Youths believe in the power of street protests

MDC youths recently took to the streets demanding the jobs promised by government and their counterparts at institutions of higher learning are mulling similar action.

Avoid Masiraha, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe National Students Union, said street protests were a tested and proved way of reminding government of its mandate. A sensitive government would take heed of demands made by protestors and respond accordingly. But if government remains insensitive, it would take a collective effort to ensure the protests bear fruit, he added.

“In a situation like ours where protests are suppressed by the state, there is need for all players to mobilise and go on the streets together. There is power in numbers. A fragmented approach will not help the cause, as state security machinery will be heavily deployed to clamp down on dissenting voices,” said Masiraha, noting that protests were an effective tool to get issues addressed.

Clifford Hlatshwayo, spokesperson for the MDC-T Youth Assembly, was confident that protests for jobs would achieve the desired goals. “It would take an irresponsible government or parent not to attend to demands made by its subjects,” he said.

Analysts said it was the trend the world over that youth protests would bear fruit if well managed. Political analyst Alexander Rusero said youths were at the centre of the political equation and their demands would be taken notice of by responsive governments.

He noted that youths in Namibia successfully launched the Freedom Party while Julius Malema of South Africa successfully established his party, Economic Freedom Fighters.

But President Robert Mugabe and his party’s spokesperson Rugare Gumbo have made it clear that state machinery would ruthlessly subdue mass protests. They said the ‘Tunisian mass rising’ would not see the light of the day in Zimbabwe.

“I would deal a 90 tonne fist blow to anyone intending to embark on mass protests in the country,” said Mugabe on Independence Day in April.

Public protests in Zimbabwe remain dangerous, especially with the partisan state security agency and overzealous army and police. Student activism is divided and at its weakest due to infiltration by the CIO.

Partly to ensure students do not rise against the state, government is constructing CIO offices at the University of Zimbabwe. Observers warned youths against embarking on unsustainable protests given the brutality of the Zimbabwe government against its own people.