Zimbabwe at the United Nations General Assembly @75: Doing a Houdini on Permanent Interests.

 By Takura Zhangazha*

The United Nations 75^th General Assembly (UNGA75) has come to an end.  Held in what is an historical first virtual/online setup, it didn’t have the glamour, glitz or chutzpah of old. As a direct result of the Covid 19 global pandemic.

 No heads of delegations could walk out on each other speeches, though the discomfort of the Chinese ambassador to the UN when the USA president, Donald Trump, spoke was apparent for all to virtually see.  

But despite that slight drama, it was clear that a majority of the members of the UNGA75 support a multilateral approach to resolving global problems going forward. Inclusive of ensuring that whatever vaccines and new approaches are found for dealing with the Covid 19 pandemic should be within the reach of all human beings and not just those that are developed countries or the very real 1%.

From a Zimbabwean perspective there was a key political moment in our current placement in the world. This despite the fact that despite a previous accusation by a US government National Security Advisor that our country was part of a group of “foreign adversaries” over and about the Black Lives Matter protests that escalated in June 2020, our country was not mentioned in Trump's UNGA75 address.  This meant that in this particular instance we were not viewed in the same interventionist manner as Venezuela or Bolivia.  Or alternatively, we would at least at the presidential level escape any direct or immediate wrath of American foreign policy aggression. 

Of course this does not mean that we are in any way better off than the two aforementioned South American countries.  Instead, and this is a key point, we sort of temporarily escaped, being designated further pariah status. For now.

So the happiest minister in Zimbabwe’s cabinet is obviously Sibusiso Moyo our current minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I have deliberately mentioned the full ministerial title due to the fact that Mnangagwa’s government is a neoliberal one that panders to the dictates of global private capital in it's foreign relations. 

And it’s all a little bit contradictory.  While the Trump government is calling us out on human rights violations, it is simultaneously and as reported in the mainstream media asking our national army to help with stabilizing Cabo Delgado in Mozambique.  Even though SADC appears to be fully appraised of the matter given the recent resolutions of the SADC summit held virtually via Mozambique in August 2020. Or while the Chinese are involved in massive infrastructural developments (coal mining, the airport and the national Parliament building.) Or the Russians investing in an already unprecedented singular  investment in platinum mining.

What all of this potentially indicates is a Machiavellian understanding of international relations by Mnangagwa’s team.  Almost akin to the adage given to international relations studies students about how there are ‘no permanent friends but just permanent interests.’

Understanding the evident hostilities of the American government to the current one in Zimbabwe with the latter government touting a neoliberal and even populist Pan Africanism is not an easy task.  All this while Mnangagwa is at the same time managing what are evidently frosty relations with economic regional hegemon South Africa, via its ruling African National Congress (ANC) party is as academically interesting as it would be curious.

This also means that if one were to crosscheck with any counter-hegemonic intentions on Zimbabwe, there would be a key question as to the meaning and import of the recent UNGA75 meeting. What we know for a fact is that at least four presidents called for the lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe.  Including the current chairperson of the African Union, Ramaphosa of  South Africa. And the president of another regional hegemon,Kenyatta of Kenya. I may have missed it but Cuba, Venezueala, China and Russia did not mention us. An important point that points back to 'permanent interests'. 

But all of this with a common denominator being the fact that Zimbabwe needs to return to the global neoliberal economic mode which had been disrupted by former president, Robert Mugabe.

While Mnangagwa’s official speech to the UNGA75 was in no way motivational about any new world order, it was designed to show some sort of ‘strongman’ leadership in that neoliberal ideological direction. On behalf of global private capital and in his preferred words/ways, the 'ease of doing business.'

This also means, if we read between the lines, that there is an emerging pro-global capital consensus on Zimbabwe.  Which is that if it ticks a number of boxes, despite a vociferous mainstream but     splintered political opposition, it can be tolerated in the global political-economy scheme of things.  Or as far as the country’s ruling establishment is concerned, it can be directly assisted. Ditto John Deere tractors being presented as part of a newer agricultural revolution despite United States economic sanctions on Zimbabwe.

So for Zimbabwe and those with an interest in it, there is no rule of thumb ‘carrot or stick’ method to what happens next in terms of our international relations. And this is regrettably true for assumptions of how the international community will react to issues of human rights abuses in the contemporary.   And our ruling establishment knows this.  They are probably trading off permanent interests and not looking for permanent friendships.  Even if it potentially means creating new private capital oligarchies.  So long they have the approval of those powers that have the same said permanent interests in the country.

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

 

 

Misunderstanding Democratic Local Government in Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

 It should not have been this urgent for Zimbabweans to re-examine their thinking of what ‘local government’ is. But given the recent spate of recalls of elected Harare and other city/town councilors at the behest of the evident factionalism in the mainstream opposition MDC-T and MDC Alliance parties, it can rationally be considered necessary. 

Even if, as we are now wont to expect, there will be a myriad of court cases going all the way to the Constitutional Court, on the legality of the recalls.  Or if the ruling Zanu Pf party, decides in its political opportunism wisdom, to effect its central government powers, in the interim,  to attempt to run specific local governments’ directly via appointed commissions.  Especially the capital city of Harare. 

What remains apparent is that in the immediate, local government in Zimbabwe is facing severe challenges of democratic relevance or legitimacy as a direct result of recent recall political developments.  

In between what we know to be ‘harmonized’ general elections that are due every five years.  These are elections in which we do the equivalent of a ‘bambazonke’ electoral system of voting for an executive president, a directly elected member of the House of Assembly, a proportionally elected member of the Senate, a proportionally elected member of the women's’ quota of the House of Assembly and probably as a last consideration, a local government councilor. 

The fact that we may prioritise the presidency over the member of Parliament and the latter over a Councillor may be understandable in relation to what we can consider ‘power dynamics’ of the title of an office that one would electorally hold. 

In this brief write up I would like to focus on local government and its political meaning for those that would hold office therein.  While at the same time taking into account the fact that most cities and town councils, the opposition MDCs (in their varied factional formations) have had a hold on them for a significant amount of time. And also that the riling Zanu Pf party has generally been the one with the final say as to whether these opposition run councils are allowed to operate independently and with limited central government interference. 

In this, there would be many ‘moot’ points if it was all just political or politicized contestations of power.  Except for the fact that dating back to the settler state of Rhodesia to present, local authorities do yield a lot of power over the lives of ordinary people.  They are quite literally authorities that hold sway over both public and private financial capital investments in society.  At a local level.  From your local clinic through to your local school, football stadium, public toilet and bustops, these are important power brokers over the urban and rural livelihoods of many Zimbabweans. 

The main reason why these local level leadership positions are treated with a general disdain/casualness is because they are considered low-rung levels of leadership.  Yet they have a direct and immediate impact on the lives of many of us.  This being a direct result of a political culture of assuming that power and or leadership is always ably demonstrated at the highest executive levels (presidency) and not where it directly interfaces with the people, i.e local government/ councilors. 

So when we track back to the decision by one faction of the mainstream MDC to fire 11 Harare City councilors after an in-council mayoral election contest we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  

Not only to their factional motivations but also their evident misunderstanding of the democratic importance of leadership at a local government level.  

This would include the fact of the central government’s responsible minister in charge of local government, July Moyo’s, legal acquiescence to the same wherein he obviously knows that he has basically agreed to causing a crisis of legitimacy for the still remaining Harare city council leaders. 

With the likelihood of this immediately benefiting the ruling Zanu Pf party, causing further divisions within the mainstream MDC factions but more importantly demonstrating a tragic nonchalance of the importance of organic democracy at local government level in Zimbabwe.  Either side of the political divide(s).

What comes into vogue is the fact that we need to respect the democratic process at every level of leadership in our society.  It does not really help us if we can casually get rid of elected leaders at local government levels when we cannot do the same at national/central government levels.  Or even if we can recall members of Parliament, the ease with which we do so becomes arbitrary and not based on the actual public interest performance of these initially directly elected leaders. 

Where the ruling establishment has been touting devolution as key to our national development programmes, it is ironic that there would be no assumptions of an accompanying democratic culture to the same.  Indeed there may be local government leaders caught on the wrong side of the law (corruption etc).  Or others considered to have arrived at leadership without the necessary expertise.  The key point however remains that those that voted for them, even at that lower level tier of government, matter.  Not only in relation to their votes but more importantly to their expectations.

What is apparent is that we need to re-think our local government governance and accountability systems much more organically and with the people directly affected by the same in mind.  This may include the democratic possibility that we may need to separate local and national elections once again. But as always, we may not think beyond the immediate and harass the political partisanship out of local perceptions of what progressive, democratic leadership should be. 

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

 

 

 

What It Now Means to Be Black. Globally.

By Takura Zhangazha *

I first encountered Steve Biko’s collection of Black Consciousness articles via the book titled ‘I Write What I like’ in 1997 at the Dzivaresekwa District Council Library in Harare, Zimbabwe.  I was initially drawn to it on the basis of its somewhat stubborn title.  Being young and looking for some sort of intellectuality to my personal existential circumstances, I took to it like a duck to water. And as is now generally known, one of the striking lines in an article in which Biko writes, “The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor, is the mind of the oppressed.”  This was probably as borrowed from Franz Fanon.

Biko was writing within the context of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa but spoke for many people of colour on the African continent and beyond. 

By the time I got to understand the intellectual writings of other luminaries such as Cabral, Nkrumah, Gramsci among many others on not only African liberation struggles but also the psycho-social perspectives on ‘blackness’ Biko still rung through my mind.  Especially because he sought to assert a specific understanding of how being black should not be defined by the ‘white’ liberal gaze.

In the contemporary, we are now oddly and unexpectedly faced with the dilemma of having to discuss and re-understand racial inequality based on events that are occurring in the United States of America (USA). As mainly led and framed by the #BlackLivesMatter nascent movement and the attendant counter narratives seeking to re-affirm some sort of ‘white’ supremacy or ownership of humanity. 

The question that emerges in the now is, “What does it now mean to be Black, globally?” The easier answer would be that being black is always to be ‘bodied’ and ‘othered’. In a Fanonian sense.  Hence the shootings and in most cases killings with impunity of multiple black men by the police in the USA.  It is almost a throwback to the times of looking at the black African body as an aberration and as something to be harnessed/ controlled or eliminated.

From a contextual African perspective however the more difficult answer points to a return to the Biko argument about that metaphoric greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor. This being our minds, perceptions and aspirations. 

And this is a somewhat complicated argument to make.  Being black in the contemporary remains an historical construct. Especially in Africa. Colonialism, post-colonialism, neo-imperialism, neo-liberalism are essentially about putting us, as black people, in our inferiority complex ‘place’.

The primary challenge is the extent to which we counter the narrative of being put into the same said “inferiority complex place.”

What has been a problem with this is that we have a false admiration of societies in the global north. Even as they implement policies that point at exclusion and discrimination against us as black immigrants. We would still want to cross the treacherous Maghreb and drown in the Mediterranean Sea in order to reach Europe. While at the same time, the Europeans do not want us there at all. 

What we probably need to understand is the fact that there is no ‘Jerusalem’ in the global north. Though the latter perpetually present themselves as the same.

But the more important question remains. What does it mean to be black today? I have four relatively casual perspectives on this.

Firstly, being black means being perpetually ‘othered’.  To be seen as an aberration as opposed to the norm. Hence we are generally expected to be the harbingers of disease and violence.  That’s why it is morally easy for global corporate media to show our dead bodies. With the added complexity of the fact that a majority of us accept this perspective and narrative. Including our inexplicable desire to be recognized as citizens of the global north. Hence we are easier to shoot or at least have our deaths accepted as run of the mill.

Secondly, being black now also means that you should essentially have special physical prowess as derived from a the mystical ‘dark continent’ that Africa entered global discourse as. From our sports stars through to our mythologized physical prowess, we remain unique in what is physically and mentally expected of us by our ‘white’ others.  Where we demonstrate intellectualism we are presented as unique and the exception, not the rule.

Thirdly, being black in the contemporary, means that to get to any point of recognized success, we have to do mimicry.  And this is essentially to mimic what ‘white’ people do. In this our psychological dilemma has been the fact that we want to not only mimic but also claim legitimacy on the basis of a false reflection in the mirror.

Fourthly and finally, being black in the now should mean that we understand the global political economy. Even though we generally, based on point three, in the majority of cases choose not to. And this is where Biko and Fanon’s ghosts return to haunt us.  Global financial capital is fundamentally racist based on its history of slavery, colonialism, post-colonialism, neo-imperialism and neoliberalism. 

Our racial identities should not have had to come to matter this much in the contemporary.  But as events in the global north show, they regrettably do.  

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

Muting Structural Economic Inequality, Blurring Class in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Within the context of the Covid 19 pandemic in Zimbabwe there are increasingly many social and economic injustice issues that are being muted.  Most times deliberately and in rarer cases by default.  In the process there is also the rarely mentioned factor of class that emerges as a result of the fact of obfuscation of our current economic realities.

And by economic realities here I mean what we would consider lived realities of many Zimbabweans in the current moment. In the same way, by making reference to ‘class’ I mean the at least four tier class system we have by default in Zimbabwe.  Namely and in an order that reflects the powerful to the powerless respectively; the bourgeoisie (global financialised capital- mine, financial/stock exchange, agricultural property owners), the comprador bourgeoisie (retailers, bankers, politicians, religious leaders) ; the aspirational middle class (academics, medical doctors, small scale farmers/business owners, Diaspora, NGO workers, drug dealers) , the urban working peoples (formerly proletariat, i.e teachers, nurses, artisans, informal sector workers/vendors, unemployed youths), rural working people (formerly peasantry: i.e women, war veterans, resettled farmers, unemployed but somewhat self-reliant youths). 

For regular readers of this blog, this may appear to be a mouthful and slightly complicated.  But the key element is to understand that within the context of Covid 19, Zimbabwe remains a highly economically stratified society.  A state of affairs which has been obscured by our high levels of political polarization as it has occurred in at least the years since the December 1987 Unity Accord between Zanu and Zapu. And accelerated from 2000 to the present between the current ruling Zanu Pf and opposition MDC formations. 

In this, there would be many Zimbabweans who would mistake similar political emotions and biases for equality. All based on the assumption that if one's relative/friend from a wealthier class or section of society holds and imparts an opinion, despite my current vastly different economic positioning then we are equal.  Moreso if they demonstrate a specific material benevolence that enables one to occasionally access ‘nicer’ things in additions to what should not be patronage motivated other basic commodities that they occasionally provide. 

This basically means if one belongs to any of the top three aforementioned classes (bourgeoisie, comprador bourgeoisie and aspirational middle class) there is greater likelihood, in our Zimbabwean context that one holds greater sway over populist public opinion among what we would in the Marxian sense consider ‘lower classes’ (urban and rural working people).  And in the process always argue in favour of a specific privileged perspective on the preferred state of affairs of mainly the politics but underlying economic state of affairs of the country.

I will give an example. In the wake of the economic crisis that began in the 1990s until present, the argument for liberalization of the economy was given by our best and brightest minds (comprador bourgeoisie and aspirational/transitional middle classes). It is an opinion that has venerated private capital and hedonism to God-like status in Zimbabwe.  So the (urban or rural) working class Zimbabwean, swayed by such an inorganic populist opinion begins to think that the problem is not one of the economic or wealth distribution structure of our society.  Instead it becomes their own individual fault that they did not have the political connection, the religious vision or the multiple degrees to own a property in an urban settlement.  But, in an ironical twist, still seek to manipulate the political economic system as far as is possible to live lives beyond their economic let alone sustainable means. 

So what is raised high is the so called political bar and not the economic equality and social justice one. In this the priority questions are around party affiliation and material experiences in between elections with same said preferred party.  As opposed to queries on values, principles and perspectives on the collective well-being of our society. 

And all of this remains understandable if not repetitive with the passage of time. The top two classes outlined above have an unwritten but default understanding of the need to maintain their neoliberal hegemony over Zimbabwean society.  No matter their political differences or competition for support and allegiances with global private or state-controlled financialised capital.  And to perpetually give the majority working urban and rural poor a false impression that they can not only aspire to live that fabled good life of the rich and famous/shameless.  Hence in many instances the songs of Zimbabwean version of dancehall or hip hop music sound exceedingly contradictory by way of the music videos in which they present and re-present a desire for a materialist and ‘departure from the ghetto’ life they may never have or value.    

It is the third, fourth and fifth tier class (aspirational middle class in organic tandem with urban and rural working people) that perhaps in a Cabralian sense remains most important. In the moment. So long the third stops having false assumptions of superiority or as they say in the global north, ‘curbs its enthusiasm’ for inequality motivated consumerism/materialism.  And sees the country as one that should be constructed on democratic values that guarantee social and economic justice for all. 

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