Decaying attractiveness of the Zimbabwean State

Decaying attractiveness of the Zimbabwean State

Alexander Rusero

Past weeks have once again witnessed Zimbabwe being put on global spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Three MDC youth activists, including a Member of Parliament for Harare West Joana Mamombe were abducted by suspected state agencies, brutally tortured and sexually harassed only to be found dumped in the mining town of Bindura after two days.

The state has since denied any responsibility, whilst diplomatic missions from the UK and EU have issued strong messages charged at the Zimbabwean government.

The developments come as a smack on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government, where it is now clear his re-engagement initiative is not only a farce but a smokescreen. Contrary to world expectations that Mnangagwa’s government would morph a complete departure from the late former president Robert Mugabe’s modus operandi in dealing with perceived opponents, the difference has since proved to be the same.

Mnangagwa’s government has actually renewed and perfected the erstwhile ZANU PF way of doing things – strangely with less sophistication and botched approach as compared to Mugabe’s era.

Amid choking fumes of the barbaric political culture of violence and horror, the Mnangagwa government in more predictable ways has issued an unashamed statement, devoid of substance, devoid of polished propaganda in its vehement unforgivable denial of responsibility and involvement in the recent abductions.

The statement was issued by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Dr Sibusiso Moyo who noted that “While the relevant agencies of the State are fully seized with the matter and are already investigating all aspects of the allegations made by the three ladies in question — including the circumstances surrounding the unauthorised staging of a demonstration during the national lockdown, in deliberate violation of the SI 77 of 2020 it is most disconcerting to note some sections of the media and some within the diplomatic community appear to have already concluded that the Zimbabwean Government was responsible for the alleged abuse.”

Moyo’s statement came on the backdrop of the trading of accusations by ZANU PF enthusiasts and functionaries, with some going to proportional levels of bizarre by claiming the trio engaged into a stage-managed act, even as the state was claiming to be seized with the matter.

From the state position as insinuated in Moyo’s statement – the government is more worried of  COVID19 violations and “illegal” demonstration, more than they are worried about the fate that befell the three, including serious crimes against humanity perpetrated upon them in form of rape, torture and forced disappearances, despite the authoritative minister’s claims that “These allegations are particularly grave in that they involve alleged abuse of the rights of the girl child, a vulnerable group of our society which this Government is on record as resolutely promoting and protecting.”

It is not clear which record the minister was making reference to as much as ZANU PF-led government is resolute in promoting rights of the girl child. Such kind of posture, lack of seriousness and brinkmanship has no place in a state that wants to be taken seriously as a ‘new dispensation’, as ‘open for business’ and as ‘ready to re-engage the international community of nations’.

This bold and rather hardliner stance made by the state should be taken within the context of Zimbabwe’s history of violence and political culture. The state should be reminded that three activists are not hallucinating when they claim they have been abducted, neither are they fabrications aimed at tarnishing the so called new dispensation led by Mnangagwa.

The state has proceeded by pressing charges against the trio and dragged them before the courts, even in the trio’s visibly shaken and traumatised state. The Mnangagwa-led government has in all its wisdom found that it is importantly more urgent to prosecute these helpless young women for violating lockdown rules than it is to investigate their sexual abuse, torture and the heinous abductions.

In such circumstances, there is absolutely nothing left for the Mnangagwa’s image and reputation let alone legacy. From hiring United States of America public relations firms to the constituting of the Motlanthe Commission, the level of state impunity and state-sanctioned extra-judicial killings have consistently and perennially been laid bare.

The current context of the three MDC activists abductions should be located within a broader understanding of a party and government having a feeling of siege from the entire citizenry they purport to lead and represent.

Zimbabweans under ZANU PF now understand that political violence has not been a means to an end, but is actually the end itself. Abductions were the state is brazenly involved and or implicated is not strange. Accusations that victims engaged in self-act of staging their own abductions are also not new even in circumstances were the state is later implicated. This is very unhealthy for Mnangagwa’s diplomatic posture and his desperate desire to engineer an attractive state.

One of the dominating power approaches of contemporary diplomacy is a state’s ability to get what it wants, not through the traditional military coercive approach but through persuasion and attractiveness – a phenomenon called soft power.

Soft power is something that a political outfit serious about remodelling itself to the dictates of the 21^st century approach should grapple itself with. For the umpteenth time, I will continue arguing that ZANU PF is an epitome of failure, in as much as transforming itself from a liberation movement into a political party is concerned.

It is through this legacy rather manifesting itself as perennial fate to this potential great nation that informs the political culture of violence, intolerance, strife, enmity and barbarism.

Transformation from being a liberation movement into a fully-fledged political party could have smoothly taken place had Mugabe voluntarily relinquished the reins of power way back in the 1990s. It is for such refusal for a political party to reform that led Zimbabwe to crash-land following the November 2017 military coup.

It is for this reason that Zimbabwe will crash-land again as whispers of Mnangagwa to be the sole candidate of ZANU PF in 2023 has already gathered momentum. Nothing wrong with the party’s choice – but Mnangagwa will turn 81 in 2023; he cannot certainly at that age re-present the future, never!

So Zimbabwe under ZANU PF is still pursuing the retrogressive politics of hard power, more guns and more artillery as opposed to the politics of attraction – the pursuance of soft power.

A state can simply be able to attain soft power through its tactful ability to get what it wants through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, values and policies. When a state’s policies are seen as legitimate by others, then its soft power is enhanced.

A balanced foreign policy combines government and domestic satisfaction with regards to the adaptation of external demands and resource allocation. In addition a balanced foreign policy should have clarity of purpose amidst complex, demanding and confusing foreign policy dynamics and it should be consistent with broader foreign policy of an actor and it should be compatible with domestic and international conditions as well as expectations.

Resources that produce soft power are culture, values and policies. When the culture is attractive to others this will obviously enhance the country’s attractiveness, but an increasingly dangerous and potent threat to the preservation of Zimbabwean culture and thus its soft power has been the violent nature of its society and more importantly the increasingly growing intolerance of political leadership under the watch of the ruling ZANU PF.

There is a slowly creeping trend by the government to vilify and delegitimize any one perceived as an opponent. Trade Unionists, students unions, nurses and doctors associations, teachers’ associations, the opposition MDC, activists, NGOs, activists, civil society organisations and lawyers among several categories that do not agree with ZANU PF have all been brandished in one category – enemies of the state.

The event provides adequate indication that Zimbabwe under Mnangagwa’s government is degenerating into privatization of the state and creation of a medieval fiefdom, something standing at the opposite of a country’s attractiveness.

Values are also a critical resource of soft power only when a country lives up to those values. If values are broad, universal and attract others they obviously can produce a positive effect to a country, but a country have to live by them.

Coercion is an unattractive option for simple reasons. Use of force is not only costly, it also fundamentally undermines the prospects for democracy for the simple and straight forward reason that democracy flourishes in environments of peace as opposed to that of violence.

Indeed the incipient and inevitable decline in governance in Zimbabwe, including massive corruption has come as a big blow to all those who supported envisioned Zimbabwe as a jewel of Africa that ought to be jealously safeguarded.

Whatever his legacy shall be, Mnangagwa shall always carry a tainted tag of being a statesman who presided as the undertaker of the Zimbabwean state.

Perhaps it is time we dare to ask: Does Mnangagwa even cares at all?