For a government that has hoisted its image on the African continent by the flag of pan-Africanism, the Zimbabwean government’s recent parade of its policy of essentialist nationalism may seem like a weird contradiction.
Until last November, it had probably never before occurred to Trevor Ncube, publisher of the Mail & Guardian, The Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard, that he might be a national of a country other than Zimbabwe. He was born in ZimÂÂbabwe, in 1962, and has always been resident there.
In 1989, at the age of 27, he obtained his first Zimbabwean passport. Five times after this, the Zimbabwean authorities renewed Ncube’s passport, as most governments do for their citizens, without quarrel. Then, two months ago, when Ncube tried to obtain a new passport, Zimbabwe’s Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede, faxed a note to Ncube’s office, informing him that his passport would not be renewed.
In a triumph of bureaucratic efficiency rarely witnessed in Zimbabwe, the registrar had excavated an essential detail of Ncube’s family history from the national database: Ncube’s father had, years before he fathered Trevor — and before he applied for and obtained what was then Rhodesian citizenship in 1959 — once been a citizen of Northern Rhodesia, in what is today Zambia.
According to the registrar, the unavoidable legal consequence of this unfortunate genealogy — that Ncube has Zambian blood coursing through his veins, and that he is not “pure” Zimbabwean — was that he had, from the instant that this information was known by the registrar, lost his citizenship. A non-citizen cannot hold a Zimbabwean passport. Ncube was told politely that he should not expect his sixth Zimbabwean passport in the post.
To Ncube, who had visited Zambia on only three occasions — once for just a few hours to take in the breathtaking sight of the Victoria Falls from the other side of the Zambezi River gorge — the experience must have seemed Kafkaesque.
It took almost two months of letter writing and pages of legal submissions by Ncube’s lawyer, the expert evidence of Zambian Advocate Nchimo Nchito, hours of argument in court and the unequivocal ruling of a Zimbabwean high court judge, to make plain to the country’s registrar what has been obvious since the whole legal farce began: that Ncube is a Zimbabwean national, entitled to hold a Zimbabwean passport, without interference.
The registrar’s actions seem even more absurd considering the broader context. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans — a significant number of whom hold high office in government — suffer, by virtue of the shared histories between the peoples of Zambia and Zimbabwe, from the same “defective” heritage that, in the registrar’s opinion, automatically disqualified Ncube from Zimbabwean citizenship. When one considers the self-righteous, demagogic campaign on the international stage by ZimÂÂbabwean President Robert Mugabe to promote and revive pan-Africanism to rally the support of the peoples of Africa for his rogue government, this case stands as a towering monuÂÂment to hypocrisy.
Not so long ago, in the days of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, between 1953 and 1963, when the territories now known as Zimbabwe and Zambia were part of a single British political entity, the colonial administration routinely transferred civil servants from one place to the other; voluntary movements within the region were also not uncommon. Evidence of migration within the region persists today: in Zambia, for instance, there remain enclaves in the Kasisi, Monze and Mumbwa districts, of Ndebele and Shona-speaking people who originate from Zimbabwe. The venerated, fallen, former Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army leader Josiah Tongogara is still claimed by Zambian people as a “Mumbwa boy”.
These ties strengthened after Zambia gained independence in 1963. Zambia hosted and assisted liberation fighters from Rhodesia in their struggle for independence. The man who would later become Zimbabwe’s president lived and worked as a teacher in Zambia in the 1950s, and the home in which he stayed is a Zambian national monument. Mugabe’s liberation war comrades — now Zimbabwe’s ruling elite — consorted with and, in some cases, had children with Zambian nationals. Many of the offspring of these unions, some of whom were born in Zambia, live in ZimÂÂbabwe today, are recognised as Zimbabwean citizens and hold passports with no trouble. They can probably count on it that no bureaucratic discoveries will be made that could deny them their rights.
But any appearance of policy irrationality and ideological inconsistency probably does not matter to a government that is desperate to squelch political opposition. When you’re desperate, you’ll try anything. And there is a precedent: this particular fix has been tried before elsewhere — including, ironically, in Zambia.
In 1999, the government of Frederick Chiluba tried, without success, to withdraw the citizenship of the founding father of modern Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, after Kaunda had criticised Chiluba’s government as inept and corrupt, and had announced plans to run for president. Before the action to withdraw citizenship was taken, Chiluba repeatedly had Kaunda and top members of his party arrested, usually on treason charges that were later dropped.
Ncube may not be seeking political office, but his position in relation to the ruling establishment is not too different from that of Kaunda in those days. With opposition political parties having been incapacitated by years of violent persecution, Ncube’s newsÂÂpapers, The Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard, with their fearless reporting and editorials, are just about the only strong public opposition that remains within Zimbabwe to the corruption and ineptitude of the Zanu-PF government. Previously, less bizarre methods to silence these newspapers have been used: journalists and managers, including Ncube himself, have been arrested and charged with various offences against the state. Some charges have failed, others have been dropped.
While this latest scheme has failed, the attempts to silence Ncube have not stopped. A day after the High Court declared Ncube a citizen of Zimbabwe and ordered the authorities to issue him with a new passport, the state-controlled Herald newspaper carried an ominous prediction, penned by the columnist Nathaniel Manheru — widely thought to be the alter ego of Mugabe’s spokesperson — and addressed to “Aphiri”, a term used in derogatory fashion to refer to Zambian immigrants: “… [the] game [you play] … will one day hurt you”.
What this means in practice remains to be seen.
Gugulethu Moyo is a lawyer who works for the International Bar Association. The views expressed are her own