Twitter, Social Justice and White Land Compensation Discourses in Zimbabwe

In 2020, the Government of Zimbabwe controversially instituted a policy to compensate former commercial white farmers, stoking renewed debate about the emotive land issue in the Southern African country. This chapter describes and examines the widespread debate that took place around the issue on Twitter, now X,—a powerful micro-blogging social media site—which showed how, after 20 years, the land issue had evolved both within its policy context and its mediation in the public sphere. A key component of this change is the use of social media. As such, this chapter examines the major themes and frames of online discussions on the historical and emerging issues about the land question and assesses the power dynamics in its narrativisation by elites in government, ruling Zanu PF politicians, war veterans, opposition politicians, empowerment activists and ordinary people. The examination of the discourses unravels the shifting positions of these groups on the emotive land issue and demonstrates that there can be no easy answers on the land reform programme. The chapter shows that at certain moments views can change in either direction and that role reversals will remain a constant element in narratives about the land issue. It interrogates the binary approach that was initially attached to the land reform programme with war veterans and Zanu PF on the one side and white farmers and opposition political parties on the other. The chapter engages with such questions as: Beyond the main beneficiaries of the land programme, how do ordinary Zimbabweans feel in terms of paying back for what they claim was stolen from the ancestors and more poignantly why the taxpayer should pay when the “new” farmer was enjoying the economic benefits? To what extent do versions of justice and injustice alternate from each constituency and how has social media mediated these aspects?