I had dinner with a couple of foreign visitors on Monday night. They were in Zimbabwe to check out the state of civil society and take the political temperature. I have to say that my jaw dropped (almost into my bowl of Thai noodles) when they said they were upbeat about the new Save Zimbabwe Campaign.

One thing that civil society is good at is re-inventing itself into coalitions or alliances by a variety of names. Brian Kagoro said in a recent interview on SW Radio Africa, that he felt it was unfair to say that civil society coalitions hadn’t really worked in Zimbabwe. But one has to wonder what the difference is between the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, for example? Has this been clearly articulated? Because if it has, I haven’t read the analysis.

When I heard about the formation of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign my first thought was that it sounded all too familiar. Hadn’t we been there and done that? And indeed a Save Zimbabwe Campaign was formed in 2002 with the Movement for Democratic Change being a key participant in its formation. The 2002 Save Zimbabwe Campaign has either fizzled out or become moribund.

Is this going to be the fate of the 2006 Save Zimbabwe Campaign?

The 2006 Save Zimbabwe Campaign claims to have brought together all opposition political parties and major civil society organisations – one would imagine that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is participating as well. So, where was the 2006 Save Zimbabwe Campaign on September 13th during the ZCTU protest in Harare?

As one visitor to our offices said on September 13th, “I went looking for the revolution but couldn’t find it.”

Will the Save Zimbabwe Campaign actually materialise, and Do Something, or will it continue to be little more than references in the press?

This entry was posted on October 13th, 2006 at 10:12 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.