Cartoons depict the national question

Such issues are addressed primarily for humour and very little else. The “big world”, consisting of the serious “bread and butter” issues such as politics, service delivery and diseases may consist of humour but provide a mirror from which society may look into and get a national perspective.
One particular cartoon drawn by Innocent Mpofu was published by the Herald on 24 March, 2008, five days before the Zimbabwe harmonised elections.
The cartoon shows Morgan Tsvangirai, then the main opposition leader, spinning uncontrollably next to a banner that says, ‘Tsvangirai in another U-turn on land reform’. One man is seen in another corner asking another, “Doesn’t that cause dizziness?”
The cartoon refers to the opposition leader’s apparent indecision on the issue of land, a pivotal issue in Zimbabwe’s political dispensation.
Land had been a critical and complex issue in the country for many years. When white settlers assumed power in 1890, they apportioned to themselves vast acres. The two major liberation wars waged between then and 1980 (the year Zimbabwe finally gained independence) were mainly about political power and land.
However, independence only brought about political power, with the land issue left unaddressed, mainly due to a clause in the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement signed by all the main political principals in Zimbabwe politics, including Britain, the colonial power, the white government, and the black nationalist movements.
The agreement was seen as a rule book intended to ensure a smooth transition from the then white minority government to a black majority government.
The clause, though, placed a 10-year restriction on the new rulers with regard to land redistribution, particularly the demand that government could only acquire land on the basis of a ‘willing seller willing buyer’ principle and that such land should be paid for in foreign currency.
However, the white farmers were unwilling to sell, and the new government had no financial resources. Britain also failed to live up to their promise made at the Lancaster House Agreement to provide sufficient funds to enable the new government of independence to redistribute land effectively.
In a bid to speed up the process, following the end of the restrictions imposed by the Lancaster House Agreement, the government passed the 1992 Land Acquisition Act, which was designed to enable it to acquire land legally and more easily.
This led to the following statement by President Mugabe in 1996: “We are going to take the land and we are not going to pay for the soil. Our land was never bought by the colonists and there is no way we can buy back the land.”
In February 2000, authorities went ahead with implementing a fast-track land reform programme, aptly named “Third Chimurenga”, loosely translated as “the Third liberation war/revolution”.
By the time the 2008 elections took place, most of the land previously in the hands of 4,500 commercial white farmers translating to 42 percent of the country’s total land area or 70 percent of the most productive land had been transferred into millions of black hands. The concern was raised that most of the best land had been allocated to those closest and most loyal to the Zimbabwe President.
Sam Moyo, head of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies in Harare, however, maintains that Zimbabwe’s land redistribution has been broad-based and largely egalitarian. It is important to realise that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the party that Tsvangirai leads, was only one-year-old when the land reforms started. Eight years later, the party had become a partner for the West’s efforts to dislodge Mugabe, and had also become close to the white farming community.
In fact, a Cable News Network (CNN) clip conferred some credence to Zanu-PF’s charge that the MDC was a front for white farmers after the cable broadcaster showed footage of white farmers signing donation cheques and pledging hard cash to Tsvangirai at an MDC rally. The closeness of the MDC in general, and Tsvangirai in particular, to the dispossessed white farmers created a real political dilemma.
By 2008, the MDC’s position on the issue of land redistribution was still unclear. It ranged from assertions by Fidelis Mhashu, a senior member of the party, who suggested in 2001 on BBC’s Hard Talk that the party would return the redistributed land to the white farmers, to statements by the MDC spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, who remarked, “the land reform programme is irreversible. It cannot be reversed because it is an important national issue”.
These two views represent contradictory views regarding the redistribution of land with Fidelis Mhashu seemingly opposing the distribution of land and Nelson Chamisa seemingly supporting it.
The cartoon therefore reflects the indecision by Tsvangirai, through assertions of his own and those of his party on an important national issue.
The cartoonist uses language and text to complement his images. The newspaper billboard introduces the subject, providing a reference to actual events. Tsvangirai has contradicted a position that he had taken previously, and the billboard here acts as a snapshot of Zimbabwe political events in 2008.
A speech bubble attributing a statement to a member of the public in the background is placed on the right.
This gives the impression that the cartoonist intended for readers to “read” the cartoon as a text, from left to right. The billboard introduces Tsvangirai’s recent actions, leading the eye to the opposition leader, and the speech bubble at the end completes the cartoon by commenting on the highly irregular action in the foreground. The speech bubble warns of a harmful potential consequence of Tsvangirai’s action, and thus implies that neither the opposition leader nor the general public may benefit from the action.
The cartoon suggests that Tsvangirai’s actions put him at a disadvantage and it implies that he does not have the stability required of political leaders in Zimbabwe. The cartoonist capitalises on the fact of the existence of conflicting MDC opinions, by making exaggerated claims about the frequency with which such conflicting opinions are expressed.
Usually a U-turn constitutes a single 180-degree change in direction, but here Tsvangirai is depicted in a high-energy, endless motion exercise, as indicated by the symbolic circular lines and arrow vectors around Tsvangirai.
The stereotypical representation of the Zimbabwe opposition leader is that of a confused man, suggested here by his highly animated facial features. He is, in fact, caricatured with an irregular nose, and his skin imperfections are amplified, giving an overall impression of an unflattering rendition of Tsvangirai.
The image of spinning in the cartoon is a metaphorical representation of political indecision, confusion, and incompetence, which is ironic, as Tsvangirai, being the main opposition leader, would have been expected to be offering viable alternative to the sitting government and to be working on national projects or proposals. The editorial cartoon is not just about apparent indecision on the part of Tsvangirai and his party, it is presented in a country that values land reform and one that already has a mass view on what it means to them. It then shows a perplexity that is at odds with public opinion and questions the leadership qualities of the opposition leader.