tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/zimbabwe-military-46819/articles
Zimbabwe military – The Conversation
2021-02-02T14:53:36Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/153501
2021-02-02T14:53:36Z
2021-02-02T14:53:36Z
The incredible journey of the toyi-toyi, southern Africa’s protest dance
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380292/original/file-20210123-13-a5vl9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters toyi-toyi at an anti-Israel protest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181112-is-this-south-africas-12th-official-language">toyi-toyi</a> is a high-kneed, foot-stomping dance, rhythmically punctuated by exhaled chants and call and response. </p>
<p>It can be observed at almost any kind of protest in South Africa and Zimbabwe today. In South Africa, university students toyi-toyi when they protest against fees, while township residents might toyi-toyi when they object to the presence of ‘foreigners’. In Zimbabwe, the opposition party toyi-toyis to protest the ruling party’s abuses, while ruling party supporters might toyi-toyi when they want to evict white farmers.</p>
<p>Where did this ‘dance’ come from? Many people associate it with the South African <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/township-uprising-1984-1985">township protests</a> of the 1980s, when young men toyi-toyied as they confronted police or attended political funerals and protests. These images filled the world’s TV screens, becoming one of the most recognisable performances of the anti-<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> struggle. </p>
<p>But its origins are in fact much further away, and they tell us about a much longer, global history of political and military struggle. This story played out across Africa, moving from north to south, all the way from Algeria to South Africa, with stops in Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and Zimbabwe along the way. </p>
<h2>Military camps</h2>
<p>We explored this history in our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2020.1804123">research</a>. Our interest in the toyi-toyi did not come from its recent uses, but from our efforts to understand the liberation armies that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Southern-Africa/Independence-and-decolonization-in-Southern-Africa">fought</a> against colonial and white minority rule in every southern African country from the 1960s. </p>
<p>These armies have an extraordinary history shaped by the alliances of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a> era. They were made up of mostly young men, who left their rural homesteads and townships for training camps that might be in the Soviet Union or Cuba, Algeria or Tanzania, Angola or Zambia. </p>
<p>We wanted to understand what this experience was like and what kinds of armies it made. We focused on ‘military culture’ – that is, the ideas, practices and traditions that give an army character and meaning for soldiers – and how it was instilled through training in all these different places. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XPuQBqNhH1M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE. The toyi-toyi’s relationship with protest music.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The toyi-toyi proved a great way of understanding how these men learned what it meant to be a soldier, and how those ideas were transmitted over thousands of kilometres and through dozens of military camps. When the toyi-toyi eventually arrived in South Africa’s townships it was something very different from what it had been at the start of its long journey. </p>
<h2>Algerian roots</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2020.1804123">interviewed</a> <a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/lest-we-forget-histories-of-the-zimbabwe-people-s-revolutionary-army-zpra">members</a> of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary <a href="https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/579630-z-p-r-a">Army</a> (ZPRA, also referred to as Zipra, the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union or Zapu). We learned that the toyi-toyi’s origins were located in the training camps set up to support African liberation movements in Algeria in the mid-1960s. </p>
<p><em>Toyi-toyi</em> was thought to be an Arabic phrase and it formed part of the songs and chants that recruits learned. For them, the toyi-toyi was a military drill – certainly not a ‘dance’ – that they associated with achieving the high level of toughness and fitness required to survive guerrilla war. Its foreign language chants and novel movements expressed the international character of the armed liberation struggle itself. </p>
<p>From Algeria, the toyi-toyi moved southward, through training camps in Tanzania and then into Zambia, and in the process it changed. </p>
<h2>Zimbabwean nationalism</h2>
<p>It began to take on a nationalist character – the Arabic slogans were replaced with slogans in Zimbabwe’s main languages and they were refocused around expressions of loyalty to the party and its leader. This was at a time when there were many divisions that threatened the movement. The toyi-toyi became a way of instilling loyalty and discipline as well as physical strength as many more soldiers started to fight inside Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>The military toyi-toyi required hours of high-kneed running in difficult terrain while carrying heavy packs and weapons. ZPRA veterans told us how they had suffered from the toyi-toyi’s demands but they also stressed that it had given them tremendous pride in their toughness and helped them to face the terrible demands of the battlefield. They remembered the toyi-toyi as an essential part of their military culture. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of protesters with banners; in the foreground a group appears to be marching in the same style, knees raised very high." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabwean protesters in Harare, demonstrating against the disappearance of a journalist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The toyi-toyi had, however, a different standing in other liberation armies. We can see how the toyi-toyi tells us about how military cultures were remade over time in one army – it can also tell us about how such cultures were transmitted from one liberation army to another. </p>
<h2>The toyi-toyi arrives in South Africa</h2>
<p>The main South African liberation army, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">uMkhonto we Sizwe</a> (MK), learned the toyi-toyi from ZPRA, in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2017.1262639?journalCode=cjss20">shared</a> military camps in Angola and Zambia and on the Zimbabwean battlefield. The spread of the toyi-toyi in MK shows how extensive these interactions were. </p>
<p>But MK soldiers had very different <a href="https://www.ifwemustdie.co.za">reactions</a> to it. Some denounced the toyi-toyi as a mindless, brutal physical exercise and blamed it for instituting a repressive military culture in MK.</p>
<p>These critical views of the toyi-toyi did not stop it from spreading throughout MK camps in Angola and from there southwards again into South Africa. One of the main routes for the toyi-toyi’s arrival in the South African townships was through <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/za/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/politics-general-interest/robben-island-and-prisoner-resistance-apartheid?format=PB&isbn=9780521007825">MK soldiers</a> who had been captured, held in the infamous <a href="https://www.robben-island.org.za/stories">Robben Island prison</a> and subsequently released in South Africa. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-and-fashion-the-rise-of-the-red-beret-128333">Politics and fashion: the rise of the red beret</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These men were heroes to many young people in the townships. Performing the toyi-toyi was a means through which young men and women could link their protest to the glories of the armed struggle – now in the form of an at times joyous, at times menacing ‘dance’ rather than a military drill. </p>
<p>The toyi-toyi has continued to change its meanings – it has taken on many different political roles for people with no connection to the liberation struggles. By tracing its journey, we can learn how liberation movements’ militaries were made – and also how they spread into a much wider political culture which remains significant today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jocelyn Alexander receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, RPG-2019-198. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>JoAnn McGregor receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust</span></em></p>
South Africa’s famous toyi-toyi was adopted from Zimbabwean troops, who learned it in Algeria – showing the interconnected nature of Africa’s liberation struggles.
Jocelyn Alexander, Professor, University of Oxford
JoAnn McGregor, Professor, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/144299
2020-09-06T09:26:52Z
2020-09-06T09:26:52Z
Dear Dambudzo Marechera… The letters Zimbabweans wrote to a literary star
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354881/original/file-20200826-7165-a0o96v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dambudzo Marechera, 1986</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ernst Schade via Humboldt University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The writer <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1365977/dambudzo-marecheras-the-house-of-hunger-novel-still-plays-out-in-zimbabwe/">Dambudzo Marechera</a>, who died on 18 August 1987, remains a popular figure in Zimbabwe. He is heralded by a young generation as a radical and counter-culture figure.</p>
<p>Marechera became an instant star when his first book <em>The House of Hunger</em> was published to critical acclaim in 1978. The novella tells of growing up in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in raw and exquisite prose, a harrowing portrait of lives disrupted and young disillusionment. The rumour is that he wrote it in a tent or squat, but then perhaps he did not, for as James Currey puts it in <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Africa+Writes+Back"><em>Africa Writes Back</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Marechera developed his own life story with the self-regarding obsession of an actor.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Everything to do with his conflicted legacy had a touch of mythology. Whether it was throwing plates and cups at his hosts at the Guardian Fiction Prize ceremony, trying to burn down a university library, or travelling without a passport between countries and continents. </p>
<p>His magnum opus, <em>The House of Hunger</em>, came immediately after his expulsion from New College, Oxford university. Though his publishers desperately expected him to produce the ‘great Zimbabwean novel’, Marechera’s later work was inconsistent. He saw two more books published: <em><a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/black-sunlight">Black Sunlight</a></em> (1980) and <em><a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/mindblast">Mindblast</a></em> (1984). Further work was released posthumously: <em><a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/the-black-insider">The Black Insider</a></em> (1990), <em><a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/cemetery-of-mind">Cemetery of Mind</a></em> (1992) and <em><a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/scrapiron-blues">Scrapiron Blues</a></em> (1994).</p>
<p>After confounding critics and foes, and leading an erratic lifestyle, the writer was dead at 35. Marechera embodies celebrity and politics, spectacle and radicalism, universality and self-aggrandisement. What endears him to a generation of readers is his refusal to offer easy answers or present static identities for his fictional characters or for himself.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover with an illustration of a man against a spider's web, a spider with a needle stitching a long cut on his forehead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354613/original/file-20200825-15-1luo5zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">House of Hunger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heinemann Books London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But who is Dambudzo Marechera? I never met him. He died when I was four years old and has always been an enigma. But I recently discovered a set of <a href="https://witswiser.podbean.com/e/tinashe-mushakavanhu-marechera-the-story-doctor/">old letters</a> which reveal the real import of <a href="https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/reincarnating-marechera-notes-on-a-speculative-archive/">Marechera’s influence</a>. </p>
<h2>A visit to the archive</h2>
<p>For a long time I associated the <a href="http://www.archives.gov.zw">National Archives of Zimbabwe</a> with bureaucracy and viewed it as an unwelcoming security zone. My early visits were focused on accessing the Marechera papers, or what remains of them. The more I visited, the more items went missing, and sometimes they were truncated. When I told friends about the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of materials, many suggested that the institution has a general suspicion of researchers and that it censors information.</p>
<p>It was during one of these visits that I saw a folder that contained a neat pile of hundreds of handwritten letters. The melodramatic structure and rhetoric of the letters disturbed the stable meanings I held about Marechera, especially their expressions of psychic pain, longing, desire, frustration, boredom, and the material details of the correspondents’ private lives – that now make them irresistible, intimate public archives.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="1010" data-image="" data-title="The Wiser Podcast: Marechera, The Story Doctor" data-size="40410300" data-source="Wiser, Wits University" data-source-url="https://witswiser.podbean.com/e/tinashe-mushakavanhu-marechera-the-story-doctor/" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2041/tinashe-marechera-79nrq.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
The Wiser Podcast: Marechera, The Story Doctor.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://witswiser.podbean.com/e/tinashe-mushakavanhu-marechera-the-story-doctor/">Wiser, Wits University</a><span class="download"><span>38.5 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2041/tinashe-marechera-79nrq.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>The letters are valuable historic documents; their inclusion in the national archives was a fate their writers could never have imagined. The value of these letters depends on their continued circulation. Yet, they have been ignored by researchers who have hollowed out black testimony in constructing the figure of Marechera. Much of the Marechera scholarship is scaffolded on white memory. </p>
<p>The letters function as a space of knowledge and confession and are complex objects positioned at the intersection of personal, institutional and memorial motives.</p>
<h2>The story doctor</h2>
<p>Addressed in care of the Dambudzo Marechera Trust, the letters were dispatched after Marechera’s death from urban townships, rural areas, growth points, mining compounds, farms; places that only appear in the news during election season or moments of catastrophe. In death, Marechera <a href="https://chimurengachronic.co.za/home-mean-nothing-to-me/">ruptures</a> the view of Zimbabwe as a little corridor that starts in Harare and ends in Bulawayo. These letters provide a unique psychological and physical map of his enduring influence – a community forged around issues of privacy, of friendship and of individual freedom.</p>
<p>The correspondents feel comfortable talking to Marechera. They know he will never scold them for what they say. He is ordinary like them, but constantly harassed by the state and its security apparatus. Most are school dropouts who absconded to join the war and came back to no jobs or unwelcoming families. </p>
<p>After the war, they were expected to grow up quickly and join the army of nation builders. But there were no systems created to deal with the traumas of war. Many returned with stories and nightmares and didn’t know how to share them, or where to turn for help. The government bureaucrats were unconcerned. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dreadlocked man stands at a microphone, holding a notebook in an outdoor city space, crowds of people around the platform he stands on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354883/original/file-20200826-16-1ummmbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marechera reading in First Street Mall, Harare, during the International Book Fair Harare in August 1983.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Tessa Colvin via Humboldt University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Marechera decided to be the story doctor who provided an outlet for people to vent. He opened a small office in the Harare City Centre. The office was minimalistic, it had no furniture; there was a phone in the corner. Marechera had decided to build a healing platform outside the official system. He understood the sickness that was all around him that could only be cured through storytelling sessions. The writing surgery operated for four days before it was shut down by government agents. At least 1,000 young people had consulted Marechera.</p>
<p>They turned to Marechera who was the resident philosopher in Harare’s nightclubs and bars. They eagerly identified with his iconoclasm. To them, his was a <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/seminar/Mushakavanhu2019.pdf">fearless voice</a> that undermined every kind of complacency and hypocrisy.</p>
<h2>Death that refuses to be killed</h2>
<p>One letter, dated 18 May 1989, reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Never before have I encountered an author so seriously dedicated to his pen and voice as the late Dambudzo “Desperate” Marechera. He remains my luminary in my poetic endeavor; his courageous denunciation of “filthy first citizens” an undying inspiration to me. These are the bigots, now coming to the foreground dead and alive because of their sins, who kept Dambudzo well under foot till his death.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From the perspective of the speculative enterprise, Marechera’s death was a necessary death, a death that has had movement, that created a schism in the Zimbabwean imagination. For the political class it was good riddance, but for multitudes of young people Marechera’s death was the awakening. </p>
<p>It was a new type of death that refused to be killed. Marechera’s transcendence to the afterlife became an expression of the radical and new logic, a speculative process. </p>
<p>His death is the moment he is born again, every utterance of his name is a recreation of who he was, of who he should have been. He changes with every memory, every retelling. If Dambudzo Marechera had not existed, Zimbabwe would have invented him.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Mushakavanhu is the author of the just-released book <a href="https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/reincarnating-marechera-notes-on-a-speculative-archive/">Reincarnating Marechera</a>: Notes on a Speculative Archive. The public is invited to contribute to Marechera’s archive over <a href="https://marechera.com">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Hundreds of handwritten letters found in an archive have revealed the real import of the writer’s enduring influence.
Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88085
2017-12-03T10:19:57Z
2017-12-03T10:19:57Z
A clean break with Mugabe’s past will have to wait - even beyond elections
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196676/original/file-20171128-7447-t1w0v1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Emmerson Mnangagwa has officially been sworn in as interim Zimbabwean President.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who would have thought that this year would end with <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-mugabe">Robert Mugabe</a> having lost the presidency of both the governing Zanu-PF and Zimbabwe? None could have foreseen such a development being the work of his ruling party’s inner circle.</p>
<p>The whole development is clearly a product of internal Zanu-PF tensions and actions. The military top brass involved are old standing Zanu-PF cadres that have <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/112460/JUL09SSRZIMBABWE.pdf">propped Mugabe up</a> for decades. Emerson Mnangagwa, who has been sworn in as his successor, has been Mugabe’s right hand man for <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/profile-zimbabwe-president-robert-mugabe-20171115">37 years</a>. </p>
<p>Zimbabweans have every right to celebrate the end of Mugabe’s long and disastrous reign, but they would be wrong to assume that this is the end of their political problems. The same Zanu-PF leadership has taken control of this transition, making it an intra-party matter rather than a national opportunity for deepening democracy as many hope. </p>
<p>Mnangagwa’s first priority will be to ensure consolidation of Zanu-PF power. He may do so by positioning Zanu-PF as a born again party committed to change. He may seize the opportunity to introduce real changes in the conduct of Zanu-PF and government leadership, in economic policies and in rebuilding the social compact by showing greater maturity in relations with other political parties and civil society.</p>
<p>But, as reports surface about the harassment of some of Mugabe appointed ministers and their families at the hands of <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/zimbabwe-judge-military-action-mugabe-legal-51375327">men in uniform</a>, we are reminded that the military should never be encouraged to manage political problems because they are likely to cross the line of civil-military relations. Excessive use of military power is likely to follow.</p>
<h2>Mugabe the survivor</h2>
<p>Mugabe has survived many attempts to get rid of him before. These include the efforts of the previous opposition Zimbabwean African People’s Union <a href="http://africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/How-intellectuals-made-history-in-zimbabwe.pdf">(Zapu)</a> under Joshua Nkomo in the <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Joshua_Nkomo">1980s</a>, through to the <a href="https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Laakso-Vol-7-Issues-23.pdf">Zimbabwe Unity Movement in the 1990s</a> and to Movement for Democratic Change <a href="http://www.mdc.co.zw">(MDC) in the 2000s</a>. All these efforts failed because Mugabe has, at times, been popular, at times cunning and at times ruthless in preserving power – for himself and the Zanu-PF. </p>
<p>At times reliance on patronage of <a href="http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/politics/mdc-t-says-chiefs-not-zanu-pf-political-commissars/">indigenous systems of leadership</a> helped Mugabe and the party ward off challenges. Over the past 15 years, Zanu-PF has relied on the crude use of state power, <a href="http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2012/01/securitization-will-be-an-ill/">draconian security measures</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/22/zimbabwe1">brutality on the streets</a>.</p>
<p>It has also resorted to buying popularity through measures such as the violent land restitution process between <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/pdf/JAE13.2Magure.pdf">2001 and 2007</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196677/original/file-20171128-7442-1bi6f8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabweans at the inauguration of Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After 2007, Zanu-PF and Mugabe had to contend with a regional mediation process by the Southern African Development Community after an election they lost, but which the MDC did not win by margins needed to <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/wep/zim2008results5.htm">form its own government</a>. Zanu-PF responded by unleashing violence and <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/wep/zim2008postd.htm">brutality on opponents</a>. Power sharing, which gave the MDC and its leader <a href="https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOPOLISJ/TOPOLISJ-5-28.pdf">Morgan Tsvangarai</a> an opportunity to position themselves as alternatives, saw Mugabe and Zanu-PF play every trick in the book to preserve power.</p>
<p>After Zanu-PF narrowly won the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/05/robert-mugabe-zimbabwe-election-zanu-pf">2013 elections</a>, it seemed that Mugabe and his party had finally prevailed. But the power battles turned inward, as party factions jostled over who would succeed Mugabe. </p>
<h2>Zanu-PF power struggles</h2>
<p>Various factions in the Zanu-PF have crystallised into two main camps. </p>
<p>The first is Mugabe and his henchmen of the so-called <a href="http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-122610.html">Zezuru group</a>, including top heads of security forces who had wanted Mugabe to continue for a long time. They favoured Solomon Mujuru before he died and later Mnangagwa as a successor. </p>
<p>The second was made up of younger, rather flamboyant group of mainly men around Mugabe Zanu-PF politicians who had gained power and influence in the civil service. This group was known as the <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/11/17/unpacking-the-g40">G-40</a>. In the past few years this group backed Grace Mugabe as her husband’s successor. </p>
<p>Things have hung in the balance with the G40 gaining momentum because they could influence Mugabe’s judgement and decisions through his wife and nephews. This group could make a call who needed to be fired or isolated – and the president would act accordingly. </p>
<p>For example, when moderates in the Zanu-PF and war veterans touted Vice President Joice Mujuru as possible successor to Mugabe, the G40 aimed a barrage of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/11241242/Grace-Mugabe-claims-Joice-Mujuru-plans-to-kill-her-Gaddafi-style.html">insults against her</a> and publicly declared that her time was up. Shortly afterwards Mugabe fired her and got her <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/i-was-a-clear-successor-to-mugabe-says-former-vp-joice-mujuru-20170309">expelled from the party</a>. This deepened divisions within Zanu-PF and intensified concern about the G40 and Grace Mugabe. </p>
<p>The last straw was the <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/11/06/mugabe-fires-deputy-mnangagwa">firing of Mnangagwa</a> and threats against chiefs of armed forces.</p>
<p>Believing that Mugabe was being manipulated by the G40, the military stepped in to weed out those around the president. What they wanted was to persuade Mugabe to go and for Mnangagwa to replace him in as peaceful a process as possible so as not to destabilise Zanu-PF’s hold on power. The military showed great patience as it set about achieving this outcome. </p>
<p>In the end – and after citizens had taken to the streets calling for Mugabe, and the G40, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-11-19-today-we-have-won-zimbabweans-cheer-during-mass-rally">to go</a> – the old man <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42071488">resigned</a>, thus avoiding an embarrassing impeachment process. </p>
<h2>New forces versus old</h2>
<p>Mugabe is gone. A faction of the Zanu-PF that had gained currency around him is being squeezed out of every space in Zimbabwe. A new faction under Mnangagwa is in place. </p>
<p>Mugabe stands as a shadow of continuity behind leaders who have been around him for decades and who have now been entrusted with the renewal agenda. Mugabe has left, but what’s been called <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137543448">Mugabeism</a> remains: both the positive side of vehemently defending the sovereignty of Zimbabwe and the negative side of the brutality of state power. </p>
<p>Mnangagwa and the military have lavished him with generous post-retirement packages, honoured with a <a href="http://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/life/happy-sunset-awaits-mugabe-with-sh1billion-golden-handshake/">holiday in his name and praise</a>. The interim president has warned the deposed G-40 faction of Zanu-PF to return stolen state monies or <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/three-month-zimbabwe-amnesty-for-cash-stashed-abroad-12183516">face the law</a>. </p>
<p>A clean break with Mugabe’s heritage of violence and crude dominance will have to wait even beyond <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-needs-wide-reforms-to-have-credible-elections-but-it-may-be-too-late-83473">elections next year</a>. Zimbabwean citizens have been energised by their role in removing Mugabe. They would do well to remain vigilant, to press for more fundamental changes in the way the state behaves and insisting on democratic processes in economic policies. Otherwise they will continue to live under one Zanu-PF faction to another without real change in their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siphamandla Zondi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Zimbabweans have every right to celebrate the end of Robert Mugabe’s long and disastrous reign, but they would be wrong to assume that this is the end of their political problems.
Siphamandla Zondi, Professor and head of department of Political Sciences and acting head of the Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88274
2017-11-30T10:59:18Z
2017-11-30T10:59:18Z
Now Mugabe is gone there is a chance to get HIV/AIDS under control
<p>In Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the poor and the marginalised with HIV/AIDS lived on borrowed time. Although there were significant strides in reducing the country’s HIV prevalence from an average of <a href="http://zimbabwe.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/FACTSheetHIVDeclineinZimbabweFinal.pdf">27% in the 1990s</a> to less than <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR322/FR322.pdf">15% in 2017</a>, those pushed into extreme poverty continue to fight a daily battle against corruption and prejudice which limits their access to vital treatment, support and care. Now Mugabe is gone there is a glimmer of hope. But Zimbabwe’s new leaders need to take action quickly before more lives are lost.</p>
<p>In rural Goromonzi, in eastern Zimbabwe, during my ethnographic enquiry in 2014, I met over 100 people living with HIV/AIDS. All had distressing stories and accounts. I particularly remember meeting 33-year-old Charity (not her real name) at the rural home where she had lived with her husband, Tino, and their three children. They seemed to sum up what life was like to be poor and afflicted with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>When we met, Charity looked at me intently, as if she wanted to break me with her eyes. Although Charity and Tino lived together, they barely talked – afraid of upsetting each other. I sat next to Charity and opposite her was the emaciated and silent Tino who leaned on soft pillows. Neither spoke for several moments. Charity interrupted the long silence and began to speak calmly, with her head slightly bowed, but maintaining constant eye contact with me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am on ARVs [antiretrovirals]. Our children are HIV negative thanks to the ARVs. Tino is not on HIV treatment and won’t go back to the clinic because it’s very far … his wounds are not healing. The people in the community are also very unfriendly because he is gay … We have nothing here. No jobs in Zimbabwe, our children do most of the work in nearby farms, Rudo [their eldest daughter] stopped going to school because we couldn’t raise the exam fees. For these ARVs to work, we need food, and it’s a struggle to get food.“</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196970/original/file-20171129-29092-105h6ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A township in rural Zimbabwe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fortunate Machingura</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Charity described the times she had to deal with depression along with the recurrent fungal skin infections that are common among immune-suppressed individuals. Like Tino, Charity’s mental and physical health worsened with time and as she narrated her experience, by turns, she appeared to display a range of negative emotions, from extreme depression, through to anxiety, anger, and hopelessness. They were in despair. </p>
<p>This case is emblematic of what happens when HIV infection, poverty, sexuality and poor access to treatment all come together. Although progress has been made and the number of <a href="http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/country/documents/ZWE_narrative_report_2016.pdf">new HIV infections has reduced</a>, the <a href="https://www.odi.org/comment/10581-zimbabwe-after-mugabe-three-reasons-hope">downfall of Robert Mugabe</a> offers Zimbabwe another opportunity to recalibrate the HIV/AIDS trajectory to leave no one behind – by prioritising and fast-tracking actions for the poorest and most marginalised people.</p>
<p>The success of which will depend ultimately on how <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41995876">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a> frames the discourse of development going forward. But here are three quick wins for him to consider.</p>
<h2>Stop new HIV infections</h2>
<p>The Zimbabwe Health Ministry and its National AIDS Council will need to continue strengthening explicit and proactive HIV/AIDS programs that target women and girls, disabled people, the elderly, prisoners and people in remote rural areas, <a href="http://www.chronicle.co.zw/zim-urged-to-include-key-populations-in-hivaids-fight/">male and female sex workers</a>, people in same-sex relationships and those living in extreme poverty.</p>
<p>These groups suffer <a href="http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/12_Populations_en_0.pdf">discrimination and disadvantage</a> and experience a higher risk of preventable and premature death due to HIV/AIDS. While it is noble to target everyone, the benefits of development will continue to advantage the better off groups first and worst off groups later, widening the gap between them. There is a moral responsibility to give greater voice to people like Tino and Charity so that they can participate in the process and help improve it. </p>
<h2>Invest in electronic health records</h2>
<p>To measure progress, detailed information about the most vulnerable needs to be available. President Mnangagwa’s government should aim to reshape civil registration and finance the roll-out of electronic based counting systems, such as the Electronic Health Records (EHR). Keeping track of a single patient on ARVs can be complicated. Doing it for a low-income country with over <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR322/FR322.pdf">13% HIV prevalence</a> while coping with high demand for treatments of all <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/10/typhoid-outbreak-hits-mbare/">sorts of outbreaks</a> and a sputtering economy magnifies the complexity.</p>
<p>This is why investing in the roll-out of the <a href="http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/mashambanhaka-clinic-pioneers-computerization">already piloted Zimbabwe EHR</a> – which can provide high-quality data security, storage and analysis in some of the busiest HIV/AIDS clinics in the nation – is crucial.</p>
<h2>Address corruption</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016">Zimbabwe</a> is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The people’s dissatisfaction with the government’s corruption was reflected in the recent anti-Mugabe demonstrations following General Chiwenga’s famous ”<a href="http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Zimbabwe-s-military-launch-Operation-Restore-Legacy-to-remove-Mugabe-140853.html">operation restore legacy</a>“ which aims to punish all criminals and restore justice.</p>
<p>Corruption not only continues to challenge electoral democracy but also feeds the seeds of inequality, creating a vicious cycle of crime, poverty and the unequal distribution of power and wealth. Poor people and especially marginalised groups living with HIV/AIDS continue to rely on public services that have been weakened by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/world/africa/03zimbabwe.html">misappropriation of funds</a>.</p>
<p>Addressing corruption means channelling resources back into research, social welfare support, agriculture, education, health and insurance – sectors that mean the most for people like Charity and Tino. But all this cannot be achieved without serious political will from President Mnangagwa to follow up on his commitments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fortunate Machingura holds an ESRC Global Challenges Research Fund Post-Doctoral Fellowship Grant. She is looking at premature mortality in Zimbabwe and actions that the Zimbabwean government can take to accelerate progress in "leaving no-one-behind". She is also a Research Fellow with the Overseas Development Institute in London; a Research Associate with the Sheffield Institute for International Development and a health informatics and surveillance systems advisor with RTI International in the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care in Harare.
</span></em></p>
But Zimbabwe must act quickly.
Fortunate Machingura, Global Challenges Research Fund Post Doctoral Fellow and Lecturer , University of Manchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.