Abstract
This qualitative study demonstrates how Zimbabweans are rejecting and appropriating certain national identity icons and reclaiming others as a way of challenging the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)’s contested stranglehold on power. In a context where the ruling elite have deployed patriotic history and other related nationalistic paraphernalia, the creative use of the national flag by #ThisFlag protestors suggests that ordinary people have the agency to mount an oppositional and revisionist historiography. The chapter also argues that digital media technologies have made it possible for cyber-communities to sprout and gain traction as ordinary citizens in the diaspora and mainland reclaim their country. It also interrogates the ambivalent roles of the clergy in postcolonial Zimbabwe given the cooptation and demonization tendencies of ZANU-PF towards those who critique its ruling style.
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Notes
- 1.
The Zimbabwe We Want Discussion Document 2006.
- 2.
The Zimbabwe We Want Discussion Document (2006) http://archive.kubatana.net/docs/relig/zim_churches_national_zim_vision_060918.pdf.
- 3.
It refers to the treatment of “all complex social situations either as neatly defined problems with definite, computable solutions or as transparent and self-evident processes that can be easily optimized—if only the right algorithms are in place”.
- 4.
“Collective action problems” arise when a problem can be solved only through cooperation by many, but when there are strong disincentives for any one individual to participate, especially if victory is not guaranteed.
- 5.
Bond notes were a form of currency, not necessarily legal tender, that were pegged initially as equal to the US dollar that the country had adopted as legal tender. Bond notes were introduced to curb Zimbabwe’s liquidity problems which came about economic meltdown due to Zimbabwe’s political problems.
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Mpofu, S., Mare, A. (2020). #ThisFlag: Social Media and Cyber-Protests in Zimbabwe. In: Ndlela, M., Mano, W. (eds) Social Media and Elections in Africa, Volume 2. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32682-1_9
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