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Authoritarianism in Zimbabwe |
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Mugabe’s tyranny is well known, but a report in today’s New York Times pulls back the curtain in a particularly revealing manner. Opposition supporters, even professionals like teachers, have faced major repression by the government.
Aid workers say they have been warned by government officials to suspend their operations, lest they be seen as meddling in the nation’s affairs. Teachers, who served as nonpartisan supervisors at polling stations, have been systematically singled out, with 496 questioned by the police, 133 assaulted by thugs and 123 charged with election fraud, according to the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe. Teachers who worked for the opposition also said they had been attacked.
The regime’s rhetoric is getting more menacing as well:
A member of ZANU-PF’s Politburo, speaking anonymously about its secret deliberations, said in an interview that the party had no intention of giving up power through the ballot box.
“We’re giving the people of Zimbabwe another opportunity to mend their ways, to vote properly,” the Politburo member said. “This is their last chance.”
If voters fail to return Mr. Mugabe to office, the Politburo member told a Zimbabwean journalist working with The New York Times, “Prepare to be a war correspondent.”
The political impasse seems likely to persist for months. ZANU-PF and the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, have challenged the election results in more than 50 parliamentary districts, the state-owned newspaper, The Herald, reported Wednesday. Those challenges, which are supposed to be resolved in six months, could overturn the opposition’s newly won control of the lower house of Parliament.
The ruling party, the military and their irregular forces — youth militias and veterans of the liberation struggle against white rule — have for weeks been threatening, arresting and beating those they see as threats, including journalists, election monitors and even people who had simply voted for the opposition.
Clearly we’re starting a slide into real chaos, potentially even worse than what happened in Kenya.
There are also some universal lessons here about how people react to crises, I think. “Things getting bad” doesn’t necessarily mean that people suddenly embrace formulas for social change. Rather, often societies fragment and some very scary people come out of the woodwork. Read the article, and you’ll notice that Mugabe’s “youth militias” loom in the background throughout, jumping into focus for brief moments as we hear about them beating the shit out of people for their boss. But why would Zimbabwean youth - any Zimbabwean youth - remain loyal to Mugabe? My guess is that it’s because a special space for opportunism gets created in situations of social chaos. With the government’s legitimacy slipping, and the economy spiralling into a black hole, certain skills suddenly become valuable, in particular the ability to beat people up and not ask questions. And when that kind of behavior becomes widespread, a massive brutalization of society can soon follow.
This doesn’t look good at all.
Yes, and in addition to the looming “youth militia” - I think another subtle theme is the limits of foreign involvement. For example, the drastic drop in aid for orphans due to difficulties of distributing aid during increased conflict (arguably when it is most needed.) And the NDI’s alleged involvement in training teachers:
Don’t want fall into the damned if you do or damned if you don’t trap. But what can you do? How do get aid through to governments who don’t want it (also- Mynamar)? Or even crazier, how do you legitimately “spread democracy” using US based organizations? Or is this the so-called “price of freedom”: violence against teachers for supervising elections?
But like you wrote - the part that got me the most is reading that children, now operating from 122 schools converted into bases, are beating teachers with iron bars, bicycle chains, and tree branches. Doesn’t look good now. And doesn’t look good for quite some time to come.