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MASS PUBLIC OPINION INSTITUTE

SEMINAR SPEECH

7 March 2002 Monomotapa Crowne Plaza (Great Indaba Room)

When people revolt and Why?

By Masipula Sithole

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am going to revisit three contributions I made five

years ago in the Financial Gazzete which constitutes the theme of my
contribution in today's long essays in the same paper. The three earlier
contributions are in my book, Zimbabwe's Public Eye: Political Essays which is
available outside.

In summary, the first essay in June 1998 concluded that we needed to openly
and seriously discuss the land issue thoroughly, weighing the pros and cons
of the many alternatives open to us before we chose to 'fast track' the land issue.
I concluded that the land issue would not be closed any time soon; that, in any
case, the wrong way of doing the right thing ends in wrong results.

The second essay chided President Mugabe by reminding him of what he said
at the ZANU inaugural congress of 1964 to the chagrin of Ian Smith who had
said Never in my life time! Never in a thousand years In that contribution I
also reminded His Excellency of what he had said in the 1980s about what Two
Boy (Edgar Tekere) had alleged that ZANU-PF had betrayed the revolution,
and he (Tekere) had begun talking of another revolution.

The then Prime Minister Mugabe was not amused. He found Tekere's
suggestion for another revolution preposterous and said: There will never be
another revolution in this country. The only revolution in Zimbabwe is the
ZANU-PF revolution, declared Mugabe at a rally somewhere in Mashonaland
Central, the now bed-rock for his candidacy. The march of history must
somehow come to an end after ZANU-PF comes to power. I am saying that the
logic that drove those men and women assembled at the Gweru congress in
May 1964 to declare war on the Smith regime is the same logic that leads people
to declare that, Enough is enough!, as they take the necessary action in their
quest for the 'good life'. Under similar circumstances when the majority (even a
minority) is excluded from the 'good life' (for what ever reason), they will pry-
open the citadels of power no matter how long it takes; usually during their life
time, as Smith and all of us know. I said, in part two, that often-ample warning
is given and opportunities to resolve things peacefully are created but
mindlessly squandered before the revolt. Moreover the regime's core elite
becomes self- indulgent, trite and flippant before its fall.

Part three was a critique on Marxist theory on causes of revolutions. To Karl

Marx, people, or at least the proletariat in capitalist society, would revolt when
they become so miserable and degraded that their share of the product of
industry allowed them merely to survive. I accepted, however, a theory
articulated by James Davis in a book titled, When Men Revolt and Why (1971),
that hungry people are no material for revolution that they are just plain
hungry, too hungry to be concerned with anything other than food.

More fundamentally, the theory articulated in this book suggest that revolutions
are most likely to occur when a period of socio-economic improvement is
followed by a sharp reversal. A revolution is most likely to occur when a period
of rising expectations and gratifications is followed by a period during which
gratifications suddenly drop off while expectations continue to rise. The
rapidly widening gap between expectations and gratifications widening gap
between expectations and gratifications portends revolution. The most
common case for this widening gap of individual dissatisfactions is economic
or social dislocation that makes the affected individual generally tense and
frustrated.

The majority of revolutionaries, thus, are likely to be people who have made
some progress toward a new and better life and see themselves now failing to do
so. People will join revolutions when their expectations are frustrated,
deliberately or through our own mistakes or miscalculations.
Is this not Zimbabwe right now?

Another significant point made is that a successful rebellion needs the addition
of the discontents developing among individuals in the middle class and the
ruling class itself when they are rather suddenly deprived (socio-economically
or otherwise). Without the support of a disaffected petty-bourgeoisie, and
disaffected intellectuals, even from disaffected members of the political class,
successful revolutions would not occur.
I argue that the support of these groups (not exactly starving, but troubled!) is
now sufficiently visible in Zimbabwe.

As if to anticipate our current situation, Davies says: Whatever state of

advancement from men who work with their hands and lose factory jobs or see
prices fall for the product of their fields to intellectuals who graduate from
University with high honors and find themselves without jobs that fit their
training (only our University graduates don't find jobs at all, let alone befitting
their training!), such individuals see a gap widening between their rising
expectations and down turning gratifications.

During the build-up to a revolution, the interest of visibly very different people
will all share a high degree of frustration directed toward the government and
the incumbent ruling class. It is this frustrated state of mind, shared and focused
on the government, that produces their cooperation, comrades, and not an
instigator or a rebel-rouser that is often the cause of revolt, a mistake rulers
have often made to their peril.

Thus, in summary, the hypothesis we have here is that revolutions are most
likely to occur when a period of objective socio-economic advancement is
followed by a period of sharp reversal. People then fear that ground gained with
great effort will be lost: their mood becomes revolutionary.
People's expectations for change through the ballot are extremely high. We
would be extremely irresponsible as social scientists to hide the following
statistics, which are an indicator of impending social unrest and rebellion while
we bury our heads in the sand.

The polity has been re-energized to expect change through the ballot box since
the February 2000 referendum on the draft constitution. The people's
confidence in the efficacy of the vote (that their vote counts that it can influence
the direction of the politics of this country) and the break through
parliamentary elections in June 2000 continued to give credence to their feeling
about the efficacy of the vote when ZANU PF electoral hegemony was broken
for the first time in 20 years and reduced from it's traditional 97% control of
elective parliamentary seats to where it now shares it with the Movement for
Democratic Change, 52% to 48 %. What is significant in this process is that all
this is taking place under circumstances of violence and intimidation, whoever
is inspiring or condoning it.

If the surveys by the Mass Public Opinion Institute are to be believed (and I
don't see any reason not to!), a survey done in May 2001 on the perceptions and
aspirations of the Zimbabwean youth in primary, secondary and tertiary
institutions found that 85% of Zimbabwe youth consider finding a job of
primary concern as opposed to getting a farm or getting married; whether these
youth were rural or urban, male or female. On another but related question, the
survey established that 74% of our youth would leave this country for a job
abroad (not to Libya or Malaysia but to Tony Blair's Britain and George Bush's
United States of America). On the future of the country, 56% of the youth said
they were pessimistic about its future, explaining why the majority want to
leave.

In a voter apathy survey conducted in October 2001 on a randomly selected

national sample of 1 800 respondents, 91% considered elections important;
66% said they believed their vote influences government policy; 76% claimed
to be registered voters; 85% believed their vote was secret, and 88% intended
to vote in the 2002 presidential election.

The voter apathy survey was followed up with a pre-presidential election poll
survey in January / February 2002 in which the same questions (among many
others) were repeated on another randomly selected sample of 1 693
respondents. This is what we found: 94% considered elections important; 69%
believed their vote influences government policy; 85% claimed to be registered
voters; 91% believed that their vote was secret, and 87% intended to vote in the
2002 presidential election.

With the crowds that have been turning up at campaign rallies (whether forced /
rented or voluntary), I don't believe there has been a significant shift in either
voter perceptions or intentions as we approach voting days. If anything, I
anticipate increased resolve. There is likely to be a massive voter turn out for
the March 2002 presidential election.

Election 2002 is the BIG ONE, perhaps only close to the 1980 independence
election which saw the end of a regime and the ushering in of another. There
was, for the independence election 22 years ago, a massive voter turn out of
94%.The question that arises is: How are the people of Zimbabwe going to vote
after 22 years of a regime they are all too familiar with? Are they going to cast a
vote for change of regime or for continuity?
President Robert Mugabe has made his case for continuity; his challenger,
Morgan Tsvangirai has made his case for change. Whom have most voters
found more convincing and therefore deserving of their votes?In the January /
February pre-presidential poll survey 11% preferred continuity; 20% preferred
change, while 60% preferred not to tell, saying My vote is my secret, thereby
confirming the belief in the secrecy of the ballot.

When the police saw these three percentages they denied permission to discuss
them at a public seminar in Harare and Bulawayo, fearing it might trigger
public discontentment amongst the audience. When I discussed the three
percentages with a friend in private, he wondered if such a pre-poll survey were
done in 1980 would have revealed similar results: 11% for the old regime to
continue (whatever color it was then in); 20% for change, and 60% saying their
vote was a secret.

We know, don't we, that in 1980 the vote for change was 77% (57% Mugabe's
ZANU-PF +20% Nkomo's PF-ZAPU) against 23% for regime continuity
(Smith's 20 % reserved white seats + 3% Muzorewa's UANC). We are told too
that the old regime had hoped to manipulate or rig the election result. In fact,
they had planned to stage a preventive coup to keep the old order. But with a
77% to 23% margin, wise counsel prevailed and the actual results were
announced. Will wise or foolish counsel prevail in 2002?
This is the question.
What would have happened had foolish counsel prevailed in 1980? All hell
would have broken out. Why? Because the people had great expectations for
change through the ballot. What reason do we have that frustrating people's
great expectations now will yield different results, all hell not breaking out?
It is when people see their only hopes for peaceful change deliberately
frustrated that they take to the streets as they rebel, wisely or foolishly. The
choice then becomes that of how change is going to come to Zimbabwe:
through the streets or through the ballot boxes.
Ma comrades, to paraphrase Thomas Mapfumo, in the 1980 election vaifunga
kuti povo yanga ichada Muzorewa iyo isingachamudi. They came and feasted
at his rallies but gave their votes to Mugabe. Could it be that the same povo is
going to say to us: Thank you for the land, but no thanks with our votes?
Let us look forward with hope that our leaders will not be found wanting in
judgment and wise counsel when it comes to announcing the real result.