tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32237552929277317122024-03-18T08:20:34.775-07:00Takura ZhangazhaTakura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.comBlogger550125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-57484673194616490842024-03-18T08:19:00.000-07:002024-03-18T08:19:58.347-07:00An African Understanding of the Global Dangers of a World War 3.<p> By Takura Zhangazha*</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In primary school we had an amazing headmistress, Ms. Thomas.
This was when we were approaching our final year in that phase of our education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had decided for reasons of her own that we
needed an impromptu lecture on the import of the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1990.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were in grade seven (7).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She showed us a map of Kuwait and one of Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And proceeded to explain to us the full
impact of both chemical warfare and also nuclear weapons deployment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I remember correctly at my young age
then, she indicated the possibility of how after a nuclear weapon was deployed
there would be some cloud that affects not only the Middle East but also drift
toward Africa and eventually drift further southwards to affect us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were somewhat shocked and surprised that we had to learn
this. We mainly knew of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We never thought that a war that far away
from us would affect us. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was mainly because we did not understand at least two
things at our young ages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did not
know the global political economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
we did not know the global threat that is nuclear war. Nor did we have any inkling
about what was then referred to as the Cold War and its eventual false end on
the assumption of an ‘end of history’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As we grew up under neo-liberal economic policies such as
the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) and its end cultural
imperialistic effect of us seeking departure to the now “Global North”, we also
learnt of other wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We learnt of the
globalised war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in which we as
Zimbabweans participated. There were the wars in Eastern Europe that we watched
almost for entertainment on global television networks and of course there was
the ‘war against terror’ in Afghanistan and Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost as though we were re-watching the ridiculous
Rambo movies of old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But here we are in 2024.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And again globalised war is the main international discourse of not only
global superpowers but also their proxies, surrogates or affiliates. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It may seem an abstract point, as far as we are from Global
North centres and here in the opposite Global South in Africa. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But we know what happens in the same said Global north or Global
east affects not only our trade, Diaspora remittances but also our local
politics. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What matters more is our perception of the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both historically and in the contemporary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As Africans we have always been involved in wars that are
not ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially between the west
or the east.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be it the first World War
or the second one, we ended up dying in lands/countries’ that were never going
to be ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only important lesson
that we learnt was that we also had to fight to liberate ourselves from
colonialism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place as
Africans. We have witnessed and taken sides in wars that are not ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except for the Palestinian, Western Saharawi republics
we have not had a direct say in other globalised post-cold war conflicts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be it in Ukraine, Myanmar or closer to home
in Libya, Haiti, Mali or Sudan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What is more apparent is that we now need to see what’s
coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world is faced with a colossal dangerous situation
in which it is on the brink of global war. Not just globalised as I have been referring
to in this article.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But global, whether
we as Africans are complicit in it or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From Taiwan to China, Ukraine to Washington, Palestine to Israel, Syria
to Yemen or in West Africa. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The global superpowers that are the United States of
America, China, the European Union and Russia are at loggerheads that they make
it clear are not going to be easily resolved by their own diplomacy or the
internationally recognised channels of the United Nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We just should not get caught up in the mix of fights that are
not only not ours but those that have material (oil, gas) and racist overtones
to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, even our great African luminary Kwame Nkrumah tried
to warn us in his famous statement, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We face neither East or West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We face forward!” And indeed that is what we
should do. Face organically forward.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-47513965563481637902024-03-11T08:50:00.000-07:002024-03-11T08:50:52.646-07:00In Solidarity with the People of #Palestine from #Zimbabwe.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There are
many internal and internationalized conflicts currently going on in the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are “internationalized” mainly
because there are global powers interests in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter can be for historical, economic or
holistic geo-political reasons. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the last
twenty years global conflicts have allegedly been linked to mineral wealth
(oil, lithium, platinum, uranium, gold) of geographical locations by mainstream
and alternative professional media. With accusations of sponsoring one form of
terrorism or the other by global superpower nations to poor or former vassal
state ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Easy examples of this include
Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Venezuela (in part).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The key
issue for me as a Zimbabwean has always been an understanding that war is
always a final resort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially war
between countries that can be considered by any measure ‘unequal’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With the
coming into existence of the United Nations in 1945, there was also a global general
acceptance of the dictum ‘never again’ would we allow wars on as colossal a
scale as the Second World war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
subsequent years, the UN was also an important multilateral organization for
the liberation of Africa from the 1950s through to 1994.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though it still has the outstanding
matter of the freedom of the Saharawi people to continuously attend to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But here we
are in 2024 faced with multiple global conflicts on scales that should be
unimaginable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a war in Gaza,
Palestine. One in Sudan. Another in Ukraine. Ongoing ones in Syria, Iraq and in
part Afghanistan where the Americans abruptly withdrew their formal troops. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And we also
have threats of a second Cold War between the United States of America and
China with added discourse around what are referred to as space and
technological wars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As an
African and in particular a Zimbabwean, there is a general assumption that
first of all, I am probably not expected to have an opinion on the global state
of war that we are in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not least because
of my skin colour or my geographical placement in what is still referred to as
the “third world”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But also because of
an assumed powerlessness that we as Africans are supposed to have in
international relations. As derived from the colonial and imperialistic legacy
of our being ‘othered’ as ‘inferior’ human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is
however a particular matter that torches (not touches) my personal
consciousness. This is the one of the Palestine- Israel conflict. For at least
two reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The first
being that I became aware of the dispossession of Palestinians of their land by
way of reading on their history, interacting with both Palestinian and Israeli
cdes in university and also by way of my own personal curiosity about the role
of Palestine in broader struggles for African liberation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On the
latter point, it turns out that even in Zimbabwe’s own liberation struggle
among other Southern African states, we either fought or were trained together
with Palestine cdes about the struggle for liberation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both militarily and ideologically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that after we had already attained our
own independence, the legendary Yasser Arafat was and is still revered by progressive
cdes across the globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the late Palestinian
ambassador to Zimbabwe Ali Halimeh who regularly reminded of his peoples
struggles on mainstream local media. So we have known about the people of
Palestine’s struggles for liberation even before 07 October 2023.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also know of the 1948 Nakba. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The catch
however is the assumed Christian religious complexity that we as Zimbabweans
have had with Israel and the biblical ‘Israelites’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how we have a false popular perception that
Israel is some sort of religiously promised land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is far
from the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Israel you read in
the bible is not the Israel of our contemporary reality. It is a settler state
that with the help of the British government colonized land that belonged to
the people of Palestine after the Balfour Declaration of 1917.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But because
most of us Zimbabweans are of the Christian religion we tend to assume our
faith is the same as our realities and in the process believe every other
mistruth we are told, we become political cannon fodder that regrettably
ignores the rights of the people of Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yes we may
sing songs about ‘Jerusalem being our home’ at funerals and other religious
related functions but Jerusalem originally and in historical reality belongs to
the people of Palestine. And we should always support their historical struggle
for freedom from oppression and occupation. This will not change your faith or
beliefs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As a final
point, I have many profoundly Christian friends who will probably not be happy
with this write up. As abstract as their religious views are, I have no doubt that
the death toll of 30000 Palestinians since October 2023 must have a bearing on
their religious Christian consciences. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I also have
a number of friends that will ask why I am arguing for the freeing of Palestine
from occupation and in support of the UN backed two-state solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My reply is that the people of Zimbabwe will always
have a symbiotic relationship with the people of Palestine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As determined by our shared struggle history
and common human equality values. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-90909039252158711082024-03-04T08:51:00.000-08:002024-03-04T08:54:50.440-08:00 Remembering #Zimbabwe ’s Opposition Political Movement.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Someone
accused me of betraying the mainstream opposition political movement.<span> </span>I laughed out quite loudly.<span> </span>I have not been involved in opposition politics
for at least eight years.<span> </span>I however am a
founder member of at least two organizations in the mainstream civil society
and opposition politics.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The first
being the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) which I left after internal disagreements
about the format of changing it into a political party.<span> </span>The second being the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) which when we formed/formalized it in Chitungwiza in September 1999
what we considered a proper working people’s leftist movement.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">So I know
most of the actors’ in the current debacle about the future of the national
political opposition. Including those who have passed on and those that are
alive.<span> </span>I also know those that joined
well after. Either in opportunistic or religious fervor. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">I am also slightly
tired of the tag that I could have been a better political leader in one
respect or the other. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">And for
this reason I will explain my personal political journey in Zimbabwe’s opposition
politics between 1999 and 2008. After that I have had temporary solace in
working in the development NGO sector.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">As abstract
as it may seem, I was involved in the formation of the original MDC at the National
Working Peoples Convention in 1998 through to its launch via the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) in 1999. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">I was also
a bit part player in the negotiations that led to the Global Political Agreement
on an Inclusive Government of 2009 until 2013. As facilitated by SADC under the
aegis of the legendary former South African president, Thabo Mbeki. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">I never
worked for the inclusive government but I understood its nuances and its
mechanics. By the time the inclusive governments tenure was over, based on
constitutional court cases, I also quickly realized that opposition politics in
Zimbabwe had changed.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Within the
then social and civil society movements we had already done the Zimbabwe People’s
Charter, one that was deemed too ‘leftist’ to receive international rightwing
support.<span> </span>The NCA had also decided to transform
itself into a political party, a decision me and a few colleagues agonized over
and eventually had to leave the organization because we saw a regrettable lack
of organic political direction. An issue which still vindicates us today.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">But back to
the inclusive government and the failure of the opposition to defeat the ruling
Zanu PF establishment in 2013. To be honest we were shocked at our electoral
loss.<span> </span>We assumed it was a given that the
vote would go in our oppositional favour.<span>
</span>We had failed to factor in the rural vote, the changes in urban settlements
and also the moral questions around our then national opposition leader.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">But we
lived to fight another day in one form or the other.<span> </span>We were products of two processes.<span> </span>The labour unions and the students
unions.<span> </span>The front runners were the ZCTU
and for us, as leaders of students unions was the Zimbabwe National Students
Unions (ZINASU).<span> </span>For the latter our able
leader was Hopewell Gumbo, popularly referred to as “Msavayha” because he was
studying surveying and our Secretary General was Nelson Chamisa who was at that
time studying marketing at the Harare Polytechnic. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">There were
many other comrades that helped with the expansion of opposition politics in
Zimbabwe.<span> </span>Suffice to say it was both the
labour and student movements that formed the mainstream opposition as we know
it today.<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The key
point however is to explain the disastrous state of our opposition politics
today.<span> </span>We were originally leftist opposition
comrades.<span> </span>We derided ESAP and also
initially argued for a land reform programme before the Chinotimba war veterans
started invading farms in what they called the 3<sup>rd</sup> Chimurenga. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">We argued
among ourselves about what should be the way forward and the legendary Morgan
Tsvangirai accused us of being ‘nhinhi” for refusing the new constitution in
2013.<span> </span>A term we accepted after the 2013 referendum
‘yes vote’ as the peoples will. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">But the question
remains about the state of our contemporary opposition politics.<span> </span>I have not been involved in it for at least
ten years.<span> </span>What I know is that it has
lost its organic link to the working people of Zimbabwe</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">It has a
new mix of religion, politics and a very abstract populism.<span> </span>It does not belong anymore to the people as
it used to.<span> </span>Never mind the vote
counts.<span> </span>It remains a created construct
that many comrades flow toward because of materialist reasoning and inferiority
complexes. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Personally,
I take responsibility of the state of affairs of the opposition given my own history.<span> </span>We saw what was coming.<span> </span>We did not think through it.<span> </span>And we are between a rock and a hard place.
But we will recover. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Takura
Zhangazha writes<span> </span>here in his own
personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)</span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-29213635448094133292024-02-26T10:39:00.000-08:002024-02-26T10:39:16.949-08:00Creation and Control of Political Narratives in Zimbabwe.<p>By Takura Zhangazha*</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Zimbabweans are familiar with the historical question that
relates to “What made us?” In most cases the historical answer is the first and
second liberation struggles against colonialism. The other answer is the fact
of our economic suffering after the first eight years of independence when we
underwent rapid economic liberalisation at the behest of global financialised
capital which we refer to as the ESAP period that took at least another ten
years to take hold. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Where we take it take it a step further a number of us post
ESAP children ask a key question “What made ‘me’?”, and how should we remember
or reflect this question’s importance for a perceived <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>contemporary ‘individuality?’ As assumedly
conscious adults and with the baggage of our own personal experiences as
informing our attitudes to our contemporary lives and its attendant materialist,
comparatively competitive demands. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This can come in many forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it can be generally assumed to initially and in most cases
sequentially stem from our sense of belonging to family, cultural
practices/language/religion, geographical location, history and contemporary
political/economic placement in the society(ies) that we live in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The key point however would still remain that a majority of
us assume we are somewhat societally ‘created’ to have a sense of being and
belonging for some of the reasons cited above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But even more importantly based on what we not only experience but also
what we desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be it in the form of
recognition from family, the church you attend or in more cases now, the work
and company you keep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the
comparative, competitive wealth that you are in adulation recognised by your
immediate close and personal society to have made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These senses of ‘belonging’ and ‘being’ in Zimbabwe are
however no longer static.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appears
that they depend on the fluidity of one’s individual economic or material
circumstances. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One day you can be a firm believer in orthodox religion as
it relates to your everyday work/employment or tomorrow you can wake up in an
African Apostolic Faith church understanding of your existential circumstances.
Or you can find yourself as a rabid or even moderate political activist on
behalf of one party or the other for many years only to make an
abrupt u-turn for in most cases what can be mainly a livelihood reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in some rare cases, you can decide to be
a neutral and cynic about many things and functioning on an abstract
philosophical basis that each day brings what it will. So long you follow the
money. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The essence of this argument being that however as we seek to
personally identify or deem we are authentically socially created, we also
have, in the contemporary, what can be considered “political personas”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These being a combination of our personal political
experiences (painful or placated), our preferred political beliefs and our more
realistic material ones.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In our contemporary political elections we appear to be seeking more a
reflection of ourselves and the language of what we personally consider our
political and economic realities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
this is completely understandable given the general direction our political
processes are taking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zimbabwe is
enthralled in what can be considered populist electoral politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when there is no immediate pending
election which is made to seem closer than it legally is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (</span>We are due for a constitutional one in 2028.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And this is where the argument around ‘politically created personas’
emerges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a straight-jacketed
approach to our national politics based on the fact of who we think we are
individually and finding others on social and other mediums like-minded persons.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Or a</span>lternatively people who believe what we as friends believe until the next electoral defeat or the next ‘democratic
angst’ at some sort of electoral defeat of the political side we chose. As based on societal influences that either relate to our personal wealth, religious affiliation
or general historical stature as sons/daughters of revered
nationalists/ opposition activists or religious pastors. In
the past or in the present.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this, we get lost to the fact that for all of our emotive
conundrums and angst about what a future progressive Zimbabwe can or should
look like, for the moment, it is not necessarily or progressively designed by us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mainly because we are all over the place ideologically, emotionally and
economically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And there are many jackals ready to take advantage to shape our thinking of the way forward. Both in our politics and our economics'. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We take what we are given by others and accept it into our
own intrinsic cultural fabric to the point of personalised argument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if we do not control the narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So those that create for us, in our own popular
imaginations, those that they think <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>should lead us, will always have tea and a
hearty laugh at the fact that they can create not only celebrity style leaders
for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But also determine what we can
consider as our political personas. Or who we can be politically. That is, who
we can think we are and who we can be. As sophisticated as that may appear. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-54967516700167811702024-02-19T08:06:00.000-08:002024-02-19T08:07:58.574-08:00A Needed Criticality On Narratives on Land and its Political Economy in Zimbabwe.<p> By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is
what should be a relatively urgent and revived “national interest” debate about
land tenure/ ownership in rural, peri-urban and also former agricultural farms
in Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is based on the recent central government's official policy announcing and effecting the eviction of
what it considers illegal settlers on land that was allegedly distributed by village
headmen with or without the approval of chiefs and rural district
councils.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This also includes urban
councils who have also been accused of allegedly distributing land in either
wetlands or former urban farms for insidious profit or political patronage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In all of
these there is reference to a common denominator called a ‘land baron’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This term did not exist in ordinary
Zimbabwean political parlance before the official Fast Track Land Reform
Programme (FTLRP) in 2000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also took
its time to take effect in our local lingo until perhaps 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It doesn’t
quite have an official definition but would be generally assumed to mean that a
‘land baron’ after the FTLRP is someone with either access to political patronage
within the ruling party, access to financial capital to lease or purchase state
land, can or is selling and partitioning original land acquired for different
uses. As acquired from the state or former white commercial farmers who were
either forced off the land or sold it for a pittance at the height of the FTLRP.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which in some cases relates to urban residential
land use even if it is in a rural or peri-urban setting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence emergent cases of forced evictions on the
outskirts of Harare, Bulawayo, Masvingo, Chipinge, Mutare, Gweru and Gutu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The key element
to bear in mind is that the centre of all these newfound evictions is based on
central government proclaiming illegality of settlements after the FTLRP. Not
just as a political, historical, and liberation struggle based radical
nationalist policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as one that
relates to the political economy of land and belonging in contemporary Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is a
somewhat complicated argument to make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The meaning of land and land ownership (especially as capital) appears to
have shifted from its historical connotations that related to historical identity
and arguments about dispossession. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What has
been happening since the FTLRP began and was assumedly completed is that ‘land’
has become a ‘business’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a holistic
sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Particularly land acquired with
or without government approval after 2000 to present. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you go
to any major city or emergent town, land ownership is key to urban
development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add to this either emergent
agricultural mechanization programmes as led by government and related agricultural
and mining entrepreneurship, you may come to conclude that ‘land’ in Zimbabwe
is now essentially viewed as short and long term “capital”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a post-colonial and newer economic
neo-liberal sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Whereas
before the FTLRP we decried white monopoly capital ownership of land, now we
have a replacement but highly politicized system of ownership of the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admittedly it has a sense of “black empowerment’
but one that is complicated by assumptions of mimicry of its predecessor. And
again because it is mainly based on a system of capitalist accumulation, it
appears to be leading toward a system of displacement coupled with an asymmetric
control of the majority poor and their urbanized material desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if they are in rural areas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That’s why
when we are witnessing destruction of houses or evictions of comrades who have
lived in certain areas for the last twenty years and are now being forcibly
evicted for allegedly legal reasons we have to re-ask the ideological meaning
of the initial FTLRP. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It would
appear on the face of it that while benefitting and fulfilling a liberation
struggle expectation it is now more complicated for our political economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is because the ‘open for business’
policy of government has now meant that land ownership and in particular as ‘capital’
cannot be open sesame or simply related to the liberation struggle values and
objectives. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
courting of mining, agricultural and ‘private city investors’ means that those
that were initial beneficiaries of the FTLRP face greater insecurity of tenure
on the land that they had initially assumed they ‘deserved’. Historically or by
way of political or economic patronage. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Especially
where and when it concerns the ‘infrastructure development’ thrust of the
current government. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if they are war
veterans or ruling party supporters or just ordinary people that really needed
a place to call ‘home’. Hence the continually unfished story of Chiadzwa in
Manicaland or Lupane as examples. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I will end
with an anecdotal conversation I once had with my brother about the future of
our rural homes in Bikita, Masvingo when we were much younger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue was whether it would be preferable
to ‘urbanise’ Bikita or modernize it while retaining the communal system of
land tenure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We sort of agreed on modernization
while retaining traditional values and ethos of what we knew was essentially a ‘reserve
area’ as the Rhodesian government deliberately designated it. Our ancestors had
been displaced from the Save Valley, Chipinge and Chimanimani.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others were eventually forcibly displaced further
to Gokwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In that
University conversation, we argued and agreed in part that privatizing communal
rural land was never going to be a good idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Based on the experiences of what we had read about Nigeria and Kenya after
their independence and what had happened with attempts at giving title for what
was originally communally owned land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even if it had been originally been designated by British and/or settler
state governments. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In any
event, as Zimbabweans must debate the full and realistic political economic
meaning of what was the FTLRP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took
away what was once private capital and nationalized it. Many celebrated this. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is however now in a state of flux wherein
the state/government is approaching it in a hybrid private/public format and
outsourcing it as domestic capital for mines, carbon credits and eventual
trickle down agricultural investments. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What is
increasingly self-evident is that we still do not have an organic sense of what
the land we took must be used for except where and when it is part of mimicry
of what we overcame/ overthrew and assume to be land use success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-70521478828584455852024-02-13T11:12:00.000-08:002024-02-13T11:12:29.086-08:00Revisiting “ Educate An African Woman, You Liberate A Nation”<p> By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One of the
most complex and limitedly explored subjects in Zimbabwe is Feminism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want a definition from me of the same,
I will easily reply that I have only read texts on it as my claim to understanding
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But my view of it is that I have no
wherewithal to argue its case to broader society even as I support it as a liberatory
ideology. Mainly because I am not a woman. Even if I am born of a woman. I can
only support feminist struggles on the basis of human equality struggles but I
have to be cautious of the anecdotal fact that I cannot cry more than the
bereaved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And I will
start from my own beginning in interacting with feminist ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least from a liberatory political level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I once wore
a Mbuya Nehanda t-shirt that I had purchased from an African curio shop in
Kwame Nkrumah Avenue in Harare, Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It had on it inscribed the words, “ Educate An African Woman, You
Liberate A Nation.” With an iconic image of our legendary national hero Mbuya
Nehanda and based on a quote from Kwame Nkrumah. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I innocently
wore this t-shirt in the departure lounge of the newly refurbished and renamed OR
Tambo International Airport in South Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Because of
the financial crisis in Zimbabwe at that time (2007-8), a lot of comrades were
shopping in South Africa for basic commodities such as cooking oil, rice, pampers
and alcoholic beverages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One iconic
female comrade asked me to add her luggage to mine for the flight back
home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there I was with my Nehanda
t-shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the queue behind us was a
middle aged white Zimbabwean woman who could read and understand Shona, my own
tongue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She did not
know that we were together with the comrade who just wanted to push her commodities
beyond the borders with my assistance. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
she asked what she considered a pertinent question about my t-shirt logo
concerning why and how ‘educating an African Woman would liberate a Nation?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I replied
that she should crosscheck her knowledge of Nkrumah’s speeches. She got slightly
upset and sort of replied that “All Women should be free”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With hindsight
she was correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except for her desired
appropriation of black women’s rights and struggles to equate these with those
of white women in post-colonial Southern Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The key
point however is how educating a black woman is quite literally the equivalent
of liberating a nation in an African context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nkrumah was correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is
Zimbabwean women, mothers that shape the national consciousness. Even in the
most conservative of senses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They teach
our children/offspring how to react to society, what to value and what to
believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With or without our permission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is not just within our children’s
infancy but through to which schools they go to and what religious beliefs they
eventually ascribe to as adults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These days,
we are in a dilemma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to deal
with emergent forms of feminism that are contradictory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Even if you
are in support of feminism you have to consider ‘agency’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The key issue being arguing on behalf of the
bereaved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I once
asked a very critical comrade about Simone de Bouvouire and the latter’s
arguments about the ‘Second Sex’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
drew a blank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then I asked about the
import of Bell Hooks and her impact on contemporary civil/social activism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again I drew blanks. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A key
lesson that was learnt in the process was that ‘feminism’ and women’s equality
across the board is an existential struggle. It means more than what it appears
to mean. But you sometimes have to realise that you cannot own the
struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except to support it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While as
men we can consider ourselves as feminists, we would do well to understand that
we are only both intermediaries and contradictorily perpetrators of gender
inequalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you ask
me why does this matter, I would easily ask you in return, “Do you have a
daughter?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And finally
back to the Nkrumahist issue of “You Educate a Black Woman, You Liberate a
Nation”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our national consciousness and liberation
resides in what our mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers teach their
children. Everyday. They are the harbingers of initial societal and historical knowledge
for young Zimbabweans. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If they are
in Africa, based on colonial history, despite arguments of cleanliness via the missionaries,
and with the relevant liberation struggle consciousness, then they will
liberate us. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-49350532626201053552024-02-09T13:03:00.000-08:002024-02-09T13:03:06.133-08:00Experiencing Zimbabwean Politics Versus Being Conscious of It.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Many of us
in Zimbabwe are talking about the state of our national politics and economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Albeit in short word stanzas, two minute promotional
or real time videos or what I understand to be voice notes on social media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In real time conversation you then ask
yourself, “So what motivates these sometimes literally animated conversations?”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Especially
those that exhibit, even via technological mediums such as your mobile phone
and its attendant social media access, such raw human emotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You follow
a thread and you recognize an immediate political emotion from multitudes of online
and offline supporters (some real, some false) and you take a quick pause to
ask yourself, is this simply the human behavioural modification role of the internet
and social media? A debate that is dissipating in the public domain because
arguably, we now have short attention spans about our common good as a society
beyond our virulent individualism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I only
mention the latter point in order to point out the key characteristics of
Zimbabwe’s national politics. And what is evidently informing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And there
are two elements here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both based on important
intellectual conversations that I have had with comrades as well as personally
thought through for a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The first
being the question of the meaning of politics in Zimbabwe as being “experienced”
or <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“experiential”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Most of us
in the country understand politics by way of an ‘experience’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not mean this in a religious way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is more by way of what we know to be our
initial political realities and lived, again, experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is what we witnessed, felt or emotionally got
angry about that informs our most basic understanding of politics and in tandem
our contemporary political economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be
it on behalf of self, family, friends but rarely workmates. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And there
are many historical examples of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The cdes that fought in the first Chimurenga wars were dispossessed of
their livelihoods by the colonial settlers and took to arms against them from
various regions and ethnic groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
quite literally ‘experienced’ dispossession of their livelihoods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no modern ideology except direct
emotive resistance based on the fact of what had unjustly occurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By the time
the Rhodesian settler colony had established a racist hegemony over the
majority, again the “experiential moment” re-emerged. We formed, as learnt from
our regional migratory labour experiences in the then Egoli (South Africa), the
then Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to form trade unions, country of
origin associations and also with the enablement of various missionary
societies that had the contradictory zeal to educate ourselves with zeal even
though they then considered us “natives”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By the time
of the Second Chimurenga, with our ‘experiential moments” of pain and anguish
at racial and economic discrimination we tried to go the Ghana route of
immediate electorally negotiated power agreements from white settler minority
rule in the 1960s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A strategy that failed
and eventually led us to a painful liberation struggle that again would be
motivated by the fact of what our now war veterans, peasants and urban workers ‘experienced’
via the brutality of a white settler minority regime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We
eventually combined the reality of our political experiences with a global ideological
outlook that learnt from the then USSR (Russia), Eastern Europe and the Chinese
revolution to give our lived realities or “experiential moments” the visionary term
of “socialism”/ “gutsaruzhinji”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
many suffered and died for this particular vision of our society while at the
same time embracing it as fundamental to the future of a progressive and revolutionary
Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it linked to progressive
global anti-colonial liberation movements and governments. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With the
acquisition of national liberation and within this historical ambit, we assumed
our ‘experiential politics’ had reached its peak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Post-independence, we misunderstood both the
global economic vagaries of the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of
capitalism, now neoliberalism, as a global economic system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again we sought to fight against the latter via
our own labour unions in Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This was
the new ‘consciousness phase’ of our national politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We knew and know those that fought the
liberation struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we also then experienced
Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAPs) and a rampant economic
liberalism that put the market before the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And by 1997
we had come back full circle to “experiential politics”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our urban and rural poverty in the decade
that followed were not abstract but lived realities that led to the formation of
the largest labour backed party in Zimbabwe’s post-independence history, the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) at the turn of the millennium. Even as
there was a counter narrative by Zanu Pf toward a return to the language and
praxis of “Chimurenga”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the midst of economic
hardship and sanctions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While
almost repeating history, the MDC was grounded in both the ‘experiential” and
the “ideological“ consciousness dilemma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is because after the 2008 global and domestic national financial
crisis we resorted back to what we “experienced” as a primary source of
political loyalty and affiliation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
perhaps the most difficult point to make for this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
what we experience politically, and in a particularly negative sense such as
political violence, loss of income and livelihood, we will never easily forget
and therefore we will pick an almost eternal side for our political views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how irrational it may seem to
outsiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More so if we experience this when we are
young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will
be a mixed bag of not only the remembered experiences but also the search for a
new beginning via a culturally (religiously/spiritually) predetermined leader or
group of leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the naïve ambition
of some arrival at a comparative ideal society that mimics what we see on
television and on social media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Is there a
way out of this sort of ‘experienced consciousness’ in Zimbabwe?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the short term the answer is “No”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our society has lost an organic national
consciousness. Elections are more of populist events than they are about
posterity and the common societal good. Either side of our now many political
party divides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they are determined
by a stubborn “experiential” process as outlined above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To be conscious
of a progressive Zimbabwean political future we need to grasp a deeper reality
that whatever you experienced in the past, the present cannot be isolated from
a desired progressive future. It is always about posterity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura Zhangazha
writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangzha.blogspot.com) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-44080666529109947682024-01-31T08:18:00.000-08:002024-01-31T08:18:00.663-08:00Returning to the Source^: The Equality Promise of Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle.<p> By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Its always
awkward how many of us often discuss Zimbabwe’s political economy and never
have any ideological outlook on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Or
alternatively how we separate our ‘politics’ from a collective ‘economy’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or are simply dismissive of the idea of a
common ground economic equality of all Zimbabweans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The latter
point is perhaps the most difficult to explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, again,
it is still historically and somewhat intellectually explainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least
economically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And that is
when everything about our political economy really changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Particularly socially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is when we had amazing protest songs
from our musicians at the state of the political economy<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Including the late Edwin Hama’s “Today’s
Paper”, Thomas Mapfumo’s Mamvemve or even Leonard Zhakata’s timeless ‘Mugove”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What
remains important is the fact that those neoliberal years have created an
increasingly false national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But how did
we lose an initial national consciousness that sought equality for all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An immediate pointer is how our national
education system was structured after independence to mimic the Rhodesian
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Including what was considered
educational or material success based on the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second
was the fact that we did not understand that with a political economy comes
political culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by their Military Industrial Complex agencies
(Rambo or James Bond anyone?)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In 2024
there are new realities that obtain that we are now confronted with in
Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are more religious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are more individualistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are more materialistic and ‘departure’
oriented as a result thereof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But we remain
a people with a legacy of a painful liberation struggle predicated on the pursuit
of an equitable society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We need to
return to the source</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">^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 </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in hi</span><span lang="EN-US">s personal cap</span>acity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-18202916633962760952024-01-25T07:02:00.000-08:002024-01-25T07:02:17.624-08:00Contradictions of Wealth and Capital in Zimbabwe.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha *</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">No, this is
not a motivational blog about how to make money, keep it or even how to ‘scramble’
for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead it is about a basic
understanding of two things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first
being what we in Zimbabwe perceive as ‘wealth’ and secondly about what we also
think is ‘capital’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Wealth” in
Zimbabwe generally tends to be observationally comparative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It relates to where you stay, the lifestyle
you lead, cars you drive or are driven in, where your children go to school and
something as ridiculous as how many parties you hold for relatives and
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It all
comes off as normal Zimbabwean cultural behavior. Except that it has
connotations of how we regard each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Including assumptions of either continuity of these demonstrations of
wealth and sadly also those of when it will all end for those that hold this
wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or when it will start for those
that do not have it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On the face
of it, it is not a class issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though
it is driven by middle class/ white collar job social and cultural material
desires. Both in urban and rural areas. It’s a lifestyle and recognition of ‘success’
or wealth crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One that essentially
remains materially ephemeral because in the final analysis, if the money runs
out, the lifestyle also changes. Something that many of us are guilty of the
misunderstanding that this invariably affects our immediate families, children
and where we still have them, friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At the risk
of sounding slightly self-righteous, what we probably need to stop doing is ‘exhibitionism’.
While the welfare of our children, families matter, we should embrace more of a
material realism than a worry about what the next person thinks about the life
you are living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have
mentioned ‘exhibitionism’ because it relates the issue of “Capital” in
Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter being something we
rarely dig deep into.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While wealth can
be exhibited as outlined above, the ownership of its almost perpetual physical
component tends to be off our social and intellectual radars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Exhibiting wealth
is very different from owning capital. And for most of us know primary capital
as either owning land, house/urban properties, vehicles or cattle. All in what
can be considered competitive isolation. It is capital to either be gazed at or
flaunted while its owner is still alive. While at the same time not being part
of either a system of a national ‘means of production’ that we deliberately
understand or participate in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So there
are at least two strands to the ownership of capital in Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one is the desire to quite literally
acquire it through physical commodities for the purposes of exhibiting wealth
or material well-being on the basis of either savings or benefits from
employment and working the banking financial system to your benefit. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then there
is actual capital based on those that control the system of private property
and its links to globalized financialised capital. These are the people that
own (historically/colonially/ post-colonially) your mines, vast tracts of
agricultural land, cities and the middle-men that run their transactions. They
also own a majority of your national and international conglomerates that are
listed on the local stock exchanges as they are also linked to regional and
international ones (Muzarabani anyone?) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Some of
this capital is inherited from colonialism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some of it is also handed over from the colonialists to post-colonial
political and other more opportunistic entrepreneurial leaders. This has been
outlined in the French economist Thomas Piketty’s epic book “Capital in the 21<sup>st</sup>
Century”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What
however remains important in the Zimbabwean context is our understanding of the
contradictions of what we consider wealth and what we consider capital. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And I will
try to keep it slightly simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Purchasing cars, buying houses, affording expensive schools and
universities is not a sign of success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a sign of not understanding the ephemerality of what you consider
comparative wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is also a sign of
material culture capture by a system that you have no control over if you do
not understand it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With the
oddity that it always presents many of us with a fear of going back to the ‘ghetto’
or if you are already there in the ghetto a fear of going back to your rural
homes and as we jokingly say in Shona parlance ‘akadzokera kumusha’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when in reality our rural political
economy is the backbone of a majority of our Zimbabwean families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When you
think about ‘wealth’ remember that even in your exhibiting it, it remains an
expression of ‘capital’ that in almost all likelihood you do not control. Unless
you own an actual ‘means of production’ inherited or otherwise. It will always
be ephemeral. Until that day you seek economic equitability. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-19496830848036438092024-01-17T07:52:00.000-08:002024-01-17T07:52:11.890-08:00Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe: Love Not in the Time of Cholera-<p>By Takura Zhangazha*</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So there is a sub-regional cholera outbreak in Zambia and
Zimbabwe. There was also one in Malawi towards the end of last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With the evident risk that it may spread beyond the two countries’
borders where and when it is reported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Cholera outbreaks are now run of the mill news stories in Southern
Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there are many reasons for
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main one being the fact of
their actual occurrence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The second being a false narrative of assuming that we, as
Southern Africans are unhygienic and therefore will be afflicted by such
diseases. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The third, which is a bit more realistically debatable, is
that of our rapid regional urbanisation. Due to urban population expansions and
lack of relevant water and other amenities render our cities, towns and
peri-urban areas to be overwhelmed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I am not a public health expert but it is important to note
from a layman’s perspective that the continual re-emergence of Cholera
outbreaks in the region point to a critical need for us to re-think our rural
and urban landscapes and planning. And also our approaches to public
health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first thing that I have noticed, even as slightly
historical as it may seem, is that Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi have very
similar local government planning systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Each</span> of the three countries’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have somewhat similarly designed cities dating
back from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (even if Southern Rhodesia-Zimbabwe
was the ultimate beneficiary of that federation).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Our cities are similarly designed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the former white suburbs being the
most privileged in relation to access to water and health amenities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have what we call the ‘high density areas’
having less amenities and being densely populated by rural to urban migrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And also migrants who historically were part
of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WENELA) labour recruitment
route.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then we have the rural areas where the majority of our
people still reside, even as they age, with limited access to basic health
care, communications and transport where and when related emergencies occur.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We also have to consider the fact that in our cultural practices
we, be it in urban or rural areas, still have to gather for that wedding,
funeral or memorial and/or church service among many newfound reasons for
get-togethers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The problem however is the fact of how our health systems do
not match our lifestyles. And I will give at least one example. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This being that in many of our cities, based on again the
fact of our collective historical urbanisation and rural codification history
in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, we have not anticipated the explosion that
would be not only rural to urban migration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But also the necessity of planning for the important health, water, sewage
and reticulation amenities that should come with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many of our cities, our rapid urbanisation
in which one can build a mansion without concomitant urban toilets or even
rural pit latrines, even if temporarily, in an urban shack while having no running
water is almost a norm. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or even in rural areas where we still have a problem with
where people openly defecate because they cannot afford to build pit latrines
as advised by the World Health Organisation. So when it rains or when major
gatherings are held, the likelihood of an outbreak in the remotest of rural
areas increases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But this is not about our African inability to deal with what
has been called a ‘medieval disease’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is a very serious matter that requires an urgent and holistic approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never mind the global narratives about us as
Africans from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have experienced the pain and anguish of losing loved ones to this affliction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are a number of things that we therefore need to deal
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The primary issue being the most
pragmatic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to manage our urban
and rural amenities much better in a people-centred manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even as we understand the rapid urbanisation
as well as the also rapid 'lifestyle' urbanisation of our rural areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clean water and safe toilets are more important
than ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These are things we have to remember based on our own
African health wisdom about the fact that you cannot defecate in the village
well. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But this is where we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our people are dying of cholera, a completely preventable and
curable disease. Calling it medieval may assume a superiority of your economic placement
in society but we all go to the toilet, have to wash our hands and remember that
you cannot, with this Cholera outbreak, assume it will never get to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to fix this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">-Title paraphrased from Gabriel Garcia Marques’ novel “Love
in the Time of Cholera”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-86553233021502032024-01-10T06:11:00.000-08:002024-01-10T06:11:13.222-08:00Zimbabwe’s Hidden Economic Class Struggle Dilemma<p> By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This may
appear to be a very complicated subject matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in most cases, it
relates to ‘material desire’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or one in which
you have to ask yourself , “What economic and social/lifestyle class are you
in?” or alternatively, “What economic/social class do you think you are in?”, or,
“What economic/social class do you want to be in?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the final question being, “What
economic/social class are you realistically currently in, and how sustainable
is it?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These are questions
that we answer every day in our interactions and expressions of our material desires.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Whether
through where we go to church, the movie we like, the cars we drive, the social
company we keep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is very much
normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one individual in our current
existential challenges has any self-righteous wherewithal to judge these
desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, we live in very neoliberal
and unpredictable economic times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Times
in which individualism, capitalism and a false liberalism intersect in such a
way that they create a very short term individual-focused consciousness in many
of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this, we do not have the material
patience to assume that in the final analysis, we are part of a national collective
whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Hence on social
media there are jokes and satire about how one can drive a special utility
vehicle (SUV) in a potholed road and get home with pride. Or how one can have a
personal borehole in a majority of our very dry urban and rural areas while
others stay in long queues at the local UNICEF or WHO funded borehole for clean
water. And still not understand how one was or is affected by a cholera
outbreak!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Apart from
this sarcastic humour, what we have been experiencing in Zimbabwe is an attempt
at the obfuscation/hiding of our economic class differences as disguised by
either our material desires (hence the rise in fraud or financial crimes) or an
endemic lifestyle crisis in which a greater majority of us seek to mimic that which
we are told is the proverbial ‘good life’. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As seen or experienced
via cultural products such as music, movies, social media content, religion (TB
Joshua anyone?) as we compare ourselves to individual others who we now deem to
be our personal competitors. I am however not sure what we really want to
compete about with each other. But it would appear the key measures of this are
about issues such as what car is driven, house lived in, which schools kids go
to, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>which Diaspora you relocated to and as
abstract an issue as to where you wnet to for your holidays (as long it is not
a rural visit).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Again this
is all fair and fine if one can afford it both in the short or long term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Also, this
is not a new phenomenon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been analyzed
by Marxists and left leaning economists, historians and more seminally social anthropologists
(check Comaroff and Comaroff circa 2002) that for a while now have been
assiduously trying to make sense of where we are ideologically at a ‘global
scale’. The have referred to our turn of the 21<sup>st</sup> century global
political economic system as “Millenial Capitalism”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
a transnational ideological trend where global capitalism, at least to
paraphrase their views, has become more than just about the production of
physical commodities and its relation to the working class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead it has transcended both to become
more about speculative financialised capital, religious Pentecostalism,
gambling and the re-emergence of complex individual identity politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a hint at the fact of a diminishing
relevance of Marxian ‘class consciousness’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In Zimbabwe
we have this primary challenge of either beginning to forget the fact that we
are also a class-based society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both by
way of our modern colonial history as well as by way of our many desires to by almost
any means necessary move from one ‘lower class’ rung to the next and then
shouting from the hilltop that we have made it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only to come tumbling down again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or to die trying to get up the same ladder, never mind giving a pretense
at still being there.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For
clarity, there are at least three almost permanent structured economic classes
in Zimbabwe. And these have not changed since the first days many of us started
studying high school history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most
prevalent class remains the peasantry. It is one that is based in our rural
areas and survives on agriculture as its main means of production. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a class that remains standing mainly
based on the fact of its superior numerical presence which also links it to its
political importance in elections and power dynamics in the country. It is
however a class that is largely ageing while those that are born into it are increasingly
desirous of transition to the next permanent one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This being the urban working class. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The latter
is one that is at the moment perhaps the most fluid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It involves both formerly and informally
employed urban,peri-urban working people in every major city and town in
Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the most fluid and most politically
active class due to its proximity to emerging communications technologies and
population densities. It is also the most populist and easily abusable by the
next class we will consider, the middle or ‘comprador bourgeoisie’ class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the most educated class as well as
the most ‘mimicry of colonial and global lifestyle class’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It re-occupies spaces left by colonial and
global bourgeoisie, mimics their cultural habits in as many aspects as possible
and remains essentially an ‘arrival’ or no- further ambition class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if they acquire political positions on
the backs of the aforementioned two lower wrung classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The final
class is that of the bourgeoisie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
one is not confined to Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is global.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It determines not only the economic system in
which we currently live but it also greatly influences not only our material
economic desires but also our lifestyle desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It owns ICT companies, media, mines, banks,
real estate (even after the FTLRP), financialised stocks and of course a
greater number of our politicians if it is not in politics itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These
classes are somewhat hidden because we have sort of muted ourselves about them.
We have forgotten about class struggle. And a majority of us assume we can
always get to the next rung of our hidden class struggle ladder. We falsely
assume that these classes in Zimbabwe are recognizable by lifestyle, when in
essence they are based on a mirage of an assumption of their interchangeability
or fluidity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Whatever
these desires we may have, our economic system is still as class based as it
can be within a globalized neoliberal context. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in how own personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-25676513325928023862024-01-04T03:46:00.000-08:002024-01-04T03:49:51.939-08:002024: An Abnormal Year for Zimbabwe, Africa in International Relations<p> By Takura Zhangazha*</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The year 2024 is a year where international relations,
economics, politics and conflicts will greatly impact what happens in
Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And probably many other
African countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably at a scale
that will reflect the previous Cold War dynamics of the 70s, 80s and the early 1990s’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is obviously not a one-off or
one-calendar year incident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been
building up for a while but I almost predict that in 2024 this will likely
reach similar heights in relation to international relations dynamics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In essence we are witnessing, globally, and in our own
African contexts, the end of a uni-polar world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whereas before we had been told about either the “End of History”
(Fukuyama) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in relation to the triumph of
neoliberalism or a foreseen binary “Clash of Civilisations” (Huntington) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with the unwritten assumption that the 'civilised' would be the victor. </p><p class="MsoNormal">In the contemporary, it is now
a much more fluid global state of affairs. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Post the American “War on Terror” and invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq, there have been many other globalised conflicts that indicate that
there are new international relations dynamics at play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are characterised by a number of
factors.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first being the continuing rise of China on the global
economic stage and in relation to its strengthened role in global financialised
capital (or its embrace of illiberal/state capitalism).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Secondly the contradictory rise of internal
Western nationalism and conservatism that derides immigration and military
excursions. Raises religion to new political levels and assumes everything that is happening is a global 'great replacement theory' and therefore a nemesis to what obtains. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Thirdly, the emergence of a newfound though limited resistance to
the financial might of the United States dollar backed global financial system. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Fourthly, the revival of a new Global South “consciousness” and still ever so slight resistance to the imposition of either cultural values or political templates as to how previously colonised countries matters should be countenanced or implemented. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And in the fifth instance, globalised/internationalised
conflicts such as the Ukraine- Russia war, Palestine-Israel emerging war, the
Sudan civil war, the Democratic Republic of the Congo civil war, the ongoing internationalised
conflicts in for example Syria, Yemen, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is before one begins to discuss
political imperialism in South America that has been longstanding against Cuba,
Venezuela, Bolivia and of late Argentina among others. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But let me return back home to Africa and Zimbabwe
specifically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Events as they are occurring
at a global scale, be they conflicts, economic support/investment
reconfigurations, emigration or electoral imperatives are no longer ‘business
as usual’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Loyalties are being tested of
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a more regular basis than in the
last twenty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have never seen so
many United Nations resolution votes that have asked so much of us as African
countries at the General Assembly or Security Council of the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> We are now constantly being asked to prove our loyalties. A thing that Amilcar Cabral would have probably squirmed at. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Africa is in the thick of it because of its re-embrace of
neoliberalism without a clearer alternative except some mimicry and acceptance
of the Chinese economic model and its attendant investments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the false assumption that it is simply ‘economics’
or about the ‘free market’. When in reality it is now a mixture of international
political allegiances and what will eventually emerge as tragic entrapment in a
multi-polar globalised political economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One in which, contrary to the mantra by the Zimbabwe government of “being
an enemy to none, and a friend to all” we will have to take ‘sides’ to remain
afloat or at least protected as we had to when South Africa, China and Russia
came to our defence in striking down that 2008 UN sanctions resolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The essential point to bear in mind is that 2024 will not be
a ‘normal’ year in how Zimbabwe, let alone Africa is placed in international
relations. Or how it chooses to place itself in the complicated schematics of
global relations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let alone the dynamics
that will impact not only our national economy but also assumptions of
financial(ised) investment in return for loyalty at UN general assembly votes
or any other international platform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a <i>quid-pro-quo</i> situation, this also means that the ruling
Zanu Pf party has the latitude to insist on its own version of progressive
politics beyond the gaze of what would be regarded as universal human rights. Not
only with regard to its own version of ‘nationalism’ or ‘capitalism’ but also
to protect specific investments and interests of global allies and business partners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter who will not hesitate, given their
already huge investments in either mining or agriculture to hold fort on
international stages for Zimbabwe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So if you are Zimbabwean or African it is important that you
look at the year 2024 as a year in which you must learn or at least keep in
mind the global ‘bigger picture’ of global events as they occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be it a globalised conflict, a blocking of a
trade route for oil or wheat, an election result in the global west, a natural
disaster or even a link your country may have to what may be considered a
pariah state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will matter. One way or
the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-16647946116051996762023-12-14T13:28:00.000-08:002023-12-15T02:44:10.240-08:00Teaching the Future : The Importance of Young Teachers in Advancing the Pan Africanist Agenda in Zimbabwe <p> By Takura Zhangazha*</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Presentation to the Young Teachers Association of the Progressive
Teachers Union of Zimbabwe<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">15 December 2023.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">ZESA Training Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Dear Cde Young Teachers of the Progressive Teachers Union (PTUZ),
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Let me begin by thanking you for inviting me to this important
gathering which you are holding under the theme, “Young Teachers, The Bedrock
of a Credible Teaching Profession” with the subtheme that I have been asked to
hold a brief discussion about concerning, “The Importance of Young Teachers in
Advancing the Pan Africanist Agenda”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before I go into the brief presentation I have been asked to
make, I must thank Cde Ray Majongwe the Secretary General of the PTUZ and Cde
Takavafira Zhou, PTUZ president and also <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the general leadership of the PTUZ for not
only remaining true to their unionism on behalf of the teaching profession but
also being even truer to what I am certain are their progressive ideological
values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter values being those I
am certain you share or else you would not be part of this meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Let me begin my brief presentation with a few historical
pointers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The teaching profession is
one of the most liberatory professions in Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never mind that it has be denigrated in
various circles and undermined by various post-independence governments’ and
neo-liberal political economics in recent years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is as you say, the
‘bedrock’ of what is and can be a progressive national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of our nationalist leaders and also those
that left schools to become guerrillas knew that the one thing that was always important
was the passing on of again, progressive knowledge through the practice of
teaching.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Teaching was one of the most radically conscious professions
of any African liberation struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
it remained so even after our national independence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As trade unionists you would understand this better
than I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was the teacher who always brought new knowledge to a
remote or marginalised community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one
who taught young Zimbabweans to read and discern. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was also the
teacher who was the most recognised intellectual in a village or ghetto (with
or without the money) and the one who would eventually disrupt repressive
colonial discourses to lead to a new national consciousness among the youth,
the middle aged worker and the old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hence the still revered and indefatigable term, “Mwalimu” in
Swahili.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether in reference to the
great African Julius Nyerere or in our own Zimbabwean context, just “teacher”
and how he/she would make us quake in our bare feet about a pending punishment
for underperforming in one form or the other. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So the teaching profession that you have chosen, for various
personal reasons is almost a calling, an historical national consciousness
vocation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And let no one lie to you
about this. Even though I know that the aforementioned issues may appear
abstract to trade unionists, they remain an historical fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Members of the teaching profession are the
bedrock of our national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Second only to our mothers and sisters in our African contexts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I know as young teachers you have conversations about the
material benefits of your profession. Your salaries and other benefits. Or whether
you bought a stand, a flat, solar panels or cattle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is completely understandable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even if you did not want it or will it,
you are the contemporary bedrock of our national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You teach young Zimbabweans how to perceive, behave and
realise success in life at an early age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if in a good number of cases
you get disappointed in things that are beyond your control such as family
issues and also monetary/economic considerations of what was once your
brightest student.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But let me quickly get back to the agreed discussion<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>point. This being the teaching profession and
what we now refer to as Pan Africanism (thanks to our own organic historical
struggles against colonialism and neo-imperialism) </p><p class="MsoNormal">There are few revered nationalists
on the African continent who did not either start off with teaching or who did
not eventually end up teaching in our refugee or training camps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As most of you based on your own post-independence theoretical
or philosophical training may know, there was a left leaning cde called Paulo
Freire who taught us what he referred to as the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. It
was not only a revolutionary teaching philosophy but also one that has stood
the test of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this, we are all historical
beings, and who better to pursue and teach that understanding than young
teachers themselves!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You teach in order to let others become free of ignorance!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not only an ignorance of letters and figures but also to
free our pupils and students of an ignorance of organic historical
consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So when you are asked about Pan Africanism and teaching
there are at least two key elements that you must always bear in mind. You are
not only teaching mathematics, accounts, business studies, geography, agriculture, history, economics
or general science. You are teaching the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And let me briefly explain what I mean by “teaching the
future.” The knowledge that you have, that you will also have as you further your
own studies and stations in life, is knowledge that is perpetually not your own
to keep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>In your profession, in your
unionism, you know that it has to be passed on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even if you were not adequately rewarded for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is unavoidable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a teacher, young or old, the raison’ de ’etre
of your work is essentially to pass on and create knowledge to the best of your
ability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Let me turn to Pan Africanism as a concept as advised by the
organisers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> It is both geographical and more significantly ideological. By this I mean that indees you are physically in Africa but it does not mean you exude Pan Africanist consciousness. The latter is all about intellectual and cultural fortitude of what it means to be African. And what you infuse in your work about being African. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Locations of where you teach remains important. But what you teach is even more important. Young African cdes need, want to be infused with their own African being. <br></p><p class="MsoNormal">The teacher is therefore a harbinger
of historical knowledge about African being and African identity. But as alluded to earlier,
the teacher is also like a weather forecaster about what the future holds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The specifically young teacher in the contemporary has a
lot more pressures beyond patriotism and nationalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both at a personal and a professional level.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But
the default Pan Africanist knowledge in the young teacher is also about contextual
presence, being, analysis and foresight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You have to ask yourself, “ Why do we teach?Is it only for the money or for a newer Pan
African Educational Consciousness?” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed teaching is a profession
but it remains beyond meagre salaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
know some of you young cdes want to quit it to pursue for example care work abroad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even in your departure your students look up to and yearn for your knowledge and expertise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Yours is a noble profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a profession that helps shape Zimbabwe’s future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you are in the deepest of a rural
area. You matter. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never forget that.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Let me conclude my brief remarks by way of encouragement.
Times are tough in the teaching profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
may even get tougher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hold fast to the
future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are always going to be
organic to this country and its future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will end with a Marechera quote about teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was asked why he does not want to be a teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He replied, and I am paraphrasing here, “I
would not want the next generations’ mistakes on my conscience”. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If you read and understand between the lines, what Marechera recognised was the historical burden you have on your shoulders. Even when you are frustrated, dissapointed, keep at it. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Young teacher cdes, you will rise.
I am confident. Believe in your work and the future of Zimbabwe. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha presented here in his own personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-47487228123378840882023-12-11T10:39:00.000-08:002023-12-11T12:09:47.729-08:00Why Zimbabwe’s Global Narrative/Story Appears Negatively Set in Stone.<p> By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have on
occasion grimaced in international fora when Zimbabwe is mentioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or when watching a media programme about any
new developments that will have occurred in the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From a cholera outbreak, to a naturally
occurring tropical cyclone, a general election or even a visit by one or the
other international celebrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
mainly because Zimbabwe’s narrative and placement in global discourse appears
to be set in stone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Its without
doubt a negative narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that is
neither preferable nor always truthful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But one that has become somewhat almost run of the course, pre-ordained
perception of what our country was, is and will ‘inevitably’ be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unless specific and somewhat pre-approved <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘things’ or ‘events’ happen in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially as they relate to our recent
history. Be it in relation to the globally derided fast track land reform programme (FTLRP), our
continually contested general elections and as with many other countries on
the African continent, a perceived failure to meet the requirements of a global
capitalist economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Our
narrative in global spaces however remains particularly unique.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We pop up in narratives of failed states as
though one cannot land an aeroplane at Robert Mugabe International airport. Or
stories about cholera outbreaks that have a unique angle to them when it comes
to Zimbabwe when this is clearly a general sub-regional problem with the same occurring
in neighboring countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Never mind
stories about our Diaspora when again, across the whole African continent we
have very serious problems with emigration to the global north where it is now
increasingly clear we are not wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even, in some cases, for the cheapest of our labours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the while losing precious lives in the
Sahel or in the Mediterranean sea on what are more perilous journeys than a
flight via Dubai to Europe or North America. Or an illegal crossing of the
Limpopo river to South Africa. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Even when
we crosscheck how the Zimbabwe story is perceived by those that are our
neighbors such as South Africa, they also look at us through lenses that assume
a Conradian ‘darkness’ about us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even as
they lynch us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While this also happens
to other African brothers and sisters living and working in South Africa, we,
thanks to social media, generally get falsely blamed for issues we have no
inkling about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The key
question is why does this narrative persist?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moreso when we have one of the most neo-liberal governments since 1980
under the present Zanu Pf leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa. The latter has been
attempting to tick all the neoliberal boxes as it were under his engagement and
re-engagement policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that it
appears private global capital appears not to have a major problem with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except where and when it comes to political
matters such as elections, human rights- and where it concerns in particular the
human right to private property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So the
first reason why Zimbabwe’s narrative in the global arena will probably not
change in the lifetime of persons my age is because of the fact that our country
defied that one most seemingly sacrosanct right to private property with the
FTLRP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And also former president Mugabe’s
‘indigenization’ economic policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence
we now have a national ‘compensation’ policy for former white farmers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And also a courting from the highest national
levels of global financialised private capital into our mining industry in a
relatively clumsy attempt at ‘normalisation’ of the national political
economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I use the term ‘clumsy’ here
because it is a mixture of nationalism and profit, two elements that in a globalized
economy are not good bedfellows. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second
reason why our negative narrative persists is because it has become almost a
given culture when people in power in the global north look derisively at African
and/or global south states that they definitively do not agree with ideologically or in some cases, historically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least those that will not side with
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be it in favour of their erstwhile
rivals such as China, Russia or any of the left leaning governments of South
America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And this is
where the global media comes into the mix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Zimbabwe has been lumped with almost propagandistic comparisons with
countries where there has been or is existent outright conflict/war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much so that when you watch cable
television or view clips on social media you ask yourself, “How am I still in
this country?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet there are still
millions of us here. With variegated understandings of our own existence and
futures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no, we are not dying in
numbers or in the equivalent of concentration camps that we are now clearly
seeing in some parts of the Middle East.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The third
and final reason why our house of stone’s narrative appears set in stone, is
that in most cases, out of general naivety, we will it on ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast to the rebelliousness that for
example Fanon and Biko among many others so desired. It is regrettably almost
as though a good number of influencers want this negative narrative on
Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even where it has no factual
basis but fits a specific twenty-plus year narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You may ask
is there a contrary narrative to what obtains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My answer is yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a
narrative that relates to facts and not what you feel you want to hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zimbabwe is not by any stretch of comparison
a ‘failed state’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not at ‘war’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to counter these ‘set in stone’
narratives. We may not be up there in terms of various neoliberal global
indices, but we will be alright. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I will end
with an anecdotal comment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon arriving
in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s, a British cde asked me if we had an
airport back at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked him why? He
said based on what he had seen on the media and heard from his local MP and the
asylum seekers, he thought I had arrived by ship from Zimbabwe! I replied, no
I came on British Airways. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his own personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-87578174215658761492023-12-03T11:27:00.000-08:002023-12-06T08:02:51.769-08:00Belief, Passion and a Newfound Functionalism in Zimbabwe.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On occasion
you get asked the awkward question, “What do you believe in?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In most cases this is a question that relates
to religion and religious affiliation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With an assumption that religion is largely Christian in Zimbabwe the
question also has connotations about which version of the same religion do you
follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the caveat question, “Why”?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You rarely
get asked about any other forms of belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or derided if you indicate that this is a private matter that requires
no personal intrusion or judgement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You may
also get asked, on rare occasions, your political beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In relation to which party you support, and
again also, why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Zimbabweans choose
to wait for their day at the ballot box and depending on the result and their
happiness or sadness it is easier to discern after the electoral event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But again without having to explain why they
hold specific political beliefs if they can be called that at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In all
likelihood, when it comes to political beliefs, these mutate into “political
passions”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Motivated more by either
personal experience or by following fashionable populist political opinions as
they occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or as they relate to
available electoral leadership positions (council, Parliament and even the
Presidency). They are rarely about any organic ideological persuasions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At best and only by default they mirror and
mimic culturally popular ones that will for example laud big business while at
the same time not realizing that a majority of our major global or local wars
stem from the cultural, political and military industrial complex as controlled
by global superpowers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But this
does not just apply to political ‘passions’ as it were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also applies to personal and materialist
desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The car, the house, the job,
the individual family recognized ladder of success that one has achieved
contributes to your own understanding of “passion”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or things that you are willing to either
personally fight for in multiple social conversations or attend an online
convoluted and neoliberal motivational speech about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if the latter ‘motivation’ is as
racist and ‘mimicry’ driven as they come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is when
you combine both your abstract beliefs and mutative passions that they then
become functional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I use the term
“functional” in a very sociological and socio-psychological sense (crosscheck
Emile Durkheim on this one.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is
when both of these, your abstract religious or other superficial beliefs and
passions serve to make you a somewhat ‘normal’ human being. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Where one
who shares these beliefs and passions through the gaze and cultural practice of
those that you either value the most or those that you envy in relation to
their, again, assumed measurements of societal success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be it in your local church, where your kids
go to school, what your work boss recognizes/affirms about you and your salary
or what your extended family values the most about your capacity to get things
done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even what your friends think is
the best societal practice about being successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only material success but the way in
which you should think, act, behave and interact with those that are like
minded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In my view,
Zimbabwe is now what one can call a “functionalist” society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is in the social, political, economic
and probably socio-psychological sense. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is
almost as though everything must sort of fit together in a specific way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your beliefs (mainly religious), your passions
(mainly emotive political/ politicized and economic status anger) and how all
of this leads one into a functional mode of existence as a Zimbabwean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a comparative sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, checking out what it means to be as
successful as your next door neighbor including how they again, have a car or
multiple urban or other properties while affording to go private medical
centres. Even at the height of the then Covid 19 pandemic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or oddly enough, which church they go to and
its concomitance with material success. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a functionalism
that creates a specific national ‘survival’ culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that focuses more and more on the
individual and less and less on collective well-being. Almost like arguing that
anything we are doing, we are doing for our “own” children while forgetting that
the same said “own” children will grow up and be part of a collective society,
let alone a country with those that we will have neglected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There are
therefore at least two issues that we need to reflect on about our long duree “functionalism”
as Zimbabweans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed historically we
have been through the worst of economic and political times with many pitfalls
that have shaped our reaction to not only the state but to matters concerning
our individual (and individual family) well-being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have had to live almost in a survival
mode that has brought forth some of the most individualistic values of who we
think we are or we can be as a country. From the rural to the urban, the middle
to the working class and from the educated to the uneducated or even to those
with proximity to the political and capitalist elite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We need to
shed off the proverbial skin of “societal functionalism” and return to a value based
progressive societal pragmatism that makes each life important and gives a fair
opportunity for all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially where it
relates to basic social services such as education, health, transport, water
and energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And
finally, we need to understand that we all have specific belief systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While we may want them to be individually self-definitive
about our lifestyles and desires, unfortunately if they become “blind passions”
they return us to being “functionalists”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People who do not think beyond what they feel or who do not feel beyond
what they consider their own personal experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) _<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-26174863605042645522023-11-28T10:31:00.000-08:002023-11-28T10:37:21.023-08:00Africa Should Talk Back on Regressive Politics in the Global North.By Takura Zhangazha* <div><br /></div><div> So I have had friends or at least academic classmates from at least four continents. And in no particular order, Africa, Europe, America and Asia. In the majority of cases all of my friends were halfway between being leftists and also being liberally progressive. They would hear me out on my Pan Africanist views and support them on the basis of the assumption that human
rights were universal.
More-so after Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States of America.
In conversation, we would argue late into the night about the meaning of a progressive universality of human beings and how we could consolidate it beyond race, color and class. </div><div><br /></div><div> While keeping in mind the fact and reality of the global historical injustice that was not only colonialism but also the global resistance to the same. From the late 19th century home grown anti-imperialist struggles against nascent imperialism such as the Maji Maji In Tanganyika (present day Tanzania), the Mau Mau in present day Kenya or the Chimurenga in present day Zimbabwe to the multiple modern anti-apartheid movements’ in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique.
For many of my liberal friends, this history was of limited consequence in the present. </div><div><br /></div><div> The narrative was one where progress after historical colonial injustices were a thing of the past and how I and my black African colleagues’ needed to “move on”.
And indeed we sought to move on. We argued about how the world had sort of found itself in a ‘progressive space’ even after the millennial invasion of Iraq. We assumed as Africans that liberal interventionism’ based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its attendant United Nations' infrastructural system would eventually make the world political and international relations system much more peaceful and progressive. </div><div><br /></div><div> We were wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div> Both liberal interventionism as a global domination strategy of Western superpowers and our own assumption of universal equality of not only nations but the principle of sovereignty was easily shattered by events that happened in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Egypt, Palestine and Burkina Faso.</div><div><br /></div><div> And these examples are where physical warfare in one form or the other took place.
Also bearing in mind where economic warfare and sanctions remain intact in many parts of the globe for those that do not easily accept either the hegemony of the global West and its allies or those that would otherwise not tow specific UN General Assembly resolutions. </div><div><br /></div><div> What we however did not realise was that this was not just international politics/relations at play. This was and probably will be for the foreseeable future, a direct result of domestic sentiment in the same said global superpowers.
All foreign policy stemming therefrom is almost now predetermined by domestic political sentiment. </div><div><br /></div><div> Whether on the eve or aftermath of general elections which are now also surprisingly beginning to be disputed in their self-proclaimed citadels. And where racism and racist attitudes toward immigration have come to hold sway over a majority of voters in global north source countries. </div><div><br /></div><div> To explain a bit further by giving an example of the #BlackLivesMatter movements that swept the United States and Western Europe in the last few years, we assumed that an anti-racist movement would lead to progressive politics in the global north. On the contrary, it appeared to exacerbate its opposite. </div><div><br /></div><div> More right leaning if not right wing governments have either retained power or become more influential in domestic politics. And are worryingly still in vogue.
This can be taken to mean that the direct influence of domestic politics and international relations is much more organic in a more negative sense than we initially assumed. And that assumptions of global north exceptionalism are less about a foreign ministry’s approach but ingrained in the mindset of the country where that foreign ministry emanates from. </div><div><br /></div><div> Where we thought ‘democracy’ or ‘human equality’ to be universal, we are beginning to read between the lines in our newfound global realities and wars that we are seeing or experiencing. Both as they relate to emergent forms of discrimination and nationalist gatekeeping in the global north as evidenced by electoral outcomes in a number of countries. As well as neoliberalism or its more direct form of resource capitalism as a potential reason why this is now beginning to be more frequent with every change of government or election. </div><div><br /></div><div> These are conversations that fewer and fewer of us as Africans are willing to have for many reasons. The main one being that we are losing our critical consciousness of global events and how they are increasingly presented in a way that places us at the bottom rung of the global opinion shaping ladder. Unlike in the heydays of Nkrumah, Nyerere, Cabral, Machel, Neto, Nasser and others. And the other one being a form of self censorship in order to retain either the ability to get a visa or alternatively retain a job in one form or the other. </div><div><br /></div><div> This has also been compounded by what I refer to as the “departure to leave” syndrome that we are daily confronted with when dealing with our young African colleagues. Almost as the equivalent of the “bright lights syndrome” that we had to read in Urban Geography about rural-urban migration. </div><div><br /></div><div> A development that has been weaponised in the politics of the global north to either retain or gain power. Even as multitudes die in the Mediterranean Sea or crossing treacherous mountains, deserts and rivers in North America or the Sahel regions. </div><div><br /></div><div> Africa needs to begin to find a brave voice and call out progressive cdes in the global north about the turn of political events in their own backyards. It may not appear to be as important now, but it will matter for posterity. And to paraphrase Nyerere on electoral politics with a my own personal focus on the global north, “The mechanisms of democracy are not always the meaning of democracy.” And without global exception.</div><div><br /></div><div> *Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
</div>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-70418126210802911332023-11-20T14:41:00.000-08:002023-11-20T14:41:48.709-08:00We Are Not Abstract Thinkers: Critical African Consciousness Still Exists<p><b><o:p>W</o:p>e Are Not Abstract
Thinkers: Critical African Consciousness Still Exists.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By Takura Zhangazha*<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are certain things that will always remain politically
abstract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except for your own political
choices and what they may mean to you personally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many of us are almost politically predetermined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By way of individual experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either we were involved in the Zimbabwean liberation
struggle, lost lives close to us in the same or experienced Gukurahundi in the
early to late 1980s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are therefore shaped by what we emotionally consider our
own personal opinions as based on our own, again, personal experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is never time for a holistic approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything is almost as written in historical
stone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost as though we are going to be
arguing about ethnic issues concerning, where you were born, what your
ancestors did to mine, and why we should continue fighting over the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These are things that cannot be wished away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is part of our very abstract national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One which we have allowed to exist within the
ambit of an equally shallow desire for universal recognition of a false
recovery at meeting the requirements of a the proverbial “white gaze”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One of the most infamous lines from the famous Zimbabwean
writer Dambudzo Marechera that I still cannot fully understand is the one that
reads, “ We are what we are not, that is the paradox of fiction. ” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As complicated as that literal line may sound, it is would
remain evident that we do indeed leave ambiguous “consciousness’ lives.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost like a battle between personal, other
regarding and familial desire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Like we have to lie to ourselves about what matters the most
about who we are, who we can be and who we ideally should be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are things you have to crosscheck about what you have
to be ‘essential’ about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be about
money, keeping your partner happy, your extended family satisfied at your role
or even ignoring all of the above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
existentially you need a value system that transcends your own personal
desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must somehow find a way to
be shared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For personal or work related
validation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreso where it relates to
your own personal health challenges that others may not know or care
about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So you can walk into a library and crosscheck your African history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or alternatively link up how Rodney wrote on “
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
use one form or the other of a scientific method to prove that he was not entirely
accurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But principally he was
correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The triple C’s ( three C’s) of David Livingston,
Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation were never a good idea for the black
peoples of Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let alone Southern
Africa. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have referred to a critical African National
Consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it indeed
exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is under pillows, in
workshops, in dry satirical humour, but most Africans, particularly black Africans
know who they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is almost as abstract as asking a question like “ Did we
fight a liberation war in Zimbabwe?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
evident answer is, Yes”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that it’s
not even a rumour. It happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or asking us, again in an abstract sense, “ Did black people
have a contradictory envy of white people?” Reply would again be yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except for different reasons. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We would have to repeat/argue the sensitive topic raised by
Marechera, and for purposes of clarity, “We are what we are not. That is the
paradox of fiction”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even if we wanted to dismiss ourselves we remain confronted
with the reality of who we meet, who we make deals with and who we share the
same ideas with.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sadly there are fewer and far between cdes that we still
share similar social democratic and democratic socialist values with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It gets awkward with each passing year but its
understandable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Bob Marley sang
that we lost god friends along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
to be honest, “ Zvimwe zvacho, mazvokuda mavanga enyora”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You have overnight conversation with cdes, laugh, lean,
learn and remember those gone on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You also
over intellectualize what others don’t really prioritise and you learn to
handle yourself. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But at the back of your mind you remember that “Fuck it” you
never owed an explanation to anybody except your mom and father about who they
think, thought you became. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have never argued myself out of existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor tried to argue another human being out of
the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Occasionally I get bored. I
also get broke. Like a scholarship power and promise of the future thing. We
will get lost either way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am still
waiting for the sort of assumed rain. Out of Respect.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-78332723465080150222023-11-16T09:47:00.000-08:002023-11-16T09:47:37.506-08:00Being Zimbabwean Revisited on a Road Trip<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So I recently
went on a road trip to Bulawayo. I had not been to the second city in
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And road trips that long, are amazing
insights into how much the country is changing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are almost reminiscent of
both youth and the transcendence of time over individual “main actorism”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or alternatively how time does not in the proverbial
sense “wait for no man”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Because
this was a journey that I have traversed over many years, it was more about
reflection than it would be about basic arrival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting out of Harare on the highway would
not, over five years ago given sights of an expanded Kuwadzana or
Dzivaresekwa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let alone a sprawling Norton
and shockingly expansive housing construction in Chegutu, Kadoma, Kwekwe,
Gweru, Shangani and on the outskirts of Bulawayo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Like I
said, it had been a while since I had done a long road trip<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>out of the capital <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>city which is not not in the direction of my
rural home in Bikita, Masvingo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
issue was not the evidence of the rapid evidence of an increasing urbanization
of Zimbabwe ironically based on what was the still controversial fast track
land reform programme (FTLRP) of 2002.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which ostensibly was about the reclamation of land for agricultural and mining
purposes by black Zimbabweans but now turns out to be more about a rapid urbanization
programme while at the same time promising to “feed the nation” through new
methods of industrialized farming that the Dutch are now fighting about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The trip
was essentially a reminiscent reminder about “belonging”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a very nationalist sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You explain to a fellow traveler that you are
crossing the Manyame, Munyati, Sebakwe, Vungu and Shangani rivers almost based
on your backhand previous knowledge of travel or high school geography.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a silent knowledge that you belong to
this land, rivers, mountains, vleis and all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You even go
further and explain that the rivers you have pointed out flow toward the
Zambezi and that Harare is situated on a watershed which is a source of water
for both the Save and the Zambezi. Both of which flow into Mozambique.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With the
added rider that the other major river, the Limpopo, flows from the west of
Zimbabwe and ends again on the Mozambique coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In typical
travel fashion you crosscheck whether you have mobile network data connection
and put your mobile phone battery on “power saving” because you need to ensure
you can catch <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>up with family and
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at the same time you look
out the window and see the open farmlands trying to remember who owned what
during the FTLRP?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And you
mentally crosscheck the past with the present when you last traversed the
Harare-Bulawayo highway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Comparing what
you used to see and what now obtains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes its barren, sometimes its lush with newly planted crops and
you try and understand the complexities of the historical contradictions. The
blacks took back the land you think to yourself. The whites had mined and
farmed on the land since the onset of colonialism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you ask yourself the driven question, so
what does it mean now? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">By the time
you are getting to Shangani, you are remembering the possibility of elephants crossing
the highway. Like they did one of the last times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you are also looking at the railway line
(Stimela) and recalling Ngugi’s narrative of the “Iron Train” in his “Grain of
Wheat” novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you try and explain to
your contemporary passenger the history of the steam train and how it runs all
the way, eventually, to Cape Town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or
how Cecil John Rhodes always wanted conquest of the Ndebele Kingdom. So much so
to be buried in the combined sacred hills of the Matopo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is
always however a sense of a very real foreboding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost a fear of fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That being as you look across the undulating terrain,
you realize that you belong here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That this
is your country of birth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not necessarily
in a patriotic sense, but just that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sense
of belonging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Not in a
Wilson Katiyo “Son of the Soil” sense <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(amazing
novel) where departure is a big theme, but in a manner in which the landscape
speaks to you. The people you watch as you travel with their scotch carts or stalls
selling fruits and vegetables make you think deeply about. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or even the restaurant and toilet people when
you make that recess break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the other
cdes that you can tell are spending big money from illegal mining in the middle
of the country (Kadoma, Kwekwe , Gweru) And that their new business investments
are evidenced by the newest fuel service stations, bus companies and accommodation
lodges. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In observing
all of this you shrug your shoulders and realise that we are living in many
different but one Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You do not,
cannot lose your sense of belonging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
just ask yourself about the sum-total of our national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then you post a picture of yourself on
Facebook. You are Zimbabwean. Wherever and however you are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-35067643330231869792023-11-05T07:14:00.000-08:002023-11-05T07:14:01.879-08:00We Do Not Write, Think for Ourselves.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I recently
got lectured about my being off the Zimbabwe and African political opinion
radar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have shrugged it off had
it not been for the fact of where the criticism was coming from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The accusation was made by cdes form the
left who are also incidentally long standing trade unionists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they talked about ‘narratives’ and how
those that remain dominant in Zimbabwe are either populist, religious or<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>non-ideological.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I retorted
that one of the primary challenges of writing opinion is that you always have
to ask whether cdes still have time to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moreso in a time of audio visual social media content which is there at
the press of a mobile phone touchscreen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then I also
remembered a conversation in rural Bikita where I was asked, "So why do we not read you in newspapers or see you on Al Jazeera or hear you on radio stations
anymore?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I informed the cdes that I was
tired of writing let alone analyzing issues in a way that did not have
resonance with progressive cdes or populist affirmation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
response was relatively abstract, almost as a desire for entertainment and
information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They argued that they do read
though they cannot comment or social media their opinions. Mainly because its not necessarily
what is desired or what fits into populist echo chambers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Or that it would in one way or the other affect their livelihoods. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The key
point was they do read. They do listen to the radio or watch televisions and
other videos as and when they are available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And</span> their political opinions on matters written or commented in newspapers, radio or
television appeared to matter to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only catch was that if they don’t see, listen or read those they are
familiar with, they get disappointed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
does not change their general opinion, they said, but at least it informs
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The essence
of their arguments was pretty straight forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are not my personal supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They just need to read, watch or listen to varying opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With an intent to make their own judgements
even if they disagree with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And that’s
where I learnt my small lesson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freedom
of expression is not just about who agrees with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its more about the fact that it has
occurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where it does not, you short
change society and the national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">How we act
is generally determined by how we think or are led to think. Wherein in a
majority of cases we think because of what we learn or consume culturally,
intellectually or by way of lived experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which still comes down to the same thing, the written, sung, spoken,
televised or even “videoed” representation of our contextual societies matters. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This, at
least for me, means that narratives must clash on a regular basis. Be they
dogmatic, abstract or based on what we know to be very real materialism in a
capitalistic context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this should be
beyond the political.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its also about
lived everyday ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Almost like
telling a cde that it is ridiculous and unsustainable to be part of a ‘share
your pay’ monthly Ponzi scheme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or that
where it comes to for example, the rural-urban divide, the rural remains more pragmatic
for a Zimbabwean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beyond the
“bright-lights syndrome”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that has
crossed over from just about being from Bikita to Harare, to being from
Harare/Bulawayo to London or Ontario. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The key
point that I get from all of the aforementioned conversations is the importance
of avoiding political correctness and wading into the murky waters of even self-censorship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And to understand that a holistic view of
Zimbabwean society requires a lot more candidness than what we are currently experiencing
from our mainstream and social media platforms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We need to
learn to stop lying to ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
for this, we need to write, think, vlog more, even if for egoistic purposes as
is the current majority of cases with those that would influence us and our
perspectives on our own society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I know that
there is no uniform ‘national consciousness’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More-so in the materialist times that we live in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its in part due to the fact of our Christian evangelist
culture that has been exacerbated by Pentecostalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Including our political economy’s mimicry of
western culture (the things we enjoy, the holidays’ we seek, the
cars/houses/schools/hospitals we desire and assiduously work toward) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The reality
of the matter is that this is a false national consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, you can get into a car, or aspire to
have one. Build a double story mansion on agricultural land that was urbanized under
the fast track land reform programme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or
get a job in the global north that is more about your status than economic
reality (bright lights syndrome) or get a trophy husband or wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that is not the essence of our national
Zimbabwean being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That is why
we need counter narratives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why
we need to write or express them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
is why we need to fill a specific ideological gap that I was informed about by longstanding labour leaders. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That’s why
I promise to write again. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-75288668278422299152022-10-17T11:55:00.001-07:002022-10-17T11:55:33.197-07:00See You End of November 2022<p dir="ltr">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! )</p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-22594780303393119732022-10-08T08:51:00.009-07:002022-10-08T08:54:03.649-07:00Being Zimbabwean #Zimbabwe<p>By Takura Zhangazha*</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is a book called <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvk3gmpr" target="_blank">“Becoming Zimbabwe. A history fromthe Pre-Colonial Period to 2008”.</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
one written by two amazing academics that I personally admire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Namely Professor Mlambo and Professor Raftopolous
and was published in 2009 at the height of our political and economic crisis
during that time. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was and remains an amazing academic project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in the days of poignant polarization of
our people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had its own nuances that
have stayed with us today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This being an
historical narrative of Zimbabwe that sought to indicate that we were not only
a failed state but probably a failed people. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But in this brief weekend write up I do not want to focus on
the book cited above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am more curious
about what it means in the contemporary to “Be a Zimbabwean”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As opposed to becoming one. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And this is a very complicated question that the fewest of
us are willing or able to answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
the easiest one being that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>like most of
Southern and East African countries we are immediate constructs of post-colonial
settler states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the contemporary and to be specific to my own country, Zimbabwe,
our sense of belonging is fundamentally defined by our birthplaces(s).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as it was within the territory that
we now call Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only catch is
that again it is not that simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or
an original inhabitant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geographically,
culturally and in some cases, spiritually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But we now know that being Zimbabwean is a very complicated experience
in the contemporary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By way of age,
ideas and material well being and not necessarily in that order. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the fault of the then adults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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”.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or when I interacted with two specific war veterans, Cde
Dzino (Wilfred Mhanda) and Cde Freedom Nyamubaya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with due process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I couldn’t argue with his then struggle
credentials and I lost that debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In absolute terms. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I do not think absolutely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always try and see what the future holds.
Based on the actions of those in leadership and even ‘supporter’ positions in
the present. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this, there is an assumption of political correctness
about what it means to be a Zimbabwean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either
one is fighting the status quo or defending it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The assumption being that there can be no other way to be a
Zimbabwean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A perception that is the
direct product of our many years of political polarisation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence our
governments rather vacuous term of “ being a friend to all and an enemy to none”.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its as abstract as it demonstrates a
naie perception of how international relations work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually we will take a side as a country
in the global affairs of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
that is already known by those that do not like us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But again, just for emphasis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ideologically we are at sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At both the elite and ordinary but poor people
levels. The only “idea” that seems to bind either of the two is religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But what is most important in being Zimbabwean is the idea
of ‘materialism’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is our fundamentally
measure of success and being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that
is not unique to us had we not undertaken since the Fast Track Land Reform
Programme (FTLRP).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except that in such
an assumed revolutionary process we mimic those that we sought to replace. Both
materially and ideologically. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what does it mean to be a Zimbabwean now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not know. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-50946031743276140872022-10-03T09:24:00.004-07:002022-10-03T09:24:47.832-07:00Abstract Take: The Passage of Time and Zimbabwean Politics.<p>*By Takura Zhangazha</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In our Zimbabwean politics we rarely discuss one key
issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the passage of time and
its impact on historical, contemporary and future perspectives on how we view
ourselves and our country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not just politically though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We consider time in many respects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From the religious to the economic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What is more impressionable however is the fact of the symbolism
that we attach to the passage of time in our politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the lack thereof. As well as how we may
possibly misunderstand it and its role in our political being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As abstract as that may appear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are three issues I would therefore like to raise about
the passage of time and our Zimbabwean politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first is that the fundamental national shaping occurrence
of the liberation struggle against settler colonialism cannot be wished
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Historically or in the present and
in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And never mind populists who argue on behalf
of the settler Rhodesian state They are in the wrong on this one. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this is the language of assumed betrayal of major
revolutionary and historical processes, values and principles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The final consideration I have on the matter of time and
Zimbabwean politics is the clear lack of intergenerational praxis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This being a specific carry-over
of colonial false consciousness that assumes specifics about what is “success”
and what is “failure”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both at
individual and collective societal levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not only physically but by way of cultural and other desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To conclude, the passage of time constructs specific meaning
that we need to harness on the basis of our intrinsic values and
principles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are generally universal
and based on our long term interactions with the United Nations in pursuit of
human equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should never forget
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-36182786159045579932022-09-24T05:43:00.000-07:002022-09-24T05:43:57.364-07:00Contemporary Political and Cultural Entrapment in Zimbabwe.<p>By Takura
Zhangazha*</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There are
many reasons why political opinions and cultural practices are formed. Both in
relation to general society and also individuals. These range from history itself,
cultural, religious practices as they shape and influence a given political
economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the latter being an
encompassing of everything cited above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But this a universal
societal given as established by academics and thinkers in multiple
disciplines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet I still find Zimbabwe
to be in a uniquely different situation on this subject matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Particularly where we consider our last
quarter of a century (25 years).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We have established
a political and cultural system designed for an assumption of continued
permanence and not progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both by way
of individual perception and in collective societal reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
mainly because our national political economy since 1997 created at least three
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A highly polarized political
culture; a hybrid neoliberal economy that mixed radical nationalism with smash
and grab capitalism; and a social system that prioritized individualism and
high levels of religiosity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
uniqueness of this lies fundamentally in the now given historical fact of the
Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And it’s far reaching impact in how Zimbabweans perceive of themselves
and also how they want to be perceived by others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These others being those in the sub-region,
the African continent, the East and more significantly in the West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I say significantly
in the West because it is the latter that has the greater global and media
reach to control the narrative of what Zimbabwe is, should be and also can be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the past, the present and regrettably so,
in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a narrative
that our current ruling establishment has sought to counter with reference to history
and radical nationalism. As well as seeking the protection of regional and
continental bodies while also getting key protection from Russia and China who
are permanent members of the UN Security Council. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These
narratives have however had a greater impact on Zimbabwean lives than we are
wont to agree upon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From political polarization
through to challenging economic circumstances wrought on by both politics and
unilateral sanctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And this is
where our own agency as ordinary Zimbabweans comes in. There are certain
matters that we now consider permanent in a polarized political and economic
fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mainly because in dealing the
story or narrative of what Zimbabwe was, is, can be, we have become entrapped
in our own experiences which then shape some of our now almost now unmovable opinions
either side of political divides. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And I will
give the two most evident examples in our society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first is the general immovability of a
ruling party supporter on the matter of either the liberation struggle or the
radical nationalism that was the FTLRP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not just because they believe in both but more because at one point or
the other they were involved in either. It shaped their individual political
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because of the
narratives I cite above they are persuaded that no matter what happens the ‘enemy’
is always at the door. But with the caveat that they cannot in and of
themselves believe that after all they have gone through, they can be found to
have been at fault for their actions and opinions. They have no choice but to
hold onto what they know and believe. Whether or not it can pass some sort of rationality
test. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the
second example, if you take an opposition supporter and ask their views they
will reflect similar immovability of their views. This is mainly because they
either suffered at the hands of the ruling party via the state of the economy from
1997 or due to political violence being meted on them or their relatives particularly
in rural areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their views tend to be strident
on this and no matter what handshake of peace they are offered they do not
trust it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even for example during the
period of the unity government in 2009-2013. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is of limited consequence that their
narrative of Zimbabwe then resonates with that of the West because of not only
their anger but also their experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In these
two examples I have given it is also clear that in order to have one narrative
triumph over another there is a turn to what I consider the perceived and
currently popular ‘finality’ of religion or God as the arbiter of a true and
expected victor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By both narratives. Meaning
therefore anyone that loses either an election or property still has a firm
belief that no matter what a religious deity remains on their side and
therefore they have to stick to their proverbial guns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In all of
this we get caught up in a trap. We cannot let go of our experienced actions
and reactions because it would appear that it is all we would know. Especially
politically and even where new developments, locally or globally, indicate that
it no longer makes sense to hold on to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Meaning we may have entered a specific phase where dogma is our cultural
staple diet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again based on narratives
that remain entrenched with no urgency that they be resolved. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For this brief
write up I used the term ‘entrapment’ deliberately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would appear that we are now prisoners of
our own political and economic experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To the extent that we appear unchangeable or unable to reimagine what
remains possible beyond the victory of either political or economic hegemons that
we support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We may need
to take time to pause and rethink more carefully what we share in common in our
diversity and stop holding on to narratives that blur a better future in their
stubborn consistency. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-61161034511847878642022-09-14T08:25:00.002-07:002022-09-14T10:07:10.100-07:00Dilemma of Political Populism in Zimbabwe<p>*By Takura Zhangazha</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Political populism is a well-studied <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43301423">term</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least now it is more ‘googled’ than
studied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is also no longer as
much a contentious issue as it was in the heady days of political ideological
argumentation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has however
generally changed formats historically across the globe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially after the end of the Cold War and
the assumed triumph of neoliberalism and the now proverbial prediction that the
ascendancy of the latter signified “an end of history”. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In its contemporary occurrence, particularly in our own
Zimbabwean context (and probably many other African country contexts) populism
is not just political.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is reflective
of a national culture, including enabling communications technologies, national
and global political economies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together
with attendant historical processes as they occur or are remembered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In its essentially ‘us’ versus ‘them’ simple format
political populism pits an assumed elite versus what would be considered “the
people”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the people being in
radical ascendancy in the hope of victory or conquest.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What is interesting is the interchangeability of both terms,
the ‘elite’ and the ‘people’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the
question being who represents who? And at what point?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even more significantly, populism generally requires messianic
political figures. Who may or may not have some sort of ideological grounding but
would all the same be in complete control of whatever agenda they are setting.
Even if it creates or follows general political sentiment. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In Zimbabwe we have an interesting encounter with populism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a mixture of many things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dabble of ideology, a heavy dose of national
emotion, religion, history and individualised political and economic experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not forgetting a specific mimicry of how it
occurs elsewhere on the African continent and globally.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The ‘dabble of ideology’ largely relates to nationalism as it
relates to history and the liberation struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That on its own has been used by the ruling party to retain a certain
instrumental populism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The “heavy dose of national emotion” relates to the general
anger over the passage of at least three decades at the state of the national
political economy since national independence. This has been used to great
effect by mainstream opposition parties or movements. And as aided and enabled
by an even heavier dose of religiosity and individualised materialist desires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the latter being motivated by what we
see on television and on social media as being the assumedly enviable “good
life” of the global north. Aligned with an unbelievable intention and desire at
mimicry politics and its attendant recognition. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In contemporary African and global politics this is not
unique to Zimbabwe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is populism that
led to colour revolutions in the last two decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of which were reversed almost at the blink
of an eye by either military coups, big business and/or global superpower
foreign policy interests. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The damaging end
effect of political populism is however not seen in the immediate. Mainly
because it is ephemeral and highly emotional. Only in the immediacy of its occurrence
or its moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is a key
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Political populism, whatever it
gets its progenitor, is unfortunately easily reversible and easily swayable in
the opposite direction of why it existed in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if, with a dabble of ideology or religiosity
it had initially appeared noble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
tragically it also costs peoples lives and livelihoods because it is never
designed to be organic with the people but with the political moment. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Again in our Zimbabwean context and in the contemporary we
have to accept the reality that our national politics are largely driven by
populism for many reasons. These as outlined above can range from some ideological
considerations of the liberation struggle, emotive anger at the state of the
economy, materialist individual desires and religion. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As such, we have come to stubbornly accept populism as
though it were progressive politics. Especially because it responds to our
emotions and waits for the next electoral cycle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does not do posterity. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If one were to ask if in the short term there is an
alternative, I would despairingly say no. Mainly because this is a global and
inter-generational phenomenon. More so when it is based on the fact that our
democratic processes, particularly in Zimbabwe, are based on a first past the
post system at a majority of levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But in the long term I can easily argue that this is a dying
phenomenon that is dependent more on our own recognition of progressive
cultural and political habits based on our past, present and how we want to own
and imagine our national political futures. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To conclude, in conversation with some war veterans of
Zimbabwe’s second liberation struggle, one can sense the angst that they have
that a lot of young people do not understand or positively recognise their
national stature. This is not necessarily the young people’s fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the coming to full circle of political
populism in its immediacy. And in the opposite direction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3223755292927731712.post-6867931400194456112022-09-05T08:31:00.002-07:002022-09-05T23:32:43.455-07:00#Kenya #Zimbabwe and the Disputability of Elections<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have been
keenly following the Kenyan 2022 election court case. Mainly because as a
Zimbabwean I have to reflect on electoral result disputes as they occur in my
own country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it turns out the Supreme
Court of Kenya has decided, at law, that William Ruto is the duly elected president
of Kenya. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And the
reasons that court gave are varied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
least on the nine (9) points that they gave. What is important is the fact of
the disputation of presidential election results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both as a general expectation and as a
general electoral habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A development
that remains completely understandable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Even if
when presented before a court off law, the mathematics or legal argumentation
appears to fall short of expected requirements. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What is apparent
is the fact of all elections in Africa, South of the Sahara being expected to be
disputed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least ending up at one constitutional
court or the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is the
case in Kenya and Angola.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As will be the
case in Zimbabwe, Botswana or Nigeria when they hold their next elections.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What remains
in vogue is the fact of the disputability of election results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how such disputes will always end up
being presented to a Supreme or Constitutional Court. Together with the fact
that in most insistences this becomes an international relations issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost as a force of habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the expectations that after every other
five year election period, this is actually an expectation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meaning that no matter the assumptions of ‘electoral
reforms’ there will always be disputation as to the results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if the same assumptions are made in
Global North countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What is
apparent is the fact of an emerging culture that we should and can dispute electoral
results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the sake of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is almost an electoral campaign that so
long we run for political office we should be able to dispute electoral results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or in other words, we cannot lose an election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially if we have the sympathy of the Global
North and its foreign policy intentions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In this
what emerges is the assumption of what is an election? Who actually votes and
for whom? Even if the candidate is as straight forward as can be, we have to
realise that it reflects more the interests of those that prefer that
particular candidate than they would an opposing one. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But this
may not matter as much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The essence of electoral
campaigns’ in contemporary Africa is a specific populism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that manages materialist desire and
legality of the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is a complicated
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We are what we are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the paradox of fiction”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am quoting here from Dambudzo Marechera
from his novella “The Black Insider”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The fact of
disputation of elections is one that means we are what we are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our anticipation is that we will always have victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet victory always eludes us. As though it
was a curse. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Our
abstract struggles at liberatory beings are those that tend to belong to the
immediate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The struggles for the organic
understanding of the future of the people of Zimbabwe is not abstract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is immediate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we know that those that fought the war of
liberation understand this. If they do not then we have to have a conversation about
the fact of the reality of what it meant actually fight the oppressor in the
most trying of circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is
apparent that the liberation struggle was complicated. And that it remains an historical
reality we can never wish away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if
we were in the political opposition. The importance of Zimbabwean being is that
we do not dispute the war of liberation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We also do not argue with the fact of desire for electoral change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor the reality that democracy has mutated to
mean many things to many people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some in
power. Others close to power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What we do
know is that democracy represents a political culture that is essentially about
posterity. It is not about the immediate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And more about the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where
we embrace it for posterity we will be alright. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*Takura
Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Takura Zhangazhahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06179268936879887796noreply@blogger.com0