What next for OPPRESSED Zimbabwe after an UNDEMOCRATICALLY assembled Zanu pf leadership We have tried everything else! What we need to understand is the control of power is pluralistic, it tends to deviate to monolithic as the regime sees fit. If we are dealing with a pluralistic political model its a people based model that distributes power throughout its six sources: 1) Authority - the position to give orders and expect them to be obeyed combined with the obligation of the people to obey the orders. Police and Army play a role here even though in the case of Zimbabwe they are partisan colluding in the violations of human rights. 2) Human resources - The people that cooperate with the dictatorship, the various people employed in various institutions that do the jobs that make the government functional. You can include people like Gono here, the civil servants in various government departments, customs, department of tax. Some cooperate with the dictator voluntarily or do so under pressure. 3) Skills and Knowledge - provided again voluntarily or under pressure, again like all the other above instances the power lies with these people like Jonathan Moyo, he is a brilliant PR person and used his skills and knowledge negatively to prop up a regime that he was once its worst critic. 4) Material Resources - control of or access to property, natural resources, financial resources, the economic system, and means of communication and transportation.The despots power lies in the fact of how much of material resources are under his control.. For example, how many people who are disobedient and willing to act against the ruler are materially dependent, and controlled by regime. If unemployment is 80% in Zimbabwe then there are a few people who are materially dependent on the regime. 5) Intangible factor - psychological and ideological factors which may induce people to obey and assist the dictator; Those factors usually owe their existence to tradition and custom, such as the tradition of obeying people in uniforms, representatives of the church, gerontocratic (listening to the elders in the society) phenomena etc. In the case of Zimbabwe its the rural population that still see no evil that Mugabe has done after all he gave them seeds every other year. 6) Sanctions - punishments, threatened or applied, to ensure the submission and cooperation that are needed for the regime to carry out its policies and to exist. Fear of sanctions is the model of applying this source of power in individual societies. Examples of this last source are even the possibility of being fired for disobedience, arrested, or physically abused, not the sanctions itself. The continued arbitrary arrest of MDC leaders and Union officials. By acknowledging that the regime cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, keep food supplied to the markets, make steel, build rockets, train the police and army, issue postage stamps or even milk a cow. People provide these services to the ruler though a variety of organizations and institutions. If the people stop providing these skills, the ruler cannot rule. We need to attack the machinery that oils Mugabes government. The most effective will be economic non- cooperation and economic boycotts. Everyone in the economic chain can participate from: 1) Consumers - Rates and rent boycotts, non-consumption of boycotted goods, rent withholding and national or even international boycott. Harare would be a perfect city to engage in this activity its the administration capital of the government. For the city to function, provide electricity and water they need money obtained from rates and services and a boycott at consumer level will bring the regime to its knees 2) Workers, Producers and Middleman - Workers boycott, producers boycott and middleman boycott. There are many essential products thatr require workers, producer input as well as middleman. Imagine the scenario if workers started boycotting essential services such as air-traffic control, traffic light system it would paralyze the regime. 3) Owners, Management and Holders of Financial Institution - Traders boycott, refusal to sell or let property, withholding of company tax due to government, withholding of workers PAYE (pay as you earn) tax due to the government, workers lockout, refusal of industrial assistance, withdrawal of bank deposits, refusal to pay fees due to the reserve bank, refusal to pay debts, refusal to pay interests, refusal to cooperate with i.e the recent monetary policy, refusal of government money. Civil disobedience and economic uncooperative will provide non-violent forms of protest in the face of genuine fear posed by Mugabes security agents and repressive state machinery.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:34:06 +0000
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