Notes
on 32 Years of Zimbabwe’s Independence: Copyright Committee of the Peoples Charter, Harare
, Zimbabwe 12 April 2012.
Brief Preface:
Please see below, the first three essays written by Zimbabweans in aide
of seeking to reflect on the nature and meaning of 32nd
commemorations of our national independence in Zimbabwe. The three essays cover
three topics, national historical consciousness, reflections of young
Zimbabweans on the meaning of independence and tracing the fading democratic
value of leadership in Zimbabwe. The essays vary in length and are essentially
individual reflections of Zimbabweans. The electronic publication of these
essays has been facilitated by the Zimbabwe Committee of the Peoples Charter (http://peoplescharter.blogspot.com/2012/02/resolutions-of-commemorative-meeting-of.html) .There are at least two more
essays expected to be published before 18 April 2012, in the anticipation that
they will allow for increased public debate on the meaning of our national
independence.
Kind regards,
Committee of the People’s
Charter.
Our National
Historical Consciousness and our Future.
By Takura Zhangazha.
Introduction.
Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean
society, like all other countries that exist in the world, cannot claim a clear
and unambiguous disjuncture with its history. The creation of the modern day
polity that has come to define the territory between the Zambezi and Limpopo
rivers has been a process laden with various but continuous historical interactions.
These overlaps of history have included conquest, colonialism, commerce,
Christianity, African nationalism, revolutionary war, the Cold War and the
broad pursuit of democracy. All of these occurred without clear distinction and
have been invariably interwoven.[i]
It is essentially ‘African
nationalism’ , ‘revolutionary war’ and ‘democracy’ that were intended to be victorious on 18
April 1980, the day and year on which the Zimbabwean flag was raised. With the benefit of hindsight and on the basis
of various historical analysis, it has come to be known that these three paramount
values were not going to be completely acquired and therefore had to be
negotiated. [ii]
The end result was the
compromise and ceasefire document that is historically referred to as the
Lancaster House Constitution which was agreed to in December 1979. It is the nature and extent
of the compromise that informed the politics of a ten year post independence period
which assists in analyzing the birth pangs of the Zimbabwean state. It is a ‘compromise’
that has been referred to as having been influenced by the Frontline States which
were insisting that the liberation war had to end and therefore the liberation movements
had no choice but to agree or lose regional and continental support. In other
instances, explanations of the ‘compromise’ agreement relate to issues to do
with the fear by the incoming nationalist leadership of a massive skills exodus
as well as disinvestment by Rhodesian
and international capital in our newly independent state.
All of these reasons however point
to the direct or complicit participation of our nationalist leaders in the
decision making processes of that time. Some more than others, but all with a
specific complicity that may have been historically necessary , but cannot be
whitewashed. In other words, the leadership of the liberation movements, the
post independence successive governments and our contemporary inclusive
government are to a greater extent the ones who have been responsible for the
state of affairs in the country since 1980, the role of external factors not
withstanding. [iii]
It is therefore imperative to
point out at the beginning of this essay that the primary challenge of the
leadership of that time and of present day remains that of not fully coming to
terms with their role, complicit or direct,
in the construction of our national independence project. Because of
this fundamental challenge that the nationalist
and in part contemporary leadership have faced in understanding the full import
of the struggle that they undertook to liberate Zimbabwe, as well as the
inability of the post nationalist leadership to grasp the significance of the
historical occurrences of the past as linked to present day and future Zimbabwe, it is also
important to outline the general characteristics of our country at 32 years of
independence outside of their narrow and partisan politicized frameworks.
This essentially entails a
grasping of the historical and contemporary realities that Zimbabwe faced and continues
to face within the context of an increasingly unfocused national political
leadership that is acting both in the interests of narrow political persuasions
and ideologies that are exploitatively linked to an emergent east-west
collaborative global capitalism.[iv]
It is by doing so that we
become conscious of the historical challenges that lie before the generality of
all Zimbabweans inclusive of those that are in contemporary leadership. Our
solutions to our particular socio-political and economic challenges therefore reside
in our ability to conscientiously apply ourselves to particular, historical and
well thought out as well negotiated frameworks of engaging the challenges that
we face in the present and their full import for the future.
Definitive
premise of our national independence.
Historically, the struggle for
justice by the people of Zimbabwe has been fundamentally social democratic in
intent and purpose. From the years of the initial resistance to the Pioneer
Column, through to the First and Second Chimurenga’s,
the values of our struggle, with the benefit of historical hindsight, were
intent on the restoration of our collective human dignity, the pursuit of
equality, socio-economic justice, democracy and economic/technological
advancement. [v]
In 2012, these are the same
challenges that we all face, though in a less Manichean manner and even where
our political leaders remain in denial. The primary issue to therefore be
considered in the commemorations of our 32 years of national independence is
whether our struggle for freedom remains an ongoing one. This, not merely on
the basis of generally enunciated democratic values but as a combination of the
lack of completion of the definitive and historical struggle against the
usurpation of our right to self determination, social and economic justice,
equality before the law, democracy, a justiciable bill of rights, global human
equality and the right to choose a national political leadership of our choice.
It is this perpetual struggle question of ‘arrival’ that has now come full circle
and must be examined by all Zimbabweans.
It is in this sense that the
primary purpose of this essay on Zimbabwe’s 32 years of independence is to
measure the extent to which we have remained committed to the to the ‘revolutionary
path’ via our leadership.[vi]
This revolutionary path is defined by the values of our national independence
defined above. It is also a reaffirmation of the truth that Zimbabwe must continue
to make its own history conscientiously on the basis of what we hold to be our
inalienable democratic principles and values. These same said principles and
values should be based on the firm understanding that we have not yet done enough
justice to our historically grounded societal, political and economic
aspirations.
These notes on 32 years of Zimbabwe’s
national independence therefore seek to explain the necessity and urgency of
the return to the revolutionary path for
Zimbabwe. The return to the revolutionary path is a return to commonly held and
shared principles that relate to the social democratic project that was the
liberation struggle (whatever angle you look at it) together with a specific
recognition that we should return to a conscientious and organic making of our
own history as a country, members of a continent and participants in the global
political economy. Simply put, if we have refused to be defined in one way or
the other, via resistance and struggle, as the ‘native others’ we now have to
prove in word and deed that we are here to make a history that is linked to
past struggles, contemporary challenges and intent on creating a better social
democratic future for all who live in Zimbabwe, Africa and the World.
In explaining the above cited
issues and challenges this essay will
tackle three phases of our national independence periods. These being
1980-1990; 1991-2000; 2001-2008 and 2008 to 2012. In all of these
aforementioned historical phases assessment will be made of the primary
challenges that our country has been faced with.
Our
time-transcendent common historical thread of struggle.
At the onset of Zimbabwe’s
independence the new national leaders, arguably on the basis of pragmatic
considerations, sought to demonstrate their capacity to embrace modern/
scientific socialism with significant dosages
of western modernization. They sought a partial departure from the historical
context that defined their arrival to power in order to avoid what they
considered the mistakes of other African leaders to fail to embrace either
scientific socialism or western model modernization. This essentially meant
that the principles and values of the founding struggles of our nation-state
were re-negotiated ahistorically because of three reasons.
The first being that in the process of
undertaking the struggle for national liberation, we had not quite learnt what
to expect and how to handle it in the aftermath of the acquisition of the
political power that came with self determination. Given the serious difficulty
of waging a guerilla war, our then (and in some instances contemporary)
nationalist leaders may not have had the luxury of understanding the clearer
organic nature of the processes of the anti-colonial struggles. This is to say,
the linkages between the oral and cultural history of anti-colonial struggles
with eventual victory were limited. Instead, the usage of understanding the
historical trajectory of the liberation struggle since the arrival of the
Pioneer column may have been more for the purposes of various liberation
movements’ populist appeals to the populace and not integrated into organic post-liberation
struggle victory implementation frameworks.
The reasons for this approach
have been recorded via a number of academic writings which indicate the disparate and disunited nature of our
liberation movements.[vii]
It would however be poignant to point out that part of the problem that led to
the disjuncture in the organic narratives of the First Chimurenga and those of
the Second Chimurenga (which was in part victorious) relate mainly to our
collective inability to harness both the advent of technological advancement
with our primary liberatory intentions. (This is an argument that can only be
made with the benefit of historical hindsight and not on the basis of seeking
to judge our leaders of that time as their circumstances where peculiar to that
time and had much more difficult challenges.)
Put simply, we got overawed by
our interaction with the medical, material and military technological advances of the
‘others’ during our first struggle for liberation as well as in the second one.[viii]
Indeed we eventually got better
education from the missionary schools, better health treatment via the same
institutions while simultaneously being repressed by the police/military/minority
rule state in which we existed in both phases of the liberation struggles.
However our narratives followed more the history of the ‘other’ than it
followed our own direct interactions with colonialism, dispossession and direct
repression primarily due to the arrival of modern equipment and the
establishment of new urban settlements.[ix]
These challenges of perception
together with cultural and economic cooption were however determined primarily
by the historical circumstances of that time. By the time of the Second Chimurenga, our national leaders had
come to accept the necessity of learning the ways of the colonialist in order
to achieve national sovereignty. Coincidentally in the same period the ideological
differences between the global East and the West had come full circle in the
aftermath of the Second World War and our leaders took the opportunity to
interact with the leftist revolutionary thought of emergent socialist states
with eagerness.
However in the process of
negotiating with two global ideological camps that had been established without
our direct participation, we had to learn the art of negotiating with the same
said two global ideological camps in order to achieve the primary objective of
national independence. This process of negotiation led to further divisions
within our liberation movement as to what was the best strategy to pursue in
order to achieve the primary task of national independence. This was a
development which led to our further departure from the historicity of the
challenge at hand. [x]
In the real event that we all
decided at various stages to wage wars of liberation, the reality of the matter
is that we became complicit in narratives of struggle that would be more
embedded in solutions generated more from elsewhere than from ourselves. This
is not to say that the struggle came to be determined by the dictates of those
who were willing to assist us in their own national interests but that we were
increasingly determined to acquire self rule as had been determined by our then increasingly
negotiated historicity. We therefore came to understand more those that were
willing to assist us than we were willing to consistently understand ourselves
and our historical agenda of liberation.
When victory arrived in 1980, after phenomenal
sacrifice from the sons and daughters of the soil, the ‘struggles within the
struggle’ and the ambiguity of proximity to power was a nail in the coffin for
revolutionary organic continuity.[xi]
Our intentions to prove to be the better
‘natives’ got the better of us. We
fought amongst ourselves without understanding the full import of the
historical challenges that were with us and that lay before us. We fought ideological and power battles that
were by definition not necessarily ours and our victory remained embedded in inadequate articulations of the challenges that awaited us after
independence.
1980
to 2000, The challenges of building an historical democratic hegemony via ‘mimicry’
and policy ambiguity.
There have been many arguments
as to the extent to which the immediate post independence state was under
tremendous international pressure not to deviate either from the pro-capital
Lancaster House Constitution or the social democratic intentions of the
liberation struggle. These arguments will at varying stages hold cogency to
different ideological groupings but it must be emphasized that within either
ideological camp, the modus operandi was unfortunately that of ‘mimicry’. [xii]
Whether one claimed socialism
or free market political economy as
frameworks through which the intentions of national independence could
be achieved, the technicalities of these same said solutions resided on
over-reliance on models that were in most cases out of context.[xiii]
The almost immediate improvements in civil liberties, expansion of social
services (health, education, transport, recreation) and the nationalist fervor
of the first ten years were largely out of political necessity than they were
directly related to grounded specific organic ideological leanings. The mixed
bag of economics where the newly independent state maintained a capitalist
political economy imbued in socialist rhetoric was more in order to keep the
country stable than it was to ground it in a singular long term hegemonic and political direction.
Whereas the political direction
was clearer, particularly as regards to conflicts between those that led
various liberation movements, the unfortunate tendency to not address issues
holistically and organically compromised the independence project. The
insistence on a one party state without linking it to its necessity for
economic advancement of the country or the fact that Zimbabwe has always had
multiple parties/political organizations
at inception of the liberation struggle was ahistorical.
A desire to be part of the
African liberators lexicon and follow the lead of initially successful and
legendary African revolutionaries in either the Frontline states or West Africa
may have been the cause of this. Either way we fell into the trap of being to
eager to suit models that were not necessarily our own. Hence for example the
tragic killing of innocent civilians during what has no come to be referred to
as Gukurahundi in the early to late
1980s in the middle and southern provinces of the country with the assistance
and training of North Korea.
As we arrived toward the end of
the first decade of our national independence , with the demise of the
Socialist block via the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European
Socialist bloc, our national leaders failed to define a clearer path for us to
realize the objectives of our national independence. Because in part they were
more interested in the politics of power and dominance via expedient and more
foreign policy related than domestic considerations, our national leaders found themselves almost
hapless when it came to the global shift to the ideological right.[xiv]
They lost out on the historicity of our own national independence struggle, the
expiration of the ‘protective’ Lancaster House Constitution’s clauses and once
again sought the easier path of mimicry.
It was this ahistorical path that led us to embrace
structural adjustment programmes that were beginning to be emphasized by the
dominantly hegemonic West and its
Bretton Woods institutions. Successive finance ministers sought to embed us
into the Washington Consensus less with an understanding of our context and the
peoples’ needs and more in pursuit of abstract and neo-colonial recognition by
the World Bank as some of the ‘rising stars’ of a still to be manufactured
African intelligentsia and middle class. In short, at the turn of the decade,
with only one globally hegemonic power to negotiate with, we moved further away
from what were the primary objectives of our liberation struggle and our national
independence.
As such, the full
implementation of economic structural adjustment saw a speeding up of the destruction
of the social welfare state and an increase in political repression less to do
with the old liberation war movement rivalries (the Unity Accord had been
established by then) but more with state-led
denial of the citizens enjoyment of basic human rights. This led to an increase
in opposition political party activity as well as an expansion of civil society
actors outside the aegis of the then recently united Patriotic Front.
The loss of jobs and the
failure to create employment coupled with massive droughts in the early and mid
1990s as well as the closure of local manufacturing companies led inevitably to
a more radicalized urban populace and with it, a stronger trade union and
inevitably the formation of a popular labour backed political party by the end
of the second decade of our national independence. [xv]
The key point to be emphasized
in this particular section of this essay is that our national leaders at that
time lost touch with the organic historicity of the liberation struggle as the
years moved further and further away from the year of our country’s inception.[xvi]
Their initial reliance on the Frontline States, the Organisation of African
Unity (OAU) , the Socialist bloc, Scandanavian countries and leftists in the
West for technical support and struggle knowledge production either by way of
being taught how to wage a struggle for liberation or of what to after
independence was acquired may have been an historical necessity. In the
aftermath of 1980 our national leaders sought to accentuate these global
linkages at the expense of our national context and in the process implemented
frameworks that made them appear more
proxies of one global ideological persuasion or the other( particularly before
the end of the Cold War) than they appeared as leaders who were conscious of
the destiny of their own country. In the same process, they overemphasized
political power as opposed to a counter- hegemonic and democratic understanding of power.
They sought more power of the
moment, and power that may have been dotted with celebrations of the heroic
past, while with each passing year, their leadership became less and less
organic with our country’s history or its ideally historically determined
future. They flirted with the global left as well as with global capital, and
pandered more or less to whatever was expected of them by one particular side
when it was most opportune. Where, with
the end of the Cold War there was only global power to contend and negotiate with,
they pursued that power’s ideological dictates without revolutionary context or
firm negotiation and with further ‘mimicry’ and instrumentalisation of the
state. [xvii]
2000-2008
and the remembrance of the values of our national independence.
The increasingly radical
activities of Zimbabwe’s labour unions in the late 1990s as a follow up to labour
and student radicalism and the entry of human rights discourse in Zimbabwe
turned initially the Zimbabwean urban political narrative to one of defiance
against the state. Coupled with the economic hardships of the same period, the
initiative of the ZCTU to initiate the National Working Peoples Convention
(NWPC)in early 1999 was to be definitive in the establishment of an alternative
political leadership and party in Zimbabwe.
It was this convention that gave an initial mandate to the country’s
main labour union to undertake consultative processes with the public on
whether it should form a labour backed political party.
Civil society actors had by 1997
formed the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) which had galvanized public
policy discourse around the urgent need to undertake a people driven
constitutional reform process. Both labour and civil society actors, particularly under the auspices of the NCA,
were to become the mustard seed of the search for a democratic political
alternative in Zimbabwe. Initially
intending to send a message of ‘democratization’ ala carte Western knowledge
production systems to the incumbent leaders of that time, the leaders of both
labour and civil society came into their own consciousness of the necessity of
returning the country to the path that had been envisioned by the processes and
occurrence of our national independence. Naturally, with the end of the Cold
War, and with the kaleidoscopic
interests that comprised civil
society, the language of this return to the revolutionary path was less radical
and more in keeping with the then new global trend of embracing democracy and
good governance. [xviii]
The eventual rejection of the
Draft Constitution via a national referendum
in February 2000 was indicative of general public disaffection with the
government of the day. It was also a statement of intent on the part of the
people of Zimbabwe that indeed the rhetoric of the liberation struggle was no
longer adequate to assuage their aspirations for a better life within a
democratic setting. This would be part of the reason why they would give the
newly formed Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) labour backed party significant representation in the
parliament of Zimbabwe in 2000. This, less than seven months after it had been
formed.
The incumbent national
leadership (Zanu Pf) however also decided to return to the past and sought to retain legitimacy by implementing a
fast-track land reform programme (FTLRP).[xix]
It was an evident attempt to reignite the nationalism of pre-1980, even though
in the public perception the ruling party had the fault of incumbency. The
manner in which it was done was an attempt to ‘grab’ the Zimbabwean liberation
history narrative back to those that had participated in the same struggle
directly. Furthermore, Zanu Pf sought to ensure a distinction between itself
and the nascent MDC through claiming greater authenticity in relation to the
values of the liberation struggle.[xx]
All of these developments and
the repressive political environment
together with the disputed national elections
that ensued between 2000 and 2008 have led to reality of the emergence
of two major political players in Zimbabwean players, the MDC and Zanu Pf. The latter had the strength as well as the
fault of incumbency, while the former had the strength of popular anticipation of leadership
renewal in order to achieve the goals of national independence in a post cold
war global environment. This while facing the primary weakness of inexperience
in government or in finding the fine line of how to negotiate with the
international community on how best to achieve these objectives.
It must however be stressed
that in the eight years that it took for the Global Political Agreement to be
signed in 2008, it remains Zanu Pf that held the primary responsibility of the
exercise of executive authority in the country. This essentially means that
whereas there were sanctions that would come to be imposed on members of government
, parastatals and private companies related thereto, from 2002 to present day,
the fault for reneging on the pursuit of the aims and objectives of our national
independence resided with the ruling party of this period. This particular
point is made because of the need for us not to lose sight of the fact that
whatever may be said about who brought sanctions upon Zimbabwe, the ruling
party is directly complicit by being unable to negotiate its way to preventing
the sanctions or reversing them in the period before the formation of the
inclusive government. It cannot do a ‘Pontius Pilate’ on the matter in as much
as it cannot say it was not responsible for the economic structural adjustment
programme of the 1990s or the economic meltdown at the turn of the century.[xxi]
As it turned out, the pariah
status of the Zimbabwean state in direct relation to its disappointing human
rights record, the technical and political impact of international sanctions
and the inability to hold free and fair elections in this period left the
values of the liberation struggle severely compromised in the period 2000-2008.
Where the fast track land reform programme has been highly contested or
acclaimed as a policy success in relation to the struggle for independence, it
alone cannot be viewed as the raison-de-etre of the liberation struggle. It was one of the
foremost causes and triggers of the liberation struggle and a fundamental
success measurement goal for the first post independence governments. But in
the 32 years after independence, its success or failure cannot be viewed in
isolation from the other objectives of the liberation struggle.
2008-2012:
Assessing the alternatives and remembering the future.
The protracted SADC mediation
process that began soon after the March 11 2007 assault on mainstream civil
society and opposition political party leaders, was essentially intended to
bring about the inclusion of all major political parties to share power in
order to stabilise a country that was becoming problematic in the region.
The eventual swearing in of the
Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in February 2009, was to be the formalization of a
power sharing agreement between Zanu Pf and MDC. Its nature and structure of the GPA was
intended that the inclusive government be a transitional one.
Since its formation in 2009,
the inclusive government has largely sought to stabilize and improve the
national economy, introduce a new constitution, put an end to politically
motivated violence, lobby for the removal of sanctions, observe the rule of
law, respect human rights, undertake electoral reform and redress the pariah
status of the country in the international community. In attempting to deliver on all the aforementioned
issues, the inclusive government has demonstrated a patent lack of collective
responsibility.
Instead, there has been policy pronunciation
based on partisan political lines even on the most basic performance legitimacy
issues of any government (inclusive or otherwise). Again, as in the period where the political
protagonists Zanu Pf and MDC were not bedfellows in the inclusive government,
contestations as to which party remains best placed to lead the country to the
‘promised land’ of independence are abound. These are most visible in relation
to issues around electoral and constitutional reforms, as well as the way
forward as regards economic indigenization (read as the national economy) and
matters related to land tenure in the aftermath of the fast track land reform
programme. One party claims the necessity of a radical nationalist approach
while the other is arguing for a rational one linked to global trends in best
economic and democratic practice.
Neither party however cannot
escape the weight of ‘performance legitimacy’ not only in terms of what is deemed best
democratic/economic practice but more
what has come to define the historical aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe. As
controversial as it may seem, the primary challenge of the inclusive
government like that of the first post
independence government, remains one of avoiding the discontinuity of our national
historicity. A task which on the occasion of the commemoration of our 32nd
anniversary means undertaking politics by negotiating with global capital,
global political powers with a firm understanding of all of the historical or continuing processes
and reasons as to why the Zimbabwean polity was established in 1980.[xxii]
This particular point must then
bring us to considerations of the future. It is no longer feasible for one
generation of leaders to assume either revolutionary or popular/populist
infallibility. This is particularly so if the objectives of our national
independence are to retain any semblance of organic relevance to subsequent
generations of Zimbabweans half a century henceforth. Our current national
leadership (comprised as it is of two main protagonist camps) must begin to
understand this with a new sense of urgency and learn that with each
politicized policy decision that they make, they are running the risk of making
our collective national history seem a distant and irrelevant ideal to those
that will come after us. While the global future seems to be leaning toward an
integrated world value system, via the new liberal interventionist approach of
world superpowers, we must urgently learn to arrogate ourselves the role of
being makers of own history based on values that founded the state of Zimbabwe.
This, with an aim of improving not only the lives of all Zimbabweans regardless
of race, colour or class but also with the intention of making Zimbabwe’s
presence as a progressive and democratic state realized on the African continent and in the world.
Such an approach would entail
that we collectively come to understand our ‘national common ground’ regardless
of political affiliation as we move forward towards another year of our
national independence. Where the GPA
formulated in 2008 has failed we must honestly assess why it has done so, not on
behalf of the the political parties, but on the basis of this same said
national common ground. This being a framework that comprehends the values of
our liberation struggle together with our post independence struggles for
further democratization and social and economic justice. This is perhaps why civil society must
revisit and recommit itself to the broad principles that have been enunciated
in the Zimbabwe People’s Charter. The latter point is significant primarily
because in the passage of time comes the creation of new political realities
and challenges that must be tackled
conscientiously and with principled effort.
Our immediate or long term past is not our definitive contemporary
reality but it must instruct us as to how to construct a better and social
democratic future.
Conclusion.
The primary purpose of this
essay has been to seek to outline the challenges of the last 32 years of
Zimbabwe’s existence as an independent country. This was done primarily from an
assessment of the leadership of the country and its ability over the same period
to remain focused on the holistic aspirations of the liberation struggle. I
have attempted to outline the definitive premise of our national independence
as social democratic in intent and character given the plethora of grievances
that motivated the liberation struggle together with an attendant historical
discontinuity between our initial resistance to colonialism in the 1890s
through to the more modern liberation struggle in the second half of the 20th
century. The post independence periods
were, partly as a result of the historical discontinuities alluded to earlier,
not demonstrative of organic commitment to the values and principles of the
struggle but driven by negotiated ‘mimicry’ of the developmental and political
models of global and African ideological
powers of that time. The aftermath of the Cold War saw our national leaders
embracing most of the recommendations of the singular global power and once
again falling into the trap of straying further from the path intended by our
national independence. This development essentially led to increased repression
and an economic downturn that greatly assisted a new alternative leadership to
emerge and challenge the ruling party in the later 1990s.
Whereas this new leadership was
intended to return the country to the independence path, it too, with the
formation of the inclusive government has not adequately reflected or acted on
the historicity of our national independence. In all this, there is the patent
risk that national independence may eventually become abstract to subsequent
generations of Zimbabweans and the state
may be reinvented less on the basis of its history and more in always seeking
to fit into whatever dominant global hegemony is dominant at a given time.
It is however prudent to state
that in remembering our national independence in 2012, we must insist that
‘never again!’ shall we or our children bear witness to such repression either
by way of racism (of any kind), social and economic injustice or the wanton
killing of innocent civilians and deprivation of human rights to all. This is
regardless of whatever government is in charge of the Zimbabwean state at any
given time in the past, present or the future.
Finally it must be emphasized
that the path that Zimbabwe must now pursue is one that while being conscious
of our history must not be imprisoned by it. In celebrating or commemorating 32
years of our national independence, we must think more of the future than the
past. We must grasp that our existence as a country is based on what were
essentially struggles for the freedom of all and not the few. In so doing, we
must carry forward the burden of the mistakes made more honestly and with the
clear intentions of ensuring that these mistakes never occur again of our own
volition. This means that as we await 2012’s independence we must be conscious
of the challenges that we face collectively and approach them with the
necessary historical and social consciousness that returns our country to a
social democratic path.
[i] These linkages are well explored in
Raftopolous B; Mlambo 2009 (eds) Becoming Zimbabwe: A history of the
Precolonial Period to 2008. Weaver Press, Harare.
[ii] See Bhebhe N, Ranger T, 1995 Soldiers in
Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, Volume 1,
University of Zimbabwe Publications, Harare
[iii]
One early assessment of the post independence leadership can be found in
Astrow A. Zimbabwe. A revolution that lost its way? Zed Books, 1983, London
[iv] There are new emerging arguments about
the role of natural resources and a new scramble for Africa. See Southall R,
Melber H (eds) A new scramble for
Africa; Imperialism, Investment and Development, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Press, South Africa
[v] This is a disputed point in relation to
the liberation struggle given the socialist rhetoric that characterized it and
the eventual mixed economy of the post independent republic.
[vi] This phrase is derived from Nkrumah K,
1973 Revolutionary Path, International Press
[vii] For explanations of divisions within the
liberation movements and guerilla armies
see also Sadomba Z, War Veterans in Zimbabwe Liberation Struggle,
Challenging Neo- Colonialism, Settler and International Capital, 2010, Weaver
Press, Harare
[viii] This is in part well explained in
Stanlake Samkange’s novels, see, Samkange S. Year of the Uprising, 1978.
Heinneman, London
[ix] There have been a number of researches
done on rural interactions with dispossession and conquest, see Moore D. 2005, Suffering for Territory: Race Place and
Power in Zimbabwe, Duke University Press
[x] See also Mhanda W. 2011. Dzino: Memories
of a Freedom Fighter, Weaver Press, Harare
[xi] See also Sithole M, 1999. Zimbabwe.
Struggles within the struggle (1957-1980), Rujeko Publishers, Harare
[xii] Fanon writes extensively of the
nationalist bourgeoisie tendencies to replicate those that oppressed them in
The Wretched of the Earth and an interesting dimension is added by Homi Bhabha
From on Mimicry and Man, The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse, taken from
p85-92 On the location of Culture http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bhabha/mimicry.html
[xiii] For analysis of government programmes in
the first decade of independence see also Mandaza 1. 1986 Zimbabwe: The
Political Economy of Transition, SAPES Books, Harare
[xiv] Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, 1996
Beyond Esap: http://www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com/latest-reviews/87-beyond-the-enclave/438-statement-by-cde-lovemore-matombo.html
[xv] Kanyenze G, Kondo T (eds) 2011. Beyond
the Enclave: Toward a Pro-Poor and
Inclusive Development Strategy for Zimbabwe, Weaver Press, Harare
[xvi] For further reading on organic
intellectuals and hegemony please see Hoare Q, Smith G, 1971, Gramsci:
Selections from the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, Co
[xvii] Chabal P, Daloz J (eds), 1999, Africa
works, Disorder as Political Instrument Indiana University Press
[xviii] Yeros P.
Zimbabwe and the Dilemmas of the Left. Historical Materialism. Volume
10, No. 2, 2002 pp 3-15
[xix] See also analysis by Ian Scoones et al,
2010, Zimbabwe’s Land Reform: Myths and Realities, James Currey,
[xx] Ranger
T, 2003. Historiography,
Patriotic history and the History of a Nation; the struggle over the past in
Zimbabwe( Idoga Annual Distinguished Lecture on Africa 2003, University of
Ghent) http://cas1.elis.ugent.be/avrug/pdf06/ranger.pdf
[xxi] Hammer A, Raftopolous B (eds) 2000.
Zimbabwe’s Unfinished Business. Rethinking Land, State, Nation in the Context
of Crisis, Weaver Press, Harare
[xxii] Cabral A. The Weapon of Theory. Address
Delivered to the First Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Latin
America held in Havana in January 1966. http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1966/weapon-theory.htm
Essay
2.
It’s
our time to define our own destiny.
By
Clever Bere
On the
18th of April 2012, our country will be celebrating her 32nd
Anniversary. If it was a human being, the country would have reached adulthood,
be able to fend for him/herself, expected to or already having fathered or
mothered, and able to decide what is right or wrong. With a human being this
process of decision making, growth and so forth is influenced by relatively
fewer forces. It is different when it is applied to a state or a country.
Consequences
of decisions made by those in national political authority have far reaching
consequences on their people, the current generation and those to come. As in
societal families if a previous
generation has not invested in the future of those to come, its mistakes
weigh heavily on generations to come. I am saying this mindful of the fact that
as with a human families, a country can face
constraints associated with pursuing the right track towards development
and success for the benefit of posterity. It is therefore of fundamental
importance for careful thought to be applied when making such decisions that
have such far reaching consequences.
I am
authoring this piece under particularly complex circumstances for young people
in Zimbabwe. On the one hand, these seem to be really exciting times for youths
and prospects for youth development and empowerment in 32 years of our national
independence. This is especially so when
one listens to the rhetoric that has been espoused by our contemporary leaders in the country and on the continent
at large regarding youth empowerment. On the
other hand real challenges seem to continue to mount on the youths in
Zimbabwe, Africa and globally due to spiraling unemployment, lack of vocational
skills training, universal access to t education, access to capital and
opportunities, lack of access to health services including those related to diagnosis,
treatment, and care of those living with HIV and, above all, prevention of new
HIV infections among the youths.
To be
specific to Zimbabwe, the issue of political patronage of the youth has
compounded matter further. Indeed for one to survive as a young person in the
country, one has to tow a certain political line. Failure to tow the political
line is associated with persecution, victimization and exclusion. Cases of this
treatment to young leaders who would have dared to stand their ground and speak
the truth, only to face the music are numerous (even this author is also a
victim). This is not in any way implying, as has been said in some spaces, that
the author is a bitter-man, disgruntled and so forth. He is not.
This
persecution does not apply to Zimbabwe alone; we have also witnessed and
followed with keen interest the consented, sustained and vicious attack on the
youth leadership of the Africa National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, with
its president being the major victim. Malema might not be the best of young
leaders on the continent and I seek not to defend him, but I will sympathize
with him for as long as he is youth leader with a constituency that voted for
him and that continue to support him, simply that.
The
process of young people claiming their birthright to define their future has
however dawned upon us all. This is particularly in the wake of evidence of the
exclusion of young people in mainstream policy making processes via riots and
demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the Occupy Wall Street
movement of the United States. Zimbabwe
is in no way an exception as we approach our 32nd anniversary of our
national independence. Unless young people are taken with greater seriousness,
it is for every political, business and social player to realize that the youth
of Zimbabwe, Africa and the World are most likely to rebel. As a matter of
fact, the rebellion has already began; a rebellion against patronage, a
rebellion against corrupt leadership, a rebellion against manipulation and
indeed a rebellion against poverty. Yes we say no to dictatorship in all its
from, subtle or blatant.
All
this is happening during a very historic period in the quest for youth
development in the country and on the continent. The continent’s leadership
adopted African Youth Decade 2009-2018
Plan of Action for Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development as the Road Map towards a multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional engagement of all
stakeholders towards the achievement of the goals and objectives of the African Youth Charter. Indeed it is a charter to which the
Zimbabwean government is signatory and which was a milestone step meant to
bring Zimbabwean and African stakeholders to address the challenges of young
people in the country and on the continent.
Unfortunately there are deficiencies particularly
around the crafting of the Plan of Action. Very few young people were involved,
consulted and are aware of the existence of the Plan of Action and the Charter
itself. Its implementation is driven by the older generations that has left us
more miserable that we were twenty years ago, that generation we are rebelling
against. And yes we must rebel. Even the very same older generation indeed
realize that, and to quote the words of one African statesman, former president
of South Africa Thabo Mbeki,
“ It
(youth) must organise and ready itself to constitute itself into a rebellion
because it would obviously be unnatural that I, a member of the older
generation, would easily and willingly accept that younger people, my own children, should, at best, sit side-by-side
with me as co-leaders, fully empowered to help determine the future of our
people.[xxii]”
Yes young people
must have a strong say in the determination of the future or our country. We
have learnt that, over the past thirty two years, the political leadership in
particular but also leadership in business and society have been so selfish and
curtailed the development of young people.
The Zimbabwe
People’s Charter is clear in as far as answering what needs to be done. Regarding the youth, the charter acknowledges that
“ young
people represent the present and the future of our country and that all those
in positions of leadership nationally and locally must remain true to the fact
that our country shall be passed on from one generation to the next. The charter further state that, in order for
each generation to bequeath to the next a country that remains the epitome of
hope, democracy and sustainable livelihoods, the following principles for the
youth must be adhered to and respected:
- The youth shall be guaranteed the right to education at all levels until they acquire their first tertiary qualification.
- The youth shall be guaranteed an equal voice in decision-making processes that not only affect them but the country as a whole in all spheres of politics, the national economy and social welfare. ·
- The youth shall be guaranteed access to the right to health.
- The youth shall not be subject to political abuse through training regimes that connote political violence or any semblance of propaganda that will compromise their right to determine their future as both individuals and as a collective.
- The youth have the right to associate and assemble and express themselves freely of their own prerogative.[xxii]”
Past and present developments have shown us that
this cannot be achieved on a silver plate, thus the relevance of a rebellious
approach. The young people of Arab world have rebelled in their way, providing
inspiration to young people across the world. The occupy-wall-street despite
its limited media coverage by the biased international media is a significant
rebellion against global capital.
The Zuma-Malema saga further shows us that young
people also have the capacity to stand their ground. We have done the same here
and will continue to do so. Yes young people have started to speak out on the
manner in which empowerment funds are being disbursed. We continue to speak
against the gross injustices in the workplace. And we will speak against the
continued looting of our natural resources, through the unholy alliance and tag
team of global capital and the selfish political elite to which we will not be
far from the truth if we would based on their conduct label them unpatriotic.
However one major obstacle impeding on young
people’s ability to achieve results has been the disunity in our youth’s
movement. Of cause in some way this disunity is because of the hand of the
older generation. As the Youth Committee of the Committee of the People’s
Charter we are of the reality that unless we come together as young people,
define our agenda and pursue it we will remain living at the mercy of the
political and business elites. To buttress my point, I will borrow the
influential statement made by that great thinker and proponent of human
liberation, Frantz Fanon, many years ago - that
“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity,
discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it.”
We were not in the front
not because we are cowards, not because we are less patriotic; it is simply
because we were not yet born. This doesn’t mean in anyway that we do not
appreciate the sacrifices of the gallant sons and daughters who, shoulder to
shoulder with the peasants, the workers and all Zimbabweans in the country and
abroad, to liberate the country.
For that we appreciate
and remain grateful, for it was a worthy cause. The fact that we were not there
in 1999 when the real opposition to ZANU PF, MDC was formed does not mean we
are cowards either. It is just that we were too young to be there. The equally
recognize the work done by the MDC in trying to bring democracy to the country.
Every moment however has its leaders, with a different agenda and mandate,
whether you fulfill it or betray it, your time will come to pass and other
generations will come.
Our time has come and we
will define our mission and we will fulfill it.
It is our right to enjoy
the benefits of independence.
Happy 32nd
anniversary Zimbabwe. Uhuru.
i)
Thabo
Mbeki Address at the UNDP-UN Habitat 21 Global Youth Leadership Forum on
Inclusive Governance NAIROBI, KENYA;
MARCH 17, 2012. TASKS OF THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD.
ii)
Zimbabwe People’s Charter adopted Feb 2008.
Essay 3.
Zimbabwe
at 32 – Tracing the Fading Democratic Value of National Leadership
By
Tabani Moyo
In our lives as living
organisms, we take time to introspect especially on the day one was born. The
same is true four our country Zimbabwe on a day such as 18 April 2012. It is expected that we all fall back into the memory lane and try
as much as is possible to rethink how our country has traveled and locating
those areas could have been done
differently, if not better.
Though the day might be
congested with slogans specifically from those who wish to sweep the grey areas
of the passage of time under the carpet, but as a collective we need to outdo
the drowning partisan portrayal of our national independence by the few. In the
process we must see to it that we are as candid as we can in the introspective
process. This is the reasoning behind the penning of this essay, nothing less
nothing more, but a frank attempt at charting the nation’s progression and
development.
There is a striking reality in
Zimbabwe. It’s a nation that has known of one leader since independence. This
we have nurtured either consciously or subconsciously. The generation
represented by the ageing leadership has literally surrendered offering sound
advice on the need for renewal and rather joined the wagon in praise singing
acts rather than doing the honourable thing. This same generation and the
‘supreme leader’ have became a danger to the national thinking and the sooner
the peoples of Zimbabwe realize and act on matter the better for national
progression. In discussing this concept it is anchored on an understanding that
the weaker the leadership, the weaker the state and nation becomes
domestically, regionally and internationally.
This singular factor, tied up
to other trickling tributaries has accounted to the weakening of the state as
those that stampede to surround themselves around the supreme leader end up
thinking on narrow personal and trivial party interests and entrenchments
rather than serving the nation and its people therein.
This has in a way created a
super elite group of primitive accumulation actors within the leadership. For
the purposes of this article the leadership being a person, who often emerges
as the head of the government, the head of the party and government in
totality. The long and sort of it is that for the past 32 years we have modeled
Zimbabwe around an individual who commands a clientele group of people at party
level, through to the government and in a larger way controlling how the entire
society as a nation is engineered.
This has collapsed organized
systems in which a government, a country and the polity are supposed to
operate. The 32 years of our independence have been a sliding of Zimbabwe from
a liberated nation towards a clientele leadership who spend quite a sizable
amount of time in crafting song, dance and other forms of art in praising an
individual not a collective agenda for the nation. The collective national
agenda espoused in the liberation struggle ethos are therefore subordinate to
the leader, conveniently when it suits him/her for political capital, rather
than pursuing the national agenda of developing and ensuring the nation state
is competitive in the full measure of
progressive and democratic development.
This, the prolific write Wole
Soyinka noted in his book, You Must Set
Forth at Dawn when be argued,
“This
strange breed was a complete contrast to the nationalist stalwarts in whose
hands we had imagined the country could be safely consigned while we went on a
liberation march… we were bombarded by utterances that identified only
flamboyant replacements of the old colonial order, not transformation agents,
not even empathizing participants in a process of liberation.”
The views by the Nigerian
scholar have become so profound to the
interpretation of our state of leadership in Zimbabwe, 32 years after
independence. I alluded earlier on that leadership in this case is an epitome
of an individual, whose wishes, actions, thinking, sleeping or breathing
becomes the non-progressive definition of a nation. 32 years on, the actions of
an individual: wrong or right; brutal or in good faith; heavenly or evil, are
still defining the axis in which the nation state orbits.
What has become apparent is
that the current crop that emerged from the liberation front has lost the
transformation agency spirit that guided the struggle. The ideals of the
liberation struggles and that which is unfolding on the ground showcases a
serious deficiency in the letter and spirit of transforming the country into a
responsive state that satisfies the needs of its citizens.
In this regard, Zimbabwe, a
nation of close to 14 million people faces the challenge of failing to secure a
renewed effort in choosing the leader of the Republic who wields the
psychological (mental) and physical (healthy and youthful) strata of leadership
that can take over the liberation struggle agenda to that of transforming a
nation state into an organic one that answers to the citizens’ yearnings. In
our small and humble measurement, we are the SADC Island that fails to
appreciate that there is life after figureheads at the helm of the state.
But we do protect this
figurehead for personal reasons, given the fact that the bulk of these people who
call themselves business people, can only claim that title because they have
made our state a private enterprise. Without the protection of the state and
the state providing tenders and other protective measures, this group of
clientelism will not survive competing in the business world.
This in the long run is
bleeding the state as it becomes an opportunity cost on the central government
to fulfill its mandate of social service delivery. But the syndicates in this
clientele group will keep on managing spin headlines to the international
world, that the nation state has developed the most skilled minds in Africa,
that the land is back into the hands of the majority and that we have one man
one vote system in place.
Though it might be noted that
the land question in Zimbabwe though controversial but is no longer reversible,
it remains necessary to highlight to the powers that be that the average
citizen who was allocated land in Mazowe, which is prime land in Mashonaland
Central is now being evicted and being pushed back to marginal lands which they
were previously. In their place it is the very same ‘business’ magnates who
relay on the ‘captive state protectionism’ for their tender and other means of
survival.
Our curriculum is now
structured in a way that it is like a conveyor belt which fails itself in
grading the final product from the raw ones, but still prides itself of
producing the best of quantities as opposed to the much needed quality outcome.
Our voting schedules and procedures are now resting in the hands of other
nations. This is, as argued by Soyinka, ‘
because our state which is a centre of resource allocation was captured by
flamboyant replacements of the old colonial order, not transformation agents,
not even empathizing participants in a process of liberation.’
Soyinka went on to note that, “We ask ourselves, were these men, who
routinely conducted themselves with such gracelessness, the true
representatives of a national mandate?” On this important day, this
question is no longer pointed at the leaders from the liberation struggle but
to those who started leading the defiance campaign to those who lost the
liberation struggle mandate due to their deeds post independence. We therefore,
collectively place the new government order under spotlight. How fast has been
the process of sublimation? As in the old time classic, Animal Farm if we are to look at the pigs and the people, are we
going to find marginal differences? This is what the Zimbabwean nation should
answer.
We have been watching them from
a distance and noted that the new entrants into the leadership roles of the
government, through their deeds as contrary to their spoken word seem to send a
clear message that their ascendancy to the national government is the monopoly
of the privileged by the minority. As if to say that the messages on this
occasion of 32 years of independence the language is that of say, stake your
claims. The earlier you position yourselves, the bigger your slice of the
national cake. It is necessary here to
reassert my point that the definition of leadership has not changed.At 32 years
of age, can the country stomach a leadership which scrambles for aggrandizement
through cars, houses, allowances and paid for massages?
In this process of
commemorating our national independence, we ought to make it candidly clear
that the call for transformation agency has really become urgent. This is to
say that we must never allow ourselves to be slaves of our own liberation
efforts. It is paradoxical that at every time we differ in our course of
direction, a ransom demand is made by those who have lost the libation struggle
mandate, reminding the nation, the people and at times defining how blood can
easily be shed. This belongs to savages, barbarians, sadists and other forms of
“isms” that have no place in modern states configuration. To a larger extent it
points to a failed understanding of the liberation struggle’s compass and its
meaning thereof to the peoples of Zimbabwe, the region and the international
world order.
We know very much that our
place within the evolving organisms of new nations shall be redefined. This is
more urgent given the fact that the current leadership does not have adequate
knowledge of the net worthy value of its belongings nor the value of the
country. I am yet to met a single leader with competent knowledge of the
interpolation of the amount of minerals, the amounts of gas, the net worth of
wild life and how best it can be cultivated into the development of our nation.
With such poor leadership, the nation is in danger. Anyone with access to these
unaccounted for resources can easily fund insurgence. It is more dangerous with
a weak state like ours where the public and even senior officials are clueless
of the net revenue emanating from the country’s trading with the world.
Irrespective of the limited
knowledge of the country’s resources, we continue to structure deals which are
nothing short of fraudulent behavior. One for example cannot competently
explain why the government gave the Chinese ‘unlimited’ access to diamonds in
the Chiyadzwa mine fields in exchange of the company building a military staff
college located in Mazowe. Rationale
thinking would point to a profitable decision of dualising our highway roads in
the country in exchange to such access to the precious minerals. Addressing
issues of the country wide pronounced starvation, health system, education and
the failing industry.
At 32, I hope against the tide
that, we must see to it that we cause change to happen. Changing of the
configuration of the country is a function of a sound mindset leading it. As
is, we have a long way to go, unless a new breed with new thinking surfaces.
Tabani Moyo can be contacted at
rebeljournalist@yahoo.com
Thanks Takura, Clever and Tabani for initiating this blog. Some additional issues to consider-one is Zimbabwe is an African state and the issues you raise are common to the large number of states' post-independence trajectories. There is a valid, but limited extent to which one can claim a Zimbabwean exceptionalism. So to me a question for the future is how we move forward given our many common experiences--engagement with the existing global order whose forces and influences we are ever more open to. Secondly I think a question for consideration (particularly as a feminist) is the nature of relationships between the political classes and other sectors of society, and between the relationships that different groups or sectors have with each other within the African state and between African states, whether it is gender, class, age, ethnicity, race (I suppose), profession, location. Surely it is all those relationships, interactions, dynamics, networks etc that together make up what we call our state and which is also a defining factor in the civil society/state relationship. To me the building of the African state is a black on black issue first, not so much an Africa/RoW question. The terms and conditions by which we define our relationship with external actors is defined by the terms and conditions we set to relate with each other. So maybe some examination into those questions will give us a starting point on how and where we build the future. Much as I find African leadership and politics problematic, there are also many other problematic things (and also fantastic ones) that constitute my African life.
ReplyDeleteoh sorry, I had to register on blogspot so found a new name --- 1africa1love is me your big sister nancy!
ReplyDeleteThanks Big sister Nancy! (1africa1love) . The points you raise are very important. Agreed Zimbabwe shares common characteristics with a majority of southern African countries but I guess the exceptionalism here is based on us trying to reflect on the country particularly from a citizen's perspective. In my essay i touch upon the imporatnce of assessing our national leadership on the issue of engaging the global world on the basis of iether 'mimicry' or in order to use the state for elite benefit. While I agree that the state is a complex web of relationships and the buck stops with us, we can no longer find solutions to our problems without negotiating with the rest of the world or particular global pwers. The basis of this negotiation must be be Cabralesque, hence i reference 'Weapon of theory' in my notes. It must be firmer, principled and people centered and less inclined to following the dictates of the outsider. Particularly so for those who claim national lordship over us. From my angle, since our political leaders are the ones that tend to claim independence as thier success, and herd us into stadiums to remember it, we must begin our fundamental and historical analysis with them..little brother Takura!
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