Stopping the Presses

John Gambanga himself was a shell of a man. His shirt and tie hung loosely on his neck. He could not afford his children’s school fees and, like most Zimbabweans, he rarely ate beef anymore. Most people’s savings had been wiped out, he said, while a handful of high-flown supporters of the ruling Zanu Patriotic Front party had grown fantastically rich by speculating on the foreign-exchange rate and seizing rich agricultural land.

From the window of The Daily News, the flag of Zimbabwe was visible on a distant building. The hoist side of the flag bears a bright yellow image of a bird, taken from a soapstone sculpture found at Great Zimbabwe, the magnificent stone enclosure built by the Shona people between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. At independence in 1980, the fortress gave Zimbabwe its name and this mythical bird for its flag. Such birds are believed to be messengers from the ancestors.

Few people realize that the sculpture has been censored, in a way, for its more patriotic purpose. On the actual pillar, just below the bird’s claws, there is a sharply carved crocodile rampant, with fierce eyes and wide-open jaws. When I asked John Gambanga if this is now the age of the crocodile in Zimbabwe, he said yes: “The people of Zimbabwe are being devoured. We have become a lawless society.” Some in this stripped-down newsroom said, half in jest, that the only hope for Zimbabwe was an army-led coup.

But wishful thinking cannot save The Daily News in the short term. Two days after my visit, the Supreme Court upheld the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which says that journalists and media outlets cannot work in Zimbabwe without a licence from the MIC. To defy the ruling is to risk two years in prison, with few avenues for appeal.

The Daily News did not print that night. Within a month, the publishers announced they were releasing most of their employees, who were asking for a 960 percent pay increase. The court cases have been delayed, again. As this story went to press, the paper was still dormant. If its owners cannot afford legal expenses and another lengthy closure, the paper will probably fold.

In Zimbabwe, the crocodile is indeed rampant.