JACINTA NGOBESE ZUMA’S DANGEROUS DELUSION ABOUT ZIMBABWE
By Gabriel Manyati
Politics punishes those who mistake silence for consent. History punishes them even more severely. That is why Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma’s latest comments following Zimbabwe’s subdued anti-government protests are not merely politically misguided. They reveal a startling ignorance of how authoritarian states function and how ordinary people survive under them.
She wrote:
“Thank you to those of our members who showed up at the Zimbabwean Embassy …I’m so sorry Bhekimpilo Mbedzi we showed up for you and the people of Zimbabwe but your people didnt !!!!!”
The statement begins with sympathy but quickly descends into a sweeping judgement against an entire nation. It assumes that because Zimbabweans did not flood the streets in large numbers, they somehow abandoned the struggle for freedom. That conclusion is as simplistic as it is dangerous.
It becomes even more revealing when she declares:
“If Zimbabweans as a collective didn’t protest it means they are happy with their government…”
Nothing could be further from reality. This is perhaps one of the oldest mistakes made by outsiders trying to understand authoritarian societies. They assume that visible resistance is the only evidence of dissatisfaction while ignoring the fact that fear itself is often the regime’s greatest political achievement
The flaw in Ngobese-Zuma’s reasoning becomes even clearer when one compares Zimbabwe with her own country. South Africans have become accustomed to a constitutional order in which protest is not merely tolerated but protected. Every year, workers march on May Day. Political parties organise rallies. Students shut down universities. Communities blockade roads over poor service delivery. Trade unions picket government departments. Opposition parties march to Parliament and the Union Buildings.
While police responses have at times been criticised and there have been tragic incidents such as Marikana, South Africa’s democratic framework generally recognises peaceful protest as a constitutional right rather than an act of political rebellion.
Zimbabwe presents an entirely different reality. There, protesting against the government has never been viewed simply as the exercise of a constitutional freedom. It is frequently interpreted by the state as a direct challenge to political authority. Citizens contemplating whether to join a demonstration do not merely ask whether they agree with the organisers. They ask whether they might lose their jobs, spend nights in police cells, suffer assault, be denied opportunities or expose their families to unwanted attention from the security apparatus. Those calculations fundamentally alter public behaviour.
That is the world Ngobese-Zuma appears unable or unwilling to understand. She judges Zimbabweans through the lens of South Africa’s comparatively open political environment, assuming that because South Africans can often protest with relative confidence, Zimbabweans enjoy the same political space. They do not. It is like comparing swimmers in a heated indoor pool with those attempting to cross a stormy sea. Both are in water, but the conditions are incomparable.
Ironically, if South Africans faced the same political climate Zimbabweans have experienced over decades, their own protest culture would almost certainly look very different. Courage is not measured only by those who march. Sometimes it is measured by those who quietly endure because they understand the potentially devastating consequences of open resistance.
That is why low turnout at a protest in Zimbabwe cannot be interpreted as political contentment. It may instead reflect a rational assessment of personal risk by people who have learned, through bitter experience, that defying the state can come at an unbearable cost.
Zimbabwe is not a normal democracy where citizens simply wake up, carry placards and return home after a peaceful demonstration. It is a country with a long and well documented history of state repression. Generations have grown up witnessing arrests, disappearances, torture, job losses, political violence and intimidation directed at those perceived to oppose the ruling establishment.
People learn from those experiences. Families remember them. When citizens decide not to protest openly, it does not automatically mean they support the government. More often, it means they understand the risks better than foreign observers do.
The nineteenth century Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich was once warned that when governments suppress every peaceful outlet for public frustration, they create what was described as “a boiler hermetically sealed and deprived of an outlet for steam”. The point was simple. Repression does not eliminate discontent. It merely drives it underground until it emerges in more unpredictable ways. Zimbabwe illustrates that lesson with remarkable clarity.
Millions of Zimbabweans have expressed their verdict not through demonstrations but through migration. Few countries have exported as much of their skilled workforce over the past two decades. Doctors, teachers, engineers, artisans, academics and entrepreneurs have voted with their feet. That silent exodus says far more about public confidence than the attendance at a single protest. Yet Ngobese Zuma interprets silence as satisfaction.
That misunderstanding then becomes the foundation for an extraordinary political leap when she continues:
“therefore they must go back and enjoy their government.”
This statement rests on a false premise. Many Zimbabweans living in South Africa are not economic opportunists escaping a paradise they secretly adore. They left because opportunities collapsed, industries closed, inflation destroyed livelihoods and political uncertainty made long-term planning impossible. To suggest they should simply “go back and enjoy their government” is not political analysis. It is little more than slogan politics.
The post becomes even more explicit:
“Illegal Zimbabweans must GO!!”
Every sovereign state has the right to enforce its immigration laws. No serious observer disputes that principle. Countries are entitled to distinguish between lawful and unlawful residence. The problem arises when complex human realities are reduced to inflammatory collective language that treats millions of people as though they are politically identical.
Even more troubling is her assertion:
“No documents must be given to Zimbabweans they love Zimbabwe as it is and they must go there.”
This argument collapses under the slightest scrutiny. People migrate for countless reasons. Some flee political instability. Others seek employment, education, safety or family reunification. Receiving documentation in another country does not require proof that one’s homeland is perfect, nor does leaving one’s homeland imply hatred for it. History is filled with migrants who deeply loved their countries while recognising they could not presently build secure lives there. Ngobese-Zuma’s reasoning confuses patriotism with political approval.
She concludes:
“ZEPs must GO !! South Africa is for South Africans…”
Whatever one’s position on the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit, public policy should be debated through constitutional principles, economics, labour markets and administrative law rather than simplistic assumptions about why people migrate. The greatest irony is that Ngobese-Zuma’s argument unintentionally echoes the propaganda of the very government she appears to criticise.
Authoritarian governments frequently insist that critics represent only tiny minorities while the silent majority supports them. By claiming that Zimbabweans who stayed away from protests must therefore love their government, she reproduces precisely that authoritarian logic. Silence becomes endorsement. Fear disappears from the equation. History is erased. Reality is simplified into convenient political theatre. That is not serious political reasoning. It is wishful thinking masquerading as certainty.
If anything, Zimbabwe’s low protest turnout should encourage deeper questions rather than simplistic answers. Were people intimidated? Were security deployments effective? Did organisers fail to inspire confidence? Did citizens conclude the risks outweighed the possible gains? Had previous experiences convinced them demonstrations would change little? These are the questions serious analysts ask.
Ngobese-Zuma asked none of them because she leapt directly from low turnout to mass satisfaction with government. That conclusion ignores decades of Zimbabwean political experience and misunderstands the psychology of societies living under sustained repression.
History repeatedly teaches that authoritarian stability is often deceptive. Beneath apparent calm can lie enormous reservoirs of frustration that remain invisible until circumstances change dramatically. The absence of crowds is therefore not evidence of consent. It may instead reflect fear, exhaustion or calculated survival, and sometimes all three at once. Those who genuinely wish to understand Zimbabwe must first abandon the comforting illusion that oppressed people always possess the freedom to demonstrate their dissatisfaction openly.
Until that lesson is learned, every conclusion built upon visible silence will remain fundamentally flawed.