‘As Thick as Thieves’: Social Media Celebration of the Bulawayo Ecobank Robbers as Vicarious Dissent

Abstract

This paper examines how dominant discourses celebrating the Bulawayo Ecobank robbery on the ‘4 Million Heist updates’ WhatsApp group are an expression of vicarious dissent. It draws on Eric Hobsbawm’s Social Banditry framework and the concept of vicarious dissent to reveal how the endorsement and support for the robbers underscores citizens’ anger and frustration over the state’s complicity in the prevailing social, political and economic hardships. These are punctuated by low salaries, the cash crisis, weak institutions and state-enabled corruption. This form of digital protest signals a broader demand for justice and the government’s accountability in addressing hardships facing Zimbabwe.

Keywords

Vicarious dissent social media Ecobank robbers WhatsApp social banditry digital protest Zimbabwe

Introduction

Over the past few decades, Zimbabwe has been plagued by rapid political, economic and social decline under ZANU PF rule. This malaise is punctuated by high levels of unemployment, record inflation, poor salaries and a general deterioration of standards of living among ordinary citizens (Chigora, 2018; Helliker and Chikozho Mazarire, 2021). Increasingly, the political climate has been infected by state repression and heavy-handedness in dealing with protests or direct expressions of dissent against the status quo (Dendere, 2019; Lebas and Young, 2024; Mpofu and Mare, 2020). Resultantly, citizens increasingly feel powerless to tackle the ZANU PF regime head-on through street protests and other forms of open defiance. Previous citizen-led protests such as those organised and mobilised by the #ThisFlag movement, #Tajamuka/Sesijikile, #ThisGown and #OccupyAfricaUnity Square have been thoroughly squashed by the state security apparatus, and their organisers subsequently arrested and persecuted (Chitanana, 2020; Gukurume, 2017; Hodzi and Zihnioğlu, 2024; Moyo, 2019). These movements were both online and offline responses to the deteriorating Zimbabwe’s economic and political climate. They also served to register citizens’ frustration with the ZANU PF regime.

Given the foregoing, Zimbabweans have developed alternative forms of dissidence often situated within the less regulated social media spaces (Matsilele and Ruhanya, 2021). Most studied forms of social-media-enabled protests are often centred explicitly around issues of democracy, politics and human rights as mobilised and championed by known activists and political figures such as Hopewell Chin’ono and Jacob Ngarivhume (Mhandu, 2024; Nyoka and Tembo, 2022). This has led to the characterisation of social media as ‘the new protest drums in Southern Africa’ (Mare, 2014). Increasingly, however, citizens who feel powerless and lack the material and cultural resources to initiate or join such political movements may appropriate everyday events to express their anger and desire for justice or vengeance against the perceived state oppression and repression (Travaglino, 2019). Previously, random events such as the late former president Robert Mugabe’s fall have shown how citizens may use random events to express their disparagement and anger against an authoritarian regime. The manipulation of the images of the late President Robert Mugabe’s fall supplied an alternative avenue for social media users to challenge and demystify the former strongman as indefatigable (Siziba and Ncube, 2015). Such incidents have thus validated the framing of social media as a weapon of the weak (Siziba and Ncube, 2015). Similarly, other studies have shown how ordinary citizens often deploy digital humour and online comedy as a temporary relief to the burden of their own economic situation while also exposing vices and follies of the country’s leadership as a form of protest in Zimbabwe (Matsilele and Mututwa, 2021). Resultantly, ‘in the face of an implacable and oppressive authority’ (Kheng, 1985: 35), it has now become common among Zimbabweans to celebrate any misfortune befalling the state or perceived state-sympathetic individuals as a blow on behalf of ordinary citizens. Predictably, when a video of the Bulawayo Ecobank robbery surfaced on various social media platforms, it was met with bizarre celebrations by a section of social media users, who perceived the robbery as a blow to the bank and state. Dominant discourses tended to project the robbers as ‘amadoda sibili’ − a Ndebele appellation for ‘courageous men who sacrifice everything for what they want’. Endorsement of this criminal act thus framed the robbers as, heroes, some kind of Robin Hood¹ figures inflicting revenge on the bank and state on behalf of the suffering masses, thus suggesting an expression of ‘vicarious dissent’ (Travaglino, 2019). Discourses around such random acts of criminality often evade scholarly scrutiny, in spite of their potential to offer a lens to understand contestations between citizens and the state.

Drawing on Eric Hobsbawm’s social banditry framework (Hobsbawm,1959, 1974) and the notion of vicarious dissent (Travaglino, 2019), this study reveals how discourses that portray the robbers as ‘heroes’ reveal how the aspiration for social justice that has taken the form of ‘inchoate anger’ underlines the citizens’ desire and thirst for vengeance against the oppressive establishment (Travaglino, 2019: 165). In this matrix, Ecobank is perceived to be an extension of the state, while the armed robbers are a proxy through which WhatsApp users express dissent and anger over various forms of perceived injustices perpetuated by the state in concert with state-aligned institutions and individuals, together militating against citizen’s quest for a better life in Zimbabwe. This borders on endorsing and somewhat outright celebration of this act of criminality. By this logic, celebrations of the bank heist are possibly informed by a perception of banks as culpable in the suffering of the masses by acting as conduits through which the state implements fiscal controls that make it difficult for citizens to access their money.

The study sought to answer the following main research questions:

• What are the group members’ dispositions towards the Ecobank robbers?

• How does group members’ support for the robbers constitute vicarious dissent?

The heist: as captured by onlookers

On the 3rd of October 2024, personnel from Safeguard Security Company were ambushed and robbed in broad daylight as they were about to load trunks of cash from the Bulawayo Ecobank branch onto their cash-in-transit vehicle. The cash was reportedly destined for Harare. Official statements from both the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the bank indicated that the robbers got away with four million U.S. dollars, a colossal and unprecedented figure in the history of cash heists in Zimbabwe. Within moments of the incident, videos of the heist, allegedly recorded by onlookers, started circulating on various social media platforms. In those videos, a couple of heavily built men, armed with rifles and pistols, are seen loading trunks allegedly containing the cash onto their getaway vehicle. The masked robbers are seen leisurely going about the heist, with the getaway driver having the luxury of momentarily coming out of their getaway vehicle to observe proceedings, an absurd stance, given the dicey situation. One of the robbers also has the luxury of laying his weapon on the pavement as he assists his accomplices with the loot, eventually speeding off before any law enforcement intervention. This is despite the crime scene being located only two streets away from the Bulawayo Central Police Station, and almost equidistant from the Bulawayo Police Headquarters Building.

Social banditry, digital protest and vicarious dissent

The exponential proliferation of the internet and Social Networking Sites has added impetus and belief among social movements and cyber-dissidents (Matsilele and Ruhanya, 2021) regarding their efficacy for social change (Travaglino, 2019). In increasingly repressive and authoritarian states, protester fatigue often precipitates weak political efficacy − a diminished sense that citizens can directly shape the political system and compel it to respond to their needs and demands (Buccellato, 2012; Travaglino, 2019). When citizens feel bereft of political capital to express their grievances through direct protest against the state, they may do so indirectly by supporting or endorsing recalcitrant actions of others. To understand social media support for the Ecobank robbers as an expression of dissent within the context of a politically intolerant and repressive Zimbabwean state, I draw on the Social Banditry framework developed by Eric Hobsbawm. Related to this theoretical heuristic is the concept of vicarious dissent, which explains how powerless individuals in society participate in indirect forms of protest by aligning with, or endorsing people whose actions challenge authority, injustice, or perceived wrongs (Hobsbawm, 1974; Travaglino, 2019). As a theoretical construct, social banditry is based on the dissenting behaviour of highly romanticised folk criminal heroes such as Robin Hood and his gang who became celebrated and protected because of their self-conferred tags of ‘wealth redistributors’ in primitive peasant societies (Hobsbawm, 1959, 1974; Kheng, 1985). The term ‘bandits’ refers to outlaws who operated as ‘bands’ (Grossman, 1995; Hobsbawm, 1959, 1974; Kheng, 1985; Rossetti, 1982). These bands were known for their community-endorsed extra-legal appropriation of property such as land and cattle (Grossman, 1995). They endeared themselves to the community by claiming to stand with the oppressed and desperate masses, and that their banditry was motivated by an ‘altruistic concern for the welfare of the working class’ who felt powerless amidst the chaos of a weak state or in the face of authoritarian regimes (Grossman, 1995: 400). Conversely, they were considered brazen criminals by the prevailing official power structure and the state as their activities were punctuated by all forms of theft, extortion and behaviour that contravened established laws and systems of property rights (Grossman, 1995: 400).

Although similarities can be drawn between social media celebration of the Ecobank robbers and the endorsement of bandits in mediaeval peasant societies, the robbers in this study have not fashioned themselves as ‘bandits’ in the Hobsbawmean sense. Neither have they explicitly suggested that their robbery is inspired by any attempt to disrupt the functioning of the system (Grossman, 1995; Travaglino, 2019), nor motivated by a desire for wealth redistribution as conceptualised by Hobsbawm. However, the disposition of some social media users towards the robbers tended to impose a social banditry reading of the heist. The infusion of the social banditry framework and the notion of vicarious dissent into this conversation, therefore, constitutes a novel theoretical gesture that facilitates a reading of WhatsApp group members’ endorsement of the Ecobank robbery as a form of protest or digital activism (Chitanana, 2020; Nyoka and Tembo, 2022). While social banditry is a complex phenomenon whose background is tied to ‘legitimised’ crime in primitive, mostly rural peasant societies (Grossman, 1995; Hobsbawm, 1974; Kheng, 1985), it is productive to explain society’s dispositions towards certain acts of criminality in contemporary urban societies. The daring Ecobank robbery thus supplies yet another ground to test its applicability to modern urban societies.

Literature review

In Africa, studies of online dissent and digital activism have been inspired by unprecedented protests that toppled several authoritarian leaders in North Africa during the period commonly known as the Arab Spring (AlSayyad and Guvenc, 2015; Smidi and Shahin, 2017; Tudoroiu, 2014). In the Southern African context, digitally enabled and mobilised protests such as the #Rhodesmustfall and the #Feessmustfall have received significant scholarly attention (Bosch, 2017; Frassinelli, 2018; Sebeelo, 2021). These studies have amplified the affordances of social media as mobilising platforms in periods of protests. A central concern of these studies has been to demonstrate the ‘weaponisation’ of social media in challenging and dismantling the status quo in national and institutional contexts. Predictably, most of these studies focus on the expression of direct dissent. There is a noticeable absence of studies that spotlight how ‘everyday events’ can be appropriated by social media users to express dissent vicariously.

In Zimbabwe, social media dissidence has been researched mainly from a political lens to show how these tools provide alternative platforms for citizens to air their voices in the context of an authoritarian regime (Matsilele and Ruhanya, 2021; Mpofu and Mare, 2020). To that end, social media has been deployed to enable protests against various political, economic and social ills bedevilling the country and the rapid deterioration of human rights. Focusing on digitally enabled protest movements such as #ThisFlag and #ThisGown (Gukurume, 2017; Sebeelo, 2021), and well-known political activists and government critics such as Hopewell Chin’ono and Jacob Ngarivhume (Nyoka and Tembo, 2022), studies demonstrate the affordances of social media in providing a discursive space facilitating the discussion of the economic and political problems resulting from the excesses of the ZANU PF-led government. They reveal that such online discourses have the potential to spark offline confrontations between citizens and the authoritarian ZANU PF regime. This has been a common theme permeating most studies that focus on this extensively researched phenomenon in Zimbabwe (Chitanana, 2020; Mpofu and Mare, 2020; Sebeelo, 2021).

By focusing on six digital activism groups, namely, Kubatana, Sokwanele, Magamba, Baba Jukwa, Occupy Africa Unity Square, and #ThisFlag, Chitanana (2020) explores the evolution of social media dissidence from the early 2000s to the period soon after Robert Mugabe’s disposal through a ‘soft coup’ in 2017 (Moyo, 2019). Moyo (2019) reveals how social media activism has evolved from being ‘a preoccupation of a niche group of digitally savvy and connected few to a broader and more inclusive domain for Zimbabweans’ (Chitanana, 2020: 131). This is particularly important for the present paper which is conducted during a time when affordable applications such as WhatsApp have been enabled to share content that was hitherto a preserve for the few. Further, studies have shown that the more networked citizens get, the more authoritarian governments feel threatened by the audibility of their dissenting voices (Mpofu and Mare, 2020). This is because such platforms afford citizens the power to disseminate subversive information far and wider than authoritarian regimes would desire or allow (Moyo, 2019).

Emerging research highlights the utility of social media as tools that allow protesters to organise and strategise regardless of their temporal and spatial dislocations (Gukurume, 2017). While the tendency has been to focus on single case studies, a growing strand of research has begun to draw parallels between the dynamics of digital protests in Zimbabwe and other African countries. Comparing #ThisFlag and the #OromoProtests in Ethiopia, Hodzi and Zihnioğlu (2024) also affirm the affordances of social media as an important resource for the diffusion of new ideas and mass mobilisation. They also suggest that with some adaptation, ‘it can be used to create a collective identity and coordination of action’ (Hodzi and Zihnioğlu, 2024). By comparing the dimensions of social media contributions during the ‘Occupy Grahamstown’ in South Africa, the July 2011 protests in Malawi, the September 2010 food riots in Mozambique, the 2012 protests in Swaziland, the demonstrations by the Women of Zimbabwe Arise and Mthwakazi demonstrations in Zimbabwe, Mare (2014) emphasises the complexity of social media protests, revealing how they are contextually coloured and shaped by the multifaceted nature of the attendant communication ecosystems of each specific country (Mare, 2014). More often, protesters have to creatively appropriate the available technologies to maximum effect (Mpofu and Mare, 2020).

While the transformative and subversive power of social media as ‘the new protest drums’ (Mare, 2014) has been demonstrated in previous studies, an emerging literature corpus suggests that social media can also be ‘weaponised’ by tyrannical governments as a counter-mobilisation tool. This can be achieved by encouraging and sponsoring counter-narratives or stifling the social media spaces through which citizens assert their agency (Moyo, 2019). Moyo (2019) shows how Zimbabwe’s current so-called ‘new dispensation’ has sought to push back on social media dissidence by unleashing ‘Varakashi’ (destroyers) on anti-government digital activists. ‘Varakashi’ is a band of ‘vicious pro-government activists and enablers’ (Moyo, 2019: 29) often described as ‘Zimbabwe’s online army’. They were specifically tasked by President Emerson Mnangagwa² to annihilate ZANU PF’s opponents and counter social media ‘attacks’ on the government and himself (Moyo, 2019). This literature reveals that contrary to the popular thesis of social media as a ‘weapon for the weak’ (Siziba and Ncube, 2015), the same can also be weaponised by the state to perpetuate repression. The formation of the pro-ZANU PF movement #OurFlag as a move to counter the largely popular #ThisFlag and mobilise for the ZANU PF’s ‘One Million Man March’ in May 2016 animates this point (Mpofu and Mare, 2020). Over and above creating parallel voices through sponsoring movements such as ‘Varakashi’ (destroyers), autocratic political systems have also combined technology and brute force to frustrate online and offline protests. This is often punctuated by the formulation of new anti-social media laws to punish dissenters (Moyo, 2019), as well as the setting infrastructure that censors or scrambles internet and social media access during protest seasons.

What sets apart the present study from the foregoing is the infusion of the vicarious dimension of protest. In the Zimbabwean protest literature, this dimension has not received scholarly attention. In other contexts, studies show that vicarious dissent can be asserted through supporting activities of online dissidents. Travaglino (2019) deploys the social banditry framework to illustrate how positive attitudes toward a global network of online hackers calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ is a way of expressing vicarious dissent against the U.S. government, ISIS and global financial companies (Travaglino, 2019). The endorsement of the group’s use of online strategies such as trolling revealed that people felt such strategies punished the U.S. government and financial institutions on behalf of the common person. Although not based on an analysis of online discourses perse, Travaglino (2019) lends important insights to the present study. It demonstrates the expression of vicarious dissent in a global context. As previously argued, this dimension of protest is absent in Zimbabwean literature. Notably, available literature is limited to understanding direct protest and digital dissent mobilised and organised by known movements and popular political activists typically on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) (Gukurume, 2017; Hodzi and Zihnioğlu, 2024; Mpofu and Mare, 2020; Nyoka and Tembo, 2022). Despite the popularity of WhatsApp as an affordable and ubiquitous platform in low-income contexts such as Zimbabwe, fewer studies have investigated the nature of protest discourses on this platform. In part, this is because of perceptions about WhatsApp as being unsafe for discussing political matters, which are often thought of as personal, offensive, divisive, and depressing (Zhu et al., 2024). However, recent scholarship has begun to foreground the role of WhatsApp in grounding and shaping the extent and forms of political talk, especially among young adults (Zhu et al., 2024). They argue that while closed WhatsApp groups are often associated with phatic communion and exchanges that underscore care and intimacy, relationships and strategies in such groups may evolve to make informal political discourse temporarily possible (Zhu et al., 2024). Because such groups usually involve family members, friends, or housemates, they serve largely as platforms for updates about daily events (Zhu et al., 2024). Typically, relationships in large open groups are impersonal, making political talk more possible as there is no fear of harming personal relationships.

Within the context of Zimbabwean protest culture, the creative appropriation of random acts of ‘banditry’ such as the Ecobank heist to express vicarious dissent has not been a subject of any known enquiry. This reinforces the importance of the present study. This study adds to the growing body of literature that shows how social media affords citizens an alternative space to have their voices heard, albeit through supporting acts of criminality. Critically, the WhatsApp group that is the subject of this study is a large open group. Judging from the phone numbers used to join the group chat, some were from South Africa, the U.K. and Botswana. Therefore, they were less likely to have personal relationships.

Methodology

This study adopted a qualitative methodological approach to collect and analyse data. To achieve this, I joined a public WhatsApp group going by the name ‘4 Million Heist updates’. The group was created on the 4th of October 2024, within 24 hours of the Ecobank robbery. Notably, this was an open WhatsApp group whose link was publicly shared, allowing people to join without prior approval from the group admins. By the 6th of October 2024, the group had peaked to 684 participants. According to the group’s description, some of its objectives were to ‘discuss what is happening around us [. . .] no tribalism . . . we are just looking for the 4M as a country’. Because this WhatsApp group was created to discuss the Ecobank heist as suggested by its description, it provided a rich arena to explore discourses specifically centred around the robbery. The fact that the ‘4 Million Heist updates’ group was open to the public meant that the question of participants’ privacy and anonymity, which often presents an ethical minefield when researching ‘closed’ or private chats (Barbosa and Milan, 2019) did not materialise. Taking a cue from previous studies focusing on social media, the study’s stance is that by joining and posting on this public group, participants had voluntarily waived their right to confidentiality (Ndlovu and Maseko, 2022). Although participants’ mobile phone numbers used to join the group were visible on the chats, they were not used to identify them in data presentation to guarantee their full anonymisation (Barbosa and Milan, 2019), given the sensitivity of the subject at hand. Additionally, most comments, posts and responses in the group chat were politically charged and could potentially be in contravention of telecommunications and other regulatory instruments criminalising certain dimensions of political debate. Throughout the study period, I was aware of the false sense of security given by the end-to-end encryption of chats, which could have encouraged participants to engage in politically sensitive exchanges (Barbosa and Milan, 2019). While this presented a rich source of organic data, I was careful not to expose participants to potential risks by amplifying the politically charged interactions (Barbosa and Milan, 2019).

Data collection was done through netnography (Kozinets, 2006, 2015), also known as digital ethnography (Barbosa and Milan, 2019; Kaur-Gill and Dutta, 2017). In this study, ‘netnography’ involved observing digital traces of naturally occurring public conversations in the ‘4 Million Heist updates’ WhatsApp group. As a form of ethnographic research, netnography was preferred for its unique adaptation to researching various types of computer-mediated social interactions within virtual or online communities (Kozinets, 2006, 2015). Upon gaining entry into the research site on the 4th of October 2024, I immediately began to observe organically occurring discourses and debates about the Ecobank heist. In line with Bainbridge’s characterisation, I approached netnography as ‘the relatively passive examination of websites, without full interaction with the people who created them’ (Bainbridge, 2000: 57). I therefore assumed the role of a passive observer in the group. In particular, I took a keen interest in discourses that celebrated the robbery and endorsed this act of criminality, noting the themes these discourses broached. The observation period was delineated from the 4th of October 2024 to the 30th of October 2024. While the group was still active by this cut-off date, the number of participants had declined from a peak of 684 to 372. Additionally, discourses on the group had evolved from focusing on the robbery to being more general and social. Notably some female group participants had started protesting against unsolicited courtship Direct Messages from some male participants. Some participants had also begun engaging in Ndebele/Shona tribal exchanges, causing the group admins to temporarily restrict posting to themselves. However, at the time of finalising this paper, the posting restrictions had been lifted. While the observation window was relatively short for a netnographic study, the large number of group participants and the frequency of posts generated a large corpus of data over a short period, thus making up for the relatively short observation period.

Data used in this study consist of 39 purposively sampled posts and comments posted on the WhatsApp group. For a qualitative study, this sample satisfied the criteria of being information-rich as opposed to the quantitative preference for generalisability (Ndlovu and Maseko, 2022). Using a thematic approach, data analysis was treated as an ongoing and iterative process. This involved distilling emerging themes concurrently with data collection. Iteratively, it also required the author to go back and forth between the data, the research questions and the theoretical underpinning to establish their points of interaction. While data presented in this article comprise participants’ actual posts, the data were partially cleaned to eliminate unnecessary repetitions and limit informal and offensive text. However, due care was exercised not to ‘overclean’ the data to the extent of deflecting from the original intended message. Although most posts and comments were largely in English, others were in Shona and Ndebele, while some deployed translingual strategies. In presenting data, all Shona and Ndebele expressions were translated into English.

Villains or heroes? Dominant dispositions towards the Ecobank robbers

This section focuses on discourses that reveal dominant dispositions and attitudes of group members towards the Ecobank robbers on the ‘4 Million Heist updates’ WhatsApp group. Ordinarily, theft, robbery and all forms of extra-judicial appropriation of assets would be condemned and frowned upon by all sections of Zimbabwean society. According to section 126 of the Zimbabwean Criminal Law [Codification and Reform] Act [Chapter 9:23], armed robbery is a criminal offence, and perpetrators of such crimes should be arrested and prosecuted. Although citizens have a duty to report such crimes and assist law enforcement agencies with relevant information that may lead to the arrest and prosecution of perpetrators, discourses in the group revealed unprecedented dispositions towards the Ecobank robbers. Rather than condemn and be appalled by this daring crime, dominant discourses tended to endorse the robbery and project the robbers as ‘heroes’ who ought to be celebrated for the courageous act. Some suggested that the public should shield the robbers from arrest and prosecution and even be emulated by other economically desperate citizens. The following comments are revealing of this disposition:

1. Amadoda doda ayimelayo into ayifunayo asima coward (These are real men who stand for what they want. These are not cowards)

2. Kuthwa indoda uqobo ngedingwa ngama CID not lawa adingwa ngoSobhuku kuthwe alunguze abafazi begeza (They say real men are those on the CID’s most wanted list, not those wanted by village head for being peeping Toms)

3. Yah ba (they are) intelligent but omemba laba (these men), I salute them

4. Good moves . . . they won the race let them enjoy themselves

Comments 1–4 above reveal a disposition that does not only endorse the criminal act but also celebrates the robbers as being ‘real and focused’ men who go for what they want without any fear. The dominant attitudes towards the robbers are generally positive. To further show their support, some group participants expressed their wish to have the robbers insulated from arrest and prosecution thus:

5. Njengomprofethi sibakhulekela ukuthi bangabanjwa (As a prophet, I pray they do not get caught)

6. Mina (as for me), my prayer is that bengabanjwa vele (that they don’t get caught)

7. Who are you to find those guys? Where are the Zim police? Zimbabweans so . . . let us pray for them vasabatwa (not to be caught)

8. Bebanjelwani? Ngaze bebanjwe (why should they be caught? Even if they get caught) it’s only the bank ebenefithayo (that will benefit) maybe

9. Vele akufuzanga babanjwe, tshiyani badle labo (they should not be caught, just let them enjoy their loot)

10. Bengabanjwa satholani hantsho bathathele i-bank (what do we benefit from their arrest. In any case it’s the bank’s loss) . . . It’s ok kakhulu (very much)

Excerpts 5–10 show that group members endorsed and embraced the Ecobank robbers to the point of wishing them well in their quest to evade arrest. Notably, some group members even committed to ‘praying’ for the robbers’ successful escape. This is contrary to what would be expected of responsible citizens. As evinced by comment (9), some participants even framed the proceeds of this crime as being ‘well deserved’, adding that the robbers should be allowed to enjoy their loot ‘in peace’. Some felt the arrest of the robbers would not benefit ordinary citizens anyway (10). For some group participants, their admiration of the robbers was to the extent of encouraging others to emulate them:

11. Shuwa batshiyeni bekholise (Just let them enjoy). Dingani lina (Find) somewhere to rob lani (as well)

Although dominant discourses were celebratory, other participants condemned the crime, while also calling for the arrest of the robbers. However, such discourses were negligible and predictably unpopular in the group. The following examples reveal this ‘unpopular’ disposition:

12. No No No Zimbabweans don’t have to idolise criminality

13. Ababanjwe labo sikhathele (they must be arrested. We are tired)

Because of the unpopularity of these discourses in the group, participants expressing such sentiments were quickly dismissed and branded as ‘jealous’ of the robbers’ rich pickings:

14. Someone said, ‘Jealousy is when you start worrying of the $4m heist when someone’s husband has worked hard and sacrificed his life to get rich [. . .] go and work for your family in whatever way and mind your own business [. . .] The money is not even yours.’

15. [. . .] true it’s hard phandle lapha vele nxa ngathola i-(out there, so if you get a) chance enje mele udle ungayekeli (like this, do not waste it)

Excerpts 1–15 reveal the many ways by which some group participants supported, endorsed and celebrated the Ecobank robbers. However, these discourses also validate and affirm the view of social media as a contested terrain. It serves as a dual discursive space that hosts both marginalised voices and those who seek to silence them (Moyo, 2019). While dominant discourses celebrated and honoured the bank robbers as heroes, to the extent of encouraging other men to emulate their courage, the ‘Varakashi factor’ (Moyo, 2019) is also evident through excerpts criticising the bank robbers. However, these were overwhelmingly unpopular and promptly silenced.

Taking blows on behalf of the State: Ecobank robbery and protests against cash crisis

Further examination of the group’s discourses about the Ecobank robbers reveals how the support for the robbers is coloured by the complex attitudes of group members towards the state and institutions perceived to be acting in concert with the state to inflict misery on ordinary citizens. Since the early 2000s, Zimbabwe has been plagued by a perennial cash crisis. The value of the Zimbabwean currency, in its many forms, continues to be battered by runaway inflation. In an attempt to mitigate the ravages of inflation, the state’s response through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has been to enforce stringent, seemingly punitive measures to control bank transactions. These include putting a cap on cash withdrawals. This is despite Zimbabwe being largely a cash economy. While banks’ operations are subject to top-down policy regulation by the RBZ, discourses in the group seemed oblivious to this dynamic. Instead, they seemed to conflate Ecobank with the state. The support for the robbers could have partly been motivated by the inherent perception of banking institutions in Zimbabwe as conspiring with the state to impose cash restrictions just to pile more suffering on the masses. This could explain the appropriation of the Ecobank robbers as conduits to express anger, dissatisfaction and frustration about cash restrictions. Ecobank’s misfortune is thus celebrated as a blow to the bank on behalf of the suffering masses (Kheng, 1985; Seal, 2009; Travaglino, 2019). The following examples illustrate this dimension of protest:

16. [. . .] abantu baphila nge (people survive on) Ecocash and ZIG things emafonini namhlanje sekutshontshiwe sokubalwa ama (on their phones. A robbery occurs and they suddenly mention big) figures. Sokuthiwa be kule (they claim there was) 4 million ngubani oyitholayo leyo 4 mitre (yet no one has access to that 4 million). Yekelani usdudla nabangane bakhe beyoshaya Ibraai e-Uk (just let the fat guy and his friends spoil themselves to a braai in the U.K.)

17. When people are queuing to withdraw $50 and they tell you they don’t have cash. B*#!t you are making us fools. F#%k the bank

18. It means vekuma (those working in) Banks ndovanenge vane ma (have) connections with Mbavha (the thieves) [. . .], as you mentioned if you go to the bank unonzi hapana Mari (you are told there is no money) [. . .], now hanzi mari iyi yayiendeswa ku (we are told the money was destined for) Harare for what? 4 million inokwana vashandi veese mu (is enough to pay all workers in) Zimbabwe including ma (those who are) self-employed

Excerpts 16–18 reveal group members’ underlying anger and frustration with the country’s banking system and cash restrictions. The robbery of Ecobank thus constitutes a form of vengeance on the bank for some of the hardships inflicted by cash restrictions. There is also a belief among some group members that either the cash shortages are artificial, or the country is being misled about the amount of money that was stolen. From a Hobsbawmean social banditry thesis, support for the robbers reveals citizens’ frustration with the cash crunch as one of the by-products of fiscal mismanagement and corruption by the state. As excerpt (18) suggests, there is suspicion that the money was meant for people in ‘Harare’ – a shorthand for the ZANU PF elite. The robbery thus deprived this ZANU PF elite of money that could have been used to fund and further entrench the system. By this logic, the money would rather be used by robbers for their recreational activities such as having a ‘braai in the U.K.’ This resonates with the concept of vicarious dissent, which suggests that powerless citizens often celebrate individuals or events that are perceived as harming or upsetting the operations of an oppressive system (Grossman, 1995; Seal, 2009).

Protest over poor salaries

Another dimension of protest inherent in the robbery discourses relates to poor salaries and remuneration, particularly for government workers. Zimbabwe’s economic decline has resulted in the government’s failure to pay decent wages that are in line with inflation trends. This has been a perennial source of friction between the state and civil servants’ unions since the early 2000s. However, previous eruptions of offline protests over poor remuneration have been successfully quelled by the state security apparatus. The Ecobank robbery thus supplied some group members with an alternative avenue to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo. Some felt that the lack of swift response by law enforcement was justified. They felt that poorly remunerated law enforcement had no capacity or motivation to risk their lives by facing the robbers head-on. Responding to a comment on the need for law enforcement to ‘tighten up their security measures’ to prevent a repeat of such robberies, some participants had this to say:

19. [. . .] taura hako (you can say that again), why should police bother themselves on this whilst being used but not paid?

20. Nah (No) they should increase the salary

21. Guarding 4 million and getting a 100 USD salary

22. Apa (at that time) your salary is 0,000001% of the stolen money

23. Even nami (myself) I wasn’t going to die for 4 million mina ngihola (while I earn) $100

Excerpts 19–23 reveal the dissatisfaction about the remuneration of government workers in Zimbabwe. This translates into support for the Ecobank robbers whose extra-judicial appropriation of the cash is considered inconsequential to the financial situation of ordinary citizens who earn a very insignificant percentage of the stolen money. As a protest against poor remuneration by government workers including the police, these discourses seek to encourage some form of ‘mutiny’ by law enforcement. This mutiny may precipitate a weak security situation, leaving the state vulnerable to forces of political change. As if to validate this disposition, in one of the videos circulating online, a man putting on what resembled a police uniform is seen walking past the scene as the robbery is taking place, seemingly unmoved by the robbery. That image animated debates about the commitment of law enforcement to fighting crime. Further, some group members commended the officer for turning a blind eye to the robbery, arguing that his salary was not worth the risk. Distilling from discourses commending the police officer for ‘minding his own business’, there is a sense of hope among some participants that the same ‘mind your own business’ approach could be reproduced when law enforcement agents are unleashed to quell protests in future.

Weak institutions and abuse of state resources

Discourses on the Ecobank robbery transcended citizens’ dissatisfaction with the economic, political as well as institutional state of affairs in Zimbabwe. The endorsement of the robbery was also couched on how it also revealed weak institutions in Zimbabwe. In particular, they revealed an underlying discontent about the state of policing and security in Zimbabwe. Failure by the police to respond timeously to the robbery was attributed to its lack of capacity, a common challenge across most state institutions. The following excerpts speak to this dimension of protest:

24. [. . .] kuthwa (they say) i-(the) Police ithe ayila (said they do not have) fuel guys

25. Ubekwazi ukuthi akula ongabalandela khathesi (he knew nobody would pursue them since the CID (Criminal Investigations Department) ithe ayila fuel (they knew no one would pursue them because CID has no fuel)

26. [. . .] the police said abala (they do not have) fuel yokubagijimisa (to go after them). Do you think it’s normal? Ngapha u- (at that time, the) driver we (of the) Ford ubeyehlile ekwazi vele ukuthi (had come out of the car knowing the) police angeke ibuye khathesi (were not coming any time soon)

Excerpts 24–26 show how participants deployed ridicule and humour to protest the proliferation of weak institutions in Zimbabwe. In particular, the police as a state institution was ridiculed for being under-resourced and underfunded such that it is incapable of performing its duties. The suggestion that the police did not have fuel to pursue the criminals reveals a disposition that exposes the state’s culpability in the robbery through neglect of the police, an institution that is central to the maintenance of law and order. This feeds perceptions of Zimbabwe as being ‘one big crime scene’ – a phrase often deployed to lament and decry the deterioration of state institutions in Zimbabwe. The suggestion that the robbers could be a clique of current and former security agents animates this point:

27. Kukhanya ngabantu abayazi ubumqoka bombhobho, njengabantu azithemba ngokuba (it would seem these are people who are) well-trained ngombhobho (in handling firearms). They believe in themselves. Who can believe in himself ngombhobho ngaphandle kwezisebenzi zikahulumende? (in firearm handling except government workers?) Retired and current civil servants are the main suspects

To add to suggestions of state complicity in the robbery, the following excerpts are also revealing:

28. Since Matapamatapa became the President that’s when those heists began

29. Zim is open up for heists

30. Only ZANU PF can do this in Zimbabwe . . . who is brave to do this in Zimbabwe?

Linking the upsurge in bank robberies with the coming in of the so-called ‘new dispensation’ led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa is an attempt to dent the credibility of the new government and question its commitment and ability to fight crime. At worst, excerpt (28) seems to implicate the state’s hand in the heists. However, this could be a far-fetched attribution of criminality. What could be closer to the truth is that the rapid economic malaise under the new dispensation has rendered more people jobless such that they turn to crime for a living. Pouring scorn on the new dispensation’s mantra that ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’, excerpt (29) recreates the mantra to suggest that these heists are sanctioned from somewhere at the top. The appropriation of the robbery to expose some of the ills bedevilling the country is, therefore, a form of vicarious protest against these vices.

Financial mismanagement and state-enabled plunder

Some of the support for the robbers emanated from and reinforced notions of financial mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility by the state. To that end, some group participants’ support of the Ecobank robbers was based on the perception of the state as being the leader in the plundering of the country’s resources. Consequently, these discourses tended to downplay the four million stolen as being insignificant when compared to the amount of the country’s resources that have gone unaccounted for, dating back to the days of the late former President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. One of the highlights of Mugabe’s embarrassing low moments was his unwitting revelation that a colossal some of US15 billion from diamond sales had gone ‘missing’ from the state coffers. This was a result of opaque diamond sales from joint mining ventures between Chinese companies and the army, police and state intelligence services. The operations of these ventures were shielded from public scrutiny³. Despite this shocking revelation, no one was arrested. Some discourses, therefore, sought to protest this gross financial irresponsibility that also characterises the new government:

31. Abanye badla (some squandered) 15 billion akubotshwanga muntu, yekelani labo badle (yet no one was arrested. Let them be, it’s their turn)

32. [. . .] kanje i- (by the way) 15 billion yacatsha tshose kayizange ibonakale futhi (disappeared for good)

33. [. . .] ama billion anga lawana lokhe sidingana le 4m (we are yet to recover the billions, but we are worried about 4 million)

34. 15 billion takashaikwa, (we did not recover it) no one said anything

35. 4 Million ayilandaba, abanye bathatha ama (does not matter, others took) 97 million yembuzi (meant for the purchase of goats)

36. What if that money was from the Gold mafia, they wanted to make it clean?

The protestations in excerpts (31–36) lament and decry state-enabled corruption and the pillaging of state funds by individuals ‘connected’ to those in power. Support for the Ecobank robbers thus supplied group members with an opportunity to vicariously protest this endemic state corruption. By projecting the robbery as being ‘nothing compared to these missing billions’, they appear to rationalise it as a ‘daily bread’ for those in power and connected individuals. In particular, excerpts 35 and 36 make reference to some of the recent ‘state-enabled’ scandals to rock the country. The Gold Mafia⁴ documentary aired by Al Jazeera is invoked here to animate this point. In the same vein, the scandal around the botched USD 88 million presidential goat procurement scheme by the ZANU PF aligned duo of Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu⁵ is also used to justify support for the Ecobank robbers.

Not exactly the ‘Robin Hoods’ of old?

As argued elsewhere in this article, the Ecobank robbers are not known figures. They have also not styled themselves as the English folklore-type of social bandits. However, discourses in the ‘4 Million Heist updates’ group revealed an inherent wish by some members that the robbers could morph into ‘wealth redistributors’ in the mould of Robin Hood and his band. Beyond the admiration and endorsement, some group participants expressed disappointment that the robbers could not fully evolve into the Robin Hood types:

37. Abantu bangenzi njalo shuwa badle imali zonke lezo bodwa. Kabasihlephunele mbijana njee (they should not spend all that money alone. They must share a bit with us)

38. Serious yazi lonyaka yindlala bona sebethatha so yonke ngabe badubule ama trunk abantu badobha aah (they know this is a drought year, yet they kept all that money to themselves. They should have blown up one trunk and let people help themselves to some of the money)

39. Kabasihlephunele lathi okuncane bengadli bodwa (they must share a bit with us. They should not enjoy it alone)

While the behaviour of the robbers does not fit nicely into the Hobsbawmean type of social banditry, especially the non-demonstrated sense of commitment by the robbers to benefit the powerless masses, a social banditry appraisal of the discourses in the WhatsApp group reveals a sense of admiration and celebration of the robbers. As the study has thus far shown, this embrace is an expression of vicarious dissent (Travaglino, 2019). The robbers act as proxies through which powerless masses express their anger, dissatisfaction and disgust towards the status quo.

Discussion and conclusion

The study’s findings suggest that discourses celebrating and endorsing the Ecobank robbers may have been motivated by the aspirations of some group members for a just society. In resonance with the social banditry framework, admiration of the robbers thus ‘conveys a message of personal vengeance against the authority, rather than a collective program for social change’ (Travaglino, 2019: 176). The desire for a just and equitable society is evident in how group members drew comparisons between the Ecobank robbery and what some framed as state-enabled plunder of the country’s resources. Dissatisfaction with remuneration for government workers, and the operation of the country’s institutions are some of the themes that are inherent in the discourses. Support for the Ecobank robbers thus becomes an avenue to vent and protest against this perceived plunder. By drawing parallels between the state’s excesses and the Ecobank robbery, WhatsApp users creatively appropriated this random act of criminality to express vicarious protest. This appropriation coincides with the notion that endorsement of bandits is an expression of vicarious dissent, whereby political grievances that cannot be directly conveyed against the political system are expressed through supporting bandits (Buccellato, 2012; Hobsbawm, 1974; Kheng, 1985; Seal, 2009; Travaglino, 2019). The study findings resonate with previous studies focusing on direct dissent. They suggest that whether directly or indirectly, powerless citizens often appropriate digital spaces to express their discordance with the political system. This includes coalescing around movements engaged in direct political action such as the #ThisFlag and #ThisGown (Gukurume, 2017; Sebeelo, 2021) and known political activists (Nyoka and Tembo, 2022). In both direct and vicarious protest contexts, politics, democracy, economic decline and poor standards of living are some of the most prevalent themes(Chitanana, 2020; Mpofu and Mare, 2020). Findings also affirm the function of social media as a dual landscape offering ordinary citizens a space to air their views and protest against the status quo, while also being prone to use by state sympathetic forces to curtail and frustrate online protests (Moyo, 2019). In this study, dominant group discourses tended to support and endorse the robbers as a way of protest, while the few voices that viewed the robbers as villains, whom this article deduced were the ‘Varakashi’ (Moyo, 2019), were promptly drowned and silenced.

The focus of this study was to examine WhatsApp discourses about a robbery that occurred at the Bulawayo Ecobank branch. It examined how the ‘bizarre’ support and endorsement of the robbers in a selected open WhatsApp group signposts vicarious dissent. The findings of the study suggest that the endorsement and support for the robbers is an expression of anger and frustration over the state’s complicity in the prevailing social, political and economic hardships. These hardships are punctuated by low salaries, the cash crisis, weak institutions and state-enabled corruption. This form of digital protest signals a broader demand for justice and the government’s accountability in addressing challenges facing the country. However, the findings are specific to this WhatsApp group and may not apply to other platforms. While the study has shown how powerless citizens may creatively appropriate random and spontaneous events to express dissent vicariously, especially in a context where direct expression of political grievances is not tolerated, it does not suggest that vicarious dissent is a ubiquitous strategy. On the contrary, it is also possible that ‘even the most severe conditions of powerlessness can be accompanied by silent expressions of resistance’ (Travaglino, 2019: 178). Building on this study, future studies could investigate how the robbery was perceived and appropriated on other social media spaces. Incorporating voices from other observers beyond social networks could constitute another welcome methodological innovation in understanding vicarious dissent.

Footnotes

Data availability statement

Available data are presented in the article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Ethical approval and informed consent statements

The study does not include any human participants.

ORCID iD

Busani Maseko

Notes

Author biography

Busani Maseko is a Senior Research Associate in the School of Languages and Literatures at Rhodes University. He holds a PhD in Languages, Linguistics and Literature, a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics and a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Lingustics. His research interests are in sociolinguistics, language policy, language and identity, and social justice.

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