“Breaking Taboos”: Bond Notes, Humour, and Civil Resistance in Zimbabwean Cyber-Communities

Abstract Humour can function as a protest against bad governance, and citizens often appropriate digital humour to speak back to power. The article analyses 20 satirical memes and texts shared on Facebook and WhatsApp after the government of Zimbabwe introduced bond notes in 2016. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe indicated that the bond notes would be pegged equally against the US dollar. However, the Zimbabwean populace did not embrace the idea of the bond notes. The article uses the theory of voice and the thesis of the weapons of the weak to interrogate how humour speaks truth to power on online public platforms. Zimbabwean netizens do not enjoy such an opportunity in the actual public sphere, given the inhibiting political environment in Zimbabwe. Civil resistance is a form of protest by civilians against those in authority. Cyberspaces offer alternative platforms for registering dissatisfaction with state policies in contexts where the state has orchestrated a substantial shrinkage of the democratic space.