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Conversation with Pastor Evan Mawarire

Featuring:
Pastor Evan Mawarire
Founder
#ThisFlag Movement

Moderated by:
Chloë McGrath
Visiting Fellow, Africa Center
Atlantic Council

Welcome and Introduction by: 
J. Peter Pham
Director, Africa Center
Atlantic Council
 

The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center invites you to a discussion with Pastor Evan Mawarire, founder of the #ThisFlag campaign, a mass movement of Zimbabwean citizens demanding government reform, who will discuss the significance of the campaign and next steps toward securing a peaceful and prosperous future in the country. 

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has been in power for thirty-six years, a tenure characterized by corruption, economic mismanagement, and gross human rights violations. At the age of 92, President Mugabe is failing to unite warring factions within his ZANU-PF party as an internal succession battle rages. The opposition is increasingly splintered, and the country struggles with an acute cash crisis. 

In April 2016, Evan Mawarire, a previously unknown Zimbabwean pastor, inadvertently launched the #ThisFlag movement to call the government to account for corruption, injustice, and poverty.  Mawarire’s campaign has sparked an unprecedented surge in citizen activism amid rising social discontent, leading to a spate of protests across the country. In July, Mawarire was arrested on spurious charges, but later was released by a magistrate following a spontaneous mass demonstration outside the court house. Please join the Atlantic Council for a conversation with Mawarire on the political future of Zimbabwe and the #ThisFlag campaign.

Chloë McGrath, Africa Center visiting fellow, was a Fulbright grantee (2014-2016) and previously provided policy support to a cabinet minister during Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity.