Zimbabwe, Where Political Hope is Grounded in Pessimism

By Takura Zhangazha *

Back in 2008, a friend of mine visited the United States of America.  This was at the height of the Barack Obama presidential campaign.  When he came back he had all sort of campaign paraphernalia. Caps, t-shirts and the Che Guevara like poster silhouette  of Obama emblazoned with the word ‘ Hope’.  As far as he was concerned all of it was proof enough that he had been in the promised land of Obama hype and hope.  Or as was the given campaign slogan of that election campaign, if we still remember it, ‘ change you can believe in’. 

He remains ever enthusiastic about his experience and has also eventually fashioned his own political ambitions and campaigns around the same.

Another friend of mine visited South Africa in 2013.  He was beyond himself with awe at Julius Malema’s newly launched Economic Freedom fighters (EFF) party.  He did not return with as much paraphernalia as did my other comrade who had visited America.  He came back with only a t-shirt and beret.  But his enthusiasm was no the less diminished about how Malema and his outfit represented some sort of hope of how young African leaders can take over the reins of political leadership. 

In both instances I have cited, there were few questions about what the 'hope' portended by the same political players was. Any change was deemed to be good. Or in most cases the motivation for wanting it was a potpourri of anger, angst and a search of a political catharsis caused by  a collective emotion of political powerlessness against respective given elite establishments. 

In both examples, again, the political establishment persevered.  Obama never took the USA to the lofty liberal heights he had promised. His social media enabled populism floundered at the feet of a long duree (and Eisenhower defined) military industrial complex. And the shocking backlash that the same establishment managed to get Trump elected as Obama's successor. 

On the other side of the world, Malema not only failed to defeat the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa’s 2014 general elections  but also came third to the same country’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. And this was to be repeated, albeit with slightly changed results figures in the same country's 2019 elections. 

Political hope, however one wanted to consider it, was reigned in.  Even in  the most supposedly democratic societies. Either in the global north or the global south. 

Where we consider Zimbabwe, one issue sticks out like a sore thumb.  There is no longer any popular anticipation let alone understanding of political optimism.  Or as in the title of this write up, ‘hope’. 

Instead what obtains is a general expectation of the worst.  As informed not only by a lack of general public confidence in political leadership as it obtains but also an assumption that suffering is our national lot. 

Depending on your political affiliation or your geographical location, it is always the worst that is expected.  If you are a ruling Zanu Pf supporter, the message from your president (and also the country's president), is to grit your teeth, suffer, continue and hold your breath a little bit longer.  That is hardly a message of political ‘hope’ by any stretch of any patriotic imagination.

Or if you are in the largest parliamentary opposition party, the MDC Alliance, it should only get worse before it gets any better.  And only if they are in executive political power.  Unless it is them governing , expect the worst, is the not so hidden narrative. 

And this assumption of political pessimism is not only the prerogative of political parties.  It’s a thread that also runs through the most powerful section of civil society, the Christian churches and religion with their phenomenal influence on the national consciousness.  Whether it’s about the payment of tithes in the now more prevalent Zimbabwean currency as opposed to the United States dollar.  Through to an awkward desire by clergy persons to influence individual political leaders and collective political parties via prophecies, unless it is their way, it is therefore doomed for failure.  

Hence the main contenders for presidential political power in the 2018 harmonized elections all had a God theme to their electoral campaigns.  Though despite victory or defeat, the churches appear to be holding fast to still trying to prove the ‘authenticity’ of their previous and contemporary ‘political prophecies’.   All of which do not portend hope. But as all ‘prophecies’ do, they carry of message of doom if their dictates are not followed.  And still be able to get away with it, either way. 

In all of this, we cannot ignore the role of social media and an increased access to information that it brings.  But make no mistake, social media in and of itself is not a problem let alone a main cause why our national politics focuses on the negative as opposed to optimism.  It is ourselves as Zimbabweans who are caught up in an emotional complex that desires more the worst than the best of our own society.  No matter what side of the political divide we are on.  All of which appears to be caused directly by the trap we got ourselves into via a desire to live lives similar to those in the global north and east. Even if we do not fully understand how those societies got to where they are (colonial wealth included). 

We seem to be pursuing a recognition that is as irrelevant as it is materialistic. To be seen in pain and in search of a rescue from a world that in any event generally despises us for not being able to run our affairs as it would but also for wanting to share the success of its neo-liberal ‘normalcy.  We want the best of the world only if the latter sees and sympathises with our pain as inflicted by our ‘lack of normalcy’ by its own standards. 

And this then becomes our own Fanonian pitfall of our national consciousness.  We are no longer being true and critical to our own national contexts.  We want the easier solution as viewed by the approving gaze of social media and the political global north and its attendant all powerful global capital.  It is however more of an historical shame that this is what we are allowing our children to learn from us.

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