Zimbabwe media should promote national cohesion

Written by Martin

Wednesday, 11 February 2009 14:53

Obert Gutu is the MDC Senator for Chisipite.

HARARE - The media is an extremely powerful tool of information dissemination. It is a potent weapon for shaping people's values, opinions and prejudices.

In reckless and irresponsible hands, the media can be used to sow seeds of hatred, intolerance and all sorts of other bad and nefarious things. Thus, in reckless hands, the media is like a mentally deranged person wielding a fully loaded automatic rifle!
Over the past decade or so, the State-controlled media in Zimbabwe has been literally used as a weapon of mass destruction. The outgoing Zanu (PF) regime has maintained a vice-like grip on all the levers of the State-controlled media; both print and electronic. The regime has used the mass media that it controls to propagate hate, intolerance, xenophobia, homophobia and racism.
All opposition parties and/or organisations that are perceived to be a threat to the perpetuation of Zanu (PF) kleptocracy have not been spared from this crude, paranoid and delusional hate campaign. Instead of promoting tolerance and political pluralism, the State-controlled media has viciously churned out hate propaganda against the MDC; the biggest political party in Zimbabwe in terms of support base.
The first line of attack has been the sickening and very daft allegation that the MDC is a front for Western imperialism driven by the interests of the minority white population. Leading figures and luminaries such as Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Nelson Chamisa and many others are portrayed as sell-outs who are fighting to return Zimbabwe to the control of its former colonial masters.
As a party of excellence, the MDC has managed to outsmart and indeed, outmaneuver, the cheap propaganda war waged against it by Zanu (PF) mandarins for the past decade.
We all remember the gory days of the thoroughly discredited former Zanu (PF) spin doctor, Jonathan Moyo. For here is a man who took the hate campaign to new and unprecedented levels of dementia and intolerance. Armed with a thoroughly notorious piece of legislation called the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), Jonathan Moyo; with due respect to him; took the propaganda war against the MDC to another level of paranoia.
After every five minutes or so on all the four State-controlled radio stations and the sole television station, musical jingles would be played to remind the people of the '' success'' of the land reform program as well as to denigrate and humiliate the MDC and their so-called white British '' masters.'.
During Jonathan Moyo's reign of terror, numerous newspapers, including The Daily News, Zimbabwe's largest circulating daily newspaper were forced to close down. One of Zimbabwe's most talented journalists, Geoffrey Nyarota, was hunted out of the country; joining the Diaspora in the United States.
Kindness Paradza and Funny Mushava's joint venture, The Tribune, also fell victim to Moyo' ruthless onslaught against media freedom and media pluralism.
Instead of promoting the growth of the media industry, Jonathan Moyo appeared to be pushing a sinister agenda of squeezing out all voices that he thought were not playing to his personal whims and fantasies.
The media is a lethal weapon that should be used for nation-building and national cohesion. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which almost one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in a very short 100 days, is another horrific example of what can happen if the media is recklessly used to spread ethnic hatred and intolerance. BY OBERT GUTU
He is a trained Lawyer, member of the MDC National Legal Committee as well as the MDC National Information Committee.

Comments (0)

Only registered users can write comments!

Uk retailers