Photo Credit: (AFP/Getty Images)
By: Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2016
It began on YouTube in April. Wrapped in the national flag, railing against the country’s problems, Pastor Evan Mawarire broke a spell that had kept Zimbabweans silent for years, too fearful to protest their anger over government failures and abuses. On social media, his hashtag #ThisFlag has become a rallying point for citizens angry over the economic and political crisis gripping their country and dire shortages of food and currency. The hashtag was used to organize a general strike Wednesday as workers in the private sector and many civil servants stayed home to protest government corruption, the failure to pay civil servants’ wages on time and the country’s economic collapse.