By Takura Zhangazha*
At one point in my activist life I was accused of ‘not being on the ground’.
This was an accusation based on a perception that progressive political activism always required having a physical ear on the needs of the people by regularly attending community meetings/events and travelling the length and breadth of the country. Almost in a generic sense.
I took up the challenge and travelled across many rural, urban and peri-urban areas across the country.
Sometimes deliberately and in most cases by invitation by education and community health workers.
From Mudzi to Wedza, Bikita, Uzumba-Marangwa-Pfungwe through to Gwanda,
Bikita, Chivi, Chipinge, Chiredzi, Bulawayo, Hwange, Victoria Falls, Mutoko,
Wedza, Chikomba, Mashava, Zaka, Gutu, Guruve, Mahuhwe, Mushumbi, Thsolotsho, Lupane,
Gokwe and others that I cannot mention in this write up. Though I must be honest that the only place in Zimbabwe I
have never physically been to is Beitbridge.
So in taking up the
challenge of ‘being on the ground’ as given by the populist comrades we had in
our midst there are certain things that came to my personal realization.
These included the fact that their populist predisposition was
a myth. It was unstructured and
unrelated to their lived or desired political experiences. And I am being very polite here. It mixed as is the subject of this brief write
up, religion, politics, materialism and a specific carryover of an emergent
African spirituality as it related to the aforementioned three elements. It however always forgot ‘class’ and the ‘class
structure’ of postcolonial Zimbabwean society.
It was essentially a reductionist argument. Or to simplify it further, one that sought to
make sure intellectual engagement was to worship at the altar of what was
basically political populism.
All within the ambit of a drawn out newer cross generational
understanding of the meaning of post- independence democracy in Zimbabwe. As it mixes together with liberation struggle
historical recognition and global hegemonic counter-narratives to
anti-colonialism that are now embodied in the new cold war between the USA as
it pits itself against China and Russia in an expanded neoliberal and again
global economic order.
But over the last half year it is relatively clear to see where
Zimbabwean politicians and political culture are blurring the lines between religion/spirituality,
materialism and default economic class designations. And I am making this argument in a Marxian
and Fanonist sense.
Our current politicians while touting both liberation and
post-colonial struggle histories have by default (that is without organic
strategy) decided to steer our national consciousness toward faith, money/
materialism (or desire for money) and by dint of the same, inferiority
complexes that come with both.
This includes creating a false political culture around what
it means to be a successful Zimbabwean while the majority others are suffering and
blaming it on them for not being ‘tenderpreneurs’. Or not being connected enough to the ruling
establishment including not being opportunistic enough to ensure a political seat
at the official opposition table where your material needs and gaps are covered.
Individually.
But the fluidity of religion/spirituality , class and materialism is somewhat worrying in Zimbabwe.
Whereas Fanon would have warned against a comprador bourgeoisie (middle
class) or Marx warned against misunderstanding global capitalism. Or Nkrumah warning
against what he referred to as ‘Neocolonialism, The Last stage of Imperialism” With all of them warning us of its historical
political, economic and social after effects, inclusive of what in our case are
its apparent contradictions.
I will give an anecdote for this point. If you are Zimbabwean, have you ever asked
yourself a question about why we have an ease to material cruelty? As we link it with either a religious way of
life or an assumption of economic success?
The answer lies in the fact of the fluidity that we have come to accept between religion, politics and wrongly ignoring specific class differences as determined by global capitalism. And refusing to overcome them.
Instead we seek to mimic them.
It is a post-colonial generational fault that I often discuss with comrades. Something that I refer to as a ‘climbing the colonial mimicry ladder’ approach to our Zimbabwean society.
As based on our own parents
aspirations as they got mainstreamed into colonial/ postcolonial education and
production political economies. On this one I hope we all remember the Native
Labour Associations that formed our contemporary townships, even as they are
now expanded in the same historical formats.
Let me also use a religious allegory for this. Have you ever
noticed at least two things about religious services in Zimbabwe? The first is that those that are well to do
or politically ambitious/connected have the time of the
preacher/priest/pastor/prophet/ mudzidzi? And that in tandem they tend to give the
impression that they completely agree with the religious dispositions of those
that they are allowed to address?
While at the same time giving out messages of economic and
cross-class promises of wealth.
And this is my final point on the issue of the fluidity of
religion, spirituality, class and materialism.
There is a false assumption that we are all equal in a patently unequal
society based on the four aforementioned points.
What has been happening in reality is the blurring of
economic class lines by religion and politics.
Wherein our people are falsely motivated to assume they are in a religiously
equitable society in order to hide the wealth of those that are at the economic
top of the table. Not in a Marxian sense
(opium of the people). Instead in a
fluid methodology of mixing everything up in populist political culture that
Fanon would have frowned upon.
Go ahead, eat, pray, believe, vote as is your right. But you
have to also learn to understand your own society better, more critically. Nothing is at it seems.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity.
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