Chronicle Editor
Dr Gift Gwindingwe, Correspondent
THE Zimbabwean socio-economic and political terrain is rugged. The media are indeed battlefields where ideological contestations are rife. This reflects the multiplicity of views and demonstrates the potentialities of the media as a marketplace of ideas.
However, observations on both online and legacy media point to self-degradation; self-hate and self-demeaning as prominent traits cutting across our Zimbabwean media content. In particular, the delusions of social media reality seem to be overriding offline realities.
Positives to take from both public and private media in Zimbabwe and beyond are that the media are performing their watchdog role. This keeps governments in check. A worrying trend, especially on social media platforms, is that of self-hate amidst our local socio-economic challenges.
Parallelism has taken centre stage and the current political standoff has left citizens unashamedly irreconcilable even on matters that are glaringly reconcilable. For example, Ian Smith can never be wished better than anyone black in any way. Citizen journalism has come to widen the political/ideological chasm that leaves the country of Zimbabwe ontologically bleeding.
Our identity has value. Our identity as a nation is our mirror. Let us carry our vision, our philosophy, our history and our voices as black Zimbabweans. Let us see ourselves from an esteemed position that acts as a definer of our destiny and identity. While we must embrace the global nature of the contemporary world view, let us also cherish the belief that we are local before we are global. We are Zimbabweans/Africans before we were internationalised. Therefore, let us carry our identity together with our potentials and capabilities (labour/skill/mortality).
Commodified and ordained identities only work to interpellate our subjugated positions that we inherited from inhumane colonialism before independence. The way out of such pitfalls is in the vitality and vibrancy of our media in articulating our own issues and our unquestionable relevancy and potentials in the global sphere. Only blind journalism will castigate the black self in an individual.
The pen, the camera and the mic define less who we are than the mind that vomits thoughts that are in turn vomited by the pen; than the hand that holds the camera at an angle decided by the hand; than the voice (tone/pitch etc) that exudes through the mic.
We therefore need to ask ourselves: Whose mind? Whose hand? Whose voice? In all this, we do not need to be blind to the cardinal journalistic principles or to the canons of journalism: fairness and objectivity in reportage; balanced and timeous news production etc. This takes us to the vigilant nature of journalism as a profession. But the questions raised above also take us to solution-based and patriotic journalism; journalism that preaches peace more than it corrodes our identity and integrity no matter what.
Our minds, hands and voices can define patriotism and carry the nationalistic ego that spruces up our identity. The propensity to glorify others and not oneself is self-degrading and self-hating. We do not solve in-house problems by inviting neighbours to preside and take charge of the affairs of our homestead. Patriotic journalism is not singing for one’s supper but imaging and reimaging one’s identity.
Patriotic journalism is expressing bewilderment, shock and surprise when you do not see your image after you present yourself to the surface of a looking glass mirror. Jingoistic media choruses are an expression of discovery and rediscovery of one’s identity: singular and group identity.
At the same time, rebuking and reprimanding media has been in existence since time immemorial: at nhimbes, funerals and other platforms. Freedom of speech and expression have been with us and celebrated long before certain races expropriated the concepts for future cultural/information marketing.
Therefore, it is axiomatic that we continue embracing and cherishing freedom of speech and expression as enshrined in international and regional charters such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the Windhoek Declaration of 1991. This makes us part of the global family.
The media texts, as penned, voiced and photographed, define and shape the public’s world view and proffer models of attitudes and behaviours. A lowly depicted identity defines, portrays and perpetuates traditional racist stereotypes. Inundating the media with colonialist nostalgia is retrogressive and a form of underdevelopment. Can those who lived and endured colonialism wish the slave traders were better than Ian Smith?
Let us embrace journalism as a nation building enterprise: what are the underlying messages in our media content and whose interests are they serving? Patriotic journalism should strive to save national interests and to unite citizens in its normative functions of educating, informing and entertaining.
Communication strategies and image building are the cornerstones of media and communication practices in any progressive nation. The Zimbabwe that we market is the Zimbabwe that consumers of our news conjure in their minds.
The stories that we run about our past and our present decide the Zimbabwe that we desire to build; the signifying value of the images constructed through our reportage is the benchmark of the future generation’s uptake of, or antipathy towards, their own country.
The social responsibility role of the media is mutually dependent on the journalist managing the media, whose journalist is dependent on the owner and funder of the media.
Nationalistic journalism rebukes all the social vices and at the same time spruces up the virtues of the nation that it saves. Zimbabwe needs journalism that is unifying, that does not glorify the flowers and rockeries next door but journalism that mirrors the path to take the country forward.
Rockeries and flowers next door should not exclusively decide our interests but can only be referred to as pointers to some kind of beauty. In that context, professional journalism is based on sound research, not spite and political polarity. Valid and reliable research is anchored in a particular geographical and historical context.
Zimbabwe is experiencing divisive journalism that, if power and economy are not checked, will see irreparable damage to our nation.
Even in the face of catastrophic pandemics like Covid-19; in the face of fatal natural disasters such as cyclones and in the face of sensitive but decisive phenomena like plebiscites that determine the future of the country, Zimbabwe is enduring inflammatory and divisive journalism. But the big question is: To what end? Let us all remember railway lines do not meet, even at a bend, they remain parallel. Should human minds be as such? That will be equally epidemic and/or cyclonic!
Needless to say, our journalism is orbiting in a global village that extrapolates our parameters so that we are also influenced by the global trends. The only mindful step to watch is: is our taking off an inward move (from the global to the local) or an outward move (from the local to the global)? Or it is anyhow? What informs our identity? Our vision; our cultural memory and philosophy; our history and our voices should be our journalistic echo chambers.
These echo chambers should be our starting points and should guide us.
The mind, the hand and the voice define patriotism as we desire it. The love of one’s country is reflected through the images the mind constructs, the images the hand pens and the images that the voice echoes. Media can project the thought of the mind; the image produced by a hand and the attitude and emotion produced by the echoes of the voice through their watchdog role.
l Dr Gift Gwindingwe is a lecturer in the Department of English and Media studies at Great Zimbabwe University and writes in his own capacity.
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