Mapping Opportunities for Civil Society in Zimbabwe

A Return to an Organic, Critical National Consciousness. 

A presentation to the SAVIO Institute’s Conference on ‘First Year of the Second Republic: Continuing with the old or breaking with the past?’

28 February 2019, Sango Conference Center, Harare, Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha (15 mins)*

Thank you very much for the introductory statements.  And to also thank the great minds I am sharing ‘s this particular platform and panel with at the SIVIO Institute’s conference on the ‘First Year of the Second Republic, Breaking with the Past or Continuing with the Old.’ 

In making my brief remarks on Zimbabwean civil society and its future it would be remiss for me not to mention the fact that there are currently a number of civil society leaders that are being charged by the state of allegedly attempting to subvert a constitutionally elected government.  This following the January 2019 demonstrations against fuel price increases that eventually and tragically turned violent.   While the blame games do the rounds largely for the consumption of a real and imagined international concern, we can only offer solidarity for cdes who are facing either criminal or political charges, whichever way you prefer to view the same.

 There is a lot of scholarly and activist work on what would constitute any reasonable definition of what civil society in Zimbabwe can be.  I will avoid making reference to it directly and only focus on it by inference.  Within out context, one of the seminal works on civil society was done by  Sachikonye  titled ‘Democracy, Civil Society and the State: Social Movements inSouthern Africa.’ 

It is from this book that I learnt about how to refer to civil society basically as non-state actors that actively sought to influence the policy decisions of the state.  As well as their history.

And historical considerations as to the significance of ‘civil society’ in Zimbabwe are important.  Non state actors have always been key players in Zimbabwe’s history.  At least its critical and counter hegemonic consciousness.  All of our liberation movements that have now become governing parties stemmed from non state actors.  Whether it would be the phenomenal nascent African working class unions of the late 1920s led by Clement Kadalie through to those led by Benjamin Burombo in the late 1940s onwards.  Or the then non state actors such as the City Youth League that eventually led to enough pressure for then nationalists to initial and eventual formal liberation movements that were to become ZAPU and ZANU.  This also includes the Christian missionary churches that benovelently educated future nationalists. 

And it never ended only with our pre-independence period. After 1980, civil society once again was at the forefront of introducing a new critical consciousness to a repressive state of affairs as it negatively affected a majority of our people.  The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) or labour, the students unions largely as led from the University of Zimbabwe Students Union and shortly thereafter by the Zimbabwe National Students Union were all to be at the forefront of a counter hegemonic project against the one party state as preferred, at that time, by the ruling Zanu Pf party.   In the 1990s you would find the emergence of highly organic and social movement oriented CSOs such as Zimrights and the Association of Womens Clubs as revived by, among others,  Amai Sekai Holland. 

In our pre and post independence timelines what obtains was an organic civil society through which we have a clear pattern of genesis of counterhegemonic national consciousness.  

It is therefore arguably correct that there is no direct challenge to political power in Zimbabwe that has not emerged, originally, organically from non state actors or what we now commonly refer to as civil society. This is most certainly true of the ruling Zanu PF and the largest opposition political party, the MDC Alliance. 

I have been slightly elaborate about this history of civil society in Zimbabwe because we cannot understand the future without a composite knowledge of the past. 

And in both historical threads, there’s one key element that always indubitably stood out.  And that’s the question of an ideologically conscious civil society.  Before independence the ideological base was almost always going to be nationalism both in its moderate and radical forms. 

Post-independence the mobilizing ideology was largely socialism in the early years which was to give way for social democracy on the part of counterhegemonic civil society. 

More recently we are now saddled with a civil society that functions as though it lives in a post ideological world yet the reality of the matter is that the dominant and demobilizing ideology is now neo-liberalism. 

So in mapping out the future of civil society in Zimbabwe it would be prudent to keep in mind our neo-liberal ideological context and its impact on non- state actors.

It essentially means contemporary civil society players are no longer as counter-hegemonic as in the past.  They may be oppositional to government policies or even be genuinely lobbying the state and knowing the limits of their power, but they may no longer be as organic as in the past.

So where the Leninist question of ‘what is to be done?’ is asked, I would suggest at least four perspectives to take us forward.

The first being that civil society in Zimbabwe needs to return to a strategic re-positioning that is ideologically democratically socialist, conscious and organically people centered in its work.  I would even go further to prescribe that in its ideological consciousness civil society be clearly counter hegemonic to global neo-liberalism which is in retreat in the global north (its place of origin) yet ironically being expanded in the global south.  I suggest this largely because of the fact that our contextual national political-economic crisis will not find solutions in neoliberalism. 

Secondly in mapping out a new path for civil society, we must be aware of the fact of generational praxis.  Civil society organisations have changed significantly in form as well as in how they impact our national citizenry.  Younger Zimbabweans faced with the ravages of a repressive but weak state have taken to new forms of activism that attempts at being counter hegemonic.  Some of this activism has found new forms of expression not just in reality but also on social media.  Even though at times the activism is ephemeral it has however pointed us to a new approach that differs from what we would consider as traditional civil society. 

The key element of this generational praxis is how we must, to learn from Amilcar Cabral, understand the ‘weapon of theory’ and understanding the 'struggles against our own weaknesses'.  And our ideological and intellectual outlook must be passed on from one generation of activists to the next. And in this, to also be cognizant of the fact that it is always organically necessary to allow others to lead. 

In the third instance we need to come to terms with the expansion of new mediums of consciousness.  And by mediums here I refer to mobile telephony and the internet in its holistic form(s).  Social media and its attendant mediums are new arenas of not only activism but also purveying ideas, consciousness and even counter-hegemony.  Civil society in both its traditional and more contemporary form need to occupy these new spaces of disseminating progressive and counter hegemonic ideas against neoliberalism.  But also mindful of the theoretical assumption that the medium is also the message or to put it in simpler terms, the individualism that these new mediums such as the mobile phone brings, can serve more neoliberal hegemony than countering it.

Fourthly, in its interactions with the global north, civil society must always be fundamentally aware of its operational contexts and also seek out progressive relationships than benevolent or patronizing ones.  This includes steering clear as far as is pragmatically possible from mimicry.

  More importantly and this is very important, Zimbabwean civil society need to learn to strategically talk back to the global north on the basis of progressive principles and values.  And also not to merely follow the money but pursue an organic Pan Africanism and its global attendant solidarity from progressive civil society organisations in the global north. 

In conclusion, cde chairperson, I will not summarise all of the issues I have raised so far.  Instead I wish to set out a revolutionary task for Zimbabwean civil society for the year 2019. Because our politics has been a high stakes winner takes all game.  With tragic and unnecessary loss of lives or limb.  And keeping in mind a quote from Nyerere, 'the mechanisms of democracy are not always the meaning of democracy,' Zimbabwean civil society needs to re-examine/review our constitutional framework and begin the process of actively seeking the introduction of a complete (100%) proportional representation in our political system.  

In Parliament, which in turn will elect the President as an electoral college. And the same for local government.  I am aware that this is not as simple as it appears.  And that our largest political parties may quickly dismiss this opposition on the assumptions that it weakens their patronage systems.  My personal view is that it will make our society less politically polarized and our electoral politics to be less personalized.  It is a revolutionary task that requires an organic civil society that is not only people centered but also ideologically counter hegemonic.

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