SADC is Organically Historical. It is Not Going to Go Away

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many conversations I have had with many comrades about the importance of what we now know to be the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  And most times these conversations have bordered on the dismissively ahistorical. 

Wherein colleagues view SADC as this anti-democratic organisation in the region that is preventing new/ nascent opposition political parties from gaining state power after periodic elections. Except when those that they support are endorsed by the same.

At the moment in this penultimate week of November 2024, Zimbabwe is hosting an Extraordinary Summit of SADC.  Officially to discuss mainly the dangerous situation in the east of member state Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) among assumed concerns about the recent Mozambique elections.

We are not privy to the discussions of the heads of state and government of SADC. But we will know when the final communiqué is issued as to what has been either resolved or what will be put into some sort of action.  Though we know that previous decisions have been made by SADC to support some sort of military interventionism from the region via its Organ on Politics, Defence and Security which is generally referred to as the Troika.  It authorized this in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique and in the Eastern DRC where its peacekeeping mission has been working in tandem with the United Nations (UN) one. 

But back to my skeptical African colleague who derides SADC,  I always talk back to them politely and try to explain that this regional organization is not the European Union (EU). Nor is SADC the Organization of American States (OAS).  Neither is it the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It is also not like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).  Or the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in East Africa.   

Its dynamics, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, is in no way similar to the aforementioned regional blocs.

And this is not a public relations piece on its behalf. 

It is more an explanation of the historical reality and importance of SADC as a regional bloc.  Both politically and economically with solidarity being a key functional element to who we are within the formal bloc but also as a people from this much colonized and maligned Southern African region. 

SADC is formed of the Frontline States (FLS) in the early 1970s.  These states were initially Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola until others which became free such as Zimbabwe joined. 

The FLS had been established in order to accelerate the liberation of Southern African people from colonialism.  And to support the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) liberation committee’s work in this Southern African region as it was led by the late General Hashim Mbita. 

But it is necessary to re-emphasize a particular point about being a Southern African. 

Even if those in South Africa (the country) think that they are more exceptional despite the fact that any conscious continental African knows that we helped them to become free.

As Southern Africans, without a doubt, we have a shared history. Both in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial epochs.  And even now, in this disastrous neo-liberal populist age that we have to live in. 

We had the fact of our own pre-colonial migration and emigration which has made this region as diverse as it can be.  Whether ethnically or by way of societal interactions. We have had less wars than many other African regions barring the ones in the apartheid motivated ones in Mozambique or those that are in the DRC at the moment. 

Even at the onset of economic colonialism we rose above the Native Labor Associations such as the one that regionally controlled our physical male bodies the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WINELA) and became our own liberators.  Either by waging war or by long duree civic activism. 

By the time the FLS became the Southern African Development Coordinating Community (SADCC) our history of solidarity and freedom was already solid in the 1980s.  We knew we had to free Namibia and South Africa from colonialism and apartheid (Remember Robson Banda anyone?) 

And we also knew that we had to free Mozambique, Angola and ourselves from the clutches of South African apartheid sponsored rebel wars. 

By the time we became the Southern African Development Community (SADC) we had achieved peace. We had prevented invasions of many of our members, including Zimbabwe under the then global ideological aegis of ‘liberal interventionism’ as led by Tony Blair and George Bush (leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States respectively at that time). 

As a Zimbabwean I generally do not mind derogatory conversations that make SADC seem like a ‘wrong’ idea.  I understand  where some cdes come from ideologically.  And its fair enough. Their perceptions of how SADC endorses contemporary election results contrary to what is referred to as global best practices.  

Wherein we all know that there is no longer such a proper organic term in what is evidently a multi-polar, conservative and increasingly nationalist system (electoral college anyone?) 

But if you ask me proper, or if a fair debate has to go down to the wire, SADC is the most revolutionary regional organization on the African continent. Both by way of history and also by way of pursuing peace in an increasingly  and newly contested global political economy between what we knew as the global east and the global west.

We suffer. We continue. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Deliberately Forgetting Cultural Changes in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

On a recent trip to Bikita, Masvingo we did not have the now ubiquitous flash drive for uninterrupted journey music.  What was interesting was that we could purchase one without music and then get someone else to transfer music to it. The person that was to transfer the music to it was of the apostolic faith movement and he said so.  He also advised us that most of his music would be gospel related.

We just told him to give us what he had so that in between cities where there is limited radio coverage we would at least listen to some Zimbabwean music.  We did not ask him about where he got the music. But at the back of our minds we knew that the music had been probably acquired since the early 200s when Gramma and Teal records employees realized that the long playing (LP)record and the compact disc (CD) were on their way out due to an emergent digitalization of music era.

So we got this flash drive and its gospel laden music. What we did not know is that even a member of the apostolic sect does not only listen to gospel music.  He had a mix of gospel (as expected) but also Sungura and Chimurenga music that he had sold to us for US$1.

As our journey progressed we had to ask ourselves significant cultural questions. The most obvious being that the the cost of the flash drive and the addition of music to it had been about at most US$3.  And what that meant for the evolution of music in Zimbabwe vis-à-vis copyright laws and the income of musicians. 

My colleague and I couldn’t agree on this particular issue because as I argued for artists to get their due for their amazing music and talents, he simply brushed it off by saying that the issue is the new technologies that we now use to consume what would be creative cultural products. 

He continued that musical artists now make money off of their marketing and social meida presence.  And the more a song or songs are played via a flash drive the more likely a live show will be well attended. 

I couldn’t argue with this as we listened to Madzibaba Nicholas Zacharia between Gutu and the Roy turnoff along the Masvingo- Mutare highway. 

Mainly because he had a very significant point about how we now consume our cultural entertainment, what we value and its end products.

This was also before a dancehall artist called Silent Killer popped up on the playlist singing about whatever is called ‘Kuf Kaf’.  It turns out it meant ‘kufa kana kufenda’.  Or something close to that. 

By the time we reached Nyika Growth point (they should probably make it a town given its expansion), we had listened to legendary music from Dembo, Mapfumo, Chimbetu, Chimombe, Chibadura and many others.

What we could not explain was the contradiction in what music meant in the contemporary. At our ages (forties) we could not quite get the Zimbabwe Dancehall music that was on the given playlist. 

We however agreed that new music in Zimbabwe is increasingly forgettable. Especially when we consider our past cultural experiences of what ‘songs’ meant.  Culturally, historically and and politically. 

We are now in an age/era in which we live for the moment and are easy to forget.  Its almost a generational trait.  One in which younger Zimbabweans are very keen on the immediate but not the past or the future.

So we have a real ‘clash of cultures’ in Zimbabwe. One which appears to be characterized by contestations about authenticity over what is past, what is present and what can be the future.   

By the time we got to Chikuku business centre we were now discussing why young Zimbabweans are enamored to an ephemeral music culture.  And we realized that its linked to a now existent urban and rural lifestyle where what makes you happy for one day simply makes you happy.  Tomorrow will most likely solve itself.

This being a sign of a society in a specific decadence.  And we were only discussing this in relation to music and its impact on Zimbabwean society.  

We realized our current music consumption reflects the possibility that we are not as culturally smart as we assume we are.  We are now in a phase of what makes us happy is what makes us wake up tomorrow.  Individually. 

There were many more arguments to be had beyond the music on the flash drive but we had arrived at our destination.  We had to deal with dying cattle because of the drought. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

A Resurgent Colonialism in Africa.

By Takura Zhangazha*

It was Franz Fanon that wrote on what he referred to as “A Dying Colonialism”.  In this collection of essays, Fanon was generally optimistic about the future of Africa and its revolutionary and liberatory ethos.  Already in “The Wretched of the Earth” he had also sort of indicated the ambiguity of what liberation meant and how in part ‘mimicry’ of the colonial would occur.  A reality that we live with to this day. 

An over-admiration and again mimicry of global north societies as determined by global capitalism and culture. 

Now there are many angles to Fanon’s argumentation.  And they have been widely explored academically and politically. 

What is however important is to recognize the historicity of his arguments in the contemporary.  And come to an understanding of the same in its occurrence in the contemporary. 

Whereas Fanon, through his articles and speeches assumed we were faced with a dying colonialism, despite being the ‘Wretched of the Earth’ he may have misread the fact of global post-colonial continuity.  And its broader impact on contemporary African mindsets.  Both politically and more significantly economically.

In this brief wirte up I will attempt at a juxtaposition of the revolutionary theory of Franz Fanon and what obtains in Africa today. 

With a particular emphasis on my own region of origin, Southern Africa.  

When Fanon wrote about a "dying colonialism" he was, as stated earlier, relatively optimistic.  His essays as a journalist were designed to give hope to a new consciousness for many an African.  Even though he was from Martinique and had fought in the Algerian struggle for independence. 

The key issue however was the fact that he recognized the continuance of an elitist comprador bourgeoisie taking over African states and claiming a progressive form of liberatory politics.  This was to be an issue further expanded by Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki. 

This may seem an abstract argument but its significance resides in the fact of again its historicity. We were Pan Africanists.  We have to remain Pan Africanists.

Our electoral politics have been reflecting a departure from this.  And our inter-generational praxis clearly has misunderstood the same.

The reality is that we are in a bad space as Africans.  We are willingly forgetting the fact of our history.  And histories. 

Its almost like a Dambudzo Marechera argument where he says “We are what we are not. That is the paradox of fiction” in his acclaimed novella “The Black Insider”. 

The main issues are around a new Pan Africanism.  One that defies what we consider old, abstract and conservative.

In this conundrum is our education system. Wherein we have relatively naïve assumptions that the more European our kids are, in relation to their education, the better they will be in life.  Something we know not to be true. 

The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) is as important as the Cambridge one.  If you suffer from an inferiority complex, its understandable. But take better charge of you family and wife or husband.

As Africans we are faced with a new consciousness era.  One in which our placement in the global placement of politics and economics means we are lesser beings in the global scheme of things.  Whether we are with China or Russia. Or even the controversial United States of America or the increasingly racist European Union (EU).

So we have to heed the call for a new Pan Africanism beyond what Kwame Nkrumah recognized. As he said, "We neither look East or West, but we Look Forward."

In the contemporary and for the future, as Africans, we understand the  fact of who we are. Where we are and where we can be.

Even as we cross borders to sadly die in the Sahel and the Mediterranean Sea.

If Fanon could write about a dying colonialism, we can write about the need for caution about a returning colonialism.  And we must resist this.  We are not that shallow nor that abstract.

We hold true that the African Union and SADC will defend us as they recognize our liberation struggle histories and our contemporary challenges.

As difficult as it may be and seem.    

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting for the Rain: Realities of Zimbabwe’s 2023-24 National Drought.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There is currently a major drought in Zimbabwe.  Its impact is somewhat not as felt in the urban as it would be in the rural areas of the country.

In the urban areas it is more or less about the depth of boreholes and the setting up of support committees to deal with water shortages due to the inability of urban councils to deliver everyday use of water for reasons that vary from general incompetency through to actual water and attendant water-treatment chemicals shortages.

It however rarely appears to be immediate given the fact that those in urban lifestyles have no immediate direct relation to weather patterns and livelihoods. 

This is mainly because urban Zimbabweans go to formal and informal jobs trying to eke out a living that is almost a daily hustle that has limited understanding of the weather.  Or even the physical environment.

In the rural  areas of the country, the impact of the drought is much more immediate.  There is an evident shortage of water for human beings and also inevitably livestock.  There is also a shortage of food, higher costs of basic commodities such as maize for human sustenance. And as a priority food aid has to be given for many rural families that cannot afford to purchase maize on the market.

It is much worse for domesticated animals such as cattle, goats or sheep due to not only a lack of edible green grass but also stock feed and water. 

This also means that these animals are in a precarious situation at the moment.  Particularly in the Southern and Eastern regions of the country which rely more on these for sustenance. While also taking into account the fact that they are much more densely populated.

We are therefore all literally “Waiting for the Rain”, to use the title of Charles Mungoshi’s seminal novel.  Moreso in the rural areas.  The boreholes that are there can only do so much as the underground water levels dwindle. And once a day feeding schemes for primary school level children still does not provide adequate nutrition. 

The Zimbabwean government has already declared the current drought a national disaster. And it appears it is trying to provide the necessary mechanisms through which it can feed people but also prepare them for the next agricultural season.

The point however is that its efforts appear to still be inadequate.  The fact of climate change is no longer as simplistic as it used to be.  It is now a lived reality where a lot of Zimbabweans do not understand changes in weather patterns and how they are now impacting their everyday existence and livelihoods.  

So there is a political economy to our current drought. One that is as global as it is localized.  We have those in central and local government that control the distribution of food resources as well as agricultural inputs. Then there are those that are in control of social welfare for vulnerable families. The latter include food aid organisations that not only predict droughts but source the necessary grains for food sustainability.

Then we also have the animal husbandry industry that provides for example molasses and dried grass for a decent profit.

In this mix is the everyday villager who is looking at his/her family and their food security situation while also thinking about their livestock and how any loss impacts on either their ability to pay school fess for their children or at least be able to afford relish and medication.  

This also includes trying to ensure proximity to the state or food and agricultural donors at village level in order to at least survive the immediacy of the challenges that this drought has wrought on.

Or even in the urban where agricultural commodity prices have already gone up and there is more or less no social welfare back fall for poor urban families.  Unless the government or charities intervene.  Something which they do intermittently and also insufficiently.

What is clear in my mind is that even if it does rain in the immediate, we are already in a drought induced economic fix for at least another six months.  And I am not talking here about listed companies that trade in food commodities on either the local or other international stock exchanges. 

Instead I am referring to lived realities of everyday Zimbabweans who may not know where their next meal comes from. 

Or whether their livestock, which they heavily invested in, can last another day without collapsing and therefore having to be sold on the cheap to opportunistic buyers. 

The latter being business persons who are closely monitoring the drought situation in order to immediately profit from it. Be it through storing critical grain or meat and just waiting for government get desperate enough to pay exorbitant market related prices for it.   

So, yes our current drought has its own political economy.  It differs from the urban to the rural.  It affects largely the latter. And is generally dismissed in the former until you cannot buy ordinary packaged maize.  Or the meat, particularly beef, we consume is evidently more prevalent at cheaper prices due to our livestock dying from hunger and lack of water.

What I do know is that we need to have a broader national conversation about the impact of the national drought we are faced with.  Inclusive of what longer term solutions we can come up with for the rural and urban poor beyond politicizing who has come to rescue us from it as it is occurring. 

In the meantime it appears that we are all just waiting for the rain.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zimbabwe and Mozambique- An Irreversible Historical Reality.

 By Takura Zhangazha*

So I once boarded a plane as an election observer to Mauritius in 2005 or thereabouts.  I was part of a delegation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum.  On the flight I met up with a member of the Mozambique parliament.

In my naivety I thought he was from the Frelimo ruling party.  At that time there was no social media proper but I had the equivalent of a digitalized ‘walkman’. 

In it I was playing a Thomas Mapfumo song “Tongosienda”  which referred to both South African  apartheid leader Pik Botha and Mozambiquan rebel Alfonzo Dlakhama as really evil people. 

So when I learnt that my fellow passenger was from Mozambique, I assumed that he would appreciate the Mukanya song on the relatively short flight to Mauritius. 

He did not.  But he also did not say this until we were at the hotel lobby as we were checking in. I was then informed that he was a member of Parliament for RENAMO. 

I asked some of the colleagues I was with about the fact that Renamo had members of Parliament in Mozambique given what we had been told about how bad their party was. 

In my naivety  I had assumed Renamo no longer existed in Mozambique.  At least militarily because we had been involved as Zimbabwe in defeating Dhlakama at Gorongoza.  As we were taught in high school and on television after Samora Machel was allegedly assassinated by apartheid South Africa in a plane crash in 1986.

We mourned about this and assumed that it would put paid to Renamo. Moreso after Zimbabwe had lost soldiers in fighting the Renamo, South African apartheid regime backed insurgency.

 The contrary turned out to be true.  But more as a political party after the Rome Accords for a peace agreement in Mozambique in 1992 (correct me if I am wrong). 

The big catch was that it was a political reality in Mozambique that could not be wished away.  Renamo continued to exist even after the freedom of South Africa in 1994. It had re-invented itself as a legitimate party in at least Western Mozambique (close to our Eastern borders).  And was evidently electable in those regions with its leader Alfonso Dlakama even becoming a member of Parliament. 

But Frelimo continued to win national elections as they constitutionally occurred. And as Zimbabweans we were sort of comfortable with that. Mainly because we did not and probably still do not see Renamo as an ally after our experiences with “Matsanga” and how they wrecked violent havoc in our Eastern provinces. 

But because we do not speak Portuguese, there are some points we may have missed about Mozambiquan democracy.  As Zimbabweans we may have falsely assumed it was static.  Based on our liberation struggle experiences as informed by historical knowledge. Both as taught in high schools after the great liberator Samora passed away but also on the basis of liberation war narratives we read in setbooks or if you were lucky were told by real war veterans such as the  late  Cde Dzinashe Machingura and Cde Freedom Nyamubaya. Wherein they always included the narrative of the battle of Mavonde.

 Though they never claimed to have been there.  I do however know at least two now war veterans that were there and what they referred to as the “Stalin Gun” that defeated the then Rhodesian army as ordered by Samora Machel.

In writing this, I am trying to demonstrate the organic relations of the people of Mozambique and Zimbabwe. 

And how controversial the relationships between Frelimo and Zanu PF have been.

On social media there has been a familiar narrative about the stealing of elections.  And also images that depict violence over and about the same.  I do not know the realities of the matter. 

What I do know is that Zimbabwe and Mozambique are kindred countries in the fight against colonialism, neocolonialism and post colonialism. 

But if you decide on a specific electoral system you have to accept its results. 

As I sometimes say to comrades, the mechanisms pf democracy are not the meaning democracy” as instructed by Kambarege Nyerere.

What is apparent is that you cannot haunt yourself out of who you are.   Democracy has never been a liability.  It is a strength.  It just has to be organic and ‘uncultist’ as we have been witnessing in recent years.

But back to Mozambique and Zimbabwe.  We belong to each other.  Historically.  Even if you wanted to falsely deny it.

The recent elections are clearly that county’s business.  Whoever they choose as their next president, while having a bearing on Zimbabwe, is essentially their decision. 

What matters more however is the fact of history. Zimbabwe and Mozambique are not a walk in the park countries.  We fought joint liberation struggles to be free.  Our people died. We are not a fiction.   We need to become better at who we can be.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

 

 

A Changing African Global Political Placement.

By Takura Zhangazha*

I am from the Global South.  For many that do not quite understand this latter term, it is one that replaced what used to be referred to as the “Third World”. 

This was based on colonialism and assumptions of the superiority of the Western World as well as attendant simplistic perceptions of what was in the 1980s referred to as “underdevelopment”. 

All within the ambit of a global Cold War that defined international relations between the United States of America and its allies (NATO) against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its allies post the Second World War. 

So the Global South as an emergent term is historical, geographical and a lived economic reality.  It means that I am from the poorer parts of the world where and when it relates to comparative economic well-being or even societal happiness.  Both at an individual and societal level.

It is something that I know many comrades for the same said Global South cannot shrug off. 

Both materially and epistemologically. 

For me however, there is also the fact that I am from a Global South that is African.  And one that is also  therefore historically and physically othered as  ‘black’.

So I could have been from Venezuela, China, Palestine, Cuba or Aboriginal Australia but I am from the continent of Africa that is viewed in comparatively racist eyes by those that own the Global North but also those that claim closer proximity to it. 

By way of colour or in some cases integrated cultural practices.  As designed by colonial history and again ingrained attendant cultural,  economic and social practices that we live with today.  As well as pass them on to our children in ways we perceive to be progressive and in tandem with what our colonial, religious affiliations or material life experiences or aspirations have taught us. 

But as an African, barring the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and within the context of contemporary international regionalized proxy wars between the global west and east, I am increasingly aware that we are faced with a changing global world order.  One in which we, as Africans have little serious say. 

Not for a lack of words but because of the immediate threat of our weaknesses when it comes war on a global or even regional scale when the elephants are fighting.

Whereas when we fought against direct colonialism, we were emboldened by our own resolve and our allies to find what we then considered human and global egalitarian freedom.

 In the contemporary we are essentially powerless about determining how global wars affect us.  Let alone how to either prevent them or as the general term used in the present to ‘de-escalate’ these same said global wars. 

Be it at the United Nations, the African Union or in our own Zimbabwean instance, at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) level.

In some instances we have been complicit in inflicting harm upon ourselves as was the case with UN Security Council Resolution 1973 on Libya (a security council that included South Africa as a key international player). 

As we all now know, Libya will never be the same.  And that it is now a haven for multiple insurrections and instability across the Sahel region. 

But this is not the essential point to make.

As Africans we need to contend with the point that what has happened since COVID 19 as a global pandemic, the regional and global wars we are now witnessing as in the cases of the Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Palestine-Israel, Ukraine- Russia or in any other regional of the world, are not of our own making. 

In reality we are increasingly bit part players at the hands of those who we either refer to as allies, friends or ‘investors’.  Or in rare cases, enemies. 

What I find most curious is how we as Africans view our placement in global affairs as they occur.  A majority of us are familiar with its racist and repressive past. But tragically an even greater majority of us are not so familiar with its nuanced racist and repressive present.   

Or the groundwork for its racist narrative for the future as it tackles migration and race relations in the Global North.  Inclusive of our contradictory migratory desires to be there anyway despite the evident populist racial discrimination. 

What is important to bear in mind is that Africa in the global scheme of things is in a very bad space.  Particularly where it concerns regional or global wars for both material (economic)  and hegemonic (cultural) reasons.  

Based on recorded UN General Assembly voting patterns we are one day with the USA, another with Russia, on another day we are neutral and on other days we are with China.   Almost as though African countries are global “yo-yos” at as an important an organization as the UN. 

In my view, we need to return to the original spirit and letter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). 

While we have the African Union as our current major representative in the global scheme of things, including wars and economics, we might have missed the boat at the point of a continual understanding of the fact of our historical global (dis)placement. 

The Global North has limited respect for us.  In fact even progressive comrades who are based there are losing electoral and other social grounds as to either the equality of universal human rights or the fact that for example we need to reign in social media company ownership monopolies. And their control of ‘public progressive narratives. Even in their own backyards.  Twitter’s Elon Musk anyone?

But as the great African revolutionary Amilcar Cabral once wrote, “No matter how hot the water from your well is, it will not boil your rice”.

We need to re-think Africa’s role in global international relations.  Beyond our historical anger and beyond our desires for global mimicry. 

And we need to be more organically radical about this. 

Indeed we may need all the help we can get to meet the demands of modern industrialization and organic democratic governance.  But going forward we should not be proxies of anyone or any country.  We need to believe in ourselves again. Ditto Nyerere.

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

 

 

 

 

Culture and Praxis in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

A friend recently asked me about what I meant many years ago about “generational praxis”. I will come back to this concept/issue later. But if you want to crosscheck Antonio Gramsci on Google, please go ahead.

 He asked me this in an awkward context wherein we had listened to the new music that is now very popular with the youth of Zimbabwe and also somewhat over-similar in its instrumentation and lyrics. This music is either called dancehall or hip hop as motivated by social media.

We were in Dzivaresekwa high density suburb where I partly grew up. (I also grew up in Chitungwiza and Waterfalls)

The music was blaring at the braai spot and it was not what we were used to when we used to watch Mvengemvenge /Ezomgido. Or go to watch Pengaudzoke or Somandla Ndebele live in concert at Nyaguwa nightclub. Or get over-inspired by Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited’s Chimurenga Music.

The music we were listening to was more brazenly individualistic, self-celebratory and somewhat abstract. But it suited the moment and also helped with memory and nostalgia of belonging. Both to the proverbial ghetto but more significantly of meeting with friends from long back.

In the conversations we had with my friend, I still looked around at the evident poverty of the neighborhood and its contradictory pride. Almost as though, in our dancing and inebriation, the cdes were saying, as in the songs they were dancing to, “ This is who we are! We were born here”

Lyrics that are also derived from popular musician “Killer T” who represents an iconic figure of both recognition of origin from the ghetto but also departure from it. Only to return in pride to prove that things worked out well elsewhere. 

This is not a new comparative argument for many Zimbabweans.  We all encounter it at church, work and in social spaces.  Sometimes with individual pride and competitive work experience.  Or in some cases with individual envy and competitive desire to be better than the ‘other’. Be they from high school, college or university.

It is a very interesting paradox. That is, to want both life experiences in post-independent Zimbabwe.  You were born, grew up and educated in either a rural enclave or urban ghetto and now you can argue about your successful point at arrival in the leafy suburbs of Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Masvingo or Mutare among many other towns and cities.  

This is a very realistic and emotional point to make because the majority of colleagues who went to high school, college or university between the late 1980s to the new millennium have this mindset.  The ones that were the first to get colonial education before independence are probably more embedded in specific lifestyles and habits that are too ingrained in them to be challenged intellectually or socially. 

But lets get back to “generational praxis” by asking the question of how do we now construct an understanding of a global progressive human existence. Regardless of race, colour, origin or class?

 Within an African context.

The reality of the matter is that this has not yet happened.  Mainly because of our own African materialism and regrettable simplicity over our lifestyles.  As we interact with global capitalism via money, movies and the attendant re-objectification of the female body (black, brown or white).

In this, we are not learning from history. We are entrapped in a neoliberal cycle of assuming that the world is our oyster.  Even as we Africans from all regions die going to the global north in the Mediterranean sea.

Or as we clamour to be recognized as equal human beings via various United Nations conventions that we fought hard for in the past and in the contemporary.

The question that however hangs over our heads is “What  do we now teach our children?” And also one about, “Who teaches them?” 

We all know from an African perspective that mothers are the best teachers of children.  Especially in their infancy. Your first song, sense of understanding of reality always stems from your mother.    

Though with the passage of time, depending on your gender, this can be ahistorically disputable.

But we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to get ourselves to quite literally believe in our being.  As Africans and beyond what we see on television, Netflix, the pastors pulpit or on other social media platforms.

Even if wanted or willed it, we are not all main actors or survivors.  We are a people that should treat each other with equality and fairness.  In as democratic a ways as is possible beyond the bright lights syndrome but an organic understanding that progressive change belongs to everyone. 

Indeed the global political economy sets out the standard for that house, car, trophy husband or wife, but it will never change the reality that life must be lived as honestly and obejctively as possible.  Beyond what you see on television and social media. 

Materialism is not a ‘life standard’.  It helps with how an individual or individuals can be perceived in a given society but it doesn’t change much. Unless you find yourself in a church organization. Or political party with ambitions for both local or national power. Or your remember the Nkrumah maxim, “Educate a Woman, You Liberate a Nation”

The major question however is what are we teaching our children?  Is the praxis of whatever we are teaching them going to make them better Zimbabweans?  At this rate, it is least likely. 

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