritual but also material in the here and now.65The movement’s members organised several prayer vigils in and around Harare. In a context where most Zimbabweans classify themselves as Christians, the appropriation of prayer as a key resistance ritual by #ThisFlag was a creative strategy that appealed to the reli- gious sensibilities of many people. In fact, when Pastor Evan Mawarire was arrested, thou- sands of people, including church leaders and pastors, expressed their support and solidarity with him. Many of them prayed to God for the release of Pastor Mawarire and when he was eventually released and his charges dismissed that was interpreted as both a spiritual and political victory over Mugabe’s evil regime.66Therefore, prayer was a powerful symbolic non-violent strategy that enabled the movement to mobilise thousands of partici- pants within and beyond the country’s borders. Judith, one of my interlocutors and an ardent member of the #ThisFlag movement explained;
When our leader, Pastor Mawarire, was arrested, we had to seek divine intervention. We knew that with God everything is possible, so we started singing and praying outside the court. We started with a few people, but after a few hours, the number grew to almost 5000 people kneeling and praying.67
These prayer vigils should be viewed not only as tools of nonviolent resistance but also as rel- evant forms of political critique. Engagement in prayer for my interlocutors signified citizen agency to deal with a violent and repressive state. In fact, prayer disempowered the state’s repressive machinery deployed to clamp down on protestors. The use of prayer as a tool of protest reveals the creative ways through which dissent and political activism became spiri- tualised. Indeed, I contend that prayer becomes a form of affective space and ritual through which alternative forms of protests and resistance can be imagined and enacted.
This resonates with Jean Comaroff, who viewed religious rituals as faith healing as nonviolent resistance to colonialism.68The centrality of ritual and prayer as a tool for resistance was elo- quently explained by Pamela; one of my interlocutors;
We have always used prayer since the movement started. I think you know that our leader is not only a pastor but also a religious man who believes strongly in the power of prayer and God answering prayers. So we knew that in the courts we should use prayer as our weapon to get a decision in our favour.69
This narrative was echoed by several other people I spoke with outside the court during Pastor Evan Mawarire’s trial. Most of them believed that they knew that with prayer they were going to win the case. In the words of Eric; one of my interlocutors;
With God, nothing is impossible. There was no way that we were going to be defeated in the court with the way we prayed since morning and the unity of purpose that we showed as a group. With prayer and God on your side, victory is certain.70
What is fascinating about the quotes by Pamela and Eric is how the arrest of pastor Mawarire was framed as a spiritual attack on the movement that required spiritual remedies such as prayer and fasting. The frame of Mawarire’s arrest as a spiritual attack resonates with the dis- course of spiritual warfare in which Christians engage in a perpetual struggle against Satan and his demons. As such, when Mawarire was eventually released, it was celebrated by thou- sands of people outside the court as a spiritual victory demonstrating God’s dominion over
Satan. Indeed, after his release outside the court, many people carried placards with messages like,
“Thank you Jesus”
“NdiJesu Aronga Kudai”(Its Jesus’plan)
‘We have overcome, Jesus is unconquerable’71
These messages reveal the spiritual meanings that people attached to Mawarire’s acquittal and release and the efficaciousness of their spiritual warfare through prayers.72 Many people I talked to attributed this victory to their prayer vigils and God.73In her article on the prayer vigil, Cornwell shows that Mawarire’s release after several hours of ‘prayer protest’ vigil outside the court helped to strengthen the resolve of some religious members of the movement.74 This was eloquently explained in an interview with Amos.
Amos noted that people’s powerful prayers outside the court helped to put pressure on the court and the government to release Pastor Mawarire. Amos told me that;
This is a clear testimony that our God is a God who answers prayers. He is a faithful God. When you are arrested with the charges they laid against him then ZANU-PF will make you rot in prison, but our prayers conquered today. Even the police, who are notorious for brutality, could not touch us.75
It is against this background that one can argue that engagement in prayer vigils was not just a spiritual act, but also a form of civil disobedience meant to subvert and critique the state and its repressive machinery.
This resonates strongly with observations made by scholars such as Ahmed who remind us of the complex ‘politics of emotions’ as a mobilising tool.76 Sarah Ahmed asserts that emotions signify a form of social power, albeit subjugated. She further foregrounded that affect and emotions have the capacity to collate certain bodies together.77As such, affect trig- gers collective action such as popular protests organised by the #ThisFlag movement. In this case, prayers not only cultivated but also further cemented affective bonds among group members. It is these affective ties that made it easy for the movement to mobilise people to participate in popular protests. This was manifest in many protests activities organised by the movement and when Mawarire was arrested and appeared at the magistrates’court on 12 July 2016. The #ThisFlag activities were well attended and the attendees subscribed that when they visited universities in South Africa, the lecture halls could not accommodate all the people. Interestingly, during Mawarire’s trial, the open space adjacent to the court was converted into a space and site of prayer and other religious rituals as people sought divine intervention for Mawarire to be released. What was interesting at the beginning of his trial was the overwhelming legal support that Mawarire received. When the judge asked who was representing him, over 100 lawyers offered to represent Mawarire for free.78 Similarly, outside the court, the people who came to support Mawarire were racially mixed and from across the political divide and from different age groups which demonstrated a strong sense of unity, community, and solidarity. Being there on this day offered me rich insights into the way people deployed nonviolence strategies in their social critique of the state and its repressive apparatus.
Petitioning the government
One of the key strategies that the movement used to articulate its grievances to the state was byfiling petitions to contest unpopular decisions and to force the state to act in addressing
endemic corruption by government ministers. For instance, #ThisFlag drafted and submitted many petitions to the government and its various arms in 2016. Indeed, in June 2016 the movement started a ‘Undenge Must Go’ campaign petition.79 The petition was meant to put pressure on the government to relieve the then minister of Energy and Power Develop- ment, Samuel Undenge, to resign over alleged corruption scandals. Although Minister Undenge was not immediately arrested after the petition, after the removal of former presi- dent Robert Mugabe by a coup in November 2017, Undenge was found guilty of abuse of public office and corruption. The former minister was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.80
Similarly, in 2016, #ThisFlag petitioned the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor and the minister offinance to stop introducing a surrogate currency called the bond note.81The movement wanted the RBZ governor and minister offinance to reconsider the introduction of the bond note. For members of the movement, the printing of the bond note was an econ- omicfiscal blunder reminiscent of 2008, when the country experienced world-record hyper- inflation.82While the RBZ governor and the government asserted that the bond note will be equal in value to the US dollar, #ThisFlag produced a comic video that revealed that the bond note cannot have the same value as the US dollar.83This also reveals how the movement used humour and parody as a tool for political critique and speaking truth to power. In this case, humour was also used to show the disparities between the bond note and the United States dollar. The government responded to this by imposing a jail term for anyone mocking the new surrogate currency.84One of my interlocutors told me in a conversation that anyone saying that the bond note is equal to the US dollar was berserk. In fact, many people used social media to express their disillusionment with the introduction of the bond note that eroded people’s savings in the banks.85Ephraim explained to me in a conver- sation that;
This is a daylight robbery by the state. Imagine that you saved your money in the bank in US dollars. You deposited US dollars in the bank and now the state is saying that it is now this useless bond note. I cannot pay my children’s tuition fees in South Africa using bond notes because it’s not recognised outside as money. They claim that the value is equal to 1:1, but no bank will give you forex. This is pure theft.86
Ephraim’s sentiments were shared by many of my interlocutors who participated in a protest against the introduction of bond notes. Many of my interlocutors felt that the government’s attempt to introduce bond notes was a plan to resurrect the moribund Zimbabwean dollar that was discarded in February 2009 after a world record hyperinflation for a country not at war.87
The use of social media to confront the state by the #ThisFlag movement was under- standable, given the long history of the ZANU-PF government of state brutality and repres- sion. As such, many activists turned to social media due to the relatively lower risk and vulnerability to violence. Therefore, being less risky made social media an attractive device through which to express grievances and critique the deceit and corruption of the state. As such, the movement’s penchant for using non-violent techniques to deal with a violent state was tactical. This finding was also echoed by Kataneksza who argued that cyber-activism provided many people with a perceived ‘safe’ discursive and communal space, through which citizens exchanged with each other and the state and debated politi- cal issues without fear of police violence.88 In addition, peaceful dialogue with authorities was also initiated through social media and often translated into offline engagements as
was the case with the RBZ dialogue. I assert that digital activism and social media provided citizens with a new and alternative avenue and ways of reimagining their futures and that of the country.
Conclusion
This article examined the non-violent strategies deployed by a youthful social move- ment, the #ThisFlag movement. The paper has comtributed to our understanding of youth and politics, in particular to the political agency imbued by youth in the context of violence. Mobilising through social media platforms, the movement used non-violent tactics and strategies to articulate the citizens’ grievances and engage with a violent state. The movement organised several non-violent online and offline forms of dissent against the state. In so doing, the movement enabled citizens to speak out against endemic corruption, nepotism, poor service delivery, and human rights abuses, among other social ills perpetrated by ZANU-PF and its political hench- men. I argue in this article that the deployment of non-violent strategies by members of the movement has to be understood within a broader politics of repression and vio- lence of the state. While the #ThisFlag movement was not pushing for regime change but regime reforms, the ZANUPF regimes interpreted it as a western funded movement meant to effect regime change in the country. As such, Mawarire and members of the movement were framed as enemies of the state and potential sell-outs. This explains the way in which the government responded to the political threat posed by the move- ment. As such, engaging in non-violent techniques was in itself an exercise of agency and a tactic of social navigation. The article showed the ways in which social media create new and alternative discursive spaces and avenues for young people to launch their non-violent angst against an authoritarian and violent state. The #ThisFlag move- ment demonstrates the potential of social media and young people to configure novel popular protests and transform authoritarian regimes. In fact, the article also argues that the authoritarian and brutal nature of the Mugabe and Mnangagwa regimes matter in our understanding of the complex configuration of non-violent resistance by
#ThisFlag and other social movements that emerged in the country.
Notes
1. Hove,‘Nonviolent Campaigns in Zimbabwe, 1999 to 2013’. Musarurwa,‘The Rise of Youth Activism and Non-violent Action’; Hove, Why Nonviolent Movements Failed in Zimbabwe; Hove and Chenzi,‘A Drive to Regime Change Through Nonviolent Economic Warfare’.
2. Zunes,‘The Role of Non-Violent Action in the Downfall of Apartheid’. 3. Chenoweth and Cunningham,‘Understanding Nonviolent Resistance’. 4. Chenoweth and Stephan,‘Why Civil Resistance Works’.
5. Sharp,The Politics of Nonviolent Action.
6. Zunes,‘The Role of Non-Violent Action in the Downfall of Apartheid’. 7. Sharp,The Politics of Nonviolent Action.
8. Hove,‘Nonviolent Campaigns in Zimbabwe, 1999 to 2013: 61’. 9. Chenoweth and Cunningham,‘Understanding Nonviolent Resistance’. 10. Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown Cyber Protests in Zimbabwe’. 11. Karekwaivanane and Msonza,Zimbabwe Digital Rights Landscape.
12. Dendere,‘Why are So Many African Leaders Shutting Offtheir Internet in 2019’.
13. Ranger,‘African Politics in Twentieth-Century Southern Rhodesia’.
14. see Kaunda,On Violence; Sutherland and Meyer,Guns and Gandhi in Africa.
15. Hove,Nonviolent Campaigns in Zimbabwe, 1999 to 2013; Musarurwa,‘The Rise of Youth Activism’; Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown Cyber Protests in Zimbabwe’; Hove and Chenzi,‘A Drive to Regime Change Through Nonviolent Economic Warfare’.
16. United States Institute of Peace.
17. Hove,Nonviolent Campaigns in Zimbabwe, 1999 to 2013; Hove and Chenzi,‘A Drive to Regime Change Through Nonviolent Economic Warfare’.
18. Hove,Nonviolent Campaigns in Zimbabwe, 1999 to 2013.
19. Hove and Chanzi,‘A Drive to Regime Change Through Nonviolent Economic Warfare’. 20. Ibid.
21. Musarurwa,‘The Rise of Youth Activism and Non-Violent Action’. 22. Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown cyber protests in Zimbabwe.
23. Ibid.; Mawere,‘The Politics and Symbolism of the# ThisFlag in Zimbabwe’. 24. See Szablewicz,‘The“Losers”of China’s Internet’.
25. Hansen,‘Getting Stuck in the Compound’.
26. Singerman,‘Young, Gender and Dignity in the Egyptian Uprising’; Honwana,‘Waithood’. 27. Ibid.; Oosterom,‘Are Rural Young People Stuck?’
28. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/thisflag-zimbabwe-flags-robert-mugabe- protest-evan-mawarire-latest-a7320556.html
29. Chidza,‘Flag Protest’Pastor Receives Death Threats.https://www.newsday.co.zw/2016/05/flag- protest-pastor-receives-death-threats/
30. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/06/zimbabwe-shuts-down-peaceful-protest- against-corruption-thisflag-harare
31. Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown Cyber Protests in Zimbabwe’. 32. Harrington,‘The Spirituality of Non-Violence’.
33. Alexander and McGregor,‘War Stories’; Alexnder and Chitofiri,‘The Consequences of Violent Poli- tics in Norton’.
34. Hove,Nonviolent Campaigns in Zimbabwe, 1999 to 2013.
35. Kriger,Zimbabwe’s Guerrilla Veterans; Alexander and McGregor,‘War Stories’; Chung, Re-Living the Second Chimurenga; Sadomba,War Veterans in Zimbabwe’s Revolution.
36. Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Legal Resources Foundation (CCJP),Breaking the Silence; Maedza,‘Gukurajundi-a Moment of Madness’.
37. Chitukutuku, Rebuilding the Liberation War Base; Maringira, Political Violence within Army Bar- racks; Chitando and Togarasei,‘June 2008, Verse 27’; Alexander and Chitofiri, The Consequences of Violent Politics in Norton.
38. See, Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown Cyberprotests in Zimbabwe’; Oberdorf,Inspiring the Citizen to be Bold; Nenjerama and Mpofu, ‘Populism from Below and Social Movements’; Mawere, The Politics and Symbolism of the #ThisFlag in Zimbabwe.
39. Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown Cyber Protests in Zimbabwe’. 40. Oberdorf,Inspiring the Citizen to be Bold.
41. Ibid.
42. Se also Netizens,‘Counter-Memories, and Internet Literature into the New Millennium’. 43. Raftopolous2003,2009.
44. See Kozinets, Netnography.
45. Gukurume,‘#ThisFlag and #ThisGown Cyberprotests in Zimbabwe’.
46. Ranger,‘Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: The Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe’.
47. Mawere,‘The Politics and Symbolism of the #ThisFlagin Zimbabwe’.
48. The Guardian,https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/06/zimbabwe-shuts-down-peaceful- protest-against-corruption-thisflag-harare
49. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/04/zimbabwe-police-battle-rioters- protesting-against-harassment
50. Interview with Ephraim.
51. Oberdorf,Inspiring the Citizen to be Bold.
52. Ibid.
53. Gukurume,‘Surveillance, Spying and Disciplining the University’.
54. Kagoro,‘The Prusoners of Hope: Civil Society and the Opposition in Zimbabwe’. 55. Grant,‘Quiet Insecurity and Quiet Agency in Post Genocide Rwanda’.
56. Ibid., 16.
57. Ibid.
58. Gukurume,‘Surveillance, Spying and Disciplining the University’.
59. Kataneksza,‘Zimbabwe Activists Test, Track and Learn to Organise a New Movement’. 60. Ibid.
61. Jenkins,Participatory Politics.
62. Ibid.
63. Gukurume,‘New Pentecostal Churches, Politics and the Everyday Life of University Students at the University of Zimbabwe’.
64. Gukurume and Taru,‘We are Soldiers in God’s Army’.
65. Gukurume,‘Investing in the Future Generation: New Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in Harare’. 66. Interview with Tapiwa, a member of #ThisFlag movement.
67. Interview with Judith, a member of #ThisFlag movement.
68. Comaroff,Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance.
69. Interview with Pamela, a member of #ThisFlag movement.
70. Interview with Eric, a member of #ThisFlag movement.
71. Participant Observation, 2016.
72. Gateway News, https://gatewaynews.co.za/zimbabwean-christians-lead-historic-day-of-prayer- protest-as-pastor-freed/
73. https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/5846/zimbabwean-pastor-released-after-prayer-vigil-outside- court
74. Cornwell,‘Zimbabwean Pastor Released after Prayer Vigil Outside Court’. 75. Interview with Amos, a member of #ThisFlag movement.
76. Ahmed,The Cultural Politics of Emotion.
77. Ibid.
78. Nehanda Radio, https://nehandaradio.com/2016/07/13/100-lawyers-stand-thisflag-evan-mawarire/;
Metro,https://metro.co.uk/2016/07/13/over-100-lawyers-turned-out-to-help-this-guy-for-free-6004404/
79. www.thestandard.co.zw/2016/06/26/undenge-must-go-campaign-hots/
80. www.herald.co.zw/ex-energy-minister-undenge-jailed/
81. www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/08/03/zim-uprisings-useless-bond-notes/
82. The Guardian,https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/09/zimbabwe
83. Africanews, https://www.africanews.com/2016/11/28/zimbabwe-outdoors-bond-notes-equal-to- us-dollar-to-cure-cash-crunch/; BBC,https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36210680
84. Keletso,https://www.groundup.org.za/article/long-jail-penalties-mocking-zimbabwe-new-currency/
85. Eye Witness News,https://ewn.co.za/2016/10/07/Zimbabwes-This-Flag-movement-releases-its-own- new-bond-notes
86. Interview/conversation with Ephraim, a member of #ThisFlag movement.
87. Gukurume,‘Livelihood Resilience in a Hyperinflationary Environment’.
88. Kataneksza,‘Zimbabwe Activists Test, Track and Learn to Organise a New Movement’.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
I am grateful to the African Peacebuilding Network (APN) and also gratefully acknowledge the funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, ES/S000127/1) for this research.
Notes on contributor
Simbarashe Gukurumeis a Social Scientist working at the intersections of Soci- ology and Social Anthropology and is a senior lecturer at Sol Plaatje University in the Department of Social Sciences (Sociology). Simbarashe is also a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, Department of Anthropology and Development Studies. Simbarashe holds a PhD from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa and an MSc in Sociology and Social Anthropology as well as a BSc in Sociology from the University of Zimbabwe. Simbarashe is inter- ested in questions around youth, informality, livelihoods, displacement, money, religiosity, social and political movements and other forms of youth everyday lives. Simbarashe has been a recipient of the Matasa Network Fellowship award, IDS (University of Sussex), the Harry Frank Guggenheim Young African Scholars award, the SSRC Research award, the African Peace Building Network (APN) individual grant, and the Academy for African Urban Diversity (AAUD) award among other awards.
ORCID
Simbarashe Gukurume http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2297-3693
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