By Takura Zhangazha^
Political consciousness of one sort or the other is something
we all eventually aspire to. Even if it
means shunning political activity altogether or alternatively taking to it with enthusiasm or self
righteousness. In what I would refer to
as ‘arrival societies’ also known as the ‘developed world’ (North and East),
political consciousness is more or less established as a given. Mainly because the ideological fundamentals of these societies are generally established. That is to say, there is an acceptance (at least by an active political majority)of their existent political systems that goes back for decades or in some cases centuries.
In the certainty of their political systems and the
attendant almost uniform understanding of progressive political consciousness, they have greatly assisted in the coming into
being of a broader global consciousness on the significance
of the universality of human rights. In
many cases they have also been the founders of many an ideological basis for
initial revolutionary moments in the histories of other countries during
liberation struggle against colonialism with Zimbabwe not being an exception.
But whereas our country has moved on, at least according to
our government, taking in its stride, the
political consciousness and activities that are universally accepted as
democratic, we still have to grapple with the fact that our country is not yet
an ‘arrived one’.
And this is an important point where and when we consider
the status of our national political consciousness in Zimbabwe.
In broad terms our
political consciousness as citizens has depended on the narratives of those that
are in ‘arrival societies’. Be they in the West or the in the East. That is why in most cases we have wrongly
assumed we can argue as though we live in their metropoles where and when
it concerns issues of our political,
democratic or socio-economic development. Even if on a partisan political party
basis.
A long standing example of has been that of the current and previous governments
policy of , ‘public private partnerships’.
This has been neither a home grown or contextual economic model. Instead it has been a policy derived from the depths of
neo-imperialism that would never have it so easy in its own country of
origin. Neither would the countries or
institutions from which this particular model is derived, implement it to the detriment
of the livelihoods of their own peoples. Yet in Zimbabwe we would, in our temporary
political consciousness, celebrate not only the seeming sophistry of its wording
by high sounding government officials, while it is used as cover to privatise
as basic a commodity as water.
Unfortunately our contemporary and ‘past’ political leaders
have pursued this path with unassuming naivety or simplistic populism. Hence we
had our copied first ten years of what the post independence government called ‘scientific
socialism’. Immediately thereafter it made
one of the most shocking policy volte-farce that came to be euphemistically referred to as
economic structural adjustment.
We didn't leave it there though. We then opened up our cultural spaces to the
global media to the extent that our leaders’ tastes for profligacy far outweighed
our ability to remain true to ourselves.
And this is where we have come to the state of ephemeral
national political consciousness. It is
a national political consciousness that is premised on the temporary and in
mimicry to the politics of those that we assume we must mimic and admire
(again, be they in the East or the West).
So we will lap up issues of free market economics or predatory state capitalism depending on who is our
global (or individual livelihood) benefactor at the time.
We will join a cause today and abandon it on the morrow.
Depending on either the global or fashionable trend of the next 48 hours. Or depending on the ridiculousness of rumours
being peddled via the new/social media. This, unfortunately, is not the material that societies seeking to arrive are made of.
Zimbabwe’s national political consciousness falls into a
category where it is the immediate that makes the most political sense. Not the
politics of the whole let alone those of the future, even in the absence of
those that are currently in charge of the country.
We will get (nationally) angry at what occurs today, in so
far as it occurs and nothing more. We will however not query the shaky
fundamentals of our society. Nor the fact that we cant claim arrival as much as
those nations we meet at the United Nations General Assembly do.
So we will wrongly want to be up there with the wrongly
termed ‘Arab Spring’ yet we do not have an organic understanding of either the realities
of Egypt, Tunisia or Libya let alone our own national realities before we lay
claim to be doing the right thing.
We will vaingloriously claim US President, Barrack Obama, for our African own without understanding that
his presidency is not an individual but historically institutional one for the
American people. One that is also based on his own ambitious knowledge of his
society and of an understanding of the historical genesis of the same. (He had
to arrive. And he did. But not on behalf of Africans let alone Zimbabweans)
In Zimbabwe we therefore have neither an ‘arrived’ society
or visionary individual political
leaders to put us on the path to arrival. We function largely from what is politically fashionable on a day
to day basis. Hence our current government leaders will claim a country size diamond
field that doesn't really exist. All in the name of an immediate politicized
socio-economic development programme called ZimAsset.
Where opposition political party leaders claim they are the
only ones who can lead this country to a democratic Utopias defined by others,
they still fall into the same trap of wishing they were living in countries other than their own. Hence their criticism of contemporary
government policy is limited to their personal experiences in ‘arrival countries’
or alternatively ‘arrived’ knowledge production systems which they are in awe of
while understanding limited little of the same.
The greater challenge is perhaps that we should learn to be
more circumspect and holistic in analyzing our country’s problems. That does
not mean we cannot entertain ourselves with idle banter about how much senior government
workers earn. Entertainment and rumour mongering are an essential part of
politics. Unfortunately, they remain only an epitome of temporary political
consciousness.
What is required is a holistic and organic political
consciousness that, while functioning in the immediacy of the ‘now’ understands
that Zimbabwe is not an ‘arrival’ society and that in order for the struggle to
continue, our political consciousness must be for posterity.
* With apologies to Franz Fanon
^Takura Zhangazha writes in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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