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ABSTRACT
This paper examines the ways in which the military infringes on the social and political rights of soldiers who joined the Zimbabwe National Army in post-independence Zimbabwe. Contrary to the scholarly and policy debates that present Zimbabwean soldiers as the silent prop behind President Robert Mugabe and the perpetrators of political violence, this paper argues that these soldiers have also been victimised in army barracks. The victimhood of soldiers has been explicit in the ways in which they are forced to execute their duties beyond their professional expectations. In substantiating this argument, the paper explores the unethical military training and the ways in which soldiers are disciplined and punished through Chapter 11:02 of the draconian Defence Act. The paper’s contribution stems from a ‘rights’ perspective that emphasises the right to freedom, justice and protection, which is usually quite silent in the military. But the question is how can soldiers’ concerns be translated into new practices without compromising so-called ‘state security’?
Notes on contributor
Godfrey Maringira is a Volkswagen Stiftung Post-Doctoral Fellow based in the Department of Anthropology & Sociology at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa [email protected]
Notes
1 Maringira, ‘When the Military Became Militarised’; Alexander, ‘Militarisation and State Institutions’.
2 Toney and Anwar, ‘International Human Rights Law and Military Personnel’.
3 Goffman, Asylums.
4 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
5 Ibid., 129.
6 Chitiyo and Rupiya, ‘Tracking Zimbabwe’s Political History’.
7 Defence Act: Parliament of Zimbabwe, 1972, Chapter 11:02.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 ‘Tsvangirai Accused of Being a Security Threat’.
12 Rupiya, ‘Military Factor in Zimbabwe's Affairs’.
13 S Verheul, ‘“Rebels” and “Good Boys”’.
14 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 125.
15 Ibid., 12; Rupiya, ‘Military Factor in Zimbabwe's Affairs’.
16 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
17 Woodward and Jenkings, ‘Soldiers’ Bodies and the British Military Memoir’; Hockey, ‘Head Down, Bergen on, Mind in Neutral’; Lande, ‘Breathing Like a Soldier’; Mankayi, ‘Masculinity, Sexuality and the Body of Male Soldiers’; Maringira and Carrasco, ‘Once a Soldier, a Soldier Forever’.
18 Hockey, ‘Head Down, Bergen on, Mind in Neutral’.
19 Goffman, Asylums.
20 Zurcher, Jr, ‘The Naval Recruit Center’.
21 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
22 Hockey, ‘Head Down, Bergen on, Mind in Neutral’.
23 Goffman, Asylums.
24 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
25 Gibson, ‘Construction of Masculinity among South African Veterans’; Langa and Eagle, ‘The Intractability of Militarised Masculinity’; Woodward, ‘Warrior Heroes and Little Green Men’; Arkin and Dobrofsky, ‘Military Socialization and Masculinity’.
26 Foucault, Discipline and Punish.