Pensions, Gas/ Oil in Muzarabani

 By Takura Zhangazha *

I once posted a tweet on how Muzarabani would never be the same again. With the benefit of hindsight, I was one third correct and two thirds wrong.   The one third is based on the fact that there would be and is exploration of gas in the Zambezi valley that will change not only its landscape but perceptions of what it would become.  The two thirds where I was wrong was that I assumed this is a project that would be designed to change local and global perceptions of what it can possibly mean to have a national project that is people centered. 

On the first third, the Muzarabani Invictus gas project is an intensive capital investment one.  Based on, you can guess it, globalized financial capitalism.  As a basic lesson in how these global financialised capitalism things actually really work.

Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans have always owned the potential gas deposits. Its our national resource by birthright.  Even if these anticipated deposits were then ‘discovered’ via exploration initially by experts hired by the French company Total and now to be explored by Invictus with newer advanced gas or oil drilling technologies. 

The major difference has been the fact of our national government taking a free market economic approach on mining.  A process it has referred to as the “ease of doing business”.   In this, there is a prioritization of the listing of investment companies on global stock exchanges in order to raise capital for investment in Zimbabwe.  It is blunt capitalism based on speculative market profit  intentions.  And in order to keep the actual owners of the specific commodity at bay.  Especially because of the capitalist assumption that they would never have raised the required capital to invest in their own commodity. 

In following closely media reports on the Muzarabani gas investment I have realized a number of issues.  First among them being that it is a high priority investment by not so new private players in Zimbabwe. And that the state has a vested interest in this via what it has called, in global capitalist parlance, a Sovereign Wealth Fund.  One in which it hopes upon actual discovery of gas, it can share the profit with the Australian stock exchange listed company Invictus. 

In this, it has roped in pension funds that are both public and private, as reported by local media website NewZWire, to invest in this highly speculative gas and oil venture.  The pension funds officially declared that they are optimistic that we will find the gas and their percentage shareholding in the Sovereign Wealth Fund will bring them a return on their investment.

What crossed my mind was the fact that the pension funds may have done this without consulting the owners of the money. These being Zimbabweans who toil day and night contributing monthly pensions for their inevitable retirement.

A friend familiar with business explained that this is fairly normal. Because pensions, both public and private function on the same pretext.  They take government guaranteed money and invest it where they deem fit.  With or without consultation with the actual pension holders.   So if you have a National Social Security Authority (NSSA) Zimbabwe pension you have no say on where proceeds from your pension are re-invested.  Especially if you are young. It just appears on your statutory pay slip as an abstract payment until you learn that there are many of you and it is a real determined of your future in your older, retirement years.

To be honest though, I really wrote this brief write up because of pensions and this particular speculative investment in oil and gas in Muzarabani.  Or any other investment that does not consult the people that it is meant to benefit. The working people contributors to both private and publicly owned pension funds.

One can easily argue that this is “capitalism”. But we know from global economics that this is what creates ‘oligarchs’ and to use a Rhumba term “ Big Mulemenas”. Cdes that are in no way accountable for wealth acquired from nationally owned resources. Cdes that eventually claim ownership of these same said resources as their private property yet they were acquired via what should have been people centered policy and political processes.

At the stage it now is, it is near impossible to stop the Muzarabani gas exploration project. In fact it may turn out to be an economic game changer.  The question that remains in vogue is for who? And why it has taken this global financialised private capital particular format? Even in the so called Second Republic of Zimbabwe. 

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

An Overview of Zimbabwe’s Rural Political Economy 2022

By Takura Zhangazha*

Many years ago my brother and I had a discussion on the meaning of the ‘rural’  in Zimbabwe.  The discussion focused on how we could balance the fact that we were originally from there via our parents and how in the moment we had to confront the reality of success as being determined by urban lifestyle expectations vis a vis the ‘rural’.    

The key question we grappled with was whether urbanisation of the rural was preferable.  We agreed on the technicality of this question.  There is no rural area that does not desire electricity or running water.  In this we also agreed that we need to modernise the rural in order to achieve equitability in Zimbabwe’s human development agenda.  

We sort of got stuck in relation to customary and civil law.  We had to interrogate the question of whether the rural in its modernisation was ready for a civil legal system.  We never came to an agreement.    And this is a matter that remains outstanding between us.

Over the national Heroes holiday which is held every August, I however noticed a number of emerging trends about our rural political economy.  Albeit from one district in Masvingo but I am sure these are likely to be occurring elsewhere. 

The first is that there is a default urban culture creep in the rural.   With or without the assistance of central or local government.  There is an increasing use of battery power to charge mobile phones and listen to radio broadcasts. Mostly via singular solar energy panels that connect to old car batteries or newer smaller ones that are designed for that particular purpose. 

There is the expansion of shopping centres in places that were previously remote and isolated for basic goods and commodities.    This also includes emerging bars and places of leisure that immediately link up young rural Zimbabweans with entertainment such as watching European football on generator or solar powered televisions. 

Another interesting factor has been the general expansion of what we still refer to as ‘growth points’. These pre-urban areas have increased residential settlements which are more formal and run by rural district councils and in some instances land barons who know how to work the system about land use permits and changes.  Especially for land that is in the immediate vicinity of these same said growth points. 

There is an evident rural-urban migration that transcends what would have been previous rural-major city migrations of the past.  Migratory patterns on the face of it appear to be young rural men seeking employment opportunities in mining towns or disused mining areas in various parts of the country. An employment term that is commonly referred to as ‘chikorokoza’ in our local lingo.  Though South Africa is still in vogue for many of these young men as an option barring birth certificate and passport access.

For young women, it is intra-rural migration that appears to be unique.  Particularly for the purposes of providing domestic work services to the wealthier rural families.   There is however still a decent number of rural –urban migration to provide the same services in urban centres that is viewed as a major employment option, even though it can be ephemeral particularly due to the challenges caused by the Covid 19 lockdowns.

But perhaps what is more immediate is political perceptions of what the future portends.   There is a clear generational gap in rural political consciousness.  At least from my own personal perspective.  What I noticed was that there was an eagerness by those that have been travelling between cities and mining areas but based in the rural to demonstrate support for the opposition. At least to me. And as motivated by what is clearly a desire to find the elusive US dollar in the rural political economy.  It is as emotional as it is populist in fashion and form.  Almost as a declaration of desire, intent while being a testament to realistic placement in the national political economy. 

This includes historical recognition of previous episodes of political violence and the general import of being defiant that older generations are quick to remind younger ones of.  With warnings of the danger of going against the political grain of the ruling establishment in the rural realm. 

There are many other nuances that I considered but did not get enough of conversation on.  These include the directly gendered dimensions of the rural political economy. Especially after the Covid 19 lockdowns and the changing role of young women in bearing the brunt of job losses for breadwinners during this period. Or that of the bubbling role of religion via new emergent small Christian church congregations and allegations of witchcraft that occasionally emerged in casual conversations.  Or the increased uptake of illicit alcohol and attendant violent episodes particularly with young men.

What I did get a sense of is that the rural provided a temporary reprieve for many who had been working in cities and mining areas during the lockdown.  And that a probable decent number of young Zimbabweans resorted to their parents\guardians in the difficult economic times caused by lockdowns.  Particularly to look after their children while they sought new opportunities locally and across the Limpopo or Save rivers.

To conclude, we have an increasingly urbanising/modernising rural political economy.  Both by way of material developments or cultural desires (solar energy use, batteries, enclosure of fields, expansion of growth points and default privatisation of land ownership.) What I definitely got a sense of is that Zimbabwe’s rural political economy is changing. Both by way of physical/human geography and culture.

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

 

 

Individual Life Experience as National Consciousness in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Our Zimbabwean national consciousness is a debate we continuously need to engage and debate upon.  Even if a decent number of us may consider it relatively abstract. But it must be had all the same.  With the key question being “What really informs contemporary Zimbabwean national consciousness?” By way of history, generational interactions and the multiplicity of its progenitors in the present. And as a result in the future.

I am also aware that this is a Fanonian question and that a decent number of comrades may imagine this to be part of the past than it is of the present.  Let alone the future.

What is increasingly in vogue however about this national consciousness question in our post independence era is that initially it is no longer popularly considered to be an urgent one.  At least not universally. We have sections of our society that may still hold it dear in their own recollections of it during the liberation struggle. Others still who consider it within the context of the first decade of independence with feelings of exclusion.  And those who at the turn of the first independence decade largely frame it within the context of economic failure.

Moreso in the present day where the latter perceptions of pessimistic perceptions affect organic  national consciousness. And I will return to the issue of organic national consciousness toward the end of this brief write up.

As is historically appreciated, at the occurrence of our national independence ‘national consciousness’  was popularly collective. Both by way of struggle and life experiences. Almost every adult Zimbabwean was clear on the reality of the necessity of national independence and its long term collective goals. 

This became somewhat ethnically charged with the tragic occurrence of  Gukurahundi which was eventually temporarily calmed with the signing of the Unity Accord between our then two main former liberation movements, PF Zapu and Zanu Pf. A development that surprisingly remains underplayed in the contemporary.

What was clear in the first decade of independence was the fact of former liberation movements actively leading the narrative on what would be considered progressive national consciousness.  In this, regrettably they failed even before the end of the decade that was the 1980s.   Their one party state endeavor floundered at the hands of not only the trade and student unions but more significantly because the Zimbabwean population had no particular interest in it. 

And this lack of public interest was based on downturns in the national economy after the introduction of the IMF and World Bank inspired Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP).  With the latter it became clear to the Zimbabwean public that there was an ‘us’ versus the ‘political elite’ situation in the country.  Hence there were so many hit protest songs during the 1990s.  From Thomas Mapfumo’s ‘Mamvemve’ and also Leonard Zhakata’s “Mugove” and many other songs that came to reflect a shift away from a collective understanding of what can be a progressive national consciousness.

Or by the time the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions  (ZCTU) escalated questions of what can be the newer national consciousness through its performance legitimacy questions beyond the combined ruling Zanu Pf party’s nationalist ethos.  And going one further by founding a working peoples party in the form of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) with the deliberate intention of changing the discourse on national being and national consciousness from focusing solely on liberation but also national economic wellbeing. Initially for the collective national good.

What has happened in the interceding years after the turn of the first decade of the millennium has been completely astounding.  Based on both the expansion of economic globalization and austerity or Fanonian desires for recognition by the Global North. And as fundamentally personally experienced. 

And this is the key point to consider that Zimbabwe’s contemporary national consciousness is now derived as a result of the foregoing on the basis of what it is that we have individually experienced. Whether as we grew up or fell from material favour.  We have a very angry national consciousness and sentiment.  And as with such emotive perceptions of who we may think we are, this emotion is generally easy to take advantage of.  Or to hold onto.

If you lost an urban shelter during Operation Murambatsvina or were a victim of politically motivated violence and survived, it is least likely you will ever forget about it. Let alone change your mind about the ruling party. 

Or if you suffered the end effects of the 2008 inflation while growing up and are now an adult it is within your memory to refuse to accept those that you have been told all along caused it.

Even after the 2017 coup-not-a-coup, assumptions individual Zimbabweans may have had of what change meant forgot that national consciousness essentially is always collective and not individual.

In our contemporary context it is now clearly individualistic and not collective.  Even as we seek the comfort and acceptance of those that appear to be more collectively conscious than we could ever wish for in the global north. To the extent that they create fortresses around their continents and generally have no qualms about deportations and setting up asylum bases on our own African continent.

What I have however learnt is that we need to regain a more organic sense of national consciousness that cuts across generations of Zimbabweans.  We cannot wish away our own history as at the same time we cannot forget our own lived realities. But even our personal life experiences should never defeat the collective well-being of our society.  After all, geographically, politically, economically and generationally, it is one country.

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

 

 

 

The Trouble With Local Government in Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

The architecture and administration of local government (also referred to as city/town/municipal/ rural district councils) is very interesting in Zimbabwe. From varying perspectives.  These are namely historical (also colonial and therefore psycho-social), economic, legal and political/electoral. 

Historical or colonial because local government finds its contemporary structure still being informed by the intentions of the Rhodesian settler state. Psycho-social in how our attitudes toward this remain embedded in a preference of the city/town or what we generically refer to as the urban economy and life(style). Or what we naively referred to in high school geography or history lessons as the ‘bright lights syndrome’.  Almost as Fanon would have predicted. Even if we arrived at it in the now by way of racist and therefore discriminatory policies.  And how this continuing contemporary attitude is also predicated on mimicry of a then racist political economy.  

This latter point can be expanded by understanding that the ‘urban’ in Africa tends to be regarded as the epitome of material  and political success.  And the city is globally perceived as the most efficient form of human settlement.  Hence the tragic challenges we have of young Africans’ migration to what appear to be the best of them in the global north at the risk of life and limb.  Zimbabwe is not an exception.  Hence we are turning some of our peri-urban areas into mini-towns and cities.  Or what we considered ‘growth points’ having haphazard residential urban plans that are unsustainable. 

In the contemporary therefore we have not fundamentally changed what we have considered ‘local government’.  It regrettably has a heavy colonial hangover as informed by the principles of the protection of the private property of the privileged and the retention of an exploitative ability to retain the physical labour of the materially dispossessed.  Both in the past and in the present. 

In the third instance the legal differences in our local government systems are as cyclical as they are real.  The legal dichotomies between the urban and the rural are now well documented and argued academically.  With again the greater literature around this deferring/ more focused onto the city and not the village.  As it relates to property rights, tradition, culture and assumptions of individual or collective senses of belonging.  This even after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) where the rural even after expanding into former commercial (urbanized) land, remains on the periphery and at the interface between what is considered tradition and modernization.  With the current government intent on reinventing the rural into industrial and private hubs for mines and large scale commodity agriculture.  A development which again closely links to the economic paradigm of local government in which the priority remains the unequal urban as of old.

Strictly spoken for this is how capitalism developed and becomes cemented.  It values its most key element, the right to private property in tandem with various forms of nationalism and assumptions of belonging to a geographical territory by elites in charge of what they consider lesser mortals. 

And this is where the contemporary politics of our local government system comes in.  We know that there are political strongholds of two main political parties that are based on who controls cities, towns and/or rural district councils.  This has been the case since 2000.  With the opposition in its still many formats controlling a majority of the major cities, some towns.  While the ruling party in turn in charge of the rural district councils and a sprinkling of towns.

What is lost in these political contestations is the fact that our local government system  structurally remains the same.  In most cases for political reasons such as a deliberate lack of the political will.  And I will give a quick example here. We are still designing our urban and rural development programmes based not only on pre-independence masterplans that exacerbate inequality and difference based on class or physical location. Even after the FTLRP.  And while many of our elites either side of the political divide think this is what works, the irony of it is lost to again our inability to reinvent a democratic form of local government beyond electoral results and populism.

While some may argue that this is work in progress because there are new processes around devolution, it is how we re-imagine local government that is more challenging. Devolution is essentially playing catch up to the urban and its specific lifestyles. Particularly for political expediency and as a result default development projects that may not be as sustainable as they appear without the politicians that are pushing for it.  But again, by default it helps stabilize migratory patterns even though it would increasingly appear we are in an age in which the rural is dying and on the verge of privatization.  Its only saving fact for now is that it remains the strongest support base for the ruling party in Zimbabwe.

Let me conclude by a brief argumentation recap.  Our local government system is not working democratically or with a functional interest in equitable development between the urban and the rural.  This is due to the factors cited above, namely, history (colonial legacies) that incorporate the legal and the economic aspects.  But also because of the political contestations as they relate to elections.  It needs to be re-imagined beyond land barons, matchbox houses and the newfound intentions of government hand in glove with local and global private capital.

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

 

 

Zimbabwe Mainstream Media, Journalism in Context and in Trouble.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe’s media sector has not been in a good situation for a long while.  And I am not just referring to the country’s consistently precarious freedom of expression context. The challenges it faces are fundamentally about professionalism and sustainability.  Two elements that are symbiotic in keeping it viably afloat.  These can also be contradictory because either can cancel out the other.  That is to say, the sustainability of the media in Zimbabwe can be considered to be more reliant on its own unethical conduct in order to garner more readers, viewers, listeners based on preferential journalism.  The latter being journalism that is biased, non-factual and in keeping with what its authors deem to be what a paying public prefers. 

It sort of fits into what I consider the rather awkward adage of ‘news is what sells’.  Particularly for mainstream print and broadcast media globally and in Zimbabwe. 

The particular uniqueness of Zimbabwe’s media situation is as interesting as it is now worrying.   In at least five respects. Namely, ideological preferences, political bias, the profit motive, caution about crossing government’s media policies and the interface between old and new tech motivated media platforms.

I will address each of these elements separately in this brief write up.

But it also remains important to mention from the get-go that Zimbabwean journalists are also caught up in this conundrum as it affects their own welfare and/or unionism.  Even where and when they seek to be as professional and ethical as possible, they are beholden to these aspects I have mentioned above and will explain below.

To initially understand Zimbabwean media’s current situation requires understanding its ideological positioning. Before we even talk of assumptions and realities of political bias.  Our mainstream media is cut from a very similar ideological cloth.  It is essentially, in the contemporary, a liberal media ideologically.  This is largely by way of the legacy of colonialism and our media training institutions. Particularly where and when it covers issues relating to the national political economy and private capital. Even where we try and consider its ideological approach in the first ten years of national independence, it remained enamored to a relatively liberal understanding of Zimbabwean realities.

I know that this is a disputable point but our media and our journalism were generally designed in the framework of colonial legacy journalism. Hence by the time the Nigerian government bought, on our behalf, Argus Publications (now Zimpapers) the tradition of what journalism can be had already been ‘liberally’ set. Despite our attempts at socialism.

Structurally however Zimbabwe’s media was designed to be pro-capital as a legacy of Rhodesian settler colonial hegemony.  Both in its state owned or private forms. Hence even with the then Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) one of its primary recommendations was that of considering the ‘media as a business’.  We may never have gotten out of that mindset, hence our current mainstream media reflects more the views of political and private capital powers that obtain.  It is not valued as much as a purveyor of freedom of expression in the public interest than it would be considered for its representation of elitist interests.

This brings me to the second element of ‘political partisanship’ in our contemporary mainstream media.  As highlighted earlier this partisanship or bias in our media is linked to elements of its sustainability.  Taking specific sides is not as ideological or as value driven as it would be in say for example the global north’s media.  Here it is almost as though bias and a lack of media ethics is what leads to a sustainable mainstream media based on target audiences which include those in power or those in opposition politics and their supporters.

And even more significantly those that create advertising or other revenue for the mainstream media. Such a situation enables journalism that is unprofessional as it relates to what is required for the mainstream media outlet to either make money or be accepted as credible in the eyes of its target audience.  We can argue that this is typical of all media but in our Zimbabwean context its exaggeration is that it is considered the norm and not the exception.

The third element is that of the assumption of the profit motive of the media.  It tallies closely with the discussion on the matter of political bias.  Media owners are largely responsible for putting pressure on senior level journalists (editors in particular) to function like chief executive officers.  At the expense of their journalistic roles.  And all at the same time thinking that journalism in and of itself can only be successful if it ratchets up sales via increased eyes and ears. In this sense, the ‘media as a business’ model falls short of expanding free expression and public interest access to information.  This approach commodifies not only journalism but also free expression.  Though the media owners have limited interest in this as they crunch dwindling profit numbers. 

The fourth element is that of how the mainstream media remains wary of our national government’s media laws.  And how they curtail free and independent journalism.  While these laws have been undergoing reforms that have been cautiously welcomed by stakeholders, the government’s approach to media freedom has also led to skepticism, anger and mistrust.  It has also had the end effect of creating a very public perception that the private media is always correct when reporting on government transgressions. Especially because of the continued arrest and harassment of journalists that are either just doing their jobs or perceived as being pro-opposition.

Finally, mainstream media has a dilemma with social media because of the disruption of its long obtaining ‘news cycle’.  To the extent that no one can really say which leads the other at the moment.   From social media influencers through to bloggers/vloggers the mainstream media I Zimbabwe appears to be playing catch-up most of the times. It is a development that has opened up the journalism profession to that perennial question, “Who or what is a journalist?” 

In essence however this question is really about how does the Zimbabwean public value journalism.  Both in its more traditional or newer formats. I do not think the profession is as valued anymore largely due to the fact of technology enabling almost anyone with mobile telephony and access to social media the capacity to tell their own version of a news event.  But more significantly because freedom of expression is now highly individualized in tandem with its individualization. 

I do not know if Zimbabwean journalism is in need of a rescue. Only practicing journalists and media owners, organisations can respond to this matter.  What I do know is that it is in trouble and that as elsewhere globally, it is losing ground on the public interest value of free expression as a fundamental democratic right.

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

 

Questioning the Commodification of Free Expression in Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many issues about our general and specific political conversations that require flagging out in Zimbabwe.  Not only as they relate to our hard held opinions but more significantly our political consciousness.  While this may appear to be abstract, we probably need to understand the necessity of getting ourselves as Zimbabweans to be a bit more frank with each other.  Particularly about what we consider to be progressive politics and its full import on our society. 

I am going to make an attempt at this. 

In the first place what I have noticed is that there is indeed a political economy to our opinions or our right to freely express ourselves. The foundation of this is our long drawn historical assumptions of what it means to be successful in life.  Both by way of education and materialist accomplishments.  Key questions that Zimbabwean society asks of us, including the Church, are how educated are you?  What degrees do you have (including if you have a PhD), what car do you drive, do you have urban property (stand), and where do you work? 

This is a general global trend in capitalist/neoliberal societies.  We may not quite be such a society in the strict sense of the term our national mindsets appear set on it.  Especially based on our desires for departure to the global north. An issue I will come back to later. 

What has been more interesting is the fact of the carry over habits of assumptions of what it means to be successful in Zimbabwe.  It’s a very complex argument but the general impression is a given with how we relate to each other at work, in churches, families, schools, rural associations and also political parties. 

So when we express our political or even other opinions we are, by default, mindful of this political and economic framework of consciousness.  We quite literally reflect it more than it does our own perception of who we are and who we can be.  Beyond ourselves and as we pass it on to our children. 

Our opinions appear to have become rigid beliefs.  Especially where they concern politics.  It is as expected but it also has specific queries that would accompany understanding our realities.

Almost as though if someone says in your face that ‘Jesus Saves’, you should be allowed to ask a question as to. How does he save?” And proceed as you consciously desire.  But this is not the case in contemporary Zimbabwe. 

We have been made by many to believe that free expression is dogmatic and partisan.  That even our mainstream media can only be found on one side or the other of our political divide and therefore are only worth listening/reading to where and when they reconfirm our own perceptions for what we may already have decided we should think. 

The title of this blog is however more interesting. The political economy of free expression in Zimbabwe reflects the fact of the material and political desires that a majority of us have. Both in the urban and rural areas.  That is, to own a car, house and to send our children to the best private schools/ universities.  In order to again reap the material wealth of our efforts.  From the children. 

The only catch with this is that we assume we are now in control of our opinions via social media.  Yet is generally established that the latter pushes us in specific directions about how we should think about ourselves and our opinions.  It reconfirms, in general, an assumption that our individual opinions matter. Collectively.  And therefore because of the combination of the individual opinions in to a numerical collective we are therefore correct in the same said opinion.  Even though we do not own any of the social media platforms that we belong to.  They are owned by individuals who determine, via algorithms what can be shared and posted on them. This includes our angst at local  mobile telephony and internet service providers when their services break down,

So the political economy of free expression in Zimbabwe is probably three fold.  It begins with the actual political economy which is neoliberal (an assumption that the free market will solve all of our problems).  And it is then followed by a desire for individual recognition for your opinion as it fits the latter narrative and sadly a simultaneous recognition from the global north. Not only for our social media influencers but also for our mainstream media.   Thirdly, it combines the ideological with the emotional. Your feelings are reconfirmed with your desires. What you believe, even without facts, is what obtains. And it is what you go with.  The only key difference is that at the moment in Zimbabwe, there is no drastic motivation to act on it.

This has been a relatively complicated blog. What appears to be real is that free expression is increasingly becoming a commodity in Zimbabwe.   Both by way of who owns the platforms you use to express yourself and the ideological parameters you chose to do so.

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

 

 

 

A Changing Pan Africanism: A Need to Return to the Source.

By Takura Zhangazha*

The current chairperson of the African Union (AU) and president of Senegal, Macky Sall recently met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in the former capacity.   In representing the African continent, not much was reported on the geo-political implications of such a meeting save for stories claiming that agricultural products that Africa heavily relies on from Ukraine and Russia are still able to reach our African shores.  For any discerning mind there was probably more to the meeting than what was reported.  Hence on social media there were memes on how close Sall was to Putin as compared to for example the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.  A meme in which one can assume a deliberate ploy by Putin to demonstrate that at this time of the Russia- Ukraine war he intended to demonstrate greater Russian proximity to Africa in international relations.  Not only based on the number of United Nations (UN) votes from African countries (Zimbabwe included) that refused to suspend Russia from the  UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)   

Be that as it may, Africa’s response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been interesting to observe and reminiscent of a Pan Africanism of yesteryear to reflect upon.  

And it is an historical given that a majority of African states were closer to Russia during their anti-colonial struggle than they were to what we then referred to as the global West.  While mired in the global politics of the Cold War, a majority of African countries in all of its regions (East, North, West and Southern) did have greater solidarity with the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).  Even until the latter collapsed in 1989. 

But before that as far back as the 1960s, the inimitable Ghanaian and African hero Kwame Nkrumah had sort of set the framework for Africa’s interaction with the rest of the world with his now famous dictum, and I am paraphrasing here, “We face neither east or west.  But we face forward.”  This was in relation to the fact that Africa would undertake a Pan Africanism that related to its intention to play an even hand with global superpowers in its particular interests.  Especially where it concerned the outstanding task of liberation from colonialism but also the economic development of already independent states on the continent. 

We also had a phase post the Cold War and its global international residues that our post-apartheid era African leaders decided that it would be important to rename and reframe the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the AU which obtains today.   The main thinking was that we were almost done with the primary purpose of the OAU barring the Saharawi Republic of the liberation f the African continent from colonialism. 

We moulded the AU along the lines of the European Union (EU) yet the two organisation’s geneses are historically incompatible.   The former having been formed for liberation, the latter for primarily expanding economic cooperation between European states and eventually coagulating that into liberalism beyond economics. 

I remember the big academic and continental debates about what we then referred to as the African Renaissance with a new crop of intellectual leaders.  These included for example the still inimitable Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the long duree Olusegun Obasanjo, the now late Abdel Aziz Bouteflika and the one who eventually hosted the AU monument in Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade. 

The thing we did not to fully comprehend at that time and probably now is that taking charge of what we would call our own destiny as Africans is as historical as it is grounded in catching up with the rest of the world.   A process which is historically ongoing as opposed to being considered in phases as we did when we formed the African Union. Noble as it was.   And I do not make this point lightly. 

Where the AU is now setting us on course for Agenda 2063 and insisting for example on what it calls a ‘youth dividend’ in terms of our continental demographic, we are saddled with the sad reality that this is no longer our own organic Pan African narrative.  We regrettably may be returning to being slaves of a ‘free’ market that commodifies us again. 

We need to insist we are not a market for global neoliberalism.  Neither should our Pan Africanism, or what remains of it gladly be open sesame to the dictates of global capital.  

Where we return to the origins of our initial Pan Africanism ideologically and in relation to the Cabralist aspirations of our people, we become a better continent. Based on our Pan African liberatory history and an understanding of the promise of the future.  

But back to the meeting between Sall and Putin.  Whatever motivated it and how Africa places or argues for itself within the ambit of this increasingly globalized conflict and its potentially devastating impact, we need to revive our organic Pan Africanism.  As taught by Nkrumah, Nyerere, Cabral, Fanon, Mbeki and others.  There has never been a better time to remember those famous words of Nkrumah, “Africa Must Unite!”

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

 

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