*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)
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