Re-Understanding Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme.

 Re-Understanding Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme.

By Takura Zhangazha*
So a comrade asked me about Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) and its full import almost after twenty three years since it began. I replied with relative ease that it has changed how capitalism works in this country.  He retorted that it sort of works, no?

I could not give an immediate answer.  This is because the FTLRP spawned a new political economy in Zimbabwe.  What were peri-urban areas such as Seke in Chitungwiza, Harare province became at the blink of an eye ‘urban’. 

Areas that were assumedly rural became peri-urban as is the example of those surrounding Bikita and/or Chipinge.

Where we were told that,“land is the economy and the economy is land” by the central government we scoffed at it.  The reality is a different matter. 

The new political economy of Zimbabwe is based on land.  Land as private capital, land as inheritance, land as a benefit on the basis of political affiliation. 

This may appear complicated.  In reality we have a changing political economy in Zimbabwe.  One based on ironically the very fact of the FTLRP. 

When the white colonialists took our land via horse rides and legal processes that assumed we would never take the land back.
We went to war, fought a painful liberation struggle from the 1960’s through to 1980 and became politically free.  It took us eight (8) years before we could shake off the yoke of settler colonialism when we got rid of the Conservative party that was still led by the racist Ian Smith. 

We still however had the outstanding issue of the liberation struggle of ‘land to the people’.  The lack of popularity of the ruling Zanu Pf party and its ESAP motivated ideological appeal saw the rise of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to the fore of what was initially union activism which then transcended into political activism. 

 The working peoples party, the Movement for Democratic Change( MDC) was then formed with one of the many primary intentions being the return of the land to the black majority.

The key issue is what obtains now.  Not in relation to opposition politics because that is no longer worth spending time on until 2028 in Zimbabwe. 

What now appears to be more important is the meaning of land as capital in Zimbabwe.  Both in its material and financial sense. 

 Indeed there is inherited land capital, purchased land capital and politically connected land capital. 

It would appear with the multiple land developments we are seeing that these ‘’capitals” are intermingling.  We have a new form of estate capitalism in Zimbabwe.  One that is ironically based on what was assumedly the revolutionary praxis of the FTLRP.

Indeed we took the land from white colonial settler farmers.  We then appropriated that former agricultural land for urban residential use.  Understandably so because of not only our black comrades desires to live in the ‘city’ and their ‘bright lights syndrome’ but also because of our own Fanonian recognized inferiority complexes. 

The reality in Zimbabwe however is that land is capital. This is not a Marxist argument as many of you are wont to accuse me of. But Marx and Engels help.

Zimbabwe is now a capitalist society.   We are no longer  a society that believes in its own people.

And therein lies the problem. 

We need to re-learn what it is that brought us together.  Not only to fight the liberation struggle but to eventually challenge its hegemony without a white-washing of history. 

So when we return back to the issue of land and in our explanation to younger comrades, we have to be clear on its fundamentality.  Land remains capital.  Whether you are going to build a house or set up a mine or even do diverse agriculture.  It is essentially capital.

So when the land barons emerged after the FTLRP, we did not know that they knew and framed their interests as capital.

In our material desperation we assumed they had good intentions.  In reality we are faced with multiple lawsuits where the reality of the FTLRP sinks in.  Well after the sloganeering and attendant protective political events.

Zimbabwe is an example of material lifestyle capitalism.  This is in an easy point to make.  Most new urban settlements are a result of the FTLRP.  I have no idea why comrades need an eight bedroomed house. What I do know is that the political economy cannot sustain it.

But thanks to the FTLRP, as liberatory as it may have been, we appear to have lost our minds. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. 

A Changing World for Africa, in Africa. Globally

By Takura Zhangazha*

Global politics is seriously changing.  And this is not a rumour.  There are many shifting allegiances and also changing cultural perceptions of what is considered universally correct. 

 This is not only due to internationalized conflicts such as the Russia- Ukraine conflict or Israel’s genocide in Palestine nor the civil war in Sudan. Or the other one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

It is also because of a mistaken general assumption that “everything will be alright.” 
But if you have a general idea of international relations and its history you can easily tell that no, everything is not alright. 

Since the Cold War sort of ended, remember that one between the global east and west where we used to watch Rambo movies as a cultural reflection of the same? And with the Russians or Middle East comrades always either being the bad guys or the vanquished in the end? 

It is not necessarily as binary as it was before but we are getting there at what is now being re-framed as a new multipolar world.  So it not so much the East versus the West as of old but a mixture of a global reconfiguring of state-based- nationalist and economic strategic interests.  

All underpinned by fluid themes such as controlling immigration, climate change, ease of doing business, entrepreneurship and technology as it relates to what we have now been told is a ‘youthful demographic dividend’. 

At least from our African Global South perspective.  We almost have to look at young Africans in a commodified format for what are regarded as ‘markets’.  Except that these so called markets are largely consumerist, global north oriented neoliberalist perception of what should be preferred capitalist reality. 

Our African leaders have taken to this global perspective like ducks to water.  Very few, if any, contemporary African governments have what would be considered progressive Pan African economic, let alone political policies.  They tend to go with the global wind.  And hide  behind the Deng Xiaoping dictum of “No matter the cat is black or white, so long it catches mice”. 

And they also use the Singaporean and also Chinese model of what we now know to be state capitalism as a justification for many undemocratic political practices.  In this, they build mafia and oligarchic like political frameworks in which they have revolving doors between business, political and military leaders.  With the sometimes overt or tacit approval of capitalists in the global north. 

The key catch however is that Africa is almost still unfully explored for its mineral wealth.  Particularly in the contemporary as it relates to either renewable and non-renewable energy.   It is seen in the global north stock markets as almost a laissez frère for investment in mining, banking (money laundering), tourism and transport outsourcing (build operate transfer ‘BOT’).   

Essentially we, as Africans, are cannon fodder for emerging global markets.  And our governments are not willing to argue back.  Not least because our leaders are either pre-ordained by the same same controllers of global capitalism but also in relation to their own personal material interests. 

They also do not have any qualms about their policy approaches because they also know that ideologically we have entered a new phase of a lack of Pan African consciousness. Particularly with those that would vote for them, young or old.  In their pragmatism or at least their understanding of who those that they lead are, they probably know that it’s materialism (money), individualism and lifestyle opportunities that matter.  Hence African cultural celebrities or previously progressive NGO’s are always coopted into cultural and development programmes that limit a critical Pan African consciousness. 

On social media, some cdes were joking about the recent South-Korea Africa summit. Specifically they were laughing about how one country can summon a whole continent to its shores for a meeting about its own interest.  This is not a new thing.  In fact it’s a trend that fits the narrative of Africa being desperate enough to be an open sesame for what are considered ‘new markets. 

Almost as of colonial old where adverts were flouted in print media exhorting, for example, the British to come to the then Rhodesia.  Except that we are now doing it ourselves.

But as Amilcar Cabral writes, ‘No matter how hot your water, it will not boil your rice’, we, as Africans, are required to be pragmatic.  A ‘pragmatics’ that understands global dynamics, our struggle and organic history as it relates to the present and how we must move forward to a progressive future. 

In this we have to recall our most progressive African heroes and the ideological lessons they taught us.  Without the internet. Without social media. And I will end with just one, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Africa, when he said, almost as an affront to assumptions of equitable universalism, “Democracy is not like Coca Cola.  It cannot be exported everywhere.” 

The reality is that as Africans we need to be conscious of our own inferiority complexes and our penchant for mimicry of the global north culture/lifestyles, economics and politics.  I am off to re-read Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

Narrating Organic Zimbabwean Opposition Politics.

Takura Zhangazha

Monday 27 May 2024

Narrating Organic Zimbabwean Opposition Politics.

By Takura Zhangazha*

I got asked about the future of Zimbabwean opposition politics.  It was an abstract conversation.  But one in which I winced once or twice because I am also a founder member of the then mainstream opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)  

This question hurt more because recently I met current opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) at a local hotel.  They were peers during the formative stages of the mainstream opposition MDC.  Either as former student leaders, trade unionists or former school teachers in remote areas.

So I had a moment of reflection. I remembered how we started with the constitutional reform movement.  How we moved from elitist boardroom politics to people centered mobilization.  How we against the advise of our parents and guardians we sought to lay claim to a democratic change agenda for Zimbabwe. 

We did not end there. 

 We followed the leadership of the then Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and pursued a left leaning ideological framework of seeking social and economic justice in what was called ‘Beyond ESAP’.  The latter being a World Bank sponsored economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP).  One which eventually de-industrialised Zimbabwe and a decent number of Southern African countries due to neoliberal economic policies that worshipped and still do so at the altar of the ‘free market’. 

We struggled and we lost a number of comrades during both our constitutional reform struggle as well as the one that led to the formation of what we initially referred to as the “Working People’s Party’ the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). 

And perhaps I might sound somewhat repetitive in my previous blogs/write -ups, the movement got highjacked by the same forces that in our people centered way we were trying to fight.  Much to the advantage of the then and still ruling Zanu Pf party.  

Whereas we were fighting neoliberal and capitalist imperialism, we got trapped in the framework of seeking allies from those that were our apparent ideological enemies.  Indeed we needed the material support but our then leadership took to that assistance like ducks to water.  And regrettably never looked back. 

As young activists with our own ideological clarity, we began to disagree with the the opposition leadership.  They also demonstrated their materialistic power by sidelining us and embarking on populist campaigns’ against anyone who differed with their views.  At some point their views became cultist and we were left shocked at the fact that comrades we had come so far with could act in specifically un-ideological, unhistorical ways.

A number of us took it in stride.  We knew the global forces that were against a left leaning opposition political movement in Zimbabwe.  All they wanted was a ‘colour revolution’ of pots and pans that would make us as a country, with hindsight, the equivalent of present day Libya.

We dodged that bullet and insisted by the time we had the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediated Global Political Agreement (GPA)  that Zimbabwe was not a Southern African territory for the then trending neoliberal interventionism international relations strategy of George Bush and Tony Blair.  The African Union and SADC really helped with this via Jakaya Kikwete, Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo. 

By the time the GNU period was over with an abrupt election in 2013, we knew that we were in trouble.  We had been defeated electorally by the ruling Zanu Pf party.  We also had a new constitution with clauses that gave way to internal power transition processes within the ruling party and tragically we also lost the mainstream opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirayi.

Because of multiple interests in the political opposition after the GNU we had to encounter the ‘big man syndrome’.  Everyone and anyone who was in the GNU began to claim bragging rights about either the dollarization of the economy or essentially keeping the peace.  But these explanations were not necessarily for the people of Zimbabwe.

  They were for the neoliberal comrades of the global north and former commercial farmers who had changed the structure and focus of the movement.

What then happened is that post Tsvangirai, in keeping with what is referred to as “Millenial Capitalism” the MDC political opposition party morphed into an uncomfortable cultism. It is one of the oddest moments in which I encountered religion and politics taking on a shallow populist trait to the extent that I remembered the Biblical phrase, “ Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar”.

The key issue however remains what is the future of Zimbabwean opposition politics? It can can be answered in three ways.

The first being the most obvious.  Opposition politics is about internal organization and sharing of political responsibility. 

 Just like we used to do with the Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu) an organization that shaped a decent number of us politically.  If you do not have internal and democratic accountability, you will fail in your long term political objectives.

The second being that populism helps significantly.  But it is not enough because as in its nature, it remains ephemeral (temporary).  It is almost like trying to remember the last Jah Prayzah song and not, again remembering it. 

Thirdly is the fundamental question of ideology.  Recently a comrade laughed at me calling me a socialist and thought I would balk at the labelling.  I laughed back and insisted I am a socialist.  The future of Zimbabwe’s opposition lies in the clarity of its ideological approach to issues.  We are not in the United Kingdom or the United States of America where political traditions are based on slavery and colonialism .

The future of Zimbabwe’s political opposition remains a balance between the past and the present.  With a firm view of the future. 

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

Takura Zhangazha at 07:56

Workers Day 2024: Remembering Trade Unionism in #Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

Workers Day is no longer as recognized as it should be. We learnt of labour movements from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).  We learnt also of cdes like Clement Kadalie, Charles Mzingeli and Reuben Jamela and their role in forming the initial nationalist movements with Joshua Nkomo. 

So Workers Day or May Day as it referred to globally by the United Nations is very important for Zimbabwe and its history.  Even in post-independence it is the mainstream labour movement (ZCTU) that formed the largest opposition movement in our country’s history.

Labour was at the core of a new national consciousness after 1987.  This new national consciousness grew in 1999 into a leftist ideological movement that sought from the state social welfare and contrary to claims by the ruling party, land equity for all working peoples of Zimbabwe.

The idea of working peoples was derived from the National Working Peoples Convention (NWPC) in 1999.  It was this NWPC that gave the mandate to the ZCTU to form what would be a working peoples party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in September of 1999.  And the party was duly launched in Chitungwiza at the Aquatic Complex.

Ideologically we were social democrats.  We wanted a society in which a fair chance would be given to all regardless of your class or station in life.  And we wanted workers rights protected and guaranteed given the fact that we were coming from the bosom of the ZCTU.

As we proceeded with not only the formation of a working peoples political party and constitutional reform via referendum campaigns in 2000, we also became aware of what was a third hand in our activism.  This was that of the white liberals who had access not only to money but also international foreign policy support. 

We could not easily fend these comrades off.  They had embedded themselves within our popular support and eventually decided to influence the Morgan Tsvangirai leadership team from any leftist leanings.

But what is important is that the labour movement survived the fact of its support for a new political party.  The ZCTU still exists. And for that we are grateful.

The only challenge that appears to be emerging is that labour rights activism is increasingly being diminished.  Mainly because workers are either no longer as conscious as they used to be of their rights.  But also because scarce employment opportunities have made unionism abstract or unimportant.  Most employees in the  contemporary no longer care about workers rights.  They  simply want to keep their jobs and never question or organize on behalf of collective worker interests.

It is something I find very surprising, if not shocking.  Many of us in Zimbabwe do not understand that we are actually workers.  Or  even if we are out of employment, we were workers’ that had rights and could effectively represent ourselves. 

The emerging culture is one of fear of losing employment if one stands up for workers rights.  It is not only with many corporate organisations’ management, the media  but also with the state/government. 

There is an underwritten assumption that we are slaves to our salaries. And the persons that sign cheques.

For young workers, they do not do unionism.  They are too afraid. The only thing they know is individualism.  Get paid and go home.  If you are lucky you will keep the job and look after your family. And in sometimes unsustainable ways.

The key issue however as we celebrate May Day/Workers Day in Zimbabwe 2024 is the fact that we are doing it for posterity.  We have to remember that our progressive post-independence  politics stemmed from the labour mAovement. Without a doubt.  

We have strayed from this progressive path because of abstract populism and also because we simply had a revolution that lost its way. Not because of Morgan Tsvangirai but because of ourselves who  thought life is all about materialism and not thinking about the collective goodwill of the communities’ we live in.  We all wanted and still want to be rich and live or even love beyond our means.

I am still a worker.  I know my rights.  I understand those who assume I am ignorant.  Just as I assume that there are many who assume we are ignorant.  Because of their proximity to those in corporate or political power.  

I will end this blog with an anedoctal point.  I knew Morgan Tsvangirai.  He was an amazing trade unionist.  I applied for an attachment with ZCTU.  I qualified, but he couldn’t hire me after he had been attacked at Chester House in Harare.  We re-met a year later at the National Constitutional Assembly.  And we discussed Karl Marx.  Extensively.  Pity we did not discuss Gramsci.  I had not yet read him. 

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

 

Zimbabwe, Africa , TikTok and Behavioral Digital Capitalism

By Takura Zhangazha*

So the American Congress wants to ban a social media application known as TikTok.  It is owned by a Chinese based company but as with global financialised neoliberalism also has owners on American financial shores.  It would appear the major problem with this social media platform is the fact of its ownership by a company based in a country (China) that does not permit it in its own geographical territory but is relatively popular in the global west/north. Especially with young people.

It would also appear that there is no major political dispute on this matter between either the Congress and Senate of the same country on this matter.  Unlike on health care or abortion and in rare occurrences, the war in Ukraine.  Or the genocide in Palestine. 

There is however some sort of consensus between at least what can be considered the legislature and the executive (presidency) on the matter of the social media application that is Tiktok. Mainly because TikTok is considered a Chinese threat in one cultural, political and economic form or the other to American global (or at least) internet and intelligence hegemony.  

I recently had no idea what this Tiktok application was or is.  Like many others it is downloadable on Google Play Store or it’s competing opposite Apple.  And probably among many other internet based platforms. 

The American Congress has now recently passed a draft law, subject to the President of the United States (USA) Joe Biden’s approval/signature it would make for any American shareholders to either buy off the company in country or it will be shut down in the near future.  Or else the platform would be banned in the USA and probably with a similar follow up ban within the territories of the USA’s allies

This all, again, being based on the assumption that the TikTok platform is being used to influence young people’s minds via short, fashionable and entertaining videos that arguably target their own age groups. Without being algorithmically controlled from the Global North but the Global East.  Albeit in what is evidently an increasingly multipolar world and with its alleged multiple proxy wars.  Not just politically but also culturally.

So I also popped over to Zimbabwean TikTok online to check it out with a little bit of trepidation. The latter stemmed from the fact that I had always been told its about young people and their emerging issues and consciousness in short self made video clips. 

While asking myself about what this was all about, I noticed that the platform appeared relatively harmless, Diaspora focused and morbidly about lost loved ones (funerals) in our Southern African context.   

What then struck me is that it is now part of our new digital normal for young Zimbabweans.  At least for the young urbanites who have access to it and also platforms that easily link up with it such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook (in that sort of particular order). 

So when you join/ subscribe to TikTok the most striking thing is that fact of  young cdes subscribing to it.  And then not asking any questions about who owns it.  Or why there is what would appear to be an initially minor global power (China/USA) dispute about it.  Then you realise, ah it’s about a desire for actual recognition of their existence by many of our young cdes.  They may either believe in their false immortality (this is after all the age of Netflix where everyone is a superhero) or only a few can become millionaires and mimic the Global North rich by purchasing not only cultural or political icons, mimicking them (as they did with Obama) but also by straddling a false, ahistorical national consciousness.  (This is a debate for another day)

One that links up with a materialistic religiosity in which belief, wealth and simplicity of existence are intertwined to no particular benefit or avail for the betterment of collective society.  And not to sound like a broken record our labels of individualism have probably been as high as they are now.  “Angova mazvekezvake” (individualism) as Thomas Mapfumo once sang.

What remains astounding however is what I refer to as the formal hypocrisy of the global media and its repressive attendant Global North hegemony.  Almost as though you would need to remind Africa and in tandem with other Global South cdes that whatever happens to Earth, it happens to all of us together.  Be it in the proverbial political (kingdom, religious or apocalyptic) realms.

To assume free expression is not universal is to reverse progressive history. In our African context, we must remain true to this value.  We should feel no pressure to follow a Chinese or American example on this issue.  As Nyerere once wrote, and I am paraphrasing here, “ In Africa, we sit under a tree, until we agree.” 

The proposed ban on Tiktok in the USA is reflective of Orwellian tendencies that assume some animals, technologically, are better than others.  And that we, in the Global South, can still not tell the difference. But in reality we can, we will and we will eventually remember Amilcar Cabral.

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

 

 

   

 

 

Discussing Ideology and Mimicry in Zimbabwe (Again)

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwean political conversations over the last twenty years have generally become predictable (black or white, either-or) 

They are conversations that we have chosen and in a greater majority of cases, given.  They are also somewhat highly emotive about what should either be a political or economic way forward.

In the emotional output there is also always comparative analysis with other countries  and how ‘things’ are done there.  From our neighbour South Africa, through to the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Europe and in some cases Russia and China as models to follow or in some cases emulate.

In most conversations the big issue is usually about money, individual wealth and infrastructural development.  And these are conversations that are happening beyond physical spaces as enabled by social media and its hegemonic (cultural/perception) influence. Some of the debates also ridiculously refer back to the settler colonial era and its racist modernization programme for the then Rhodesia.

No doubt these are important conversations. Even more when they are about the immediacy of individual livelihoods and the role of the state.

A role that in the same debates is placed in electoral frameworks and language about who to vote for.  Or who we should have voted for.  While at the same time ignoring the fact of the passage of time between the same said electoral processes.  As well as coupling it with departure from the state for assumedly better state pastures that arguably meet individual livelihood needs. 

The elephant in the room however is how we view the role of the Zimbabwean state. Especially from an ideological perspective.

Given the fact that as Zimbabweans we have been classified as highly literate by not only our government but also international organizations, we tend to be highly opinionated.  Not only about various issues such as religion but more significantly our national politics.  

And at very personal or individual levels. It becomes a mere coincidence that we find ourselves flocking with like-minded individuals and create default political or social collectives. 

The question that emerges is why have we been like this in the last twenty or so odd years.  

The easy answer is the historical fact of Zanu Pf’s hegemony since independence.  It was key in shaping our contemporary national consciousness.  Its shift from socialism to neoliberalism with Economic Structural Adjustment programmes (ESAP).  

The latter introducing the country’s population to an unprecedented hedonism and consumerist culture that quite literally has broken down many of our common and progressive societal values.  Even after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) that began in 2000.   

The FTLRP’s greatest irony is that while it was predicated on righting a colonial wrong, it appears to have created a new economic elite that have no qualms about mimicking the colonial Rhodesian state.  It is a mimicry thatģ is evidently inorganic.  It does not belong the people nor does it reflect the values of the liberation struggle.

It’s a mimicry that fits into global narratives as determined by global financialized capital.  A development that points to the fact that in Zimbabwe we no longer have our own national ideological outlook on our political and economic realities. 

We are over-emphasising our desires for recognition for  doing the right thing.  Yet we have not clear idea about what is the right thing that is being referred to.  In our economics we function like we control the Federal Reserve Bank of America. In our politics we assume electoral politics should be like those of the global north.  And in our social life we assume religion will solve everything.

Where we return to the elephant in the room, we are faced with an ideological deficit in at least two respects.

The first being an evolving detachment from the people centered values of our liberation struggle. We no longer function as a collective whole that looks out for the societal well being of the other.  And this in the name of mimicry of other societies yet we should know about where we came from and who we intrinsically are and should be. 

The second element has been a Fanonian ‘pitfall of national consciousness’.  Since the year 2000 our own narrative has been of a failed state and anticipating national failure no matter what happens. Or unless there is a change of government and subsequent recognition by the global north.  The reality  of the matter is that it does not work like that. And as Amilcar Cabral once said, “No matter how hot your water, it will not boil your rice.”

Our national dilemma is learning to believe in ourselves again.  And to do so with the people.  A matter which requires renewed ideological clarity on not only the role of the state but also what it can and should enable.  Without abstract mimicry.

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

The Political Economy of Zimbabwe's 2024 Drought

So it is now official. Zimbabwe is faced with a national state of disaster because, like a significant number of countries in Southern Africa we will have an El Nino induced drought.  The current President ED Mnangagwa made an executive announcement this week to the same effect. 

Essentially outlining that this is no small matter and assuring us of his government's commitment to enabling hunger and food shortage mitigation measures that will not only involve the state but also reach out to the private sector and international food aid donors. 

His state of the nation address may be taken lightly by some  but it is an extremely serious one. Especially for those that experienced previously devastating droughts such as the one when some of us were teenagers in 1992-93 agricultural season and we learnt one or two things about what ‘food for work’ meant in the Chishawasha valley of Mashonaland East while at boarding school. 

We did not have social media or mobile phones but the national mood was somber because it was both experienced at our young ages and also real when we had to eat what we referred to as ‘Kenya’ maize meal that we were told was donated from the Global West. 

 We were also told that it was normally fed to farm animals such as cattle and horses. 

But we were too hungry to ask too many questions about it.  We ate it in boarding school, we ate it at home (urban or rural) and other comrades ate it in supplementary charitable or state sponsored feeding schemes.  But we learnt very quickly what a national drought was. 

Now we have another major one that is correctly a major national and regional concern.  I cannot speak or write for comrades in Malawi or Zambia where national state of disasters  have already been declared. 

It is however clear that  this is a nationally important matter that must be looked at beyond what the state president has announced and what the international aid agencies or the media will argue about how to handle the emergent humanitarian climate change induced challenge that is the national drought.    

There is however a political economy to the drought. One that we cannot allow ourselves to evade.   

And it is in three parts.  The first being that of the directly political and its impact on national politics.  The sitting government and the ruling party are obliged, at least democratically, to lead the country through this national state of disaster induced by the drought.  While what remains of the national political opposition (official and unofficial) are expected to hold the latter to political account on the same important national matter. 

This means that the political dynamics of our already existent drought, as announced by the state president, are also essentially about political capital.  Which ever way you want to look at it.  They are now keenly about what in political science is referred to as ‘performance legitimacy’. That is, “Who can feed the people?’

The second element is the fact of what is also referred to as ‘disaster capitalism’.  There will be private capital players (businesses) who will deliberately seek to profit from this national drought disaster.  And there are many.  From grain millers, to what I now refer to as ‘water hawkers’ in both urban and rural areas.  Some of them linked to the state.  Others are just basically private opportunists who for example sell bread, maize and other subsistence commodities.  And they will also speculate on stock exchanges about what will happen next either with currencies or minerals because of the drought and an officially declared state of disaster.

The third and final strand is what has been referred to in the Global North as the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.  These are players that will trade on the international philanthropic sentiment to show us how bad the drought situation can become, or is.  They will raise money, purchase the relevant subsistence commodities but at the same time retain within their same said Global North capitals, the majority of the funds raised. 

In the final analysis, we are faced with a monumental task to feed the people of Zimbabwe. Indeed while it may be sensationalized on social media or alternatively fit into a given but incorrect narrative about Zimbabwe being a failed state , the drought is a serious national matter for the country. It is not abstract.  But sadly, it now means Zimbabwe’s 2024  political economy and planning around it at state, private capital and individual levels has significantly shifted.

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