Shifting Meanings of Art, Culture, Technology Across Generations in Zimbabwe

 By Takura Zhangazha*

We probably need to talk a little bit more about our arts and cultural spaces, actors, even industry(?) in Zimbabwe.  

This would also include the interaction of the same with politics, private business and the general public’s cultural progressive expectations of entertainment and finding meaning about everyday or even long term Zimbabwean life.

And I will start off the discussion with an obvious point about our ‘Arts’.  

And by the term ‘Arts’ I mean it holistically as it relates to theatre, satire, music, film, literature and the technological (media) mediums through which they have been historically conveyed.  As well as their changing inter- generational impact.

Whereas between the 1980s- 90s and very early 2000s, our Arts, as defined holistically above were conveyed through technological formats such as mainly radio (FM or Short wave frequencies), long playing records, radio/video cassettes and eventually compact audio and video discs. As well as via musical and cultural festivals or shows.  A greater official number of them were sponsored by the state or private business for marketing (profit) and propaganda (political) purposes. 

There was however also organic, grassroots and historical based Art, that relied more on physical interaction than it did the technological mediums it could be conveyed through.  Thought after our national independence it did a seismic crossover to radio, television and the attendant commercialization that came with this (record/cassette sales/ advertising contracts for artists).

I have raised this fairly generalized historicity around art and culture because it cannot be ignored.  And it can help us understand why today there has been significant changes to how it is publicly appreciated in the contemporary.    

With again the major change being the fact of the new technological mediums of its conveyance to the public.  

To state the obvious, the internet, social media and mobile telephony have distinctly changed how we all view holistic Art.  Not only its immediacy for our entertainment, self- valuation or reflections on our society and existential or idealistic realities.  

Whereas in the past we could have easily argued that Zimbabwean Art should serve the people in some ideologically organic or even highly politicized way as it related to the liberation struggle or workers rights and sustainable livelihoods for all, now we do not really think about it that way. 

Not only because of the changes as to how it is conveyed technologically but also because of the way the latter also changes its meaning.   So where we used to listen to the music of legends such as Mapfumo, Chimbetu, Zhakata, Majaivana, Dembo among many others for deeper reflections on our society.  This has now clearly changed. 

This together with the likes of Safirio Madzikatire (Baba Rwizi), Susan Chenjerai (Mai Rwizi), Phillip Mushangwe (Paraffin), Aaron Moyo and Simon Shumba (Mutirowafanza).  Including the amazing theatrical plays of Theatre in the Park (Harare), the amazingly talented Continue-Loving (Cont) Mhlanga’s Amhakosi  theatre centre in Bulawayo, Mai Musodzi Hall (Mbare), Zimbabwe Hall in Highfields Harare and the Masvingo Theatre club among others scattered in our urban centres.

Their artistic physical and digital dramas and within their contexts had a different meaning because of of how they occurred within their own contexts, values and preferences. As they related to then Zimbabwean society and what the general populace valued.    

This was slower and more deeply thought out Art. 

Mainly because the technological mediums of its conveyance that I have cited above were also slower.  It was also Art that had a fall back of very key state funding support that did not directly editorially interfere with content creation.  (Did you for example know that there was a once well funded Zimbabwe Traditional Music Dancers Association that once received grants from the state?) 

What was since happened is what can be referred to a significant cultural disjuncture in the history, practice and appreciation of the meaning of holistic Art in Zimbabwe.  

Not only because of the global changes in its technological mediums (internet, social media, mobile telephony) but also because of the cultural assimilation of Zimbabwean and African holistic Art by these mediums.  This included a quasi-privatization of Art via changes in economic programmes where it began to be seen as a luxury and not an integral part of an historical identity. 

In the process, our Art began to mimic not only the structural changes to its mediums but also following a new found celebrity trait that came with its rapid commercialization and privatisation.   As owned by what in cultural academic circles are known as ‘media moguls’ and now individualistic, materialist owners of the  internet and social media platforms.  As they also now interact more directly with political power/politicians and globalised private capital. 

To be particular to Zimbabwe, our Arts landscape has significantly changed as a reflection of global technological-cultural developments. And our easy cultural acquiescence in this. We generally don't defend our Arts as much as other countries are wont to do.  (Hatina nharo).  

Our new younger holistic Art practitioners are a product of their technological and attendant cultural time.  A few of them are the new Marechera’s who couldn’t care less about global ideological questions and would easily tell you as the latter once wrote ‘if you write for a specific nation or a specific race, then f*ck you’. Mainly due to their own commitment to their own view of what it means to be a genuine artist and their right to free expression.   

A greater number of others are both patriotic and link up with the state and private business for social media skits, clicks, likes and sponsorships that appear to be sustaining their livelihoods quite well. This would be the ‘ephemeral’ influencer generation that now appear to be the favorites of ruling Zanu PF politicians and tend to be given vehicles and large monetary payments based on the affinity of their content to the same said party.

There are others that are decidedly oppositional in their Art. Also for the same sponsorship and recognition reasons.

The fewer ones are those that still believe in the meaning of their Art as a somewhat objective reflection on what is happening in Zimbabwean society and how it resonates with the more youthful population of the country.   But they are unfortunately largely unable to harness the new mediums of conveyance of Art (social media and the internet) due to either the algorithmic tyranny we know exists or just to lack of funding and mimicry of cultural and highly sexualized cultural content from the global north. 

To conclude, our holistic Art in Zimbabwe has changed seismically.  It is now mediated by new mediums of technology.  Which in turn create new public expectations of it.   It is understandably steeped in new cultural mimicry of global trends and the ephemerality of social media which we do not own. 

Is there a way forward?  Sure there is.  It is one that resides in our own re-emergent cultural recognition and understanding that a progressive African society can never function without Pan African, free, organic, critical and stubborn non-mimicry holistical Art.  Across generations.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

     

Zimbabwe’s Forgetful Mode: We Cannot All “Make Money!” Mr. President.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many ways to look at Zimbabwe’s current political economy (where politics meets economics). 

One could easily begin to look at the state of the current ruling Zanu Pf party after its recent 2025 annual National Peoples Conference and go mentally hay-wire with speculation at its succession politics.  Which a lot of anlaysts have already done in the last week. 

Or one could look at our national fundamentals around the national economy (jobs, money, goods and services) and how the future is not as bright as the ruling Zanu Pf party presents it. 

And then there is the social element as to how to look at this.  One which would include our little talked about rural-urban and again urban-rural divides, drug and substance abuse and not forgetting our increasing over-religiosity, superstition and gambling tendencies. Even before we talk about 'class' and and 'class aspirations' as they are occurring in the country. 

It is easier for a lot of us to deal with our politics as they are occurring. Mainly because of what has occurred since the year 2000. You are either for or against one political party.  Or in support of specific populist narratives as they have occurred.  Mainly because we can all have a political opinion.  Moreso with the expansion of social media and its related influencers. 

But it all sometimes appears a bit ephemeral/temporary.  In fact, it arguably is.  Zimbabweans have a new tendency to move from one issue to the next.  In short-shrift time and attendant ease.  Which is what one considers to be the stuff of populist and celebrity style politics ala-carte the USA. 

There is however a specific political precariousness to this that we are not discussing.  Whichever way one wants to look at it.  We talk about Zanu Pf’s factionalism with a specific casualness. Almost as though we intend to sit in front of a television, lap-top or smart phone and watch a soap opera.  In the moment. Until soldiers start rolling tanks in the streets of our major cities (2017).  And then we shift in shock but more significantly in awe and in support of changes that with hindsight do not really change anything!

So we all have a visual and partially thought out impression of why Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have their factions.  And also why the opposition that we have known for at least 25 years (MDC, MDC-T, CCC, MDC Renewal, PDP, MDC-M), there are also highly personalized factions that are irreconcilable.

Even though, with application of a bit of common logic, we would/should be able to think beyond these factions in a broader, non-partisan national interests. 

There are many reasons why we are entrapped in this populism.  And they are quite literally inter-generational.

We have failed to understand our own society beyond its immediacy in our existence.  I know this sounds somewhat complicated but it is necessary to outline. 

And this is where history matters or cannot be whitewashed.  On a number of occasions I have had to remind young Zimbabweans of who we are.  Even if the populist winds are pointing in a different direction as to what can define the present. Be it money, religion and combined family material expectations.  

At the same time we find ourselves in an unfortunate political and economic conundrum where one has to ask themselves for example a question as to what is it that they work/struggle for? Or what is the purpose of life as do others in different nations. Except that in our case we are not steeped let alone willing to capture a specific historical understanding of who we are and who we can be.  We want to mimic more and leave the platitudes to the politicians. 

There is no future in that for the country. Such an approach would regrettably be ahistorical. 

If we continue to live in immediate political moments such as the ones we are living in now such as these Zanu PF political factionalism moments, we are refusing to imagine a different political and economic future. 

This may seem slightly philosophical (something that we should embrace a little bit more as did our ancestors), but it is necessary to consider.  

While we cannot live in a past consciousness (for example the liberation struggle), we cannot also accede that history to a simplistic, populist and materialist present (neoliberalism mixed with religion).  Let alone an uninformed future of global economic and cultural mimicry (kuteedzera zvavamwe/ open for business).   

So we need to recover a more organic and progressive national consciousness. For many of cdes my age, this is almost a no-go-area.  Almost like as Thomas Mapfumo sang in his song, “Dangerzone”.  For cdes in their 30’s they are more keen to heed Mnangagwa’s convoluted and ambiguous but unsustainable advise of ‘make money!’ While failing to answer the question that no matter how rich you are, you still live in a broader society and in any event, the ‘money!’ you have been advised to make, however you make it, will dissipate.

Or those in their early twenties and beginning to explore the Zimbabwean political economy in admiration of ‘mbingas’ or the publicly and politically rich may not understand that no one above their age group and in power is looking for an equitable Zimbabwean society.

To put it as simply as I can without giving you the usual relevant but important quotes of Fanon, Nyerere, Biko or Nkrumah. Or even Marx, Gramsci and Lenin, we are faced with a crisis of national consciousness in Zimbabwe.  Almost like an ‘age group’ differentiation of what Zimbabwe can be.  One that is also ‘gendered’ through marriage, materialism and how our children are preferably educated and raised.

We know for a fact, in as capitalist and unequal society as ours, we cannot ‘make money!’ in the manner that Mnangagwa is always advising us.  It is an elitist and cutthroat competitive argument that does not build a better more equitable Zimbabwe.  Almost like watching the much discredited movie ‘Wolf of Wall Street”.

We must return to our national liberation ethos.  Our post-independence anti-neoliberal struggles and in the final analysis, no matter the ages of our current government leaders, understand organic progressive generational praxis. 

In this, Zimbabwe is a country that does not belong to those that claim to be ‘vene’ (owners) as though they are inimitable oligarchs.  It basically belongs to a hopeful, progressive and compassionate people.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

Zanu Pf’s “Liberation Capital” 2028 Succession Battles: A New Nationalist State Embedded Capitalism

 By Takura Zhangazha*

This is a slightly complicated article. So it is easier to get some of my own definitions out of the way for your ease of understanding. I have also put some sub-titles for your ease of reading.    

* “Liberation Capital”- refers to the Private Capital acquired after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) of 2000 and ongoing Urban, agricultural, mining, tourism and general resettlement land) as controlled by the ruling Zanu Pf Party

*  “Succession Battles” - refers to the ruling party’s political contestations on who can/should/will succeed current president Mnangagwa

* “Land Baron”- refers to those that benefitted from the economic ambiguity of the FTLRP cited above, including those that acquiesced to it

 Introduction.

Ever since the ouster of one of Zimbabwe’s luminary liberation struggle leaders Robert Mugabe from executive presidential political power in 2017, there have been many evident conversations around who, again within the same party, should succeed his successor.  

The current president Emerson Mnangagwa was post 2017 seen as the most able to bridge a gap between former liberation struggle fighters and nationalists as determined by the historicity of the liberation struggle against colonialism.  

He was deemed not only the most senior after previous nationalists but also one of the few who could command a healthier respect from a military that was composed of former guerrilla fighters who had ascended to positions of army colonels, lieutenants and commanders. These would be the likes of current vice presidents Chiwenga and Mohadi and others who are currently serving at the highest level in the security services of Zimbabwe.

The unwritten rule during Mugabe’s tenure was that there was an eventual succession plan after what was anticipated to be his voluntary and in part benevolent departure from power.  This was as explained by war veteran cdes such as Wilfred Mhanda (cde Dzino) and cde Freedom Nyamubaya who outlined the anticipated hierarchy of succession in the then liberation struggle but which also never became a reality.

In their outline, they had been advised, even after national independence, that those that were the original surviving nationalists such as Mugabe, Nkomo, Nyagumbo and other who were at the forefront of negotiating the Lancaster House agreement were to be supported as the ones to take the country forward immediately after independence.  They would eventually give way to those that were the guerilla commanders who were more radical such as Commander Tongogara, Lookout Masuku and other members of the then separate high commands of either ZANLA or ZIPRA to be at the apex of political executive authority in the country. These were considered half nationalist-half military.

And this unwritten succession plan would go on sequentially to those who were full guerillas such as Chiwenga and others that I cannot mention but who claim they bore the brunt of the war at the various fronts. 

Then it would follow that those in the then training camps, through to those that were war collaborators and be completed by those that were part of post independence youth brigades. 

Before we as Zimbabweans could easily say we are done with our liberation struggle history and its organic kneading of our politics. 

Mugabe’s Mis-anticipated Long Duree Rule and the Rise of Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC)

This was obviously disrupted not only by Mugabe’s long duree holding on of power and delaying of succession but also the emergence of a labour backed opposition movement in the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) at the height of not only a national but global economic crisis between 1997 and 2000 caused by neoliberal economics (World Bank/IMF) and what we now refer to as climate change.

This was as serious a challenge to Zanu Pf’s hegemony as ever since 1980 and that of ZAPU as led by Joshua Nkomo. 

The FTLRP of 2000

What happened thereafter politically is common knowledge around the role that war veterans of our liberation struggle with the support of a united Zanu Pf decided to do with the programme that we all now refer to historically as the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP)- and with thanks to Professor Sam Moyo for helping coin this term.  

The multiple elections that occurred after the 2000 constitutional referendum (2002, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2018 and 2023)  were indicative of a shift in our national consciousness.   It was clear to many urban based Zimbabweans that politically Zanu Pf was no longer invincible.  More so by the time we had the SADC mediated inclusive government of 2009-2013. 

The FTLRP as Part of the National Political Economy

But by then the FTLRP had become embedded in our national political economy.  White farmers had been quite literally in radical nationalist fashion been kicked off the land they either inherited, had purchased for many years by the ruling party.  And even within the ambit of the inclusive government were never going to recover that land with any sense of immediacy. 

This led to the creation on either side of the political divide of what we now refer to as ‘land barons’ (LBs)

Now these LBs did not just look at land in an historical sense of restitution. They looked at land as primarily private capital.  Be it urban land, agricultural land and also mining land.   And they knew that when Mugabe at his many rallies announced the FTLRP as irreversible, all they had to do was play the game right in relation to newer statutory laws, including black indigenization policies about their claim to ‘revolutionary ownership’ of the ‘new land’. 

This also included opposition political party funders, functionaries/leaders and members particularly in the urban areas who had the protection of various ministers of local government so long they towed the political-economic line.  

A New Nationalist State- Embedded Capitalism

This national political economy has birthed what we can now refer to as a new nationalist elitist state-embedded capitalism (NNSEC).  One in which the state as the harbinger of the FTLRP can easily get into various forms of private capital to control the national political economy. Be it in mining, urban land development, agriculture, rural development (privatization) and religious allocations of fixed capital for political survival of the ruling party. 

This includes the financialisation of state capital, primarily land, for climate carbon financiers and claims to be part of a global neo-liberal (pro-private capital) village. 

So Where Do Current Zanu Pf Succession Battles Fit into All of This? 

It would appear that the ideological economic framework for the country has been pre-set by Zanu Pf after the 2017 ouster of Mugabe.  The removal of indigenization laws and the oxymoronic nationalization and privatization of land as capital is no longer in dispute.  The question that emerges is one of who controls the levers of political power and economic largesse stemming therefrom. Even in trickle down format. Or downstream industries.

 Either by courting the West or the East and ensuring a new elite economic class for control beyond loss of power.   Both via direct political control and secondly via controlling the narrative on what can popularly be deemed nationally benevolent national progress.

As has been publicly reported by credible mainstream media, all is not well in the Zanu PF presidential camp.  Be it rumour or reality, we do know based on what happened in 2017 that there is no smoke without fire in Zanu Pf about issues of who is ultimately in control.  At least until their next congress in 2027.  

But as ordinary Zimbabweans we are allowed to comment on what we see, hear or even perceive. 

Conclusion

And in this, we are seeing a battle for what I have defined above as battles for what can be considered a uniquely Zimbabwean ‘liberation capital’ after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) being key in Zanu Pf’s succession battles as they play out on their and opposition social media platforms. And in their physical realities (rallies, conferences, and pending Congresses). 

It creates new nodes of competitive individual and almost cartel/mafia like wealth that we are now suffering for.  And where sometimes we are purchasable for it (tisataure mazita).  Across economic, political, social and religious sectors. But more significantly among more individualistic and materially oriented younger Zimbabweans who could not care less about the ideological nuances of the First or Second Chimurenga.  And where we lose them, the values and the younger generations simultaneously we may never recover.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

 

 

After the UN General Assembly 2025: Beginning the End of an Egalitarian Global World Order

 By Takura Zhangazha*

The United Nations (UN) recently held its annual General Assembly (UNGA80.)

It was its as social and mainstream media generally advised us the 80^th anniversary of its founding.  As Africans we remain grateful for the UN and its role in our own struggles for national liberation.   Despite the contemporary reality of the fact that we do not have any veto power in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Not for a lack of trying.  Even Zimbabwe is trying to at least get a rotational role in the same global organ and for now appears to be doing a lackluster job of it.   

Watching and listening to the speeches made by various heads of state and government at the UNGA80 one could be forgiven for asking the abstract question, “is the World at a crossroads?”  Particularly in relation to what we had assumed was a universal world order based on democracy and human rights? 

The speeches were relatively poor beginning with the host nation the United States of America (USA) whose president Trump was more concerned about escalators, tele-prompters and the invincibility of his country’s global hegemony.  

Other states were more focused on the genocide occurring in Gaza and their newfound recognition of the state of Palestine.  With the African states referring to the need to reform the UNSC (one that still falls on deaf ears) and the important challenge of the impact of climate change.  Or in a few cases the capitalist and cultural impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its primary owners.

All in all, the UNGA80 did not have any peculiar global resonance as in the past when it was addressed by the likes of for example, Fidel Castro, Kwame Nkrumah, Nikita Khruschev, John F Kennedy, Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere and even our very own Robert Mugabe.   It did not give any aura of a sense of progressive global egalitarianism and the universality of human rights. 

Instead it appeared to be more about a new global strategic repositioning around superpowers. In a nostalgic “Cold War” sense.  Where again countries were being pitted against each other with regards to their loyalties to the east or the west.  With questions emerging on whether your country is with Russia or Ukraine, Israel or Palestine?  Or simply put,  a question on whether your government is with Putin or with Trump? One that many African and global south governments rarely answer directly.

What is evident with the rise of new nationalisms and what Trump referred to as a necessary closure of borders by member states of the UN is an increasingly polarized world where and when we look at the ‘never again’ principle of preventing world wars. 

Instead there is continual escalations of conflicts/wars based on exploitation of mineral wealth (Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo).  While geo-political interests between the European Union and Russia, China and the USA continue to take center stage around tariffs, trade and military technology/.  Inclusive of emergent culture wars that are emerging from techno-feudalists and AI. 

What is apparent is that we are in a global age of the end of a neoliberal global dream of a false equality.  And this is not an easy point to make.   The re-emergence of capitalist motivated nationalism and racism, cutting of global solidarity international aid and the face offs between the USA and China/Russia indicate an evident change in the previous comfort zones of global politics. 

We, as Africans at least should have seen this coming.   And now again we have to leverage our natural resources and peace against at least three global superpowers, namely Russia, the USA and China. And their variegated subordinates in the form of the Middle East’s Emirs and Kings.  

All the while facing a volatile political and economic environment where our governments are perpetually squabbling with their citizens and attempting to mimic ‘mafia style’ politics of perpetuity in power for either oligarchs or long-standing ruling parties.  In the assumed name of electoral democracy.  As recognized by the UN and other pro-democracy international bodies.

What we may need to be more honest about as Africans is the fact of our placement in the global order of issues, commerce, capitalism and the Livingstonian assumption of ‘civilisation.’

What the UNGA80 showed is that the revolutionary progress made for human equality and national sovereignty is under serious threat.  And that there is a clear hierarchy within global world politics.  With the West moving to reassert its capitalist dominance and ensure historical revisionism that deliberately makes the world unipolar again. 

Because of these developments we need to return to a more robust and historical Pan Africanism.  While non-alignment has helped in our economic development programmes in one way or the other, Africa’s engagement with eh rest of the world needs to be more grounded in our own value and less global capital’s interests.

In the final analysis, while we have new nodes of African consciousness as shared on social media, the realistic questions are around Africa’s placement in the contemporary global events as they are occurring.  We have to grasp the reality that we are low rung interests to the USA, China or Russia.  And that we regrettably remain exploitable politically and economically.  Hence we are led to our own deaths in the Sahel and Mediterranean sea.  Even if we were to become football stars in major European or North American sporting clubs. 

We just need a serious reality check after the UNGA80. It is no longer the UN we grew up knowing.  Its global egalitarian values are being diminished.  And while we cant stand up with immediacy and ask that this be stopped we may need to redraw our placement in global politics.  As Africans. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity  

 

 

 

Decolonizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Africa

Technology Ownership, Cultural Mimicry and a Necessary Renewed Progressive African Consciousness.     

A  Brief Presentation to Shoko Festival Hub Un-Conference, Wednesday 24 September 2025 , Harare, Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

I would like to thank the Shoko Festival, Hub-UnConference team and their stakeholders for inviting me to give this brief presentation on ‘Decolonising Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Africa’.  A topic which is very important not only in the contemporary but also for a future in which Africa gets more connected via electricity, mobile telephony and the multiple nodes of what we now refer to as the internet (social media, streaming, email and Wi-Fi or more recently Starlink.)     

To begin with I am certain that most of you in this particular physical and also virtual audience watching are likely basically aware of what AI is.  Technically and culturally.  

On the simplistic technical front it is a system in which computing systems essentially use data and algorithms to replace what would be otherwise scientific human behavior.  That is such processes that would otherwise have been done by medical doctors, engineers, nurses, motor mechanics, airline pilots, taxi drivers and medical laboratory experts among many others.  

Culturally, AI, is also the computing of cultural traits and the modification of human behavior.  It is beginning to paly an much larger role in how we perceive or learn of ourselves, our music, drama, television and most significantly in our languages.

Ask any teacher or college/university lecturer how they now have to cautiously guard against receiving assignments written by ChatGP or DeepSeek even at secondary school level. Let alone university and PhD levels.  This is before we even start discussing music, drama, television and movies that are now increasingly run by algorithms that are designed to re-align  your cultural preferences.  Not only to ignore the repressive nature of African colonial history but to create new revisionist meaning to it.

Because I don’t have much time, I will make a relatively controversial point.

AI is the new cultural and economic ‘maxim gun’ in Africa.  For those that may not have studied their African history, we were, as Africans, based on our numerical numbers against the colonialists in the wars of the late 19^th century, going to win those initial struggles against colonialism. 

Until the arrival of the maxim gun which proved pivotal in protecting the colonial larger across Southern and Eastern Africa.  

Mainly because we did not see it coming.  And could only learn both within the ambit of tragic circumstances and after how that machine worked.  To only mount more modern liberation struggles at least 50 years later after the second World War and the formation of the United Nations. 

With AI we are quite literally not only seeing it but using it now. Even if by default.

 But not understanding its ‘maxim gun’ cultural and economic effect.  It is not killing us physically but with its current trends, it is modifying African human behavior into falling in line with global north or western values.

Ad this is in three main respects.

The first being the technological.  We do not as Africans own an iota of AI.  It is owned by what academics and global north progressive activists have referred to as ‘techno-feudalists’.  These are those that are for example around the current acerbic American president Donald Trump who own AI related platforms that have the public form of social media platforms but are essentially also working on machine generated learning and algorithms.  This also includes China ’s Xi Jinping and its own AI companies that intend to have a hand over the global wests ones. 

To put it simply, you do not own your Facebook, Tick-tock, Whatsapp or X account.  You are given the impression of owning it.  The algorithm is not yours.  At all.   More so if you post matters that are  against a given global north narrative. 

Essentially always bear in mind, every time you log into a social media account or decide to use ChatGPT or any other forms of technology to construct  something you do not own it.  Its copyrighted at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 

In the second instance and as I have alluded to with my metaphoric reference to the ‘maxim gun’, AI is intended to be a mixed bag of technology and its awe with its cultural indefatigability (sorry for the big word). 

Depending on the size of the population/market, you are from, AI has its cultural preferences.  Hence our colleagues in Swahili speaking East Africa are a step of us in trying to counter AI and its emergent roles in languages and cultural productions.   But more significantly our fellow and equal human beings retain a cultural (and in some cases quasi racist) supremacy over AI.  In a very hegemonic sense. That is where culture meets economic realities and manufacture materialistic desires.  

Hence our local influencers are getting cars and cash handouts based on what the algorithm accepts and what those with power find palatable to their stay in political and economic power. 

In the final and third instance, as Africans, we need to establish a new way forward.  One that focuses beyond mimicry of global north AI.  Even if we don’t own it.   We need to understand that there is more to the technology, its sources of origin and our own context. In this, it is necessary to reclaim cultural identities and Pan African mindsets as a priority.  Nationally, continentally and globally (with an emphasis on the Diaspora.) 

While at the same time remembering it is not always about the money or mimicry for the same.

To conclude, AI, is not going to go away. It may change format as did the television, the fixed telephone line, but it will be with us for not only the lifetimes of those here among us an online, but for the long term future.  The question is the extent to which we can harness it to our contexts.  We will neve own it technically.  But we can challenge its hegemonic intent culturally.   Just like what you choose to watch, create on or for Netflix, Meta (Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram) has to be made to overwhelmingly challenge the numbers and language challenges of AI.  Before we, in Africa can even begin to talk about the machines that we do not own. 

Takura Zhangazha spoke here in his personal capacity.  

 

 

 

 

Remembering James Jemwa: An Holistic Journalist and Visionary of the Media's Future: By Practice.

Sunday, 21 September 2025

By Takura Zhangazha*

This is not an obituary. Journalistically others will do so. They will give you date of birth and date of death, background, education and achievements. As are their jobs. 

I will just start from this premise in remembering our late media cde James Jemwa. 

Many of us never remember the camera man. Or the photographer nor the producer. 

We tend to remember the verbal journalist in front of us. As important as the latter are. 

And we tend to easily forget the wholesome or even holistic nature of what journalism is and has always been. 

It is the sum total of multiple important parts. From production/ownership, to written words (print), static visuals (pictures), audios (radio) and audio-visuals (television/videos). Through to free expression. 

It also includes, as is now globally the case, cultural audio-visual productions as conveyed via the Internet on music, drama and podcasts in their various thematic forms. 

In fact all of these media forms even before Wi-Fi and the Internet expanded it's reach there was always a central player. Whether you were going to write about it (again print), broadcast it electronically (via radio or television) or put it on social media platforms (Facebook, X, Tiktock).

You were always going to need that brave, creative and in some parts arrogant camera-technician-journalist. 

And in Zimbabwe one of the foremost go to persons for this difficult role was always going to be the now late James Jemwa. 

When colleagues in Zimbabwe's media profession shared the sad news that he recently passed after a reported road traffic accident that occurred on Friday 19 September 2025 and that he succumbed to his injuries on early Saturday the next day many of us were shocked and emotionally devastating.

Many of us who had worked with him in direct journalism especially with international and local media electronic broadcasting houses, knew his professional mettle. His commitment to the 'story' if you agreed on its parameters and the necessary camera-work. (Including equipment issues). 

Others who worked with him on documentary, drama, music related cultural productions will attest to his easy progressive (he was not for sale even when broke) commitment (again) to the themes that they sought to convey to not only the Zimbabwean public but also globally. 

I know for a fact that he worked in all of these issues with multiple media stakeholders such as Al Jazeera, civil society organisations, nascent young activist organisations such as #ThisFlag , theater companies and incidentally also covering personal social events such as marriages and funerals. Be they political or deeply personal. And he also had disputes with some producers and celebrity journalists that he always preferred I should not mention. He would say "haisi hondo yako cde Zheng, regai tipedzerane" -It's not your war cde Zheng, we will finish it off without you"

His speciality was his digital camera. And how to manage angles, emphasis on visual points and how the optics were going to make sense to a person who was going to view the same much later. In his absence as a 'behind the scenes' person. And sometimes without accreditation or payment. 

He was what I personally considered the 'composite' journalist. He could do the filming, the editing and partly script writing across various audio visual media formats.

The only one thing he personally told me over a couple of beers at the now closed Quill Club at the Ambassador Hotel in central Harare was that he was terrible at print media. 

He said, "We leave that to you ana cde Zheng. Isu tiri vemafirimu nema camera. Imi nyorai" -(we are for filming and cameras, you should just write). 

And for that, following the audio visual media story emphasis of his journalism, he and cde Paidamoyo Muzulu as journalists they once got arrested and sent to remand prison for covering the demonstrations as led by the Dzamara brothers (in succession) at Africa Unity Square. 

It was the advocacy and legal work of organisations such as Misa-Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and many others that got them bail and eventually acquitted. 

I am sure those that they were with him during the arrest and detention such as Promise Mkwananzi can better attest to that repressive experience and their liberatory role in it. 

When I last met him earlier this year in the company of our shared cde Paidamoyo Muzulu he, as is the case now with many journalists,formally employed or freelancing, was lamenting the poverty stricken state of the profession.

And tasked us all in that conversation with seeking a holistically progressive way forward. One that not only remembers the importance of  journalism as a profession with fair wages but more importantly it's important role in a democratic Zimbabwe. 

After that we laughed about how he was the first to make me have a YouTube video and how he had generally tried to encourage others to do the same. 

He argued that this was the future of sustainable journalism. Where print could not do without audio-visuals and the latter could not do without professionalism. 

Then we had a couple of beers and he had to catch a kombi to Mfombi (Mufakose). It was getting late, zvikanzi 'regai ndirove pasi macde'

May his soul rest in peace and may his family be comforted in these difficult times. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

Racism is No Longer Whispering in the UK

By Takura Zhangazha*

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) recently witnessed at least 100 000 anti-immigration demonstrators in central London. This was at a rally titled “Unite the Kingdom.”

Having lived briefly in Edinburgh, Scotland (which is still part of the UK) I had sometimes witnessed such events around anti-immigration sentiment.  But being back home in Africa, I had never witnessed the same at such a ridiculous scale. 

The numbers alone were astounding.  Never mind the messages about what the protest leaders were referring to among other things as “re-emigration”.   Or simply put their desire to have immigrants to their country deported back to where they originally came from. En masse. 

Obviously this is not going to happen in the short term.  But as a Zimbabwean and knowing a great deal about our own Diaspora (Diaspimbi) there, I was not only worried but shocked at the levels of racist hate that was spewed at the march.  And in empathy, I felt that this is now a different UK. 

This was also something I had some private social media conversations with colleagues that are based there.  They assured me that it was a ‘once-off’ demonstration and that they are relatively safe.  Mainly because of where they stay and that in general its not really expected to be that far reaching. 

In responding to this perception, my guiding principle was that one cannot cry more than the bereaved.   They know their circumstances and understand the racial nuances of the march much better than I can.  Not only because they live there but also because there is no black Zimbabwean in the Diaspimbi in the global north who has not experienced racism.  Be it at work or in their social lives.

But to have it so loud and so brazen in a multi-cultural city such as London was a bit of a shock. Even in the aftermath of the reprehensive shooting of a conservative influencer in the United States of America (USA) Charles Kirk.  And while that country’s president, Donald Trump, has been busy accusing the ideological left of fermenting political violence.  While doing so himself. 

What is apparent is that we need to discuss more seriously the emerging nodes of racism that are happening in the global north against people of colour.  And in particular against people that are considered black. 

This must be done in at least three parts. 

The first being that we have to acknowledge our own geo-political-economic and social complicity in the re-emergence of this racism in European and North American capitals. And I hate to say this. 

Historically, after the advent of colonialism we have, as Africans, been in awe of the lure of the global north and its colonial capitals (London included). We have been drawn to these like moths to the candle light.   Both as part of the legacy of colonialism and its political economy as well as part of our own inferiority complexes that for example Franz Fanon and Steve Biko aptly described in their works over and about anti-colonialism/racism.

In the second instance, as Africans we are now faced with a cultural struggle to liberate our minds in the contemporary.  I am making this point on the basis of the fact that in that anti-immigration rally in the UK, there were people of colour that were clearly for the racist narratives.  I am not sure for what reasons but their presence merely reflected not only a desire to belong and escape their realities but also their cultural naivety.  Or even their fealty to the hegemonic narratives of being ‘othered’ and therefore wanting to belong more than the owners of the narratives and the countries in which they want to be found in. 

In this we need to realize, as Africans that unless we discuss the lure of the global north and internally deal with our own challenges of poverty and unemployment for young people this will be a perennial reality. Moreso if we do not deal with the evident desire of many young Africans to leave the continent for Europe or the Americas via either the Sahel, the Mediterranean sea or the Atlantic ocean.  

We are in a very difficult situation in which our own people do not have confidence in their own countries offering them better lives.  Even without understanding the colonial legacies of capitalism and how it still relies on migration and its bright lights syndrome that we learnt of in geography classes.

We need to ‘look deep in our hearts’ as the great Lesotho band “Sankomota” once sang, and realize that racism as it is occurring against black and brown colleagues in the global north, is also a result of our desires to want to be there.  

With a false assumption that there is a ‘universal equality’ of all human beings. That myth has been debunked by this age of Trumpism wherein we are now being made aware of our African status in world affairs after South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to the White House. 

In the third instance we need to remember that progressive global solidarity remains important.  Beyond race and racism.   I know a great many number of progressive comrades and colleagues from the global north.  They are in what can be deemed an existential crisis where they are also struggling to understand this emerging racism in their societies of origin. Almost like asking themselves, "How did we get here?" With their stronger rightwing governments (apart from Spain).

Be they religious or secular ideologues.  But they have to deal with their emergent forms of domestic/nationalist populism based on either race or re-affirmations of national belonging.  Which include racist notions of ‘othering’.

What is apparent from the UK’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally and its thousands of supporters is that the internal racial dynamics of our former colonial power have significantly changed. Even if we assume these are temporary but they are increasingly real in the media, social media and everyday lived experiences.

Race and racism are regrettably back in the fore of global consciousness.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)