Forging alliances and agreeing to cooperate is very difficult in Zimbabwe. It is difficult even in secure and stable societies – but in this context it does not matter so much. Who do you trust in a tyrannical society? The 25% factor looms large in your mind.
It is against this background that some observers and supporters of the battle for media freedom are watching with great interest the first steps in an immensely delicate process. That is: the development of cooperation between media NGO’s in Zimbabwe, and between the media sector and the broader human rights sector in Zimbabwe.
Agenda for change
Zimbabwean NGO’s are also attempting to connect with other African NGO’s across the continent and with their international counterparts in a more meaningful advocacy drive. ZANU PF has become immune to criticism from "the North" -- calling it a (white) racist backlash. It is mainly other Africans that stand a chance in influencing events.
From a media freedom and human rights advocacy perspective, this means finding more effective ways for the civil society of Zimbabwe to spread the story of what is happening to them and how they would like to see their problems solved. This story must be spread to Africa in the first place and subsequently to the rest of the world.
They also believe in participatory democracy and do not want to see the issues of their country exclusively negotiated by the ruling ZANU PF and MDC opposition parties only. Spreading their story and gaining access to the agenda for change entails cooperation and the sharing of limited resources, as well as the development of effective advocacy networks, within and without Zimbabwe.
Joint strategic plan
NiZA has assisted Zimbabwean human rights NGO’s to discuss cooperation by funding a two-day workshop in Harare at the end of October. The workshop was proposed and hosted by the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) and MISA-Zimbabwe and included other African and international NGO’s.
They explored internal, African and international human rights cooperation in respect of Zimbabwe with an emphasis on the freedom of expression crisis. Significantly, four of the media NGO’s agreed to meet "in the near future" to discuss how to strengthen internal cooperation and to draft a joint strategic plan on media freedom advocacy for the country. These are MMPZ, MISA-Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (IJAZ).
At this meeting values will be contested between journalists who work in the privately-owned media and those who work in the state-owned media. However, who employs you in Zimbabwe is not an automatic indication of where your sympathies lie. Only time will tell who falls into which 25% of the equation. It will not be an easy meeting.
Zimbabwean organisations that attended the meeting included the Crisis Coalition, the Zimbabwean Human Rights NGO Forum, the Amani Trust, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the ZUJ, Kubatana.net, the Civic Education Network Trust, IJAZ, the Association of Women’s Organisations of Zimbabwe (WOZA) and the Combined Harare Residents Association. |
Jeanette Minnie is an advisor to NiZA on the issue of freedom of expression. She has been a director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), South Africa. jcmin@iafrica.com
