Wednesday, 7 August 2013 Mthwakazi independence: the case for nonviolence versus violence A tactical contestation within the Mthwakazi nationalist agenda polarises the movement between two distinct camps: one in favour of a violent (armed insurrection) and the other advocating for nonviolent means. The two parallel tactics call for different and oftentimes clashing strategies for achieving Mthwakazi independence. Violent means proponents would rather Mthwakazians did not participate in Zimbabwean managed political processes including elections while the nonviolent proponents encourage strategic participation with the view of building steady political capital. Although the July 31st General Election of Zimbabwe was primarily about Zimbabwean national issues, the influence of local issues on voting patterns cannot be understated. Mthwakazi nationalists, arguably, had an eye on the outcome of the election if only to infer people’s interest in the nationalist agenda. The latest edition of the general elections indicate that the turnout was generally high and that Alliance Asikhumb’ Ekhaya (AKE) a Mthwakazi nationalist affiliated organisation earned a measly 180 votes spread across three Bulawayo constituencies (Emakhandeni-Entumbane 82 votes, Makokoba 48 votes and Phelandaba- Mpopoma 50 votes)! The performance of AKE suggests that the nationalist debate is at the doldrums yet the conduct of the election serves as evidence to some nationalist groups that the language best understood by tyrants is armed insurrection. Indeed the violent means proponents believe the only way Mthwakazi’s independence status will be restored sooner is the violent route as opposed to tactical nonviolence. However, it has to be noted too that people were responding to a different question this time around hence the significance of AKE’s performance should not be overstated. Violent means proponents tend to hold a flawed perceptual interpretation of nonviolent strategies; they view the basis of nonviolence as generic fear of the enemy hence, misconstrue nonviolent proposals as a weakness and cowardice. Nonviolence is not an appeal for meekness. This is a fallacy that will be exposed later in the blog. Nonviolence is broken into philosophical and tactical nonviolence; where the former promotes unconditional love of enemies and refrains from any form of violence while the latter refers to various tools that may be utilised in building political power, e.g. direct action protests such as civil disobedience, boycotts, strikes, marches, and so on. It has to be noted that tactical nonviolence as opposed to philosophical nonviolence will adopt other forms of strategies as dictated to by situations. Tactical nonviolence certainly does not discourage self-defence. The question that needs to be asked of the violent revolution proponents is whether theirs is a strategic choice or just a case of misdirected response to otherwise genuine frustrations and a sense of generalised hopelessness. The case for an armed insurrection and the genuine capacity of nationalists to engage in one is not convincing. As such, Mthwakazi cannot afford to and must not be hoodwinked into attempting to shoot her way to independence. There is a need to display strategic intelligence and foresight; humans and not guns afford freedom to people. It can also be argued that using violence against dictatorships gives them justification for escalating their violence. Evidence shows that women and children suffer the most abuse in a war crisis – this is arguably time to protect and not expose the already vulnerable Mthwakazian women and children to senseless violence. Violent revolution proponents are perhaps guilty of a biased socio-political appraisal that sees them overstating the utility of force while understating its long-term damage to all parties involved. Although some armed revolutions have been successful, e.g. Afghanistan against Russia, South Sudan, Libya; and some nonviolent revolutions have failed, e.g. Thailand (1976), Burma (1988 & 2007) Tibet (2008) (Hartfort, 2008), evidence from around the world shows that violence against established authority is rarely successful. Failed armed struggles include the Basques in Spain, FARC in Colombia, Kurds in Turkey and Iran, Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, RENAMO in Mozambique, Tuaregs in Mali, UNITA in Angola and the protracted armed insurgency in the Democratic Republic of Congo has yet to overthrow the Congolese government. In the last 40 years, most successful revolutions have been nonviolent and these include Thailand (1973), Portugal (1974), Poland (1981-89), Filipinos (1986), East Germany (1989-90), Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Tunisia (2011) and Egypt (2011) among others. Historically, violent insurrections have on average taken 8 years to overthrow dictatorships compared to an average of 2 years that it takes nonviolent insurrections to achieve the same goal (Zunes, 2012). Another worrying impact of violent revolutions is their negative impact on the important social, cultural, economic and political structures which often compromises the stability of the new country. This blog is by no means suggesting that Mthwakazi should crawl for her freedom from Zimbabwean authorities, certainly not! Rather, it is suggested herein that increased strategic planning and improved coherence of sustained nonviolent tactics is the best way forward as opposed to bellicose rhetoric and violence. Success of armed insurrections against established authority is limited and generally less enduring.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 01:56:01 +0000
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