By Takura Zhangazha*
The architecture
and administration of local government (also referred to as
city/town/municipal/ rural district councils) is very interesting in Zimbabwe. From
varying perspectives. These are namely
historical (also colonial and therefore psycho-social), economic, legal and
political/electoral.
Historical
or colonial because local government finds its contemporary structure still being
informed by the intentions of the Rhodesian settler state. Psycho-social in how
our attitudes toward this remain embedded in a preference of the city/town or
what we generically refer to as the urban economy and life(style). Or what we naively
referred to in high school geography or history lessons as the ‘bright lights
syndrome’. Almost as Fanon would have
predicted. Even if we arrived at it in the now by way of racist and therefore
discriminatory policies. And how this
continuing contemporary attitude is also predicated on mimicry of a then racist
political economy.
This latter
point can be expanded by understanding that the ‘urban’ in Africa tends to be
regarded as the epitome of material and
political success. And the city is
globally perceived as the most efficient form of human settlement. Hence the tragic challenges we have of young Africans’
migration to what appear to be the best of them in the global north at the risk
of life and limb. Zimbabwe is not an
exception. Hence we are turning some of
our peri-urban areas into mini-towns and cities. Or what we considered ‘growth points’ having haphazard
residential urban plans that are unsustainable.
In the contemporary
therefore we have not fundamentally changed what we have considered ‘local
government’. It regrettably has a heavy colonial
hangover as informed by the principles of the protection of the private property
of the privileged and the retention of an exploitative ability to retain the physical
labour of the materially dispossessed.
Both in the past and in the present.
In the third
instance the legal differences in our local government systems are as cyclical
as they are real. The legal dichotomies
between the urban and the rural are now well documented and argued academically. With again the greater literature around this
deferring/ more focused onto the city and not the village. As it relates to property rights, tradition,
culture and assumptions of individual or collective senses of belonging. This even after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme
(FTLRP) where the rural even after expanding into former commercial (urbanized)
land, remains on the periphery and at the interface between what is considered
tradition and modernization. With the
current government intent on reinventing the rural into industrial and private
hubs for mines and large scale commodity agriculture. A development which again closely links to
the economic paradigm of local government in which the priority remains the unequal urban as of old.
Strictly
spoken for this is how capitalism developed and becomes cemented. It values its most key element, the right to
private property in tandem with various forms of nationalism and assumptions of
belonging to a geographical territory by elites in charge of what they consider
lesser mortals.
And this is
where the contemporary politics of our local government system comes in. We know that there are political strongholds
of two main political parties that are based on who controls cities, towns and/or
rural district councils. This has been
the case since 2000. With the opposition
in its still many formats controlling a majority of the major cities, some
towns. While the ruling party in turn in
charge of the rural district councils and a sprinkling of towns.
What is lost
in these political contestations is the fact that our local government system structurally remains the same. In most cases for political reasons such as a
deliberate lack of the political will.
And I will give a quick example here. We are still designing our urban
and rural development programmes based not only on pre-independence masterplans
that exacerbate inequality and difference based on class or physical location.
Even after the FTLRP. And while many of
our elites either side of the political divide think this is what works, the
irony of it is lost to again our inability to reinvent a democratic form of local
government beyond electoral results and populism.
While some
may argue that this is work in progress because there are new processes around
devolution, it is how we re-imagine local government that is more challenging. Devolution
is essentially playing catch up to the urban and its specific lifestyles. Particularly
for political expediency and as a result default development projects that may
not be as sustainable as they appear without the politicians that are pushing
for it. But again, by default it helps stabilize
migratory patterns even though it would increasingly appear we are in an age in
which the rural is dying and on the verge of privatization. Its only saving fact for now is that it
remains the strongest support base for the ruling party in Zimbabwe.
Let me conclude
by a brief argumentation recap. Our
local government system is not working democratically or with a functional
interest in equitable development between the urban and the rural. This is due to the factors cited above, namely,
history (colonial legacies) that incorporate the legal and the economic aspects. But also because of the political
contestations as they relate to elections.
It needs to be re-imagined beyond land barons, matchbox houses and the
newfound intentions of government hand in glove with local and global private capital.
*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
Inspirational
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