Prisoners of Our Own Ambitions: Zimbabwean Lifestyles and Complexes.

 By Takura Zhangazha*

 I have made the occasional attempt at being a motivational speaker. And I admit in all these attempts I have never really been recognized as being good at it.  Mainly because I know I do not fit into the mainstream fashion of what it means to be as motivational as expected.  Especially where I do not serve as an example that demonstrates achievement by way of having material success legitimacy to broach a specific subject matter. 

But there are some things that I do know.  For example, I know that I should never live in fear of my own informed opinion. No matter who I am talking to. Without emotion, even if with some sort of personal experience emotional baggage.  And how the person on the other side of the conversation perceives of the same. 

And as is the character of emotional baggage it sometimes weighs heavily on you. Or how you perceive your comrades to be handling theirs.

I also know that I am not good at writing.  Be it opinions via blogs or journalistic stories that suit a specific public interest moment.

But in all of this I am certain of one thing. I do not harbor any inferiority complexes.   Either as a black African, leftist intellectual or former student activist leader from Zimbabwe.

I make the above cited points because it matters that they be shared with young Zimbabweans.   Not as a testimony to a stubborn individualism. But more in order to begin a new debate as to what can constitute a new consciousness to being Zimbabwean. 

And I will start from my own personal experiences. 

It always astounds me that as a Zimbabwean my first personal encounter with consciousness was via the physical library. As actively encouraged by my mother and also the fact that a dysfunctional television set ensured we had no other options. 

Going to the local library also meant that we were free to read outside of the officially given syllabi.  To explore corridors of books that the teachers understandably did not expect you to read since they were not on the syllabi reading lists.

Exploring knowledge at that age was not only fun but akin to a small rite of passage into understanding yourself and your surroundings better.  An understanding of in part, naively so, causes you to come to terms with your own individual and family’s material circumstances.  Including thinking about ways to arrive at a relatively idealistic life in the future. One that would invariably include being able to buy and eat a lot of chicken and chips with your parents and siblings by the time you grew up and were working. 

But it has however not turned out to be as simple as that.  Our naïve personal ambitions in nascent consciousness have come to be represented in what we aspire to be in the contemporary.  Especially where it concerns the material.  Some of us argue we cannot all be rich or poor.  Others argue and present gilded pathways to wealth (not necessarily well-being). Others still make the moot point about politics and activism being the pathway to individual material wellbeing.

In all of this we may be missing some key points.

The first being that we are all equal in just the fact of human existence.  While contemporary global political economies have made us more individualistic and materially competitive, we should remain aware of the fact that all human beings are equal.  No matter their colour, creed, race or origin.  While we may still have aspirations to become an ‘other’ by way of material wellbeing, it is incorrect to assume that again material wealth dehumanizes other human beings.  This is an important point to make because in most instances our personal aspirations hinder our ability to see the overall bigger picture of building an equitable Zimbabwean society. 

Where we understand this, in the second instance, it is least likely that we will develop any inferiority complexes about who we are.   Not least in reference to other people’s countries and our departures thereto.  Proximity to those with access to wealth is not a banner to be held high.  It is more a question of your true character and being.  In this we are wont to ask the question why are you that close and to prove what material point to the rest of the country?

In the third instance we should no longer be prisoners of our material ambitions.  Because the material eventually loses its own appeal with the passage of time.  Or even within the context of the unexpected, unpredicted Covid19 pandemic.

It always means more when you know that health is a human right not a privilege.  And that you can rely on the public health system to look after an ailing relative. As opposed to having to put out money that you know you will never have anyway.  While access to health as a human right does not exist in Zimbabwe, we must concertedly work to make it a reality.  Not just for health but also education, transport, access to water, electricity and a sustainable environment.

To put it more straightforwardly, our individual ambitions are not the sum total of who we can be as human beings. In Zimbabwe or elsewhere. But then again we get captured in the doldrums of capitalism and assumptions of the importance of proximity to wealth. Wherein we incorrectly fetishize money and/or its acquisition.  Only to be left with generations that still want to depart even though they have everything they would have needed at home. In empty mansions. 

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