By Takura Zhangazha.*
When the inclusive government came into existence, discourse
over and about the ‘struggle’ shifted significantly. Whether this discourse was
about narratives of ‘arrival’, or alternatively, ‘continuity’, the
conversations that were had were always inconclusive. In the aftermath of the
July 31 2013 harmonised elections, questions that are now coming back to haunt
or even re-focus many comrades relate to fundamentals. What is the struggle?
Where is it placed? Has it come full circle? How does it continue (if it still
exists)? All of these questions can only be answered on the basis of self
knowledge, organic values, and democratic principles.
In saying the above, I am aware of the ‘judgment calls’ that
will be made on any assumed self righteous assessment of the state of affairs in
the mainstream national political opposition .This is because the answers are
in and of themselves judgment calls on those that were leading the struggle .A struggle
which I remain persuaded exists and does not end with the 2013 electoral defeat
of the MDCs (and components of civil society) by Zanu Pf. This is because the
struggle for a social democratic Zimbabwe has always been much more holistic
and more important than all of the parties that were part of the July 31 2013
electoral contest.
At this juncture, it becomes important that I define the ‘struggle’.
Our post independence struggle has been a struggle for social democracy in
Zimbabwe. It is a struggle that has its roots in the values of the liberation
struggle wherein, social and economic justice was the key deliverable for a
majority of the people of Zimbabwe (even if by default).
It is a struggle that
celebrated the achievement of national independence and a joyous desire to participate
in the return of our people to the making of Zimbabwean democratic, people
centered and self determining history .Where we welcomed our first majority
rule government we remained cognizant of not only its challenges but also its primary
mandate which was to fulfill the aspirations of the liberation struggle. This
was and remains a mandate of all subsequent post independence governments.
In our collective
understanding of these matters, we measured Zanu Pf (as the ruling party) on the
basis of its ability to address and achieve the aspirations of our nation’s
founding values and principles.
A decade after
independence we were to find it necessary to challenge the political narrative
of Zanu Pf and the fundamentals of the manner in which it was governing the country. We were there both in
spirit and form at the formation of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM) and
sought to challenge the ruling party’s hegemony. We sought to initiate a
narrative that the country did not belong to one party or specifically that
the collective understanding of our national liberation was not singular.
Interpretations of the values of the liberations struggle were
always going to be varied but without undermining the revolutionary historicity
of the same. Similarly, the fact of participation in the liberation struggle
was not the singular prerogative of the right to govern as regularly argued by
our former liberation movements. Contrary to this view we recognized the posterity
component of the struggle. One in which we
knew and felt that the progenitors of the same said struggle knew and know that
the ‘baton stick’ will be carried forward by subsequent generations.
Unfortunately, this latter understanding of our national politics
let alone of the significance of the liberation struggle did not find resonance
in the ruling Zanu Pf party .This was where and when it had disembarked from the revolutionary path and
undertook elitist policies that negated the values of the liberation struggle.
Key among these elitist policies was the implementation of
the World Bank initiated and sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes
(ESAPs),which were to come to affect those of us born in the years preceding
independence and those of us who are now collectively referred to as the ‘born
free’ generation. Particularly in relation to employment, education, health, public
transport and a democratic future.
The issues that emerged in the decade after our independence
were no longer about towing any specific ‘party line’ but leading the country
to social democratic prosperity. A challenge which the ruling Zanu Pf party was to prove incapable in tackling.
We therefore, and correctly so, took to exercising our
liberation struggle won rights of assembly, association and expression, to
oppose the hegemony of Zanu Pf . This
was done through not only opposing ESAP via the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
unions (ZCTU), but also challenging the systematic narrative of political and human
rights abuses stemming not only from our new found knowledge of the tragic
events and state brutality that occurred
in the Matebeleland regions in the early 1980s but also the failure of the
state to meet socio-economic performance legitimacy requirements.
We correctly began to
question the meaning of the liberation struggle for the majority. We remained
aware of the ineptitude of government but were even more significantly aware of
the challenges and responsibilities of alternative national leadership.
That is why toward
the 20th anniversary of our national independence the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) was formed.
The primary mission of the MDC was to embark on the historical
path of fulfilling the remaining social democratic aspirations of the
liberation struggle. Formed against the backdrop of a National Working People’s
Convention, the MDC sought to re-engage Zimbabweans on the outstanding
liberation struggle aims and objectives (including the outstanding matter of
the land question).
True to its founding intentions, the MDC went to the people
and began the process of reclaiming the country from the elite and back to the
masses. This is why, in the elections of the new millennium, the MDC was to
gain ground in both Parliament as well as eventually end up as part of the Executive
branch of government with the assistance of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) in 2009, only ten years after its formation. This ascension to national government office,
controversial as it was, became evidence of how and why the MDC had gained national
legitimacy in relation to being viewed by a majority of Zimbabweans as the
movement to fulfill the remaining intentions of the liberation struggle.
In this, the MDC was not a creation of the West as Zanu Pf would
want to allege. Instead, it was an evident demonstration of the people’s
sentiment, one which was seeking political alternatives, hence the rise of the MDC to executive national
office in a short space of ten years.
It was however not an easy road to effective and power acquiring
counter-hegemony for the MDC. Mistakes were made, and most of these relate to
the departure by the mainstream MDC leadership from a social democratic historical
path and narrative of the people centered pursuit of political power and office.
Both in terms of their internal genesis as well as the national understanding of
the initial intention to fulfill the aspirations of the liberation struggle.
The lack of historicity to their presence on the national political stage has
been in part their undoing. And this
against better advice.
Where discussions about their agreeing to the SADC mediated
Global Political Agreement (GPA) have tended to justify their electoral defeat,
these can only be described as exercises in political dishonesty. The reality
of the matter is that the latitude that the MDCs had during their tenure in the
inclusive government was intended to allow them to demonstrate their ability to
not only govern but to demonstrate greater commitment to the holistic aspirations
of the liberation struggle. Both as envisioned in the past as well as in lived
reality.
The above is a key
point to explain, because, whereas it was and has been claimed that the
mainstream opposition did not have any ideology, the truth is that its genesis
was premised on the basis of social democracy.
Both in relation to its articles
of constitution as well as in its political origins via the labour, womens’ and
student movements. That the leaders of this counter-hegemonic project failed
its own aspirations is an indictment of their ahistorical approach to it.
This point brings me to the particular issue of the struggle
as I have defined above. It continues. It has to. Not because of individual egos
or particular party aspirations. But more because this struggle for social
democracy has and still belongs to the people of Zimbabwe. Therefore whether this
generation of leaders genuinely and organically takes it up or not, it shall
certainly be taken up by subsequent ones. Its new path however must be one that
acknowledges past successes and failures, and one that specifically departs
from celebrating cults and individuals instead of principles, values and
objectives.
The struggle therefore continues but only in the sense that
it must renew itself both in relation to its recommitment to its founding
values and principles as well as in relation to its leadership. And this should
be taken to mean that no one, no matter how many scars or wounds they bear, is
above the struggle. Even founders of the post independence struggle for social
democracy cannot claim to be beyond criticism. This is why, in the aftermath of
July 31 2013, those that were tasked to lead the social democratic movement(s)
must demonstrate the necessary national contrition and step aside.
Those who take up the mantle of leadership of the renewed
and organic social democratic movement must now think more in the long term and
holistically about both the prospects of the struggle as well as those of the
country. This entails taking into account the fact that the setback of 2013 is
less about elections and more about the lack of articulation of an organic democratic
alternative for the people of Zimbabwe. They must go back to the masses, engage
them on the most basic of issues and restructure the struggle, less in the pursuit
of international recognition, but in the interests of the majority who are the
ultimate judges of what national and local changes they both need and want.
In leading this necessary next phase of the struggle for
social democracy, the new leadership must pursue organic intellectualism and outright
respect for the everyday citizen as opposed to the arrogant and inorganic
leadership that was demonstrated before and particularly during the tenure of
the inclusive government.
ENDS//
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity.
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