From the time the draft constitution was rejected, our country s struggle for democracy has been fraught with danger. A movement of the Press, which seeks the just and equitable distribution of the powers that have long been held by a small ruling elite is likely to be prolonged and difficult. Hope is irrepressible, but there is a deep underlying premonition that the hostility to the independent Press is going to be more vicious after the bombing of the printing press of The Daily News. Revolutions generally reflect the irresistible impulse for necessary changes, which have been held back by official policies. But Press freedom is anathema to authoritarianism.
Democracy acknowledges the right to differ as well as settle differences peacefully.
The independent Press is equated with confrontation which is in interpreted as violent conflict. The insecurity of power based on coercion translates into a need to crush all dissent. Despotic governments do not recognise the precious human component of the state, seeing citizens, as in the Zimbabwean case, only as a faceless, mindless and helpless mass to be manipulated at will through tight control of the ZBC and Zimpapers. Patriotism is debased into a smokescreen of hysteria to hide the injustices of the authoritarian rulers who define national interests in terms of their own limited interests. The official creed is required to be accepted with an unquestioning faith.