Predictable and Unavoidable: The Closure of the African Daily News and Daily News

Dombo, Sylvester

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-61890-6_9

Cited by 3 publications

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“…The schools renaming policy attracted impassioned public debate, which mainly played out in newspapers as opinion pieces, editorials and letters to the editor. It must be noted that the media in the post-2000 era in Zimbabwe tended to be polarized—with the public media supporting the government and demonizing the opposition and the private media doing the opposite (See Dombo, 2014; Mano, 2008; Ranger, 2005). Hence, the views that emerged from different platforms ended up adopting partisan lines with pieces that supported the renaming policy mainly appearing in government-controlled newspapers such as The Herald and The Sunday Mail , while those that opposed the policy were found in privately-owned and largely anti-ZANU-PF newspapers such as The Standard and The Daily News .…”

Section: Public Debates—support and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Purging the Lingering Shadow of Colonialism? Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga and the Struggle Over School Names

Masakure

Nkomo

2023

Journal of Black Studies

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Drawing on a range of source material that is in public domain, chiefly newspapers and Parliamentary Debates, this article examines the efforts at renaming government schools in early 2000s in Zimbabwe, the debates surrounding the renaming and the results thereof. The renaming of schools by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government aimed at replacing names that appeared to celebrate colonialism with those that expressed Zimbabwe’s historical anti-colonial struggles. The article attempts to establish the source of this nationalist zeal—the need to purge the lingering shadow of colonialism, particularly continued British influence on Zimbabwe’s political landscape—and analyze the extent to which it was deployed. The article notes that these efforts at decolonizing school names must be understood within the broader Third Chimurenga revolutionary fervor. In doing so, the article highlights that while substantial efforts were invested in this exercise, the lingering shadow of colonialism remained, as many schools retained their colonial names. By focusing on renaming of schools, this article does not only address a neglected subject, but pulls together in one narrative the connections between the renaming of schools, anti-colonial struggles, decolonization and the post-2000 resurgent nationalism hinged on what is popularly known as the Third Chimurenga.

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Section: Public Debates—support and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Purging the Lingering Shadow of Colonialism? Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga and the Struggle Over School Names

Masakure

Nkomo

2023

Journal of Black Studies

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“…In Zimbabwe, a number of alternative media rose in and around the year 2000 in response to the shrinking of the media space as well as by efforts by ZANU-PF to saturate the state-controlled media with its propaganda. One form of the alternative media was through what have been termed as pirate radios that have employed new media technologies to broadcast into Zimbabwe from such countries as the United States of America, Netherlands and other countries (Dombo 2017).…”

Section: Means Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fart in the corridors of power: A socio-theological analysis of Evan Mawarire and Raymond Mpandasekwa’s activism

Muzambi,

Dombo

2023

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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#ThisFlag movement was started by Pastor Evan Mawarire in April 2016 bemoaning the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy at the hands of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government under President Robert Mugabe. Although it started off as accidental, it, however, galvanised disparate groups and enabled them to transform anger against the state from online media to the streets. #ThisFlag movement officially started on the 20th of April 2016, when Pastor Mawarire wearing the Zimbabwean flag posted a video to his Facebook page decrying the state of the economy and what he felt was government’s neglect of its duties to serve the citizens of Zimbabwe. Although one government minister described Mawarire’s actions as a ‘pastor’s fart in the corridors of power’, the reaction by the state security agents points to the contrary. Street protests have been banned. This article interrogates the transformation of #ThisFlag movement from an online struggle to street protests that have turned violent. It also looks at other movements that are complementing #ThisFlag and how the state is responding to these protests both on the social media and on the ground. Evan Mawarire may be considered as an unusual voice from the ever mushrooming new church establishments. As such, it becomes a point of interest to find out what voice there is, which represents what is commonly viewed as mainline churches. Such a voice is identified as coming from Bishop Raymond Mpandasekwa of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chinhoyi who in one of his sermons delivered an acerbic attack on Mnangagwa’s government as a ‘blood thirsty’ government. The study explored the messages of Mawarire and Mpandasekwa using the socio-theological lenses as guided by Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience.Contribution: This study locates #ThisFlag activism in the context of toxic transformative politics in Zimbabwe. In addition, it contributes to our understanding of the relationship between religion and politics in an unstable political and economic setting. It calls for a re-thinking of the role of the church in Zimbabwean society and discusses the state’s response to those deemed to be not towing the line. It shows that while some religious organisations and groups are too keen to be co-opted by the regime, some have effectively resisted this and have become combative as they fight for people’s rights. Another important contribution is located in how these pastor-cum-activists have harnessed social media to amplify their voices and to reach huge audiences beyond the pulpit. The study is important because it contextualises the role of religion in the country’s contemporary politics, and this fits into the scope of the journal in that it is a multidisciplinary study of both religion and politics.

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“…Alternative media must move out of the outdated business model of advertising, copy sales and donations to diversify their revenue streams. Dombo (2014) observes that although the alternative title Daily News published by ANZ played a fundamental role, between 1999 and 2003, in opening spaces for political freedom in the country, it failed to influence national politics on a grand scale because its circulation was limited to urban areas since it was outlawed by ruling party activists in rural areas due to its counterhegemonic content. This points to one of the enduring challenges afflicting alternative media in Zimbabwe, that of limited distribution networks.…”

Section: The Lure Of Donor Financingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative Media, Repression and the Crisis State: Towards a Political Economy of Alternative Media in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe

Tshabangu

Salawu

2022

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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Zimbabwe has a tainted media history under Mugabe replete with examples of state orchestrated repression, draconian legislation, harassment of journalists and violation of their work premises. The post-November 2017 coup period is a critical reference point to understand the political economy of alternative media under the so-called ‘New Dispensation’ of President Mnangagwa with its promises of prodemocracy reforms. Using political economy as a theoretical approach that analyses media systems in a holistic manner by linking them to politics, economy, legislation and technology, this study assesses the extent to which the ‘New Dispensation’ has implemented political economy reforms that impact alternative media. Drawing from interviews with selected alternative media journalists and proprietors, the findings reveal that alternative media in Zimbabwe remain entrenched in repression and are in a crisis caused by an exacerbation of the same structural factors that existed before. The ‘New Dispensation’ has instead led to the entrenchment of a new dictatorship by the military junta. Undue political interference, a fragile economy and state orchestrated repression continue to constrain the democratic functions of alternative media. By teasing the continuities and discontinuities of alternative media repression during the Mugabe era and under the ‘New Dispensation’, the paper contributes to ongoing debates about the consequence of the 2017 coup and the need for genuine democratic reforms in Zimbabwe post-Mugabe epoch.

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Predictable and Unavoidable: The Closure of the African Daily News and Daily News

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Purging the Lingering Shadow of Colonialism? Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga and the Struggle Over School Names

Purging the Lingering Shadow of Colonialism? Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga and the Struggle Over School Names

A fart in the corridors of power: A socio-theological analysis of Evan Mawarire and Raymond Mpandasekwa’s activism

Alternative Media, Repression and the Crisis State: Towards a Political Economy of Alternative Media in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe

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