Whether Zimbabwe’s new Department of Information and Publicity has served Zimbabwe well under Professor Jonathan Moyo (he is the department and the department is him) is a matter for debate, but in the three years since its formation as a propaganda wing of President Mugabe’s ‘war cabinet’ it has rarely been out of the news. Not given to half measures where its raison d’etre is concerned, the department has redefined – for better or for worse, depending on where one’s bread is buttered – the relationship of the media and the state. In the frenzy that’s characteristic of the way things have been done in the country of late, the department has promulgated drastic media laws after almost a decade of policy lethargy. It has overseen the deportation of at least four foreign journalists and the arrests of over 13 local journalists – all within a period not exceeding 30 months.
The same department, perhaps to its credit, has articulated the country’s land reform programmes more coherently and, despite the interminable barrage of local and international criticism, managed to persuade many rural folk to rally behind the beleaguered regime. Using their almost infinite funding, Moyo and his boys have launched a sustained multimedia offensive, which has included rounding up a few top musicians and the Police Band to compile musical CDs under the combative theme ‘Hondo Yeminda’ (fight for the land).
While the former Ministry of Information was content with running a dozen Rhodesian-style mobile cinema units for rural people, the new department last year introduced information kiosks in rural areas as part of a campaign to beef up land reform through increased access to information via the internet. The anticipation is that new farmers will be able to market their products online while the youth can participate in the virtual world of ‘infinite possibilities’ created by the web. Further, the department has organised galas, competitions, celebrations and even the Miss Malaika contest – every opportunity being seized to project the country and Zanu PF in a better light.
But the whole thing has assumed the outlook and character of a military operation – what the ruling party big-wigs dub ‘Chave Chimurenga'(now is the time for struggle). A combination of persuasion, blackmail, smear campaign, logical and illogical disputation – everything imaginable – has been applied. Moyo, one of the cabinet ministers closest to Mugabe, throws sharp words around like confetti and there are few quarters where he hasn’t ruffled feathers, both in the country and abroad.
Looking at the management of public information in Zimbabwe, it is doubtless that times are abnormal. With the political stakes higher than ever, Moyo’s department is involved in a fierce fight for the survival of the regime. Since its inception the department has tightened the clamp on all state media, and editors have been hired and fired willy-nilly (the firing tide seems to have abated in the past 12 months, and one can only assume that the right crop has finally been gathered). Ultimately, until the guns of the political war go silent, it is inconceivable that the department will halt its protracted campaign.
Wallace Chuma is a PhD student in Media Studies at Wits. He is formerly editor of the Zimbabwe Mirror and Deputy Chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) (Zimbabwe).