By Takura Zhangazha*
Its always
awkward how many of us often discuss Zimbabwe’s political economy and never
have any ideological outlook on it. Its
either we have a narrative of arrival, another of pitying those worse off than
us or in even more instances, a religion based explanation as to why ‘economic’
things are the way they are.
Or
alternatively how we separate our ‘politics’ from a collective ‘economy’. Or are simply dismissive of the idea of a
common ground economic equality of all Zimbabweans.
The latter
point is perhaps the most difficult to explain.
It is astounding how a country whose liberation struggle was intentionally
about establishing a relatively basic economic equality for all society has
turned out the way it has. But, again,
it is still historically and somewhat intellectually explainable.
As
Zimbabweans it is relatively clear that we have, particularly sine the 2008
financial/ economic national crisis lost a sense of shared responsibility for
helping each other out. At least
economically. As is now common knowledge
family economic/social and state welfare systems support broke down. And so did
the initial national value of what we then referred to officially in the 1980s
as “Gutsaruzhinji” . A term that we interchangeably mixed for ‘socialism’ as
well as ‘everybody’s happiness and freedom from hunger, access to education,
health and upward economic mobility. Except
that the latter ‘upward economic mobility’ principle was unfortunately
predicated on a mimicry of ‘white’ lifestyle competitive urge that took over
any assumptions of broader equality.
Admittedly,
we pursued the mantra of education as being a key issue to acquiring wealth until
we had to deal with seismic global political changes such as the end of the
Cold War that brought ona very rampant neoliberalism through the World Bank and
IMF sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes commonly referred to by
the acronym ESAP’s.
And that is
when everything about our political economy really changed. Particularly socially. This is when we had amazing protest songs
from our musicians at the state of the political economy Including the late Edwin Hama’s “Today’s
Paper”, Thomas Mapfumo’s Mamvemve or even Leonard Zhakata’s timeless ‘Mugove”.
And also
the emergence of a more radical labour movement that would not be cowed into
submission against many odds and as led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai and
Gibson Sibanda. As informed by not only subsidiary
unions but also the Association of Women’s Clubs, the Zimbabwe National
Students Union and left leaning intellectuals and eventually the recalcitrant white
farmers and emergent civil society organizations.
What
remains important is the fact that those neoliberal years have created an
increasingly false national consciousness.
A development that is firmly at the ruling Zanu Pf’s doorstep. But aided
by an opposition that unfortunately seeks similar affirmation which is the
equivalent of moving from a rural area to an urban ghetto and then eventually
to a leafy suburb.
But how did
we lose an initial national consciousness that sought equality for all. An immediate pointer is how our national
education system was structured after independence to mimic the Rhodesian
one. Including what was considered
educational or material success based on the same.
The second
was the fact that we did not understand that with a political economy comes
political culture. We prioritized cultural
products that promoted not only capitalist/neoliberal lifestyles based on both
colonial legacies and also our own desires at being part of narratives of
material arrival.
This also
led us into being enraptured by Western cultural productions via their media,
including something as abstract as false competitive wrestling on television
(many of us thought it was real). Or movies that in effect represented American
and United Kingdom foreign policy via Hollywood and allegedly funded by their Military Industrial Complex agencies
(Rambo or James Bond anyone?)
In 2024
there are new realities that obtain that we are now confronted with in
Zimbabwe. We are more religious. We are more individualistic. We are more materialistic and ‘departure’
oriented as a result thereof. We have a
majority younger population of women. We have highly opinionated and ‘un-listening’
political, business and religious leaders with in some cases, messianic
complexes.
But we remain
a people with a legacy of a painful liberation struggle predicated on the pursuit
of an equitable society. One in which,
despite what happens in the global political economy, we must always remember
that every Zimbabwean has the right to health, education, fair employment, land
and every other human right recognized by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
We need to return to the source
^The title of this blog is borrowed from Amilcar Cabral's Collected Speeches and Essays book 'Return to the Source' https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1392450
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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