Zimbabwe Information Center in North America
A project of the North American Coalition for a Free Zimbabwe (NACFREEZ)
By Stanford G. Mukasa
Letter from America
March 5, 2007
Mugabe's futile attempts to control in information in Zimbabwe
MDC
The deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, made a rare admission that the Mugabe regime has been jamming external radio broadcasts, notably, SWRA and Studio 7. Not long ago there were reports of vendors for The Zimbabwean being harassed for selling the paper which is published outside but sold inside Zimbabwe.
This was, in reality, an admission of ignorance by the not-so-bright minister about the dynamics of information, the mass media and society in today’s Zimbabwe. For some reason he thinks he can effectively control the flow of information to the extent of turning all citizens into fanatic supporters of ZANUPF.
This kind of ignorance has a parallel to the lopsided monetary policies of Mugabe who, despite the reports he has a degree in economics, believes financial and economic problems in the country can simplistically be solved by printing more money!
It would appear Mugabe is a top grade student of former Uganda’s dictator, Idi Amin, who routinely printed more money and beat his own chest while proclaiming himself the greatest economist in the world!
And following along the tracks is Matonga!
Information ministries have traditionally been used by dictatorial regimes to perpetuate their power.
Mugabe’s dream by day and night is to deny or restrict Zimbabweans not only thelr freedom of expression and the press but also access to critical information they need to make informed decisions and judgments about issues that affect them.
By force feeding Zimbabweans a regular diet of one-sided diatribes of information from the state media the Mugabe regime hopes to eventually get the masses to support the dictator.
There is a historic precedent to this.
Over 60 years ago, Hitler’s propaganda minister, Paul Joseph Goebbels, believed that people would eventually believe a lie if it was told often enough.
In Zimbabwe Goebbels found a dedicated disciple in the name of former information minister, Jonathan Moyo, who at one time reportedly ordered the replay every five minutes on ZBC/ZBH of a mindless musical propaganda, sendereka mwa wevhu, a glib reference to some imagined prosperity arising from the land seizures.
Moyo’s hope and illusive dream was Zimbabweans would be forced by this propaganda into supporting Mugabe’s disastrous land invasions.
What Matonga and Moyo may not have been, or chose not to be , aware of was the fact that people are a lot more sophisticated and not always easily manipulated by propaganda.
Former US president, Abraham Lincoln, once said you can fool some people all the time, you can fool people some of the time, but you cannot fool all people all the time.
During the colonial times Ian Smith also suppressed the independent press like the tremendously popular Daily New and distributed the African Times as a government propaganda publication.
Smith’s information department also produced the program Padare/Enkundleni. The Goebbelian idea was the same – to get Africans to accept Smith’s UDI government.
The Zimbabweans’ experiences with the media show a consistent pattern of rejecting or not lending credibility to propaganda. Smith’s propaganda may have fooled some Zimbabweans all the time, notably the chiefs. But it did not fool all Zimbabweans all the time. This was consistently shown by the mass rejection of the several attempts by the Smith regime for public acceptance of the Pearce Commission proposal to resolve the political dispute back in 1972.
During Mugabe’s reign the state controlled media’s propaganda was unleashed on the people of Matabeleland in the aftermath of the Fifth Brigade genocide that killed thousands of innocent civilians.
By 1985, and in widely published speeches, Enos Nkala, then a defense minister in Mugabe’s regime, was ready to proclaim that the people of Matabeleland had now realized “the futility of supporting dissidents and rallied firmly behind ZANUPF.” He predicted that the 1985 elections would see a landslide victory for ZANUPF for the first time in Matabeleland.
The opposite was the truth.
ZANUPF suffered a massive defeat in Matabeleland. The former ZAPU candidates, whose coverage in the mass media fell far behind their ZANUPF counterparts, massively won the elections. The level and extent of the media coverage of ZAPU candidates was largely due to the efforts of a few courageous journalists in the state media who, against all pressures from the Mugabe regime to give minimum coverage of the opposition parties, stuck their necks out to maintain their professionalism.
What the Mugabe regime and its predecessors have not sunk into their minds is the fact that people will not believe the media that do not tell the truth about their predicament.
When people read newspapers, listen to radio or watch TV they compare in their minds what is being written or broadcast with what is happening in their lives. If there is a yawning gap people will not believe the media.
Worse still, people’s credibility in the state media will sink even lower when the regime tries to suppress freedom of the press as is happening in Zimbabwe. There is always the question at the back of people’s minds about why the government is suppressing free speech.
Mugabe’s treatment of the independent press is a carbon copy of the way Smith suppressed the independent media in colonial Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans have traditionally shunned the state owned or controlled media. In colonial Zimbabwe many of them turned to the radio broadcasts from outside the country in neighboring countries. Smith reacted by phasing out short wave radios and introduced FM radios that restricted people’s ability to access external broadcasts.
The same situation exists today where Zimbabweans are turning to external broadcasts like SWRA and Studio 7. And, just like Smith, Mugabe now jams external broadcasts.
As a result, Zimbabweans now see Mugabe as the black version of Smith. They see any information and news from state media as a gross distortion of their reality.
Most Zimbabweans have now alienated the state media, as evidenced by the low circulation figures.
In contrast , when the independent Daily News was started in 1999 its daily circulation figures skyrocketed in a short space of time to over 115,000, making it not only the largest selling paper but by far the most popular paper in the country.
The then editor used to enjoy what other editors could only dream of – a circulation that could not meet the demand for the paper! The Daily News became part of the ordinary people’s discourse or conversation and information network because it reflected the reality of oppression that people were experiencing.
But the biggest challenge for Mugabe today is the information revolution that is way beyond his control. Whether by design or accident Zimbabwe is now part of the information society where information access through other means than the traditional mass media is increasingly becoming universal. One needs only a computer and an internet connection to get more information than Mugabe will ever be able to censor.
In addition, text messages and information can be directly deposited into people’s cell phones. Information can also come through satellite broadcasting which is also beyond the control of Mugabe. There was a time Mugabe wanted to regulate the sale and use of satellite dishes in Zimbabwe – only to discover it was a lost cause.
Of course access to the Internet and cell phones is essentially a privilege of a small percentage of the country’s population. But that group is growing and many of them with access to the Internet can potentially be influential in challenging Mugabe’s reign of terror.
The vast majority of the masses, most of whom may not have regular, if any, access to the mass media, have their information networks through which they discuss critical issues affecting their lives.
The mass media, therefore, are not central to the information and communication patterns among the majority of the people. This explains why both Smith and Mugabe, despite their iron heel control or influence of the media, have never enjoyed the majority support from the people of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans get the most serious information from their experience. Zimbabwe is like an open newspaper. Everyone can read and see for themselves the brutal oppression, the abject hunger and starvation in the country.
There is nothing the media can hide from the Zimbabweans about their reality and experience that the Zimbabweans do not know, one way or the other.
When the state media engage as they always do in publishing outright lies they are deceiving no one but themselves.
The ministry of information is now a relic of the past. It is a decadent dinosaur that is no longer relevant to today’s Zimbabwe. In the post- Mugabe era this ministry should be abolished or downgraded to a department of information whose sole task is to distribute government information.
Many of Mugabe’s ministers are also aware of the uselessness of the state media in gaining popular support for the regime.. It is reported that many top ZANUPF officials prefer the external radio broadcasts and the independent media. In their homes they have satellite dishes which enable them to watch anything other than the extremely boring and repetitious ZBC/ZBH or other dull state media.
The state media have failed dismally to improve the image of Mugabe and ZANUPF. On the other hand, the external broadcasts and the independent media have demonstrated a far greater influence on the Zimbabweans than anyone can imagine. Evidence of this is the national mobilizing against Mugabe that is taking place in Zimbabwe today.
The independent media and external broadcasts have made Zimbabweans not only conscious of the depth and extent of their oppression by Mugabe but they have become more aware than ever before in their history that they bear the primary responsibility to liberate themselves.
And what has made the independent media and external broadcast so influential is that they have been legitimized by the masses for telling the truth about Zimbabwe. In the eyes of the Zimbabweans they are credible sources of information and inspiration.
There is practically nothing that Mugabe’s ministry of information can do that will change people’s hatred of Mugabe. Not even jamming external broadcasts will bring about any improvements in Mugabe and ZANUPF’s images nationally or internationally.