History of Censorship in Zimbabwe

Description: Independent central African republic formerly known as Rhodesia

Significance: Among Africa’s many newly independent nations, Zimbabwe has one of the oldest and most complex histories of government censorship

Zimbabwe takes its name from ruins of a civilization (the word “zimbabwe” means a stone dwelling) that thrived during the time of Europe’s Middle Ages. The largest of these ruins is known as Great Zimbabwe. Europeans had long heard legends of a great city in southern Africa, reputed to be the biblical place Ophir and the site of King Solomon’s mines. By the late 1800’s the ruins took on a new political symbolism when the British began active colonization. In 1890 the British businessman and imperialist Cecil Rhodes began bringing in pioneers and mercenaries for colonization, and the area became the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1922.

The Zimbabwean ruins posed a problem for the white colonists. They justified taking control of land occupied by Africans by maintaining that the Africans were incapable of forming an advanced civilization without European direction. If Great Zimbabwe and the other ruined cities had been built by Africans, though, this would be evidence that Africans were capable of complex, urban societies. Cecil Rhodes saw the political importance of the ruins, and he hired the antiquarian Theodore Bent to excavate them to try to establish a non-African origin. Bent found no evidence of influences from any other continent, but he still concluded that Great Zimbabwe had been built by Mediterranean people. This official unwillingness to recognize that the cities were local creations enhanced the “Mystery of Zimbabwe,” vague speculations that the cities had been constructed in ancient times by King Solomon, by the ancient Greeks, or by Arabs.

As movements for independence and black political rights became more active, white government support for the Zimbabwe myth became more intense. By the 1960’s the colony of Rhodesia was under pressure from the British government to grant equality to black citizens. Complaining that whites and blacks were at vastly different levels of civilization, Rhodesia’s prime minister Ian Smith issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965.

Government control of archaeology increased following the UDI. In the same year as the declaration, the National Historical Monuments Commission stated that there was little doubt that Great Zimbabwe was the work of indigenous African people. In response, a member of the Rhodesian parliament denounced the commission and demanded that its findings be “corrected.”

In 1970 the Rhodesian government enacted censorship preventing all official publications from stating as fact that Great Zimbabwe had been an African creation. For many archaeologists, the extreme censorship of their discipline became unbearable. Peter Garlake, the leading expert on the ruins of Zimbabwe, left the country in protest, only to return in 1981, following the establishment of a majority black government.

Ian Smith’s Administration

Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front party came to power in 1964. One of the new regime’s first acts was the creation of the position of the parliamentary secretary for information, who was to control all information from the government. Government press releases and reports became little more than state propaganda. Smith also appointed new members of the Board of Governors of Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation and established control over television broadcasting.

When Smith declared the independence of Rhodesia, the government also declared a state of emergency. The state of emergency gave the government the right to suppress criticism or opposition by force. Under the Emergency Powers Act, in 1967, the Rhodesian government enacted direct censorship of all news in the country. Even listening to disapproved radio broadcasts from abroad became illegal. At the end of 1967 the Smith government set up a Board of Censors to examine and regulate all types of media, and the board banned both domestic and foreign publications for moral as well as political reasons. Those who published objectionable materials could also be prosecuted, under the Official Secrets Act of 1970, for threatening national security.

The Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company, the major newspaper publishing corporation in Rhodesia, was a subsidiary of the Argus newspaper chain in South Africa. Its newspapers were oriented toward the white inhabitants of Rhodesia. Nevertheless, the papers of the Argus chain were opposed to the UDI, and therefore were subject to heavy censorship. The Daily News, a paper not owned by the Argus chain, was owned and run by whites but sympathetic toward African nationalism and critical of the Rhodesian Front. As a result, the Smith government banned the Daily News in 1964. Reporters for the foreign media were also suppressed. In 1973 Rhodesian journalist Peter Niesewand was arrested for reports he had made to the British Press. He was sentenced to two years at hard labor for violation of the Official Secrets Act, and he was later deported to England.

Censorship Issues since 1980

There appears to have been much less censorship in Zimbabwe, as the country became known with the establishment of the black majority government of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in 1980, than there was under the Rhodesian Smith regime. The official government policy statement on the media, “The Democratization of the Media in Independent Zimbabwe,” guaranteed the press freedom to publish. Nevertheless, there have been some incidents of government control of expression.

In February 1981, the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust took control of the country’s main newspapers. In June 1981, the government created the Zimbabwe Inter-Africa News Agency (ZIANA). Joshua Nkomo, chief political rival of Prime Minister Mugabe and then minister of home affairs, criticized the transfer of the press to the government, saying it would turn the press into the mouthpiece of Mugabe’s party.

Political instability often raised threats to freedom of expression, since Mugabe’s government has met with resistance from antigovernment guerrillas. In 1984, as a result of guerilla activity, the government passed a ban on opposition party meetings in the center of the country. Criticism of the government’s treatment of guerrillas has also provoked threats of censorship. In 1986 Enos Nkala, who succeeded Nkomo as minister of home affairs, denounced Amnesty International as an enemy of the state and threatened anyone who might pass information to Amnesty.

Two years later Nkala, by then defense minister, became the center of a censorship controversy regarding corruption, rather than state security. The Bulawayo Chronicle accused government officials of corruption in the affair known as the “Willowgate scandal.” Nkala, the main target of the accusations, threatened to send the army to the newspaper headquarters to arrest the editor and deputy editor. Although the editors never suffered this fate, and the Zimbabwean government initiated an investigation of official corruption, the Chronicle’s editor was removed from his position and transferred to a nonreporting job.

In 2008, following a violent presidential runoff between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsavangirai, the Zanu PF and the Movement for Democratic Change created a coalition government, ostensibly to implement reforms such as media liberalization. A new constitution was adopted in 2013 and promised freedom of expression and access of information. However, the criminal code, which still retains some colonial-era laws, has yet to reflect the changes in the constitution and the state press has continued to voice pro-Mugabe views. In practice, journalists and media outlets have faced the same types of pressures they did under the former constitution. Journalists must be registered with the government and licensed through the Zimbabwe Media Commission. The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe has issued few licenses for community radio stations; in fact, none of the twenty-five applicant in 2014 were awarded one. The government has broad powers of surveillance, can intercept telecommunications, and may restrict content prior to publication. Threats, violence, extrajudicial arrests by police, and antidefamation statutes have led to self-censorship.

Despite the restrictions on traditional media in Zimbabwe, international media organization were allowed after the coalition government took office. The Internet also remains open in Zimbabwe, with access to international news unbarred for those who can log on. Smartphone penetration in Zimbabwe is high and has enabled everyday citizens to access outside information via voice, text messaging, or Internet. Thus, independent coverage largely comes from without.

Bibliography

Alexander, Jocelyn. The Unsettled Land: State-Making & the Politics of Land in Zimbabwe, 1893-2003 . Athens: Ohio UP, 2006. Print.

"Beating Censorship in Zimbabwe." Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, 13 June 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

"Freedom of the Press 2015: Zimbabwe." Freedom House. Freedom House, 2015. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Garlake, Peter S. Great Zimbabwe. New York: Stein, 1973. Print.

Kwenda, Stanley. "In the Shadow of Mugabe." Index on Censorship. Index on Censorship, 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

Palmer, Robin H.Zimbabwe: A Land Divided. Oxford: Oxfam, 1992. Print.