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Michael Mhlanga
Zimbabwe has a history of violent conflict spreading over decades, stretching from as far back as the 19th century when incessant raids and clashes reorganised politics and social demography in the land between Limpopo and Zambia.
For a fact, at least arguably, the land has never resolved any conflict since then. Decisions to move on and allow nature to take place have given the impression that peacebuilding is in motion, much to the cyclic recurrence of conflict, again and again.
While the Government has implemented several high-level initiatives with the intention of resolving the conflict between political elites such as the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, the Dumbutshena and Chihambakwe Commissions of Inquiry in 1981 and 1983, the Unity Accord in 1987, and the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in 2008, all of these processes have remained largely at a political and elite level, with little impact on young people.
Also, there has been an attempt to introduce Government institutions that facilitate reconciliation on the local level through, for example, the establishment of the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration (ONHRI) in 2009.
ONHRI was dissolved in 2013, and was replaced by the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) as guided by the new Constitution. Currently this is the agent active in facilitating peacebuilding, although I argue that NPRC in its diligent operations, like the past establishments will not address inherited conflict installed in young people ineligible to participate in the hearings.
I place it to you that there is need for a uniquely designed Commission that should focus on young people as young as 15 years or even below to create a safe space where they civically engage and inherited conflicts are disbanded. This seems too strenuous or fictitious to create because it hasn’t been done before, but it is a necessary model to attempt.
I was telling a friend on Friday that since I decided to revisit patriotic history of Zimbabwe, I have grown to learn that colonisation violently re-organised our African societies and it never allowed Africans to amicably resolve the differences outside of colonial administrators. In fact, as Africans grew more conscious of their identities, it was a realisation of their differences as curated by a colonial education, culture and political system which we still follow today. For instance, the 1893 politico-military clashes of the Matabele, Bere and Zimuto still stands unresolved and it’s a joke to think that the animosity ended there, it was imported to now.
A constituency was born and it held to the grudge and its next generations inherited it. I also argued that the Lancaster house agreement only ceased fire between Nationalists and Rhodies but left out the most pertinent issue, resolving tribal conflicts that rocked African societies as misrepresented by colonisation and the conflict in nationalists’ camps during the liberation struggle. At least, Nationalists had the task to do that, I ask, did they?
Some inheritances by young people were caused by the 1963 PF Zapu and Zanu split and subsequent guerrilla camp tribal clashes; we see them today in the adults who back then were still young. Another constituency was born after 1987 when the Unity Accord was signed when attention was paid to political actors who successfully stopped active conflict yet peace was absent in the new constituency that had involuntarily and unknowingly inherited a violent grudge.
The new constituencies were made up of young people who had only experienced violence after independence, but were immature to be engaged in dialogue or left out in the peacebuilding process yet they experienced, stored and retrieved the violent memories later in 2002. In 1987, conflict resolution was left for the political class, yet in 2002 and 2008, the violent actors are the same people who were young in the 80s who found violence as the riposte to differences. Hence I am of the belief that conflict we experienced in 2018 August and 2019 January is inherited and there should be a Commission specifically enacted to engage the new constituency before it grows to display the inheritance as has been done by others who grew to be actors in conflict because of inherited cultures of violence.
I reflect on three events that I experienced last week, and I find it noble to discuss the issue of unresolved conflicts impeding peacebuilding despite numerous efforts. The MDC Youth Assembly presser held on 11 June, the documentary by Zenzele Ndebele of CITE titled “Zimbabwe Shutdown: The January Protest” screened on 12 June, and the 14 June headline carried by an online news site, Zimbabwe Morningpost that read “Impoverished youth, a ticking time bomb” all confirm the new constituencies that always emerge at any given epoch of conflict in Zimbabwe.
While the events are different in structure and geography of happening and origin, they all converge on the theme of conflict and new constituencies which is a key population in conflict resolution which is always left out hence the need for a Commission that captures voices and strategies to resolve experienced impasses and also notify government on how to avoid recurrence of violence or even give over-zealous young politicians ideas of assuming that ‘elimination’ is a panacea to dissent.
Like many other conflicts that remain fully unresolved, January 14 2019 is an addition, which to the best of my thinking should immediately be resolved. In fact, what’s new about it is that it bore new constituencies, many young people who were too young in 2008 got to experience the horrors of violence and have already picked sides, wrong or right.
This is intact with the experiences reported by the Zimbabwe Morningpost which again, like the MDC Youth Assembly presser and the respondents in Zenzele’s documentary presents a picture of disgruntled young people and characterises them as a demography that will violently explode. That could have been avoided, and that can still be avoided. This is the constituency whose voices and contributions should be captured and facilitated by a unique Commission that will focus on youth and conflict resolution in the 2nd Republic.
Online Reporter