By Takura Zhangazha*
A Diaspora based friend who works in the hotel and catering
industry recently and happily told me that he had completed payment for an urban
residential stand at a growth point. I asked him why buy an urban property that
is so close to his rural home? His
answer was in two parts. First that it
was what his peers were doing. They were part of a housing cooperative that
allowed what he considered relatively easy payment terms. The second reason which
was a bit more nuanced was that he basically didn’t want to die without owing
an urban property.
Or even without escaping what he evidently considered the
backwater that is his rural customary law governed and ultimately state owned land. Basically
he had purchased a retirement home that wouldn’t have him go back to what historically
we have come to call the ‘reserves’ or in local vernacular ‘ruzevha’.
And its all fair enough.
The city in our own Zimbabwean and African contexts was always going to
be etched in popular imagination as being the best place to live. Not only because of the ‘bright lights’ but
more because of having been presented by the colonial state as the place where all
the 'civilized' people live. Or at least
ought to. That we were to the greater extent coerced to begin to live in cities
may miss our more recent historical and collective memory.
What is however more apparent is that the city or cities are
increasingly more attractive to young Zimbabweans. And the same cities portend assumptions of better living, lives or lifestyles. With the latter meaning not only quicker access
to goods and services such as electricity, water, transport, health but more significantly
in search of recognition of success by lifestyle.
And it is this latter point that is now defining our rapid urbanization
in Zimbabwe. What we are seeing is not just
a physical urbanization of the country but more tellingly, an urbanization of
our minds/national consciousness. Regardless
of where we are actually living.
So a majority of us no longer desire what would be basic
necessities even of urban existence. We would
want the recognition of the designer clothes (even if they coming out of imported
bales of second hand clothing), the odd car, smart phone, shoe etc. In this we have become enamoured to commodities
that we think or are told should make us feel better. Or we are suffering from what Marx and others
would refer to as commodity fetishism. Except that this is particularly with
the mindset of pursuing the best possible and fashionable urban lifestyle.
In this, we are not short of comparative analysis of how ‘others’
are consuming or failing to do so. With
the first departure point of this analysis being the fact of movement from
rural to urban. And then in the urban to
compare, again, how much more we are consuming i.e. how many stands, cars, etc
do you have?
Or even more sinister, very base and materialistic comparisons of
where your children go to school and whether you are still stuck in the ghetto
or have crossed the lifestyle Rubicon that would for example be Samora Machel
Avenue in Harare.
This is why in part, with the severe reduction of the more
formal economy, the scramble for recognition is no longer in specific
professions or ethical considerations about income or a lack thereof. The key issue becomes how much money you get not
why you get it. This would also explain
why for example the denigration of the teaching profession comes with the
greatest of ironies from those that went through the education system only to
now spite it.
Or in the medical profession, once highly valued and
respected occupations such as nursing or even medical doctors themselves find themselves
struggling for not only a past respect of their important work but with greater
urgency, better remuneration. This against
the evidently opulent lifestyles of other previously less well paying occupations
such as politics, religious ministry or being a foreign currency exchange
dealer.
This for many an admirer of capitalism and cut-throat free
market economics, would not be a problem.
The only dilemma however for those of us on the left is that it demeans democracy
and a people centered state. The
hedonism we are now exhibiting, as motivated primarily by highly materialistic
lifestyle desires does not bode well for posterity.
To be drowning in our own consumption, based
on lifestyles that ultimately become unrealistic and at the comparative expense
of those we would call others is an exercise in national futility.
We probably
need to re-balance the urban and the rural beyond the designs of the colonial
and post colonial state. But probably more importantly we just need to
manage our materialism and greed.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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