See You End of November 2022

Insignificant announcement for those who read my blog, takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com I shall be taking a break from posting on it. Fingers crossed, I will be able to work on an at least 10k word write up titled "A Treatise for an Equitable Zimbabwean Society"  This should be until the end of November 2022.  #Zimbabwe (And I am only posting this in the hope I can keep my promise 😃So even if I don't, hazvina mhosva! Mubikirei! )

Being Zimbabwean #Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

There is a book called “Becoming Zimbabwe. A history fromthe Pre-Colonial Period to 2008”.  It is one written by two amazing academics that I personally admire.  Namely Professor Mlambo and Professor Raftopolous and was published in 2009 at the height of our political and economic crisis during that time.

It was and remains an amazing academic project.   What it however probably didn’t answer, beyond its time based historical event narratives, was what it meant to be Zimbabwean. Beyond how we “became Zimbabweans”.   Even in the days of poignant polarization of our people.  It had its own nuances that have stayed with us today.  This being an historical narrative of Zimbabwe that sought to indicate that we were not only a failed state but probably a failed people.

But in this brief weekend write up I do not want to focus on the book cited above.   I am more curious about what it means in the contemporary to “Be a Zimbabwean”.  As opposed to becoming one.

And this is a very complicated question that the fewest of us are willing or able to answer.  With the easiest one being that  like most of Southern and East African countries we are immediate constructs of post-colonial settler states.  Something that is hard to swallow given that fact in the majority of Southern African states we undertook wars of liberation that should have led to new revolutionary societies.  We did not and with hindsight could not given the fact of the Cold War, the Non-Aligned Movement and the South African Anti-Apartheid movement that we had to contend with in the 1980s. 

In the contemporary and to be specific to my own country, Zimbabwe, our sense of belonging is fundamentally defined by our birthplaces(s).  As long as it was within the territory that we now call Zimbabwe.  The only catch is that again it is not that simple.  We also attach to this sense of belonging, issues to do with culture, language and gender in order to reaffirm the element of being what is referred to in anthropology as being an “autochthon”.  Or an original inhabitant.  Geographically, culturally and in some cases, spiritually. 

But we now know that being Zimbabwean is a very complicated experience in the contemporary.  By way of age, ideas and material well being and not necessarily in that order.

I will however start with the issue of age and experience by way of analysis. We perceive of our being Zimbabwean through the lenses of not only what we personally experienced but also because it was not our fault.   But the fault of the then adults.   I remember having a heated conversation with a very good comrade Thomas Deve (MHSRIP) on this matter where I mistakenly sought to blame his ‘age group’ for the hard times Zimbabwe had fallen upon. He brushed me off and reminded me of the meaning of the term “generation”.

Or when I interacted with two specific war veterans, Cde Dzino (Wilfred Mhanda) and Cde Freedom Nyamubaya. 

In another instance and in my personal heady days of what was serious political activism, I told one of my then mentors Professor Lovemore Madhuku that in everything political that we do, we do for posterity.  And with due process.  But I couldn’t argue with his then struggle credentials and I lost that debate. 

In this it meant that being Zimbabwean appeared to be a very political standpoint. An almost either “you are with us or against us one”.  In absolute terms.

But I do not think absolutely.  I always try and see what the future holds. Based on the actions of those in leadership and even ‘supporter’ positions in the present.

In this, there is an assumption of political correctness about what it means to be a Zimbabwean.  Either one is fighting the status quo or defending it. 

The assumption being that there can be no other way to be a Zimbabwean.  A perception that is the direct product of our many years of political polarisation.

On the factor of ideas or to put it more directly, ideology, we are almost lost at the proverbial sea. We can only hold on either to our radical black nationalism or pander to the neoliberal ideological intentions of the global north and east.   Hence our governments rather vacuous term of “ being a friend to all and an enemy to none”.  Its as abstract as it demonstrates a naie perception of how international relations work.  Eventually we will take a side as a country in the global affairs of things.   One that is already known by those that do not like us. 

But again, just for emphasis.  Ideologically we are at sea.  At both the elite and ordinary but poor people levels. The only “idea” that seems to bind either of the two is religion.   

But what is most important in being Zimbabwean is the idea of ‘materialism’.  It is our fundamentally measure of success and being.  Something that is not unique to us had we not undertaken since the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP).  Except that in such an assumed revolutionary process we mimic those that we sought to replace. Both materially and ideologically.

So what does it mean to be a Zimbabwean now?  I do not know.

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

Abstract Take: The Passage of Time and Zimbabwean Politics.

*By Takura Zhangazha

In our Zimbabwean politics we rarely discuss one key issue.  This is the passage of time and its impact on historical, contemporary and future perspectives on how we view ourselves and our country. 

It is an interesting issue in so far as it relates to how we combine views on what time or age in our politics can come to mean.  Or how we are wont to have short memories of events that have come to define the general political culture that we live with in the present. As well as how it may shape the future.

Not just politically though.  We consider time in many respects.  From the religious to the economic.  For example, in our churches we often say that ‘time is not ours’, an adage that is reflective of the Christian bibles teachings and also indicative of sad moments that we undergo such as the loss of a loved one. Or in economic terms with the occurrence of a serious material misfortune that we then hope that with the passage of time we will eventually be able to solve.  

What is more interesting for some of us who are almost born frees (born in the late 1970s) is the fact that we are almost on the time conscious horizon of having learnt of the significant time of the liberation struggle, experienced post-independence/freedom, its eventual challenges and assumptions of a return to revolutionary values of the ruling party Zanu Pf.  While at the same time being key elements of the trade, women’s and student union movements that would seek to challenge the former’s hegemony in our nascent adult years. This was in the late 1990s and as we approached the millennium. 

In some cases we looked at time as almost historically static. On either side of the political divide. On the one hand war veterans assumed that they could revert back to the heady days of the idealism of the liberation struggle.  While on the side of the social movements led by trade unions and civil society organisations there was an assumption that because of the passage of time and generational demographics, time was no longer on the side of the ruling establishment.  In fact with the latter it was almost a given that because of their long duree dominance in national politics, the inevitability of the passage of time was their primary nemesis.

What is more impressionable however is the fact of the symbolism that we attach to the passage of time in our politics.  Or the lack thereof. As well as how we may possibly misunderstand it and its role in our political being.  As abstract as that may appear. 

There are three issues I would therefore like to raise about the passage of time and our Zimbabwean politics. 

The first is that the fundamental national shaping occurrence of the liberation struggle against settler colonialism cannot be wished away.  Historically or in the present and in the future.   No matter our divergent views on the actual experience and the years it took to achieve national independence, inclusive of the factionalism that accompanied it, that fact of that time and struggles for emancipation is undeniable.  And never mind populists who argue on behalf of the settler Rhodesian state They are in the wrong on this one.

The second issue is that the passage of time, as historians generally advise, constructs cultural and political societal meaning. One that talks to values, principles and beliefs that even the original actors in the passage of specific epochs of time wish to last beyond themselves.  Including new actors who seek to borrow from previous time epoch values to garner newer legitimacies as they relate again to ‘times of struggle’, the present and the future. 

In this is the language of assumed betrayal of major revolutionary and historical processes, values and principles.  Though the ambiguity is always about global political and economic dynamics as they occur. Time and values therefore interlope and become a new beast that seeks validation where it need not to.  And time inclusive of age becomes a central consideration in any new politics when it suits specific narratives that are ahistorical and at best ephemeral.

The final consideration I have on the matter of time and Zimbabwean politics is the clear lack of intergenerational praxis.  Or to put it simply, a lack of a shared basic consciousness between various age groups in Zimbabwe about what we are, can be and should be.  This being a specific carry-over of colonial false consciousness that assumes specifics about what is “success” and what is “failure”.  Both at individual and collective societal levels.  And to get a clearer view of this just crosscheck our education system and how unequal we desire it to be with our perpetual pursuit of a British education system as better than our own. And again our perpetual occupation of former privileged social spaces as our own.  Not only physically but by way of cultural and other desires. 

To conclude, the passage of time constructs specific meaning that we need to harness on the basis of our intrinsic values and principles.  These are generally universal and based on our long term interactions with the United Nations in pursuit of human equality.  We should never forget that. 

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