Conversations With Zimbabwe’s National Liberation War Veterans. In Passing

By Takura Zhangazha*

I have had an awkward relationship with War Veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. Sometimes in conversations with them, I feel the pain of what they experienced.  From Chimoio, Nyadzonia, through to Mavonde.  

 
I always ask myself if I would have had the courage to take to arms for my country.

I also ask myself if I would have had the courage to understand that a left leaning  labour backed movement had decided that there is also an alternative to what Zimbabwe can be.

But back to war veterans of what was a protracted liberation struggle. 

Like I said I enjoy having conversations with them. Moreso when they outline not only their personal engagements in battle but also when they explain their own dissapointments as to how the struggle turned out. 

  
I always jockingly argue with them that I do not like War Veteran comrades.

  Mainly because when I was really close to cde Dzinashe Machingura and Cde Freedom Nyamubaya, it really hurt when I had to be part of how they were buried.

But this does not change the fact of the importance of the fact that we must respect our own war veterans.  Even as we allege that they were were involved in atrocities in not only 2008 but also as serving members of the military and police during what is now referred to as the Gukurahundi years. 

But I laugh out loud at the fact that I have many Zimbabwean War Veteran friends.   And I am not shy about it.  My  only gripe is the fact that there are to many to always remember and probably bury.

A number of us forget that Zimbabwe came via a liberation struggle.  And it was not easy to fight a guerilla war.  In most instances, those that chose to go to war. Against Rhodesian and British imperialism, chose the high road of sovereignty and independence. 
But these may appear to be abstract observations. 

The key point I would like to make is that we do not respect our War Veterans enough. 
We watch many movies about people fighting in the second world war.  Others in in Iraq, Afghanistan or even Libya and we imagine that there are specific harbingers of war and force globally that are based in the global north. 

In reality, and with history and memory we are reminded of our own arduous struggles’ against imperialism and colonialism.  Particularly as Africans.

It is however awkward to have to remind Zimbabwean comrades that we fought a liberation struggle to free ourselves.
History cannot and should never be wished away.

But lets go back to the key  point about being a friend to War Veterans.  I have a brother who was a war veteran.  

His name was Cde Tito.  He is buried at Harare’s provincial heroes acre.  He fought in the liberation struggle.

I have another brother Kenny Zhangazha, who is also a war veteran.  He is still alive. 

But the issue is why would I ask about his struggle history?  There are those that I meet and ask where they were.  I will not mention their names. But indeed they mention Chimoio, Mavonde and Nyadzonyia.

And in any event it remains abstract.  I am an avid believer in war veterans.  By this, to be clear, I mean people who fought for the freedom of Zimbabwe.  Whatever they did after our national independence in 1980 is their business to discuss. 

What I know is that there was a liberation struggle waged. It produced independence however ambiguous it became.  But in reality we became free.

As a general rule, I do not question war veterans of Zimbabwes liberation  struggle.  No matter how you spin it.  These are cdes who fought a protracted war for national liberation in different respects and different areas. And these are cdes who eventually won the war.

If anyone is a genuine war veteran.  A cde who fought in the struggle, I will always listen to whatever they say,  even if I disagree with it.  I have never faced death for freedom.  I just do not want to continue to have war veterans as my friends.

It was cde Dzino.  Then it was cde Freedom.  And some of their key cdes were not there.   It hurts me deeply.  But it is what it is. 
It is an abstract observation. 
But I am worried about how many War Veterans I have buried.  And what I had to say at Dzinashe Machingura’s funeral. 

Why do #Zimbabweans Pray So Much?

By Takura Zhangazha*

A friend warned me about writing on religion. His argument was that you cannot win against it.  Be it Christian, Muslim or African tradition in preferential populist order. 
I thought about this for a while.  And with my basic secular perception of Zimbabwean and Southern African society I realized that indeed our Gods or perceptions of the same will always matter in our lifetimes. 

This is because there are many angles to religion.   With most of these angles of perceptions being related to our births or our deaths. 

At the same time, in the same instance, my friend asked me, why does religion matter so much for us in Africa. 

I wanted to reply that in our context it is the legacy of colonialism that makes, for example, Jesus a colossus in our lives.   

I also wanted to explain that it is our mothers, wives and sisters that remain the beating heart of our religious consciousness.  The latter for the fact of not only how they were brought up. But also because of colonial practices of what was then referred to as ‘cleanliness’. 
The emergent question however is why do Zimbabweans pray so much? 

It is a rarely asked question.

Midnight prayers, so called pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Christian rock bands in the middle of the night, consultations with various prophets or na’ngas and the recognition of Friday prayers for Allah. 
Zimbabweans are a very prayerful people.  For many pragmatic reasons.

The foremost being the fact of our desire for belonging beyond the state. That is to create meaning out of our own existence beyond the fact of waking up and going to the toilet or the risk of going to jail. 

We pray to belong and to be.  If the church did not exist we would not have either that social circle of friends nor that elder/priest who assuages our social and in part life/mortality fears.

The primary challenge however emerges with the emergence of assumptions of politics and religion being combined elelements for individuals to assume they are Godsent.
And cdes reading the bible as a convenient political manifesto. Almost as though they want to instrumentalise it for political and economic capital as most have done in the last four years.  Be they pastors or politicians.

I probably need to make it clear.  I have no problems with the freedom of worship and religion that we all share in Zimbabwe.  Even in naivety and the fact that it may give your life a new meaning.  Either via a prophet or traditional healer. 

What astounds me though is the general religious naivety with which we approach our everday existence. 

We assume there is a witch or wizard that is affecting our lack of adequate wealth.  We also assume that there is a person who is working with some prophet or traditional medicine to prevent us from becoming rich like those that live the former white suburbs. 
Religion is integral to how Zimbabweans view themselves.  

A majority of us were brought up as Christians and in admiration of a white image of Jesus. This is a cultural and by default spiritual reality.

What we have to understand in our prayerfulness is that there is a political economy to religion.  Both historically and in the present.  The mainstream churches are not established by faith.  

They are established by an accompanying historical and repressive colonialism. 
The newer Pentecostals ones are established on the back of the global cultural imperialist project of not only the CIA but also an assumption of black people’s inferiority complexes. 

That’s why we have so many of these new pastors demonstrating not only faith but also their wealth. And a definitively white Jesus. While claiming to be the way the truth and the light on his behalf.

The big issue is relatively abstract.  Karl Marx was correct when he said “ religion is the opium of the masses.”  In Zimbabwe’s case, it is not the opium, as it were.  It is the false reality deliberately, in part organically imposed on the masses 

.For what is clearly political convenience.    Wherein fake assumptions of wealth and wealth generation are pushed out by people who do not understand the harsh reality that is neoliberalism. 

Educated or uneducated.  And on this I revert to Kwame Nkrumah who taught us that if you educate an African Woman You liberate an African Nation” .   We do not have as may progressive female cdes as we had before.  Moreso because they have found ideological homes in Jesus. 

 But religion is part of our everyday social fabric.  Even when you don’t mean it to be at a personal level, you will inevitably encounter it. 
That is why Zimbabweans pray so much.  It is by default.  Almost like you have no historical, contemporary or future option.  But to pray. Insh Allah.

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

Writing on Class and Class Struggle in #Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

I once took a flight to South Africa from what was then referred to as Harare International Airport around 2013.  As always, I was used to flying in and out of that country because there is a morning flight and an evening one that made one able to meet and do the necessary meetings in at least eight hours. 

At the airport, I met two long standing colleagues from our student struggle days.  Make no mistake, we were happy to catch up and ask after our stations  in life, family as well as the situation in the country at that time.  This was in the departure lounge of the airport terminal at what is now Robert Mugabe International Airport. 

When the boarding time of the flight was announced on the intercom, we all headed toward the departure gate.  Upon boarding the aeroplane, I assumed all of us, as comrades would go to the usual economy class.  Mainly because there is always a long line with preferential treatment for those that are in first class.

So we all had our carry on bags and I was doing what I considered a twelve hour return trip so I was very happy to be put at the back of the airplane.  What I did not know is that my cdes had a long haul flight to Senegal connecting from Johannesburg to Dakar, Senegal. 

As we walked into the airplane, my colleagues were in front of me, and in my simplistic anticipation, I thought we were going together to what we know as ‘economy class’.  Lo and behold, they started stacking their bags into the Business Class’ overhead lockers and sat comfortably in the bigger and more comfortable seats. 

I was slightly astonished but I understood.  They probably had more flying miles and had been upgraded by the airline.  A development which turned out to be ambiguous.

So I waddled to economy class with a number of questions.  The most obvious being the fact of how an aeroplane is economically segregatory.  

Not only because of the fact that when an aeroplane goes down, it goes down with everyone no matter which class you are in but also how it reflects general inequality in African society.   Both internally and externally. 

My friends in business class had forks, knives, champagne all the way to Johannesburg and we had the plastic cups and red wine.  When we arrived at Oliver Tambo International Airport, they got off first from the bus.  Never mind the fact of us arriving at the passport control office together.  Eventually.

As my colleagues went on to their forward journey I reflected on a number of things. 
The first was the meaning of class as represented by airlines and society in Africa.  In this, the key question was, at least in my mind, so who determines class on an airplane?  Who determines generic class in Africa?

I realized that we were blurring class with material desire.   Cdes that would not normally take a flight to for example Cape Town are trying their hardest to prove either to their immediate families that they can do it, even on a US$500 salary.  They would sooner go broke trying. 

 A personal friend in the aviation business, particularly travel agencies explained that everything is based on the frequency of your personal travel.  And your own desire to be recognized as a frequent airplane traveler. 
Or even in some cases the number of pictures you take next to an airline/ aeroplane if you are considered an ‘influencer”. 

The metaphoric meaning of this foregoing explanation relates to the fact of class in Southern Africa.  And the fact that it is being blurred. 

In order to simplify it, Southern Africa is a class based society.  Regionally and historically. From the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WINELA) through to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and finally through to the fact of Rhodesia itself.   
Many of us as black Africans were laborers.  A majority of us have remained migratorily so.  Even in 2024.  But we desire more.  In an economic system that will perpetually allow it. 

Hence a decent number of us think our political ambitions should match our economic and lifestyle desires.  As designed by the global north. Where we prove our material success but evidence of comparative material well being.

The contradictory point is the fact that we all want to be equal in a society in which equality is not expected let lone anticipated.  By ourselves.

 Everything appears to be a breakthrough moment no matter your education or historical arrival narrative. 

Again this is another complicated point to make.  And I may slow it down a bit. 

 Unfortunately we were taught to have inferiority complexes.  To admire not only white but Western commercial lifestyles’ and religiosity  as either suited a new modernization of the black African or abstract generalizations of the same.

We fought liberation struggles against colonialism but forgot to revert to Biko, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Cabral and Fanon. Not for the casualness of their names. But  for their organic reach to our being in the 21st century and beyond. 

What it means is that we have to return to the source of our consciousness.  As hard as this may be.

Now I am student of Amilcar Cabral.  Moreso when he wrote and said,  “No matter how hot your water it will not boil your rice” as he advised us.  And here I am only quoting him lightly.

What I do know is that we need a new Pan African perspective and narrative  that recognizes not only history, the present and the latter’s future beyond electoral politics.   

Where we learn to combine the three, we will have generational praxis. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)   

Kenya, Bolivia and The Global Souths’ “Age, Ideology and Catharsis”

Kenya, Bolivia and The Global Souths’ “Age, Ideology and Catharsis”

By Takura Zhangazha*

Two recent internationally flagged events could not skip my mind in the last few days. 

The first, as an African, was the occurrence of this week’s demonstrations that regrettably turned violent in Kenya over a Finance Bill (2024)  proposed by that country’s government but also linked to austerity measures that are generally propounded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). 

These protests  tragically led to a loss of young lives at the hands of the Kenyan state.  With the one political compromise being the fact that, for now, the President of Kenya has stayed the signing of the Finance Bill (2024) as approved by his country’s Parliament. 

I am not a Kenyan but as a left leaning person, I can only empathize with the young colleagues who chose to take their struggle to the streets to challenge not only their government, but also by default, the neoliberal agenda of the IMF and WB. 

 Whether be it based on ideological grounding or a generalized resistance to taxation and the media reported high costs of living in Kenya.

The second ‘internationalized’ development that caught my attention this week was that of the attempted coup de tat in Bolivia. 

 Because of Africa’s time differences with Southern America, the notices from progressive social media platforms came in quite late at night in Zimbabwe that there had been a section of Bolivia’s army led by the its general commander that had tried to storm the presidential palace.  

And that a message from current President Acre and his predecesor Morales had galvanized their supporters to not only outnumber the section of the military at the palace but also had the solidarity of the new Mexican and  current presidents of Brazil, Venezuela against the coup. 

It has turned out that the incumbent president of Bolivia has successfully foiled the coup thanks to popular support from the masses of Bolivians amidst suspicion of the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America(USA).  

This being based on previous allegations of the ousting of Evo Morales before his term of office had been completed as president of Bolivia.

Both incidents are still not completely resolved and we are yet to understand their full import in respect to their domestic or international relations’ impacts.

We know in Kenya, the Finance Bill of 2024 has been withdrawn by President Ruto pending other Parliamentary processes.  

We also know that in Bolivia, President Acre remains in power after bravely, at least according to what we saw on social media, standing down his then commander in of the defence forces whom he subsequently arrested. 

Now on the face of it, there is no common ground between what happened in Kenya and what happened in Bolivia. 

Except assumptions of anticipation of change or resistance to change.  And/or the movers of either. 

In both cases the most mobilizable were what we are referring to as “Generation Z’s” or “gen Z’s” Even before we talk about the newer psycho-social classification of young cdes as “Generation Alphas”, particularly in Kenya. 

I have no idea what these terms are equivalently called in Bolivia.  But it is certain they were going to be called upon to defend their re-emerging indigenous and alternatively progressively  Bolivarian revolution. 

What cuts across both countries is the international attention they both got as to events as they occurred in the same week.  And their government’s placements in global international relations. A latter point that needs further explanation. 

Kenya is now a very close ally of the USA.  Particularly in Haiti before we start debating its newfound relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). 

Bolivia on the other hand is closer to Russia and China.  Even moreso after a recent trip by President Acre to recently meet the much maligned Russian president Putin for a state visit. 

The key questions become what do these particular political developments reflect that we cannot easily see? 

My naïve thinking is that they definitively reflect what the great revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana warned us as to “Neocolonialism: The Last Stages of Capitalism.”  He may have written the book many years ago but it is what appears to quite literally be playing out in contemporary international relations. 

The contradictions of fighting the IMF and WB in Kenya by young Gen Z Kenyans while  simultaneously their government is now a key US ally for the forseeable future are apparent. Together with the resistance to a precedented coup in Bolivia against the backdrop of contestations for lithium resources by Russia and reportedly Elon Musk.

All of this in the same week can only raise both ideological and other eyebrows.

What is apparent is that the politics of the Global South are no longer going to be the same.  Any major political devlopments in the global south are now essentially internationalised. And mainly for economic reasons that are easy to either militarise or politicise as has recently happened in Kenya and Bolivia. 

I mention 'economic reasons' as the mainstay because whether a superpower such as USA or Russia has a vested interest in your national politics, as of now their ideological standpoint remains çapitalism. With two different versions namely one that is neoliberalism (USA) and the other that is state capitalism (Russia)

But as a final point, which also forms part of the title of this blog.  

We are seeing a lot of quasi mass uprisings as led by young people in urban areas. The  reality of the matter as learnt from the Arab Spring,  “Age is not an Ideology.”  

Neither is catharsis. 

Both help in the moment but as always, the forces of countereaction tend to be ideologically more grounded. 

What is required before age and anger/catharsis become key factors is an equally grounded counter-hegemony. 

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

Emerging Vulnerabilities of SADC as an Historical Regional Political Bloc.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are new key political developments in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.  On top of the list are the results of the South African general election that saw what was a regional political hegemon the African National Congress (ANC) lose its majority in Parliament.  

And by dint of the results of the South African electoral proportional representation system, its right to form a government alone. 

This against a backdrop of the previous ANC government having had relatively sour relations with the major powers of the global west after accusing Israel of possible genocide at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands.   

There is also the, for now, relatively minor diplomatic tiff between Zimbabwe and Zambia.  Wherein, the Zambian foreign minister is reported to have asked SADC and the African Union (AU) to censure Zimbabwe over and about statements made by Zimbabwe’s president ED Mnangagwa when he met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on how Zambia appears to be more sympathetic to the United States of America (USA).  And by implication of the same, the global West. 

I do not think that this diplomatic rift between Zambia and Zimbabwe will extend beyond what obtains. But it is important to note the evident mistrust between the two governments. 

In SADC there are also a number of elections lined up for this year.  The most significant one being that of Mozambique, in which the ruling Frelimo party is very sensitive about a potential loss of power.  Hence the seemingly strategic appointment/election of a young presidential candidate to succeed current President Nyusi. 

And ruling parties that are former liberation movements are still smarting from the results of what happened to the ANC in South Africa. Same with the ones faced with elections scheduled for Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius this year.

All of these events point to a SADC that is probably vulnerable to a decent amount of electoral campaigns, attendant disputes and different international interests in the same.

 Mainly between the West and the East in aid of hegemonic contests as to who controls not only power but also access to resources and favorable foreign policies.  Not only in countries that constitute the regional bloc but also that hold the most sway about how the region reacts to various hegemonic foreign policy interests.   

This is an important point to make because SADC is not a typical regional bloc.  It has always had some sort of stubbornness about its historical linkages to the Frontline States and the latter’s anti-imperialism/ anti-colonialism.   

But due to changing demographics and an economically dominant neoliberalism/capitalism, both culturally and in the material sense, historical nationalism is no longer a key determinant to how our regional populations react to electoral or even other politics.   

More so, in an age where it appears globalized conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, Syria, Palestine, Sudan and the uncertainty in Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia and Ethiopia among others. 

This may seem abstract but Southern Africa has largely been the most peaceful region in Africa, barring the conflict in Cabo del Gado in Mozambique and the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  It has also been the most receptive, historically to the global east in the form of China, Russia with regards either bilateral or multilateral economic and political relations. 

In return China and Russia have generally reciprocated the same enthusiasm of forging amicable relations with many of the countries in SADC despite assumed counter-pressure from the West. 

But this also does not change the fact of the strategic importance of SADC for all global political and economic superpower countries.   The regions discovered and/or still to be discovered/explored mineral resources, its geo-strategic military importance and its broader ‘markets’ make SADC a key target for any superpower interested in claiming political and economic supremacy.   

What this also means is that as Southern Africans we are probably at our most vulnerable in 2024.  Even before we begin to talk about the regional drought that we are all faced with.   

Our vulnerability resides in the fact that we no longer have an historical generational struggle praxis.  

Because of the economic and political policies of many of our former liberation movements and in some cases those that remain ruling parties, a lot of young Southern Africans do not feel organic linkages to our either liberation struggle history or the general injustices of  a world run on the basis of war, aggression and neoliberalism/capitalism. 

 Hence our elections and electoral processes are more about populism, religion and celebrity cultures that mimic those of the urban West.  Even when the latter is returning back to nationalism imbued with a significant amount of racism. 

When I use the term ‘generational praxis’ it also points to the fact that those in leadership and in the know about same said history and ideological positioning of the region have also become victims of the materialism and deliberate obfuscation of progressive collective thinking and being. 

The lifestyles we have desired.  The lifestyles we are currently living.  The lessons we are teaching what we know is now referred to as the ‘generation Z’ or even before that in our local Zimbabwean parlance ‘ama2000’ .

You might ask, where is Zimbabwe in all of this?  The answer is not that hard to come across.  Due to the fact of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) and its shock effects on global financialized capital markets, our narrative is one that the latter want to make an example of an almost ‘never again’ occurrence.  Both at global western superpower levels but also at international business levels.   

Essentially Zimbabwe’s narrative is not going to change in our lifetimes. 

But the more important narrative is that of SADC and its historical anti-imperialist record.   That has to be protected in a world that is increasingly multi-polar as it tackles new dynamics in international relations' power dynamics.  Its not so easy to see/notice, but indeed there is an agenda to make SADC softer, weaker and even more ahistorical.

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

Zimbabwe and SADC August 2024

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe is going to host the next Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit in August 2024.  Our central government in Zimbabwe may be over stretching it a little bit.  But that does not take away from the fact of the SADC summits importance.  Historically or in terms of current international relations global dynamics. 

For those that may not know, SADC is a direct result of the original liberatory Frontline States (Angola, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana)  that supported not only Zimbabwe but also South Africa, Namibia in our struggles for African liberation from the bondages of colonialism and imperialism.

Its an issue that escapes a decent number of us because we choose not to understand the historicity of the regional organ called SADC.

 It is historically embedded in our liberation struggles across the whole region.  Not just because of geography but also because of a deliberately desired solidarity in freeing each other.  So I understand the historicity of the SADC summit being held in Harare, Zimbabwe. 

Yes we see the road and other infrastructural developments in Harare, Zimbabwe.  But we also notice the shifting political winds based on what is referred to as the youth demographic dividend.  Wherein there is an assumption that more young people of African origin are changing their historical perspectives on the future of their own continent. 

Let alone their region. 

In what we have witnessed around the recent 2024 elections in South Africa, we have had to be historically reminded as Nyerere once said, “Democracy is not like Coca Cola”.  We have had also had to be reminded that, again according to Nyerere, “the mechanisms of democracy are not the meaning of democracy”

These may seem like abstract points of discussion but their full import remain that we are not a people without a history.  Be it in South Africa, Zimbabwe or even as far back as the battles of Mavonde or Quito Carnavale that led to Namibia's and eventually  South Africa's independence. 

The historical reality of the matter is that we need to introspect.  No matter your age or experiences in the anti- colonial struggles. Whether you were a war veteran proper, a mujibha/chimbwido, a post independence shop floor worker or peasant farmer.   Let alone a post colonial left leaning struggles activist as led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Even if you became more human rights focused liberalism via the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) in 1999 under the tutelage of Thoko Matshe and eventually Morgan Tsvangirai. The tutalage was real.

But back to SADC and its full import on Zimbabwe and the region. 

The historical and generally generational historicised fact of the SADC summit happening in Zimbabwe in August 2024 is probably well known. 

 We are part of a liberation movement history.  Where generated a counter political narrative based  on leftist narratives.  Ideologically we lost that ‘narrative’ war to the rural areas, through teachers who were always our bedrock.   What we didn’t understand was the violence that accompanied this consciousness and how we were to become its victims and not pick up the organic pieces. 

But that is a story for another day.  One that is unforgettable. 

But here we are as Zimbabwe, hosting a very important SADC summit in the midst of multiple global conflicts.  

We can argue and debate about how new infrastructure is related to the same event but essentially we have to think beyond this simplicity.  SADC is not and never has been an abstract conception.  It comes from our struggles against imperialism, neo-colonialism and struggles against generalized racism. 

What this means is that I have no pragmatic problem with Zimbabwe hosting a SADC regional summit.  Or assuming the regional chair of the same.  I am more worried about what we will do with this international relations’ influence either member states (DRC included) or those beyond beyond our borders such as the Sudan. 

Zimbabwe’s placement in at least regional international relations has changed significantly,

 Our dilemma might be that we are closer to the East than the West.  We will probably suffer for it. 

As long as we do not have to go to any sort of war.  Or pick a side in one which will most likely occur.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com}

Chomsky from the Global African South

By Takura Zhangazha*

It was recently falsely reported that one of America’s leftist intellectual and media giants, Noam Chomsky has passed on. It has turned out that his wife quickly dispelled social media rumours that had spread like wildfire.

 

What  had been reported in progressive mainstream and social media is that Chomsky has been unwell for a while.   

Many progressives from both the global south and the global north were quick to also panic on the assumption that it was true. Myself included. 

Upon crosschecking, again online, I realised that either way, the man desrves that recognition of him as a living intellectual giant. Based on his influential work on not only either the personal consciousness of many but also the global impact his ideas both in academically written form or as a media pundit have had beyond America's borders and global perspectives on what the media is and what it means.

What is not really anticipated is that there would be an evident link of Chomsky with the global south.  Or that intellectuals and activists from the African same can have some sort of immediate reaction to his work.

And on this, I can attest to having African friends who are extremely skeptical of assuming solidarity between global north and global south cdes. Mainly because they cite the fact that  populations in Europe, North America are increasingly turning to the right, which can also be read as becoming more racist. 

And we can crosscheck recent racialised developmemts in Ukraine around African migrants, war and emigration. 

Our global north cdes are also losing every other new election (see the recent EU election results) and are expected to lose more this year. 

The reality of the matter is that if you consider yourself a progressive from the global south and in particular from Africa, and if you have not encountered Chomsky in one form or the other then perhaps you could easily be accused of faking your ‘wokeness’. 

I prefer to refer to it as “consciousness”. 

Or if you are an educated journalist who would be more conservative and neoliberal without encountering Chomsky’s progressive views, then again, you would be in the American turn of phrase, ‘winging’ it.

When we as Africans consider the opinions of progressive comrades in the global north we tend to sort of have an evident admiration of either their radicalism, their education, or their political positions in their own societies. 

Even if we do not have a full picture of the latter and how in the present even the progressives are losing to either the radical/racist nationalists or to dogma around immigration and assumptions of their own national being's superiority complexes.

In this we assume, with our progressive global north colleagues, a given universality of our equality that should historically since the formation of the United Nations in 1945 be an easy political and intellectual given. 

Except that in the years that have interceded since then, there have been multiple ‘liberal interventions’ that reflected a global political and world order that essentially served to remind cdes in the global south and in particular the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe of their general lower and dehumanising placement in the world.

Wars based on the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the ‘West’ left a trail of human destruction that always makes one wince when they read history books. 

But moreso when we read Noam Chomsky.  Even with the limited access we have had to his intellectual work in the global south.   And in particular in Africa.

And I may have to explain this a little bit further.  Noam Chomsky, as a left leaning intellectual came onto our quasi intellectual radars in post graduate school. Like Edward Said’s “Orientalism”, his seminal work on ‘Manufacturing Consent’ that he co-authored with Edward Herman sent us into some sort of slight shock that in the age of the expansions of CNN, BBC, there was a progressive counter narrative intellectual that could and would talk back to the dominant media hegemonies of that time? 

In our own Zimbabwean media freedom activism we looked at the structure and intent of how our own media ‘industry’  structured and used Chomsky’s analysis to sort of see how either we make it more organic (Gramscian) or we lose out to nascent media oligarchs (we have at least four).  

We understand the importance of actual objective journalism based on Chomsky’s analysis of his own North American and other societies’ and explanations’ of the causes of American led/instigated global wars.   

Especially after the tragic September 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the re-emergence of a new version of the Cold War in the internationalized  wars in for example Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, Mali, Burkina Faso, Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  We would never pass Exclusive Books at OR Tambo international airport without crosschecking if he has a new collection of essays or even a new book out. 

So Chomsky still, for most of us who were eager to understand how the global north understands the global south, is a key intellectual reference point. Not only because he speaks  a progressive language similar to ours on the historical global left but also because he gives it detailed nuances and infused it with a globalized and historicized humanity.   

Reading, watching or listening to Chomsky from as far away in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe, Harare, is always to seek an understanding of a critical approach to the global north’s foreign policy positions on the global south. And in particular Africa's placement in it. 

 He helps us understand how we are viewed largely as foreign policy pawns by the global north as did the also now late Australian journalist John Pilger.

But more significantly, with hindsight he informs us, by default, a critical approach to how we even in the global south should view international relations and its historical, imperialistic, neoliberal and cultural dimensions.  And how to avoid being part of ‘manufactured consent’. Dead or alive. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)