Zim needs be more vigilant than before
From Page 7
It is with no doubt that the 1956 bus boycott after incidence happened because the colonial security focused on how to thwart African dissent instead of balancing between protecting property, citizens and allowing citizens to register their discontent. Of course, back then, democracy was a reserve for a few racially privileged, but lessons should be drawn from then.
A reading of the two strikes in that decade teaches that the 1945 strike signalled the determination of workers to improve their lot through organised action and, more importantly, had a “demonstration effect”, showing the potential power of violent-free organised workers as scholar AS Mlambo would put it. It is from that strike that the subsequent two years, new workers’ organisations were established: the Federation of Bulawayo African Workers’ Union (FBAWU) under Jasper Savanhu; the African Workers’ Voice Association the Voice) led by Benjamin Burombo, and the Salisbury-based Reformed Industrial and Commercial workers’ Unions (RICU) led by the able Charles Mzingeli. History records that three years later (1948), after another major strike, the workers’ unions expanded their mandate to envelope a broader lower/poor class’ aspirations.
About 36 years later, June 1992, after the scourges of drought and ESAP, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called for a strike which was poorly attended. It is at this point that contemporary Zimbabwean history alludes to contestations of security and the citizens’ rights where the response by the state was under scrutiny for allegedly being heavy-handed, yet on the other hand, issues of pre-emptive response to violence were justified in some quarters. With the standard of living getting more complex over the years, 1996, recorded what historians state to be the largest strike organised by civil servants in post-independence Zimbabwe. An eight week wildcat strike by teachers, doctors, nurses, and other government workers, supported by student groups, human rights organisations and churches. Whilst that strike almost paralysed the country, it equally was not peaceful in both ends.
Of interest to me in all these demonstrations is the character of the strikes, their transformation and their symbiosis to 14 January 2019. I am drawn to 1956, where after successes of 1945 and 1948, suddenly in 1956, there is room for rogue elements to punish those who did not buy into the movement, despairingly, women, who had free choice, but are brutally punished for exercising their free choice. In 1956, even with the existence of repressive colonial laws, strides had been made to dismantle the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1932 which excluded Africans from the definition of worker and thus prevented them from forming trade unions and engaging in collective bargaining. It would be suffice to compare 1945 strike to the 1956 and the succeeding ones. In 1945, the Rhodesian government denied the poor from protesting, but none to minimal casualties are recorded. When the law permits, suddenly, it is
an equally suffering citizen who becomes victim of the agitated protestors.
In 1956 it was women, in 1996 and 2016 it was the economy. In 2019, indiscriminately, private property, officers of the law, shops that serve the lower class, police stations meant to protect the lower class, public transport for the lower class and even non-affiliate and silent men are victims of active protestors. After what obtained last week, I would want to argue that there is need for establishing strong security institutions that allow citizens to exercise their right to demonstration as enshrined by the constitution but equally protect private and public property as well as the safety of those who want to exercise their freedom not to be part of anything. The state has to be vigilant now more than ever.