The Role of Language in Promoting Peace and Reconciliation in
Post-Conflict Zimbabwe
Nhlanhla Landa & Sindiso Zhou
Abstract
This paper explores the role that language can play in Zimbabwe's quest for national
healing and reconciliation, necessitated by the country’s violent history, but especially
the election-related violence of 2008. The idea that language influences thought and
therefore thought can be manipulated the same way language is, takes centre stage in
this discussion. Recognizing the contribution of speech to the 2008 Zimbabwean electionrelated violence, this paper explores possibilities of effectively utilizing language in the
reconciliation process. The paper argues that hate language played a central role in the
creation of intolerance, hate, violence and hate crimes in the 2008 post-election period
and at every other violence period before and after that and, therefore language use by
the media needs special national attention if the process of national healing,
reconciliation and the search for a common identity are to succeed. The paper employs
Critical Discourse Analysis tools to interrogate language use during elections in
Zimbabwe and to explore ways in which language can be employed for reconciliation,
national healing and searching for a new identity for post-conflict Zimbabwe.
Nhlanhla Landa & Sindiso Zhou are lecturers in the Department of English at the
University of Fort Hare, South Africa.
Southern Peace Review Journal Vol. 5 No. 1, March 2017
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Introduction
This paper explores the role that can be played by language in Zimbabwe's ambitious
quest for national healing and reconciliation, necessitated by the 2008 electoral and
post-electoral violence. It employs Critical Discourse Analysis tools to interrogate
language use during elections in Zimbabwe and to explore ways in which language can
be employed for reconciliation, national healing and a search for a common identity for
post-conflict Zimbabwe. The core argument of the study is that if language played a
major role in the widespread violence, then any efforts to successfully promote peace,
reconciliation and healing must have at its core a deliberate and purposeful linguistic
component, including the use of indigenous languages, given their richness in peace
promoting sayings, idioms and proverbs.
Background
The past two decades have seen eruptions of violence in several African states during
election periods. In Uganda, while in the 2006 elections violence levels were relatively
low, the preceding elections in 2001 were marred by extremely high levels of violence
(Human Rights Watch; 2001, 2008). Ethiopian elections in 2005 were also
characterized by violence (Lyons, 2006). Kenya's 2007 election is another recent
example of election-related violence. The most recent case would be the South African
pre-election violence in 2016 where public buildings, buses and property were
destroyed (Azikiwe, 2016). In Zimbabwe’s history of elections and all political
processes, the 2008 harmonized elections have stood out as an archetype of violence
and retrogression in Africa's political history. Violence erupted and spread everywhere,
and for 34 days election results would not be announced.
Of greater interest, however, is the nature in which the Zimbabwean media, largely
state media at the time due to the ban of independent newspapers, handled
themselves in such a volatile political environment. Much attention has been given to
documenting the instances of hate speech during the period but little has been done
in the direction of critically assessing from a socio-linguistic perspective the link, or
lack of it, between the nature of the coverage on one hand and the hate crimes that
followed the elections and the general social conduct of the readership of the
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newspapers on the other.
After the 2008 elections, which were marred by political violence, hate language and
intolerance among Zimbabweans belonging to different political parties, the three
major political parties at the time signed what came to be known as the Global
Political Agreement (GPA). The GPA allowed for the creation of a peace and
reconciliation committee in 2009 – the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and
Integration (ONHRI). The major role of the Organ was to create an environment
conducive for national healing and reconciliation in the communities.
Tracing Zimbabwe’s Conflict Map
Zimbabwe has experienced several cases of violence and conflict since independence.
Cases include the Gukurahundi ‘tribal’ conflict soon after independence up to 1987,
the farm invasions (popularly known as the Third Chimurenga/ Liberation Struggle) in
2000, election violence in the years 2000, 2002 and 2005, Operation Murambatsvina
(Restore Order) in 2005 and election-related violence in 2008 and 2013. It is notable
that while characterised by violence and disharmony, the 2013 elections recorded the
least number of election related violence since the turn of the century.
Since around 2000, the Zimbabwean community has been divided according to
affiliation to one or the other of the two major political parties: the Zimbabwe African
National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC). Most citizens belong to one political party or the other before they belong to
any other grouping; ethnic or otherwise. The division is evident at all levels of the
community. Zimbabwe’s disputed 2008 election outcome resulted in violence and
conflict matched only by the Gukurahundi ‘tribal’ conflict that rocked the nation soon
after independence.
Contextualising Language: Language as Social Function
The power of language in politics is illustrated through communication between
different political and social players, the electorate or grassroots in various social
contexts and the media. People are influenced and manipulated by both properties of
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discourse and properties of the speakers or writers of the particular discourse, which
properties include power, authority, social standing or credibility (van Dijk, 1993).
Language can be used both to destruct (create hate, humiliate and discredit) and to
construct (promote peace, tolerance and reconciliation). Identity, social relationships
and people’s belief systems are shaped and at the same time constrained by the
linguistic environment. The same applies to individuals’ social behaviours: they are
also affected by the language we use and the language used on us and in our
sociolinguistic environment. What speakers say and how they say it in particular
contexts is determined by their social status in relation to the people they are saying it
to. Power is exercised at every discoursal encounter. Words of the powerful are taken
by the masses as “self-evident truths” while the words of the dominated classes are
easily dismissed as lacking substance (van Dijk, 1993).
Theoretical Framework
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has no unitary methodology; it instead encompasses
a whole range of approaches and ideas (van Dijk, 2008). CDA is a necessity for
describing, interpreting and analyzing social experiences and relations in texts and
discourse. It is employed to expose the discursive sources of power in political
discourse. It encompasses a whole range of ideas and approaches, with the effect of a
holistic approach to the process of analysis (McGregor, 2003). A host of approaches,
including Political Discourse Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Conversational Analysis
and Protest Event Analysis among others can be harnessed in doing Critical Discourse
Analysis.
McGregor (2003) asserts that discourses are used in everyday contexts for building
power and knowledge and for exercising influence and authority over others. Our
words, no matter how innocent they might seem, are never neutral nor value-free. Bell
(1991) subscribes to the notion that news reports are ideologically created and that
news articles are narratives based on deliberate selection of certain events and
messages, and conscious omission and suppression of others (Bell, 1991). As they
gather articles for publication, news journalists select what they deem ‘tellable’ and
suppress what they dismiss as un-newsworthy. This is not always because the events
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are really un-newsworthy, but often because they do not relate kindly to their editorial
policies and ideologies.
CDA is useful for describing, interpreting, analysing and critiquing social experiences
and social relations reflected in texts (Luke, 1997). It is employed to expose the
discursive sources of power in political discourse. News articles are not a value-free
mirror of reality. Events and messages are chosen (or not chosen) in relation with
specific agendas that need to be achieved by specific newspapers. Archakis and
Tsakona (2010:914) argue thus:
The reported events are not important ‘by themselves’; on the contrary,
they are chosen because they reflect a specific ideological perspective,
that is to say, on the basis of certain – not always explicitly stated –
values and beliefs. Their linguistic encoding depends on the reasons and
goals of their publication.
In political reporting in Zimbabwe for example, a political reporter from the state
owned Herald newspaper would not select the same event as a reporter from The
Zimbabwean, or if they did their areas of concern and points fore-grounded would be
different because what they want to achieve with the news article selected is
ideologically different. As journalists they have the obligation to establish the
significance of what is being told as criteria for choosing an event.
Primarily, CDA concerns itself with the relationship between language, ideology and
power and the relationship between discourse and socio-cultural change, and
addresses real and practical social problems (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997). It involves
microanalysis of texts and the macro analysis of social formations, institutions, and
power relations that these texts index and construct (Luke, 1997:100). Van Dijk (1998)
concurs that CDA is concerned with, and necessary for, studying and analyzing
written texts and spoken words, and exposing social relations underlying language
use. The major aim in CDA is to expose ‘the discursive’ sources of power, dominance,
inequality and bias in society and how these sources are initiated, maintained,
reproduced, and transformed within specific social, economic, political and historical
contexts (van Dijk, 1998). Thompson (2002) concurs that CDA helps the social analyst
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in making clear cut connections between the use of language and the exercise of
power in any community. This is most applicable to especially a politically conscious
and politically active community where all relations in the first place and all the time
are political before they are anything else.
We argue that every instance of violence during the elections provided a direct link
between physical attacks on individuals or groups on one hand and on the other
instances of hate speech in earlier publications in the media. Hate speech undermines
democratic citizenship, is offensive and stirs up rivalries and hatred between
individuals and groups in the community.
Van Dijk (1998) asserts that the words of those in power are taken by the masses as
‘self-evident truths’ while on the other hand the words of those who are not in power
and belong in dominated groups are simply dismissed as inappropriate and without
substance. Van Dijk (1998:8-9) argues that ‘If controlling discourse is a first major
form of power, controlling people’s minds is the other fundamental way to reproduce
dominance... discursive mind control is a form of power and dominance if such control
is in the interest of the powerful and if recipients have no alternatives’. What is most
certain is that control is always in the interest of the powerful, which makes discursive
mind control very much a power and dominance issue.
Thompson, cited in McGregor (2003), connects language use and the exercise of
power. News reporting provides the journalist with the opportunity to ‘construct and
project, from a specific ideological point of view, not only his/her self identity, but –
most importantly – aspects of the surrounding social world’ (Archakis and Tsakona,
2010:914). CDA, therefore, becomes the most appropriate approach in the attempt to
expose the social power relations underlying language use to perform social actions. It
interrogates the power and dominance struggles in social relations and it is relevant in
interrogating the exercise of political muscle.
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The use of Language to promote violence: The case of the 2008 elections
Of interest in the case of the 2008 elections in Zimbabwe is the role of the media/news
discourse in promoting and perpetuating violence. The SADC Observer Mission
observed that hate speech, incitement of violence and war rhetoric reproduced by the
media instilled fear and trepidation amongst voters. The hateful messages were
repeated by the media over a long period and to such an extent as to ‘suggest that the
targets of these messages had so badly undermined the sovereignty of Zimbabwe that
they no longer deserved the protection of the law’ (MMPZ, 2009). Hate messages
initiated by politicians during election campaigns were reproduced in the media
verbatim and significantly multiplied, which inevitably promoted intolerance among
players from different political groupings.
A few instances of hateful messages initiated by social actors and multiplied by the
media are selected for this analysis. One instance is:
Let the people’s voices thunder across the whole country on 29 March,
rejecting and damning once and for all the boot-licking British troops,
traitors and sell-outs, political witches and prostitutes, political
charlatans and two headed political creatures (Chronicle, 01 March
2008:1).
Carried in a national paper, such a message has the potential to reach the majority of
Zimbabweans and it humiliates opponents and creates hate towards them because in
the Zimbabwean society ‘prostitutes’ and ‘witches’ are not tolerated. Society can easily
lash out at ‘traitors’ and ‘sell-outs’ and, especially in political situations, without
restraint.
One popular instance of hate speech is the one by Mugabe when he described his
contestant Simba Makoni. At the time, Mugabe was (and still is) the all-time leader of
Zanu PF, the number one citizen of Zimbabwe. Simba Makoni on the other hand was
the leader of an opposition party called Mavambo Kusile Dawn (MKD) and a former
Finance Minister in one of Mugabe’s governments who had pulled out of Zanu PF to
stand as an independent presidential candidate. In the speech, Mugabe described
Makoni as a prostitute, which message was carried in three of Zimbabwe Newspapers’
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publications on 22 February 2008:
So I have compared him to a prostitute, a prostitute could have
stood also achiti ini ndine varume vangu vamwe vari muMDC
vamwe vari muZanu PF, hapana party isina varume vangu ini,
saka neniwo ndoenda ku nomination; but you see a prostitute
could have done better than Makoni because she has clients (The
Herald, 22 February 2008:1).
(Mugabe compares Makoni to a ‘prostitute’ claiming to have clients
in both Zanu PF and MDC political parties.)
This description of Makoni is offensive. In Zimbabwe prostitution is not only illegal but
a serious aberration and while it is viewed in lighter tones in the urban set up where
cultures have been mixed, in the rural areas the practice is frowned upon and
considered as a social disgrace. Therefore, what Mugabe is telling the nation,
especially the rural population, is that Makoni is a social misfit. And the shift from
English to Shona is a deliberate ploy by Mugabe to appeal to tradition and traditional
judgement on Makoni. The Shona equivalent for the term ‘prostitute’ – ‘hure’ or
‘pfambi’ – is derogatory and has the effect of reducing Makoni to a social disgrace and
outcast. Thus the message has the effect of discrediting Makoni by portraying him as
unprincipled and desperate to lead.
Individual journalists were also part of the whole conspiracy to assassinate characters
of politicians from parties whose ideologies they did not share. The most vicious
instances were from a few senior journalists who wrote long and descriptive articles
attacking individual politicians. An example reads:
The elections are pitting a statesman par-excellence and a
revolutionary icon against Morgan Tsvangirai, a shameless
stooge… Even on his posters, his looks are passable, with the
potholed cheeks filled with lavish doses of make-up. But the
question remains, is the Tsvangirai in the posters the same
Tsvangirai Susan sees on the pillow at night? (Zvayi, in The
Herald, 23 June 2008:7).
Zvayi goes for personal attack, deviating from the usual attack on Tsvangirai’s
character to a criticism of his physical appearance.
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The use of Language to promote peace: The case of local languages
It is the argument of this paper that if language can be manipulated, as it was in all
Zimbabwe’s election related violence to cause disharmony in the way discussed above,
it can also be deliberately manipulated to promote peace, harmony, tolerance and
integration in society. There is a glaring need for deliberate policies to monitor media
usage of language by media organisations. Media laws and ethics have always
emphasised responsible reportage of news; hate speech goes against this virtue.
Using languages local to specific sections of the community to communicate messages
of peace and reconciliation in multilingual Zimbabwe will yield positive results. It will
help programmers appeal to the communities in the languages they understand best –
the languages that speak to the heart. If advocacy messages are in the languages
specific communities can identify with, they are likely to have greater impact as
communities will feel recognised as ethnic groups. Besides, indigenous languages are
rich in proverbs, sayings and philosophies that aim at promoting peace, reconciliation
and unity in the spirit of ubuntu/botho/unhu. Therefore, if reconciliation and
integration advocacy messages are availed in languages most local to communities
and packaged in these peace and reconciliation promoting proverbs and sayings that
shaped their up-bringing the messages are likely to have a positive impact.
One example of a proverb from the Ndebele language, which is a major language in
Zimbabwe is: Umkhonto kawakhi muzi/ induku kayakhi muzi (War does not build a
nation). This saying is used to promote a culture of non-violence. Umkhonto (spear)
and induku (knobkerrie) are symbols of war and conflict in Ndebele communities. This
saying was traditionally used in Ndebele communities to discourage violence (war) and
appeal to individuals by inferring that warring communities lag behind in
development. Indeed, research has shown that even in modern communities conflict is
retrogressive as it drives away investors.
Inkosi yinkosi ngabantu (leaders are chosen by the masses) is another Ndebele proverb
calling on leaders to respect the masses as they literally are servants of the ordinary
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people that voted them into office. This proverb was routinely used in succession
debates to call on would-be leaders to respect the masses or to remind leaders who
were mistreating their subjects that their power lay in the masses. This proverb was
also routinely adapted into umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu to discourage individualism
and selfish tendencies among ordinary villagers, especially those who alienated
themselves on the basis of wealth and other privileges in society.
The Ndebele proverb Izandla ziyagezana (you use one hand to wash the other) is also
one of the proverbs that were used in calling for unity and working together in
communities. The proverb is closely linked to the Shona proverb: Chara chimwe
hachitswanyi inda (individualism does not achieve much). This proverb appeals to
unity of purpose in a community. It hits on a common sense analogy that for you to
kill a louse you often press it between two thumbs. Not doing so renders the whole
process either futile or cumbersome. This proverb has the same meaning as, and was
used interchangeably with, another Shona proverb: Rume rimwe harikombi churu (one
man cannot surround an anthill), meaning ‘collective efforts are fruitful’). The Tonga
alternative for the Ndebele and Shona proverbs in this scenario is: Kwanzika chiluli
cha’anda nkujatilana (roofing a hut requires joining of hands). It calls for the pooling
together of resources and people in the community. Closely related to this proverb is a
Shona proverb that reads, Atswinya arwa, meaning every contribution, no matter how
small, counts.
The Tonga proverb Kunyina chipilingene chitakonzeki koololwa (All problems can be
resolved) discourages people from resorting to violence as there are always ways to
resolve issues, no matter how big or serious they seem to be. It is related to the Shona
proverb Chafamba kamwe hachiteyewi (the first offence/ transgression is not taken
seriously), which delays retribution as much as possible. This particular proverb has
the same meaning as another Shona proverb; Potsi haarwirwi, anorwirwa ndiPiri
(Action may not be taken against an offence until it is repeated).
The following are other proverbs in indigenous languages (in this case Shona) that
were meant to promote harmonious living through calling for sharing of resources:
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Kandiro kanoenda kunobva kamwe (One good turn deserves another); Kandiro enda,
kandiro dzoka (One good turn deserves another); Kupa kuturika (giving is an
investment). This sharing of resources saw to it that people lived in harmony and in
perpetual neighbourliness.
These examples illustrate just how rich indigenous languages are in proverbs and
sayings that promote peace, reconciliation and integration. They also demonstrate
how, outside politics and elections, love for peace and harmony are inherent
components of Zimbabwean communities.
Conclusions and recommendations
One of the conclusions from the discussion above is that the language of hate was
largely responsible for the crimes of hate experienced during especially the 2008 postelection period. Expression has the potential to stir up, nurture and flare such
negative emotions as anger, hate, contentions and all manner of negative imaginations
that consequently lead to violence and crimes of hate. It can be concluded, therefore
that for peace in Zimbabwe and healing of affected communities to occur, there is
need to promote peace and reconciliation, which can be done through the deliberate
use of appropriate language to appeal to the hearts of both the affected and the
perpetrators. Most importantly, there is need to employ indigenous languages, rich in
peace and reconciliation promoting proverbs and sayings, on would-be perpetrators of
violence.
Government should also apply stringent measures with regards to guidelines on
language use by politicians and by the media. Without necessarily regulating the
media, government can put in place stringent measures and policies against
perpetrators of hate speech and violence. Due to the potential that hate speech has to
cause crimes of hate and various forms of violence, governments and media regulatory
bodies should urgently and effectively implement policies promoting hate-free
language and against the use of abusive language in the media and by government
officials. This will help create an environment conducive for conflict sensitive
reporting.
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