Source: Hillary J Musarurwa, Olubunmi Akande, & Tinashe Rukuni, Peacebuilding Studies, Durban University of Technology
Introduction
In a world plagued with conflict the most natural reaction to such if often a violent one. Whether dealing with political or economic conflict politicians and citizens have resorted to the use of violence to express their views or push for a change of the situation. Whilst gravitating to violence might come naturally there is a realistic alternative nonviolent option to deal with conflict or even strong repression. As indicated by Sharp (2003) non-violent action needs to be the stronger option available to address the conflict. It should have the potential of bringing better results and success than the violent option. The key source of power of nonviolent action is the indigenous people and the cooperation of different stakeholders (Ackerman and Duvall 2005). Ackerman and Duvall (2005) argue that people power and civilian-based resistance help legitimise the change process and the government that emerges out of the process stays in power longer. According to Sharp (2013) nonviolent action assumes that if people carry out the action long enough and in sufficient numbers it will lead to an oppressive government becoming powerless and receding.
However, nonviolent action is not spontaneous but follows periods of strategic planning. The many successful nonviolent actions that we are accustomed to have involved protracted training and planning sessions before they were implemented in a live environment. Plans on how to respond to the oppressor’s reaction need to be developed. So too should the non-violent movement know its resource base and how it is going to mobilise people to take part.
This paper takes a look at the conflict in Zimbabwe and proposes non-violent action that can be undertaken to bring about change. However, before we go into the strategy we will give a background to the conflict in Zimbabwe. As we will explain later in the paper, we have viewed the Zimbabwean conflict as a social and economic injustice one.