Introduction
Much has been written about the use of violence in Zimbabwean politics. Indeed President Robert Mugabe's famous assertion that he possessed ‘degrees in violence’ has become a standard reference in describing what has been termed a political culture of violence. Taking this line further, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni has argued that in Zimbabwe, violence is not only a political culture, but that violence lies at the ‘core of statecraft’ for the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) regime (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2009). Inspired by his argument, this article attempts to view political uses of violence and discursive representations of violence as part of a political discourse of legitimacy. And, while academic writing on the politics of violence in Zimbabwe has mostly focused on the culture of violence in ZANU-PF and the legacy of the liberation war, this article argues that the political discourses of violence and legitimacy of the ZANU-PF government relied on the construction of a narrative of ‘protection of the people’ against an inherently violent aggressor. I argue that this relies on a gendered power matrix that works through acts of violence and through discursive framing of violence either as legitimate or as illegitimate.
I argue that this political discourse works through a gendered imagery of political attributes established during the liberation war, originating, as shown by Mike Kesby, in generational rivalry between young guerrilla soldiers and local patriarchs during the seventies, in which the exercise of violence recreated structures of authority (Kesby 1996, pp. 571–573). This authoritative imagery was maintained throughout post-colonial nation-building efforts and during the period of so-called fast-track land reforms discursively constructed as a ‘Third Chimurenga’, which referred to a continual anti-colonial struggle, working through a discursive binary between patriots and sell-outs, insiders and outsiders and drawing on the gendered matrix of power and protection established during the liberation war (Christiansen 2004, Ranger 2004).
In this article, I focus on the gendered imagery of symbolic politics, analysing public debates on violence before and after the passing of domestic violence legislation in 2006 and 2007: both the immediate debate surrounding the legislation, and the political discourses and practices of violence that formed the background for and context of these debates. These discourses are read against the backdrop of the aftermath of the so-called Operation Murambatsvina in 2005 and the social and economic crisis associated with the policies of land reform. The article is focused on local media debates, and therefore draws predominantly on government-controlled newspapers, which were at the time almost entirely dominating the local media scene because the government, while outwardly claiming media freedom, practised draconian media control, which in effect excluded independent media from the local scene with the exception of a few weekly papers with relatively low circulation.
Within this political climate, I argue, the ZANU-PF regime upheld pre-established categories of insiders and outsiders, maintained through a discourse of violence and legitimacy, with the purpose of establishing the opponent, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), as a violent aggressor. In this scenario, the government portrayed itself in the role of protector. It assumed this role in order to associate itself with anti-violence while portraying the MDC as being inherently prone to violence. This policy, the article will demonstrate, formed part of a long-term discursive strategy in which the government media depicted in-fighting within the opposition party as a natural attribute of their inherently violent and illegitimate political claims. This image was further used in the government's response to international condemnation when it arrested and tortured leading members of the opposition in March 2007. In this situation the government-controlled media propagated an image of a violent opposition; one which was suspected of organising a number of terror attacks in the preceding weeks. Here, I will argue, the government was able to draw on the image of the government-as-protector versus the violent opposition, while drawing on the symbolic politics in which the nation's women appeared as metonymy for ‘the people’ in need of protection. An analysis of the government's (anti-)violence discourse is therefore interesting as a study of the relationship between the formulation of symbolic politics of violence and political legitimacy, and that of gender and power.
The domestic violence law
On International Women's Day 2007, President Robert Mugabe signed the domestic violence law into effect (Herald 2007). On the one hand, the law saw the implementation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) declaration on gender and development, which had been ratified in 1997. On the other, the law was the product of a lengthy process in which a number of women's organisations, in cooperation with the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, had lobbied politicians and traditional leaders, and drafted a bill that was a local adaptation of the principles of international treaties on gender equality.1 The signing of the law marked the end of a period in which this piece of legislation had been the subject of heated discussion among the Zimbabwean public following similar debates in parliament. This debate had at its centre an MDC Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Timothy Mubawu. During the parliamentary debate he had made a strong case against the law, stating that:
I stand here representing God Almighty. Women are not equal to men …
It is a dangerous Bill and let it be known in Zimbabwe that the right, privilege and status of men is gone. I stand here alone and say this Bill should not be passed in this House. It is a diabolic Bill. Our powers are being usurped daylight in this House. [sic]
The proposed law, Mr Mubhawu [sic] said, was crafted in a manner that promoted western cultural values. (Herald 2006j)2
In other words, Mubawu's comments enabled the ZANU-PF government to portray the opposition as not only being against a law meant to protect women against violence, but to claim that the latter was an essentially violent party. The opposition party became subject to a veritable media storm, as well as a rare demonstration of feminist activists and civic organisations who marched against the MDC, petitioning the party to force Mubawu to retract his statements. The government's acceptance of this demonstration, as well as the state media's positive coverage of the event, was in stark contrast to their more normal violent suppression of dissent. Those who opposed the law were represented in the media via letters to the editor or so-called street surveys, where citizens expressed alarm over the law's interference into patriarchal authority over women.
Two main concerns were expressed in this critique of the law. First, that the law would shift the power relations between men and women in favour of the latter. Second, that the domestic sphere should not be interfered with by any outside force, since, if a woman was able to go outside her family for assistance, the patriarch's authority in the family would be undermined. The logic behind these concerns was that women would be able to use this new legislation as at tool with which to tip the balance of power in their marriages, constituting a legal bias in favour of women. This was viewed as culturally, traditionally and religiously offensive, and destructive of the marriage institution and patriarchal authority, in other words the very fabric of Zimbabwean society. Indeed, those opposed to the law saw their culture as being under threat from Western (foreign and imperialist) notions of women's rights; the law was accordingly depicted as alien to indigenous social values (Christiansen 2009).
Nationalism, gender and violence
This line of argument bears a striking resemblance to President Mugabe's insistence on Zimbabwe's domestic sovereignty. In the nationalist discourse of the ZANU-PF regime, Mugabe's frequently reiterated response to international condemnation of the regime's violent oppression of dissent was that Zimbabwe is a ‘sovereign nation’, and that pressure constituted ‘outside interference into domestic issues’. Analysts have pointed out the skilful discursive use of ‘state sovereignty’ in an argument against colonialism aimed at the former colonial power Britain, and the West in general (e.g. Raftopoulos 2003, p. 231, Sylvester 2003, p. 29, Muponde 2004, p. 176). In domestic politics it also implied a patriarchal dispensation of power (Campbell 2003, pp. 9–14): Mugabe as a patriarch who would not tolerate resistance from either inside or outside forces. This patriarchal dispensation of power also designated the ZANU-PF government as the protector of the people. The construction of the ZANU elite as the protector of the people is historically linked to the reification of political legitimacy through violence. During the liberation war guerrilla soldiers consolidated their legitimate status through the violent punishment of ‘sell-outs’ among the civilians in the rural areas in a complex dualism of punishment and protection (Moore 1995, pp. 379–380, Alexander et al. 2000, pp. 172–173). Kesby has shown how counter-insurgency tactics on both sides of the conflict relied on violent control of people (Kesby 1996, p. 564); and that in contestation over male authority between the young guerrilla soldiers and local patriarchs, violence was a key instrument with which the young guerrillas achieved authority over local patriarchs (Kesby 1996, pp. 571–573). Guerrilla soldier masculinity thus became the symbolic attribute of power and legitimacy through the liberation struggle.
Norma Kriger (1995, p. 139) has argued that immediately after independence, the symbolic status of the liberation war became ‘an important emotional symbol and source of legitimacy for the governing elite’, and that the way in which the regime constructed symbols of national identity out of the liberation war was a testament to their ‘commitment to hierarchy, bureaucratic control, and top-down decision-making’ (Kriger 1995, pp. 145–146). Kriger has later elaborated this argument, showing how liberation-struggle credentials have been important in internal rivalries within the ZANU movement (Kriger 2006). Ndlovu-Gatsheni asserts that ideologically Zimbabwean nationalism has been marred by authoritarian militaristic leadership and a valorisation of violence, which has plunged the country into not only a political and economic crisis, but also a crisis of national identity (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2009).
The ideological valorisation of violence also has a gendered dimension, rooted in practices of violence and gender inequality during the war, and the subsequent nation-building process. Jane Parpart has argued that claims to power during the liberation war were put in masculinist terms on both side of the conflict (Parpart 2008, p. 186) and that the nationalists perceived the war as ‘an opportunity for “real men” … who regarded violence as key to contesting [Rhodesian] state authority’ (Parpart 2008, p. 187). The war was a means by which to regain African manhood from colonial oppression and ‘fight like men’ in order to ‘penetrate’ and win back the country (Parpart 2008, p. 191). Tanya Lyons (2004, pp. 253–267) has described how sexual violence against women was both a war tactic and a feature of the lives of female guerrilla soldiers. These practices were clearly not official nationalist policy, although in some cases the practices were widespread and appeared to be systematic. Kesby shows that in practice nationalist mobilisation by the guerrilla soldiers was fundamentally gendered (Kesby 1996, p. 569). Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi describes the gender ideology of the ZANU movement during the liberation war and in the subsequent nation-building efforts as highly ambivalent. Officially the ZANU movement upheld an ideology of gender equality – a mythologised version of women's participation in the liberation war (Nhongo-Simbanegavi 2000, p. 1); but in practice ZANU subjugated women into subaltern and exploited positions (Nhongo-Simbanegavi 2000, pp. 1–4, 97, 135–137, 145).
The imagery of the liberation war soldier, which came to symbolise the political legitimacy of the ZANU elite, was depicted as a benevolent masculine force. Violence was equated with the protection of the people, enacted in defence against colonial oppression, or, in the Third Chimurenga version, against neo-imperialists (Ranger 2004, pp. 232–234). The liberation war soldier represented the nationalist victory over the Rhodesians: a just cause, a democratic cause. In the post-war consolidation of ZANU as the legitimate political force in Zimbabwe, the imagery of the liberation war soldier-hero came to hold a symbolic meaning, as the political elite claimed that participation in the liberation war was the only valid political currency.
Despite early overtures towards national unity and reconciliation (Raftopoulos 2003, p. 220), this discourse of political legitimacy entailed generational, racial and class tensions which, during the 1990s and 2000s, laid the foundation for the formulation of the so-called Third Chimurenga and its narrow interpretation of the history of the liberation war into so-called patriotic history (Mugabe 2001, Raftopoulos 2004, pp. 165–166, Ranger 2004). The discursive construction of the Third Chimurenga and its patriotic history, which came to structure the political landscape after the formation of the opposition party MDC in 1999, has been described by Kizito Muchemwa as a product of the ‘disruptive nature of the binaries that haunt the nation’ (Muchemwa 2009). These binary oppositions have served to exclude political rivals of the ZANU-PF party from political legitimacy, most obviously the MDC. But the inclusion/exclusion function has also been applied to independent media, civil society organisations, human rights activists, the urban poor, whites and non-indigenous blacks.3 One of the important features of this discourse is the construction of those it excludes as forming a threat to the nation. Depicting the MDC as ‘puppet-mastered’ by the British in a neo-imperialist attempt to overthrow the sovereignty of the Zimbabwean government is the aim of this discourse (e.g. Dorman 2003, Christiansen 2004, Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008). Furthermore, it draws on tropes of the liberation war, depicting political opponents as ‘sell-outs’, justifying the violent punishments associated with counter-insurgency (Christiansen 2004, pp. 78–81). In the early 2000s, the relative political inexperience of the MDC was utilised by the ZANU-PF government to depict the MDC in this fashion. An example of this was an incident where leaders of the MDC were shown on the Cable News Network channel (CNN) receiving cheques from white farmers who at the time were under attack in the land occupations. This footage was turned into government propaganda, as proof of MDC's ‘sell-out’ status, having literally taken money from the hands of the white colonists (Willems 2005, p. 101).
By the middle of the 2000s, the potency of the Third Chimurenga discourse was seemingly waning. The chronic inflation, failure of public services and erosion of living standards was becoming painfully tangible to people. The MDC had become more politically mature, and the brutality of the regime was becoming a constant presence for ordinary citizens. Particularly after the so-called Operation Murambatsvina in 2005, which saw ‘illegal urban settlements’ demolished, and imposed prohibitions on informal trading, leaving thousands of people homeless and without livelihood (UN 2005). In this context, reiteration of the Third Chimurenga rhetoric seemed to be losing currency.
Against this backdrop, my analysis will argue that a new formulation of ‘the MDC as the enemies of the nation’ emerged from ZANU-PF. This discourse depicted the MDC party as an inherently violent aggressor, against which the government needed to act decisively in order to protect the people. In this discursive turn, the debate surrounding the domestic violence law came to hold an important position, as it tied in with the long-standing strategy of depicting the opposition as violent, and the government as the people's protectors.
Establishing the MDC as a violent party
In the context of people's everyday concerns, even the government-controlled media were by the mid 2000s hard pressed to depict the nation's affairs in a light favourable to the ZANU-PF government. Even the smallest drop in the growth of inflation could be transformed into the lead story on Zimbabwe Television, while the Herald was increasingly used by the Ministry of Information as a vehicle for anti-Western propaganda. Therefore, when tensions within the MDC developed into a widely publicised struggle between two factions in 2005, the government media had, at last, something substantial with which to fill airtime and pages. The infighting within the opposition party had taken a violent turn (albeit on a comparably small scale), with candidates using violence to jostle for positions in the party. These incidents and the party leadership's indecisive handling of them was reportedly a contributing factor to the split between the two factions of the party (Coltart 2006a). I will here examine the way in which the government media represented the split and the two subsequent incidents, and describe how the government used the fighting within the MDC create a picture of a violence-prone opposition. I will argue that this representation formed the backdrop of the 2007 violent oppression of the opposition.
The split in the MDC
‘Tsvangirai's faction threatens violence’ was the headline in the Herald on 26 October 2005 (Herald 2005). The article below claimed that the MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai, had threatened violence against MDC candidates who did not side with his faction. This followed a period where the split had largely been seen as a question of different opinions on the introduction of a senate in Zimbabwe. Under headings such as ‘Tsvangirai obsessed with violence’ (Herald 2006d), a punch-up between various MDC youth who favoured one or another candidate was spelt out in detail in the Herald and the weekly Sunday Mail. Here various news stories and opinion pieces depicted Tsvangirai as a violent character. Later on, when the mediator between the two factions, David Coltart, decided to side with Tsvangirai's opponents (Coltart 2006b), the government media depicted this event with headlines such as ‘Coltart bares all on MDC violence’ (Herald 2006e). This opened the floodgates for articles that claimed to identify a trajectory of violent activity instigated by the MDC. An article in the Herald described the MDC as a Janus-faced beast, which to the outside world acts the victim, but domestically reveals itself as an inherently violent aggressor, bent on subduing the nation by force:
Violence: MDC's trademark
While international propaganda finds good politics in portraying Zanu-PF as a violent party thriving on the blood of its opponents in the main opposition factions, one may need to take a look at the culture of violence in the MDC …
The MDC was the product of the 1998 violent riots where Morgan Tsvangirai …
This was the climax of Tsvangirai's political profile, the height of his political success. It is the standard he has thrived to reach once more by his numerous fruitless attempts at ‘mass actions’, ‘final pushes’ and ‘winter battles’. (Herald 2006f)
The Mutare plot
On 8 March 2006, the Herald reported that an ‘arms cache’ had been unearthed on a farm belonging to ‘an ex-Rhodesian army and special constabulary member, Peter Hitschmann’ (Herald 2006a). According to the police, Bennett, Mutsekwa and Hitschmann were believed to be part of a group of several MDC members, dominated by former Rhodesian soldiers and intelligence agents, who were plotting to overthrow the government:
The suspects were linked to the so-called Zimbabwe Freedom Movement, a shadowy group of ex-Rhodesians.
The group claims to have members within the law enforcement agencies, and drawn [sic] from ex-Rhodesians and war veterans.
The cabal is alleged to have come up with a list of targeted individuals whom it wanted to eliminate and consequently cause confusion and mayhem in the country. (Herald 2006b)
‘It is only Zimbabweans who can determine their political destiny through a sound electoral process.
‘So those still pledging their allegiance to Ian Smith and his stooges should note that the whole issue of stocking arms for subversive and destabilising purposes is a wasted effort as this country has the means and capacity to defend itself from enemies both internal and external,’ said Comrade Mutasa. (Herald 2006b)
The attack on MP Trudy Stevenson
The third incident, which preceded the debate about the domestic violence law, had MP Timothy Mubawu from the Tsvangirai faction in a key role. This incident was a violent attack on 2 July 2006 on another MDC MP, Trudy Stevenson, from the opposing faction, an incident that was widely publicised in the government media. Their interpretation, based on police statements, was obvious: that this was yet another outbreak of internal violence within the ‘violent MDC party’, perpetrated by a member of the violent Tsvangirai faction:
MDC thugs batter Trudy Stevenson
MDC legislator for Harare North constituency Mrs Trudy Stevenson was admitted in hospital on Sunday afternoon after she, and four other high-ranking officials of her faction, was severely assaulted by youths aligned to the rival camp led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mrs Stevenson, who is recovering at Avenues Clinic, sustained a deep gash on the back of her head, which her colleagues said was inflicted by a machete […]
‘I had never been physically attacked all my life, and in all my years as an opposition politician. Zanu-PF never physically harmed me, it really hurts to be harmed by people I used to work with,’ she said. (Herald 2006h)
After a string of random arrests, the police settled on a group of MDC leaders and activists, whom they charged with the assault. Mubawu was thought to be the leader because he and Stevenson were competing in the same district. Mubawu was formally charged, and the two factions seemed now further divided. This forced the Tsvangirai-led MDC to initiate a commission in order to investigate what had happened (MDC Commission of Inquiry 2006). Nevertheless, the government media continued to cover the attack and the divisions in MDC as a product of the MDC culture of violence with headlines such as ‘Opposition violent – Mutambara’, where faction leader Arthur Mutambara was said to have ‘admitted to the increasing culture of violence within the opposition’ (Sunday Mail 2006a).
At the same time, the government was preparing to pass the domestic violence law through parliament. This was covered alongside the Stevenson attack and consisted of praise of the government's benevolent policies and its determination to pass the law in order to protect women from violence (e.g. Herald 2006g).
The domestic violence law – protecting the nation's women
It was against this discursive backdrop that Mubawu gave a diatribe against the domestic violence law. From a strategic point of view, his statements were amateurish, considering that he was the government's favourite poster child for the ‘MDC culture of violence’ rhetoric. The government thus only had to describe the problem of domestic violence and depict the protection that the government, through this law, would offer women, in order to appear the champions of women's rights. To this end the government-controlled media made long references in a number of articles to the particularities of the law, and quoted at length the Minister of Justice's defence of the law in parliament. These articles served to juxtapose the government's initiative to launch the domestic violence law in protection of the nation's women with Mubawu's misogyny and defence of men's apparent ‘right’ to use violence against women (e.g. Chronicle 2006 Herald 2006i, Herald 2006k).
What made matters worse for Mubawu and the MDC was the fact that not only was this a chance for the government to appear benevolent and ‘opposed to violence’; women's rights groups that would under normal circumstances be counted as pillars of the pro-democracy movement and stand shoulder to shoulder with the opposition now had a rare opportunity to claim neutrality, and thus take centre stage in the media. It is, therefore, no wonder that a stream of well-written articles and opinion pieces written by prominent feminists and human-rights activists appeared in the national newspapers arguing for the merits of the legislation, and supporting the government's initiative to pass the law (e.g. Daily Mirror 2006a, Sunday Mail 2006a, Standard 2006, Sunday Mail 2006b). Here, the women's rights lobby described problems of domestic violence, the ministers responsible for the law occasionally gave statements in support of the legislation, and reporters in the government media routinely referred to Mubawu's statements. This painted a picture of a government that was intent on protection of women, and an opposition which was opposed to such legislation.
This stance fitted well with the picture that had been painted of the opposition in the preceding months; after all, the opposition (Mubawu being the prime example), was inherently violent, and this was yet another case which proved this ‘fact’. Mubawu did little to rectify this image; rather, he played the government a winning hand, by giving an interview with the government-controlled Sunday Mail, where he claimed that he was a lone voice in defence of indigenous culture. The Minister of Justice, Patrick Chinamasa, was quoted in the same article defending the law, saying that violence was not a part of Zimbabwean culture (Sunday Mail 2006b), thus constructing a discursive effect, where the MDC was depicted as prone to violence, and the government was depicted as the protector of the nation's women.
This discursive construction was maintained right up until the law was signed. Six months after the first reading of the domestic violence law in parliament, one of the government-controlled newspapers, the Chronicle, marked the occasion of International Women's Day, 8 March 2007, by printing an article that featured a woman who had been battered by her husband. She said that she was happy about the domestic violence law because, even if she did not wish to report her husband, the law would have a deterrent effect on his tendency to beat her (Chronicle 2007). The article then went on to quote at length from Mubawu's statements in parliament, contrasted with an old quote from the Minister of Gender, Opah Muchinguri: ‘The magnitude of gender-based violence is both frightening and choking and the statistics are proof enough as to why we need domestic violence legislation’ (ibid.). The effect of the juxtaposition was such that the reader was reminded of Mubawu's ‘promotion of violence’, which was contrasted by the Minister's determination to act against violence. The following day, the acting Minister of Gender, Flora Buka, was reported as rejoicing in the fact that the law had been signed by President Mugabe. This, she said, was appropriately ‘in line with this year's [international] theme, “Ending impunity for violence against women”’ (Herald 2007). That is, according to the government-controlled media, the president, the government and the Zimbabwean people were shown to be full members of the international society of democratic nations, which strive to protect women from domestic violence.
At one level, the debate about the domestic violence law was an example of how the uneven playing field – that is the Zimbabwean media space – operates; one opposition politician steps out of line and all other voices are silenced. The MDC put Mubawu's case before a disciplinary committee, but the damage was done – the government had allowed itself ample media space to depict itself as ‘the champions of anti-violence’. At another level, the way in which the government media depicted the debate must be viewed as part of the government's overall discursive strategy to portray the political claims of the opposition as illegitimate. In this respect, the symbolic value of the government as the protector of the people, a perspective underlined throughout the debate, was closely linked with the discourse about violence and political legitimacy, with the government's liberation war credentials as its core claim to power. Having constructed the MDC as an aggressor, and the government as the protector of the people, the government could legitimately unleash violence on the opposition in defence of the nation.
‘We say no to violence, and we will bash them’
The metaphor of protection of the people which the government constructed throughout the debate about the domestic violence law was at times also conveyed by awareness campaigns that were run either by women's rights groups or by the gender ministry. An example of this is the poster from which Figure 1 is taken. The poster carries the slogan: ‘Domestic violence law: the law that outweighs domestic violence’. It was one of a few very large posters with various slogans against domestic violence put up at strategic places in town and next to the large commuter routes. In this picture, the government (symbolised as a police officer) catches a man hitting a woman, thus protecting her from domestic violence. While the poster was not part of a government-sponsored campaign,5 the government could not have asked for a better illustration of the perceived consequences of the law. Two different masculine images are at play: the husband representing a damaging, violent and aggressive masculine force, which needs to be contained, and the police officer representing benign, protective masculine strength, which uses its powers positively to protect vulnerable women.
Section of a billboard poster advertising the Domestic Violence Law. Picture taken by the author in Harare, 2006.
The following lengthy quote, from an article covering President Mugabe's speech at the official celebration of International Women's Day, illustrates the links that the President constructs between the government's commitment to ending domestic violence, and its portrayal of the opposition as being prone to violence. The article makes reference to a number of violent attacks/acts of terrorism that had been committed the week before when a police station and a commuter train had been petrol-bombed, and members of the opposition had been arrested for allegedly being responsible for the attacks:
President condemns political violence
The Government will not sit back and watch the opposition perpetrating ‘terrorist attacks’ on innocent citizens while authorities are also geared to stamp out domestic violence, which now accounts for 60% of Zimbabwe's murder cases, President Mugabe has said.
Speaking at a ceremony to commemorate International Women's Day in Harare yesterday, Cde Mugabe said authorities would not tolerate lawlessness. This violence must stop, he said.
Cde Mugabe made the remarks in the wake of acts of violence unleashed by the opposition MDC in different parts of the country this week.
In Harare, suspected MDC supporters attacked and injured three policemen while two female officers at Marimba Police Station are in critical condition after a midnight petrol bomb attack on their residence.
The trail of violence resulted in disturbances in Glen View on Tuesday morning when property was destroyed and vehicles damaged.
President Mugabe pointed out that there was no need for the violence, as it does not enhance the political interests of the opposition party. If anything, he said, the practice only injures innocent people, and is aimed at illegally bringing about a change of Government in the country.
‘A new violence, sponsored and directed by our detractors, has been trying to rear its ugly head,’ he said.
‘Scores of innocent people going about their legitimate business have fallen prey to terrorist attacks that are part of the desperate and illegal plot to unconstitutionally change the Government in the country …
‘This violence, that was also beginning to affect symbols of Government authority, symbols of law and order, must stop.’
The President added that the Government advocates peace, highlighting that one could freely form a political party in Zimbabwe. He pointed out that the MDC had, however, taken to violence after the electorate spurned its advances …
‘My thanks go to the peace-loving Zimbabwean people who have shown the world who the real perpetrators of violence are.’
Turning to domestic violence, Cde Mugabe said while Government sought to deal with the social problem though legislative means, the effort should be collectively expanded across society …
He added that women are ‘mothers of life’. He said Government would continue to work on bringing equality to women across all sectors. (Sunday Mail 2007)
Just as in the case against the alleged plotters in the Mutare arms cache in 2006, none of the alleged attacks was ever proven to have been committed by members or sympathisers of the opposition. Rather, the court cases brought against opposition members have all been thrown out of court for lack of evidence. Nevertheless, President Mugabe claimed that he had ‘told SADC that yes, he [Tsvangirai] was beaten and bashed, and I told them that this was done by the police. I did not hide anything’ (Star 2007). Mugabe went on to further underline this argument at a ZANU-PF Youth League meeting in Harare on 16 March 2007:
No to violence – President
Government will not allow any criticism to deter it from upholding the law and arresting violent opposition members, President Mugabe has said.
If MDC repeats the orgy of violence it unleashed between Sunday and midweek, the President said, the Government would deal sternly with it …
The President's remarks come at a time when the West has heaped criticism on the Government for arresting MDC leaders and their supporters for engaging in violence while making no reference to the trail of destruction caused by the opposition. (Herald 2007)
Conclusion
Since independence, and particularly since the Third Chimurenga's discourse of political legitimacy, the ZANU-PF regime has defined the nation as being in a permanent state of war against former and potential colonisers. This state of permanent warfare allows for the politics of protection, a neatly defined position in which ZANU-PF can claim authority. It, after all, was the party that had liberated the nation in the first place. In this context, the introduction of, and debate around, the domestic violence law served to symbolically position the ZANU-PF government as the protectors of the nation's women. The coincidental episode and subsequent discursive use of Timothy Mubawu's objection to the law served to highlight the gendered power matrix on which ZANU-PF's symbolic politics of protection relied. Throughout the debate about the domestic violence law, the government's commitment to protecting women was routinely juxtaposed with the MDC politician's misogynistic statements, thus representing the MDC as an aggressive force. Here the nation's women functioned as a metonym for the people or the nation, positioning the ZANU-PF government as the benevolent patriarchal force, which would intervene to protect the people from assault. This happened against the backdrop of a long-term discursive strategy, where the government media and politicians had represented the MDC as a party which was inherently violent. In this discursive context, the arrest and torture of leading MDC politicians in March 2007 was accordingly depicted as the government's commitment to end violence and protect the people from the violent excesses of the MDC.
As such, the government's introduction of the domestic violence law can be seen as an attempt by ZANU-PF to stabilise an ambivalent discourse of violence and political legitimacy, by restoring Mugabe as the patriarch of the nation; a patriarch who protects his people through private and public displays of discipline and protection, by assuming control over all domestic spheres – public and private alike. Thus, women came to matter as symbols of government power over and protection of the people. However, the fundamental ambivalence in the government's discourse on violence consisted of the precarious exercise of carefully inscribing each act of violence committed in the name of the ZANU movement (by agents of the state or paramilitary groups) in the language of anti-colonial war and fitting them into the insider/outsider binary of patriots versus sell-outs. In the maintenance of this construction, positioning the domestic violence law and the protection of the nation's women symbolically as metonymy for the government's protection of the people represents a possible flipside, in which the imagery of the benevolent patriarchal force, which protects the people, that could have been turned into a narrative of the ‘wife-bashing government’, which violates its own people. However, neither the opposition nor the limited space of independent media pursued this line of discourse. And Mugabe was allowed to once again act the patriarch domestically and among his peers in the region.