“My family has asked me: ‘Am I any good as a dead hero or as a living coward?’”
These are the words of Foster Dongozi moments after receiving one of the longest standing ovations seen at a National Union of Journalists’ (NUJ) Annual Delegates Meeting (ADM).
He’s responding to being asked why he continues to campaign vigorously for the rights of Journalists in Zimbabwe despite the risk of not just persecution, but death.
“What else can I do? I can’t start being a medical doctor, so I’m doing the only thing that I know and that’s being a journalist.”
Dangerous repercussions
Dongozi is the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, standing up for the rights of journalists who face incredibly dangerous repercussions for reporting on the state of the country.
In his speech to the ADM this year, Dongozi spoke of how one journalist was found dead after publishing images of Morgan Tsvangirai’s wounds after being arrested by the government of Robert Mugabe.
Dongozi works in a country where news bulletins are heavily censored by the state; where technology such as computers and the internet are scarce; where the economic climate means that 94% of people are left unemployed; and where journalists are looked upon as dissenters, figures of hate and enemies of the country.
Long recovery
Dongozi admits that things will not change any time soon, if at all:
“Based on my experiences of Zimbabwe, I don’t see the country recovering anytime soon. Remember, this is a country that has been in crisis since 1965. To come out of that crisis mentality will take quite a long time.”
In October 2009 the NUJ pledged its support to the ZUJ, not only helping journalists by supporting their rights, but providing valuable resources that Western journalists take for granted.
“The project serves as a reminder to Zimbabwean journalists that we are not alone, and that colleagues throughout the world identify with our struggle for our rights to decent work and press freedom,” wrote Dongozi in the NUJ’s October supplemental.
The work of the ZUJ should be upheld as a prominent example of what a union should stand for. Freedom of speech is not a commodity that is available to everyone. But with the hard work of the Zimbabwean union, people will realise just how important their voice really is.
By Michael Copus
[...] investigative journalist, Jim Boumelha, President of the International Federation of Journalists, Foster Dongozi, General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists and Jennifer Dube, reporter at Zimbabwean [...]