Fighting centralisation and pushing for political localism have made limited traction in Matabeleland. Different organisations, all sharing the goal of ‘emancipating’ Matabeleland have come and gone, yet deeper the dagger of mainstream politics of Zimbabwe continues to sink into the upper echelons of the region’s society. There are various reasons for the slow to absence of progress, but lack of media control is the biggest. Control the media, shape the minds.
Good as political ideas may be, they are not guaranteed to win public support let alone find their way into the mainstream politics; ideas require access into the media space to reach the target market.
To draw local attention, pro-Matabeleland political groups will require effective marketing which is itself a function of how much control one has of the media space. The media space is a tightly contested area controlled by a few elites; at the end of the day, it is not always about the quality of the product on display but largely the interests of the elite in control of the media platforms.
In politics, the people are sheep, the media is the shepherd; pro-Matabeleland players have no grip over the media, and without control of the media, the Matabeleland localisation movement finds itself lacking access to relevant and effective marketing platforms and strategy to sell its product and penetrate target population groups; worse still, Matabeleland localism proponents are failing to degrade the influence of competing ideologies.
Core to the Matabeleland localism ideology is the shared view that mainstream politics in Zimbabwe neither acknowledges Matabeleland customs nor reflects local needs and interests; if anything, the public share the view that mainstream politics acts contrary to local interests while actively pushing an ethnic Shona supremacist agenda of eliminating perceived minority population groups.
But our biggest concern is that the same Matabeleland population groups drag their feet when invited to participate or support Matabeleland movements, and instead allow themselves to be accessories in the deliberate mischaracterisation of localism as tribalism and/ or unpatriotic.
We require a shift to a new language of radical love for Matabeleland not radical hate of other communities; avoid criticising people’s actions and try to understand why they act in the manner they do; when we start to understand why people of Matabeleland are ambivalent about localisation focused political projects, we will be able to build sustainable organisations that unify ideas, amplify local capabilities, and effectively link communities.
As alluded to earlier, the Matabeleland public is receptive to a locally targeted political ideologic approach, yet it is proving difficult to extend the politics into its target group. Differences in opinion of what priorities should be is one factor, but the major weakness lies in a lack of control of the media on the one side and the overwhelming control of the media by the mainstream politics in Zimbabwe on the other.
We recognise that those who control the media control the spatial political spread hence the need for pro-Matabeleland activists to expediate strategic access to the media space to control the political space and narrative.
For that to happen we require intentional and innovative efforts; we must bulk up the communication capabilities, flood the media space and put up a good fight against the mischaracterisation of localism as tribalism. This mischaracterisation is precisely why we must reject mainstream media; the mainstream media’s language has failed us, masses have not been told what they really need to know, because its language marches in step with that of the mainstream politics of tribalists, oppressors, and Shona supremacists.
We have lived through four decades of mainstream politics of the independent Zimbabwe and understand the shared common characteristics of the political leadership, and these have taught us lessons about dictators and authoritarian use of the media to satisfy their hunger to consolidate power and obtain, or at least convey legitimacy. The quest for legitimacy has played out in different ways: use of media to amplify ZANU PF’s contribution to independence or to discredit Western critique of Zimbabwean leadership or the desire to manipulate, control, or discredit media.
Control and attacks on the media have proved particularly successful as the relentless distortion of reality numbs the public to outrage and weakens its ability to discern truth from fiction. We have also witnessed via the ‘Second Revolution’ dictators attempting to secure power and legitimacy by co-opting the power of the state, its military, law enforcement, and judicial systems, to carry out personal goals and vendettas rather than the nation’s needs.
Rather disturbing, we are also witnesses to the media’s attempts at sanitising dictatorial overtures of the main opposition, CCC, that deployed the now infamous ‘strategic ambiguity’ that included the party operating without a constitution thereby giving its leader unconstrained power to do as he pleases. The media unscrupulously shifted attention away from the opposition leader and redirected it to a lesser character in the party who, like the leader of the opposition, has taken full advantage of the ‘strategic ambiguity’ and recalled some party parliamentarians.
Pro-Matabeleland movements will not make political progress while lacking vital technological skills to encroach or bypass the Zimbabwean media space, where necessary. The evidence on the ground does reflect the presence of the effect of media control on the dominating political views at any given time; there is proof of causality between media control and accepted political narrative in the region.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 