Personally I don’t think that the Mugabe regime needs to have its partisan police force in permanent riot gear and on “high alert” to suppress the deluge of demonstrations that they imagine are about to engulf Zimbabwe. When we take a moment and actually look at, and analyse the number and type of demonstrations that take place in Zimbabwe, its clear that the Mugabe regime has very little to worry about.

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) rolls out their usual demonstrator crowd every two weeks. And similarly if you scratch the surface of any civic organization or pressure group in Zimbabwe you’ll find that they can’t mobilize their constituencies. For the last few years pro-democracy leaders have indulged in the very same behaviour that they condemn the Mugabe regime for. That is, they view the Zimbabwean people as an amorphous group to manoeuvre like chess pieces, with scant regard for consultation or any in-depth community based organizing.

The battle for freedom in Zimbabwe will not be won on the streets, unless all active civic organizations can actually publicly mobilize their constituencies. And only if actions like demonstrations are true representations of people’s discontent, and not stage-managed NGO activity. NCA-type demonstrations are relatively easy to pull-off, while working at grassroots level to explain to ordinary Zimbabweans why they need to swell numbers in the streets, is the hard part.

Let’s have a look at what has been most effective in the last month or so. It’s been the tactic of non-compliance (strikes) rather than direct action (demonstrations). Demonstrations could be more potent but only if pressure groups engage a strategy of rolling actions so that the regime’s police force and their resources are stretched to the limit.

It has also been interesting to note that Zimbabwe is consistently plagued by the politics of “special interests” rather than realizing that we are all inter-connected and that if we don’t somehow act in concert, then it’s simply a matter of time before we all collapse.

Take the doctors and teachers strike for example. Whilst their action can be viewed as a success, for how long will their pay rise keep inflation at bay? Doctors and teachers can put a bit more food on their table but what of the multitudes of others who can’t? The “I’m alright Jack” Zimbabwean condition and our lack of unified action are central to our oppression. Yip, not many of us want to go anywhere near acknowledging that we, as well as Mugabe, are part of the problem.

What do we need to do? We need each sector to engage in sustained non-compliance and withdraw their support in propping up the dictatorship. We need employers and workers to enter respectful contracts in the knowledge that mass non-compliance is essential to our long term survival knowing full well that in the short term, all of our difficulties will increase. We need the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to unite and for their hierarchy to start moving from door to door, shopping centre to shopping centre and to organize as many rallies in defiance of banning orders as they can.

And for those of us sitting behind our computers, email, newspapers and in the comfort of our homes, as Tony Kushner said in his short essay, Despair is a lie we tell ourselves

“we have to do it by showing up places, our bodies in places, our bodies at meetings and demos and rallies and leafleting corners. Because this is a moment in history that needs us to begin, each of us every day at her or his own pace, slowly and surely rediscovering how to be politically active, how to organize our disparate energies into effective group action – and I choose to believe we will do what is required. Act. Organize. Assemble. Oppose. Resist. Find a place a cause a group a friend and start, today, now now now, continue continue continue.”

This entry was posted on March 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.