The construction of “normative Zimbabweanness” through demonisation of rage, anger and emotion in select press coverage of the #ZimShutDown protests

Politicising ‘Covid-19’: an analysis of selected ZANU-PF officials’ 2020-2021 media statements on the pandemic in Zimbabwe

“…In other words, lockdowns may be used to limit the agency of citizens, and this increases the vulnerability of the poor. As Vanyoro (2020) has argued elsewhere, in Zimbabwe, access to, and deprivation of, certain economic benefits are shaped by space, class and partisanship. In this case, what should otherwise be a biological issue of health is transposed into economic issues in an exercise of power that is not only about the body, but also about politics and the economy at large.…”

“…This is also apparent in a country like Zimbabwe where repressive state machinery serves the interests of a few well-connected bureaucrats, military and paramilitary leaders (Bond 2002) in what is termed a neo-racist "racism without race" (Balibar 2007). Vanyoro (2020) argues that in Zimbabwe, "the term 'black' no longer signifies only the experiences of the race but also implies the experience of being poor, oppressed or marginalised". The biopolitical view of COVID-19 as a re-justification and re-configuration of racial, ethnic (Dey 2020) and class dynamics is seen in the Zimbabwean government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was that of "containment" and "control" of the virus and people, and it is important to analyse whose political interests these measures sought to serve.…”

“…His statement also rides on a pre-existing ZANU-PF nationalist discourse that seeks to blame any form of opposition on the West. As argued by Vanyoro (2020) in his research on the "denaturalisation" of protest in Zimbabwe, "it was former president Robert Mugabe's mantra that any form of "mayhem" in the country was fueled by the west and that MDC opposition members were but puppets of the west". Chinamasa here maintains the mantra.…”