By Takura Zhangazha*
Public interest debates in Zimbabwe are highly politicised. They are viewed in very binary terms or metaphorically
as being ‘either, or’. And straightforwardly
as viewing things/issues conclusively in black or white terms. You either have a side or you should stay out
of it. Including if you have assumptions
that placing a ‘third way’ angle to the discourse can help. We have generally analysed this as being about
how Zimbabwe is a politically polarised society. Almost as though, which is probably true, we
think in political extremes. A thing that we do because of what we consider our
own personal political experiences.
And I will give two examples. The first being that a war
veteran of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle will hardly ever see anyone else
without similar credentials governing the country. He/she will impart this perspective to their
children, relatives and friends. It is a
political view that they would consider integral to their being.
Where you take a long standing opposition supporter, not
just from the contemporary many Movement(s) for Democratic Change outfits
(MDCs) but even from the Zapu or Zanu Ndonga opposition years, a similar political
perspective generally applies. In most instances
most of these supporters have suffered greatly for their political opinions and
lost family/friends and property at the hands at what they will likely forever
consider an unforgivable ruling party regime.
This too they will teach their children, friends and family.
The complicated common denominator in both perspectives is
the basic expectation of the real or imagined benefits of having such views. Both in relation to material gain or
loss. And in this an assumption that
these binary political views will yield material benefit for one side over the
other. So it’s not just about the
emotional experience of the side you choose.
Hence we have various class beneficiaries of the Fast Track
Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). Some more
than others. While the most loyal
ruling party supporters were the rural poor/peasants (war veterans included) based
on their own historical understanding of loyalty, those that gained the most
from it became land barons and the FTLRP at some point ironically stopped being
about land redistribution for restorative agricultural livelihood purposes.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum are the opposition
members that benefited from the urban control of city/town councils while still
giving hope that by the time they take state power the livelihoods of their
poorer working class supporters will eventually improve. It hasn’t.
The key point to be made is that political debate relates to
experiential political loyalty as it does to material benefit. Hence we are currently still politically polarised
in Zimbabwe. We don’t see beyond the binary not only because of what we have
previously experienced as it informs our political loyalty but also as it
relates to what we can physically/materially claim to have gained for all our,
again, political suffering and ‘beliefs’.
It is this political culture, one that thrives on absolutist
and borderline propagandist elements of consciousness, that limits our ability
to debate or even argue beyond the immediate.
It also basically means we are blind to the future in our evident
short-termism. And I will be a bit blunt here.
We behave like children enjoying ice creams for their taste without acknowledging
the fact that even that taste and the physicality of the ice cream is temporary.
No matter how sweet it is or how colourful it may look.
I know a decent number of cdes either side of the political
aisle, and also cdes in the global north, who often vividly quote in isolation African
revolutionary thinker Franz Fanon where he refers to each generations’ task as
being at risk of obscurity for lack of fulfilment. In our own case, we probably suffer from a generational
selfishness. And this, across generations because whichever one you look at,
there is a glaring lack of consideration of posterity. We live in our own (a) historical
moments. Hence for example war veterans
argue always on their own behalf. Or founding
opposition members remains entrenched in assumptions of their own eventual victory-
one that remains embedded in messianic populism.
Where we then have new tools of communication in the form of
social media we seek to reinforce these specific perspectives to what would be
public interest discourse.
In reality what obtains in our Zimbabwean context is that
there is now no longer deeper discourse about events, issues and policies as
they occur or as they affect our lives. We
hang on to the past or we contest it in the populist moment. Without seeking to
understand the future and its import beyond ourselves and our immediate
materialism.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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