Causes, Campaigns, Memory and Futures in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

A decent number of us of adult age at least have had some sort of experience of at least one cause, a campaign, or significant memory of either.  Or even a shared perception of what the future should look like in experiencing both.  Some of these considerations are highly personal.  These four elements (causes, campaigns, memory and future) can be individualistic, which they now largely are, a point I will come back to later, or they can be part of a collective and organisational grouping. 

It is important that we look at each one of these fundamentally from the organisational and collective angle as likely defined or experienced by many in our Zimbabwean context. 

If we begin with what we know to be ‘causes’ they are alternatively referred to as ‘long term struggles’ for overarching/holistic progressive values, principles and ideologies.  While at the same time being ‘do or die’ matters at great personal and collective cost to those waging them.  They also tend to be long term with an almost undefined timeline and they tend to also end by default.   Either through negotiation or assumptions of a total victory against those that opposed them.  The easiest example of this in our Zimbabwean context would be our liberation struggle for independence.

Other causes and struggles do emerge in our post-independence history but these are shorter and more legal than they are essentially or directly counter-hegemonic.  In most cases they talk about the betrayal of the initial fundamental cause/struggle that was the one for national independence.  In doing so they borrow from the contested values and past of the first and retain many similarities with it.   And they are more fixated on peaceful transfers of power through the electoral cycle than they would be with fundamentally changing society.     

Where one analyses campaigns, there are more of these in assuming/desiring shorter term specific changes to various sectors of society.  Campaigns generally accept the fundamentals of the political and social environment in which they occur.  Be it perhaps issues to do with constitutional reform, fair labour and gender equality practices.   They come in the form of what we have now come to refer to as lobby and advocacy of central and local government policy makers.  They are occasionally radical (demonstrations, highly personalized, religious or even populist) but their time-span is almost always shorter depending on the manner in which policy makers and the public respond to them.  Which in most cases is to nip them in the bud by incrementally acceding to some of their demands or co-opting their leaderships. They however tend to have greater universal characteristics that relate to events and expectations as they occur globally in countries of preferred comparative choice. 

Now let me turn to why I have also alluded to memory.  All activism learns from a chosen past.  Be it local, national or global.  And it all chooses what pasts to admire the most. Be it in the political, economic or social/religious dimensions.  In fact it depends on it.  That is why the ruling Zanu PF party is quite stubborn about its historical record, while the opposition makes reference to its former great leaders.  Or other activists remember what they did in either pursuing constitutional reform or labour equality in order to justify their contemporary actions. 

Even neo-liberal activists in their historical amnesia make the ridiculous argument that the Rhodesian settler state had a better political economy.   All the while missing the point of its fundamental fault of being a repressive and racist state.  

Memory to me therefore connotes the passage of time in struggles/causes and campaigns.  Together with the assumption that we learn from what the past teaches us in order to arrive at a better future. 

So where I make reference to the future(s), it is again in direct relation to causes/struggles and campaigns as they define what is to come.  And this is based on the contemporary form either have taken.  In the immediate Zimbabwean context we have a mixture of assumptions of causes or campaigns that almost interchange based on the political convenience they bring to the table for interested parties.  Some disappear as quickly as they emerge for many reasons which also however reflect their ephemeral nature as much as the character of their most important newfound medium of social media.  With some campaigns waiting for the next electoral cycle in order again to repeat similar characteristics of the initial campaign mixed with cause elements. 

That means the future of causes/struggles in Zimbabwe’s context is precarious.  Not that one must always have a cause.  But if one should claim to do so, that claim is not necessarily based on an organic understanding of reality.  Including an uncomfortable likelihood that many cdes may also not be comfortable with.  This being the fact that some struggles quite literally reach their peak/end (such as independence). And that going forward need newer formats and more organic, approaches to cause and effect.  

What appears brighter for now is the future of campaigns.  Based on not only the general electoral cycle motivation attitude of activists across the board.  But also the fact that campaigns’ are easier and can always be abandoned midstream if newer more attractive ones emerge.  This means there are likely to be a lot more campaigns’ going forward toward the next general or any other election or as issues emerge around either the role of the state or the national political economy. 

Let me in conclusion return to the point I had made about individual struggles/causes, campaigns as they relate to material well-being.  This is the one that appears to be the most prevalent. Mainly because the state has left each and everyone to our own individual devices where we need to access health, education, transport, water, energy among many other livelihoods related activities.  If we want to return to a more equitable society, we have to undertake what Cabral refers as the struggles against our own weaknesses and I will quote him at length as borrowed from his speech from the Tri-Continental Conference in Havana, Cuba, 1966

“We refer here to the struggle against our own weaknesses. Obviously, other cases differ from that of Guinea; but our experience has shown us that in the general framework of daily struggle this battle against ourselves — no matter what difficulties the enemy may create — is the most difficult of all, whether for the present or the future of our peoples. This battle is the expression of the internal contradictions in the economic, social, cultural (and therefore historical) reality of each of our countries.”

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

 

Celebrating #Juneteenth Commemorations from Africa With Global Meaning

By Takura Zhangazha*

Experiencing African-American culture and history from the viewpoint of being geographically located on the mother continent of Africa has largely been almost to desire it.  Not just from the vantage point of how the same has strongly influenced contemporary young Africans’ cultural, political and economic perceptions of who they are or who they may in one way or the other desire to be.  Collectively and individually.  

Even as we also know that these perceptions are also influenced significantly by the organic historical struggles against the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the repressive inhumane long-duree enslavement of black Americans.  

As well as in the now by the contemporary #BlackLivesMatter movement which is almost global except not so much on the African continent. 

This to me means that no matter which African American film, sports or music stars we in the Diaspora or at home on the continent admire the most, we cannot wish our shared history away.  Both its global anti-colonial struggles and more specifically for this short write up the Emancipation Proclamation that Juneteenth 2021 commemorations are essentially about. 

These are held on 19 June every year mainly in the USA and essentially mark the national remembrance of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 that legally freed all African American slaves.  It however only became federally effective with the defeat of the southern slave owning state of Texas on 19 June 1865.  But until recently it had not been universally recognized as a public holiday across all of the United States.  On the day there are however many state supported or independent events to mark its historical importance and ongoing relevance to the struggles against inequality by African Americans. Be it in the form of marches for example as was the case last year 2020 for #BlackLivesMatter.  Hence the commemorations are referred to as the Juneteenth celebrations.  

From a Pan African perspective these commemorative events are important in reclaiming the global placement, struggles and emancipation of all Africans across the world.  Be they in an historical or latter day African Diaspora in the ‘West, East, South America and Australasia.  And also where we on the motherland itself.  

Even as our various black emancipation struggle contexts differ either by way of geography or social contexts, it is the common thread of our shared historical struggles for revolutionary emancipation and equality that binds us all together.  As opposed to any assumptions of tokenism, black people all over the world have always stood more in solidarity with each other and other oppressed peoples’ of the world as our struggles for equality have had small and large victories.  

It may be time that we begin to expand a reclamation of emancipation to younger Africa’s consciousness.  And it begins by enabling them to recognize their own organic and historical struggles for emancipation. An emancipation that as evidenced by global struggles today, is one that remains incomplete. And it therefore continues, in many different forms. As it has to. And as handed from one generation to the next. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. 

Predicting Zimbabwe’s Future(s)

By Takura Zhangazha*

In Zimbabwe we rarely talk about the future.  Our focus is at best on the present.  Or even more callously the immediate.  Almost as though our lives are defined by shrugging our shoulders each day as it passes and helplessly waiting for the next one. 

There are many reasons for this.  Not least among them the fact that our political economy is highly individualistic.  And that individuals rarely think beyond themselves. Or at best beyond their immediate families. All aided by the fact that our present day economic system is designed in the same way with not only individualism as a preferred way of living but also its accompanying materialism and consumerism. 

We however do have a penchant to discuss the past as far as it affects the immediate.  And again at very personal levels.  For example a lot of cdes are wont to discuss what occurred in the past as it relates to their immediate material well-being.  And often times this is done on the basis of religion and assumptions of not being successful or facing individual challenges because of a lack of one faith or the other.  And basing any assumptions of individual futures on the same.  

We rarely think of our collective national future in an organic manner.  Its either based on our individual political preferences or even more stubborn assumptions or our individual ‘feelings’ as mediated by social media to 'algorithmically' point us to its owned preferred future.

However this is not unique to Zimbabwe.  ‘Ephemeralism’ is now almost a universal given.   As are assumptions of the significance of the individual as being most superior in society.  

What is important however is that we need to always consider Zimbabwean futures beyond our individual concerns, material desires and ambitions.  Mainly because where we think of the future with our own personal children in mind we can never run away from the reality that they too will live in one society or the other.  Be it in Zimbabwe or other countries where a decent number of parents continually, and wrongly in my view, continue to encourage young Zimbabweans to depart to. 

In discussing Zimbabwean futures we need to remind ourselves of that key word, ‘posterity’. In whatever leadership positions we hold. Wherever we hold them, we must understand that we never lead for ourselves but for others.  And particularly others that are already and will inevitably come after us. 

It is therefore on this initial 'posterity' principle that we can then understand that because the past informs the present as the latter does the future, we can still imagine and try to predict our collective futures.

Whereas our own individual circumstances of existence may have made us particularly sensitive to certain things such as political repression, individual health, education, jobs, intellectualism and even gender inequality, we are always obliged to think beyond our own experiences. And to think for others and their betterment. 

So what are Zimbabwe’s futures given our past and our contemporary context?

In the political it is relatively apparent that we are caught in a whirlwind of a lack of organic national consciousness. One in which we are almost schizophrenic because of our divisions and our own lack of national self confidence.  It is a dilemma that we run the risk of passing on to the next generation because in many instances we cannot confront our collective historical realities. But be that as it may our collective political future looks like it will most likely be typically nationalist in identity but not necessarily in economics. Like a number of other countries we will be captured by global political events and discourse because of our penchant for mimicry/admiration of the global north societies. We will likely move further away from Pan African discourse to a universalism in which we will not recognize our inequality.  And sadly we will still pander to philosophies of life that are not intended to make us universally equal. 

On the economic front we are likely headed to neo-liberal global integration and subservience to private capital.   All based once again on our own individualist materialism that suits the same said neoliberal economic frameworks.  It may however suit us now to pursue this path but it will most certainly not suit those that come after us because it essentially creates a narcissistic value system that is unsustainable. Mainly because we refuse to learn from history that existence is not singularly about our consumption and enjoyment but also for future generations. But as the adage goes, ‘the only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history.’

On the social front Zimbabwean society is likely to evolve, based on our economics into even more individualism.  Where almost everything including water, education, health will eventually be pre-paid.  Not necessarily via a pre-paid meter but all the same via our own convoluted sense of individual self-importance.   The signs are already there.  And the sings will remain with us for a while.  And we will rapidly urbanise our society so the rural folk are quite literally living on borrowed time. 

To conclude, writing this short blog was about my own personal fear about Zimbabwe’s future. For my children and those of all of us. It wasn’t intended as an intellectual exercise but just an abstract stream of consciousness.  Either way, we still need to think about Zimbabwe’s future(s) in realistic ways.

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

Zanu PF’s Newfound Comfort Zone: Hegemony Beyond Elections?

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe’s current ruling party Zanu Pf is noticeably beginning to exude a specific confidence about how it is running the country.  Not necessarily through its own members but those that are at its political and strategic helm. 

I would also hazard to call it a newfound comfort zone that is largely about reducing our long duree culture of relatively populist political contests for power.  They want to be seen and acknowledged as 'doers'.  Not quite in the tradition of typical performance legitimacy but somewhere close to it in relation to the hegemonic expectations of private capital.  And I will explain this particular point a little bit further.

One of the key challenges Mnangagwa’s predecessor faced after the fast track land reform programme had been that private capital in its local and global form was deliberately united in undermining any ‘revolutionary’ narratives that undermined ‘private property’.  While workers and trade unions were more overtly 'oppositional',  private capital was definitively in control of the same's counter narrative.  Hence by the time the mainstream opposition became stronger, it had changed its ideological framework from social democracy to neoliberalism. 

Where we come full circle to Mnagagwa’s current government it would appear they are in the process of successfully taking back the support of private capital.  Both local and global through either their infrastructure projects or their newfound direct relationship with owners of the same.  Hence their insistence on the ‘ease of doing business mantra’.  It is not just a slogan.  Its an attempt at a closer relationship between the state and private capital in order to change the political narrative in return for making the money. For either.  A development which on the face of it appears to be work in progress.  Almost like a case of a deliberate understanding that we have each other’s backs. 

And then on the regional and international engagement scene, Zanu Pf knows that SADC and the African Union are firmly behind them now.  It was a bit tentative at first but now with declarations and resolutions calling for the lifting of sanctions firmly under their belt it would take a drastic development for these two or other interstate African regional organizations’ to change perspectives on Zimbabwe.

Where it concerns the West the fact that private capital owners from the same region are working on investing locally is something that Mnangagwa and his team view as part of work in progress.  Though they are probably aware that the human rights narrative cannot be wished away from any engagement.  As for the East, nothing appears to have changed with those they call their all-weather friends.  In fact under Mnangagwa the relations with Russia , China, Belarus appear to have significantly improved.  But all with a universal understanding that the priority is the establishment of neoliberal hegemony in Zimbabwe.  Especially one with a calmer nationalism. 

There are other sources of this newfound Zanu Pf comfort zone.  These include but are not limited to the fact that for all the objections of the opposition and civil society, Zanu PF retains as based on the 2018 electoral results, a two thirds majority in Parliament.  And has used this to recently make significant changes to the constitution.  While many focused on changes that related to the appointment of judges it is worth serious political noting that there are other changes that have far reaching political comfort zone implications.  I will just cite that of the structural changes to parliament through the introduction of a youth quota, the extension of the women’s quota and the proportional election of provincial councils.  These amendments basically point to an intention to not just expand the demographic representation but more importantly to be able to field as many candidates possible for the party and reduce likelihood of too many internal party candidate disputes.  Simply put it helps assuage fears of key members being left behind for elected posts. 

And of course there is the matter of the state of the mainstream political opposition.  While the MDC factions retain a proven popularity mainly in urban and peri-urban areas, the ruling party appears to no longer be as worried about its impact.  Divisions, court cases and disputes over properties (whatever their alleged causes/reasons) mean that the opposition is weaker.  For now.  Add to this an apparent failure to have a comprehensive performance related policy framework for the local governments that opposition is still in charge of limits its ability to utilize ‘performance legitimacy’ to its full potential.  Or to generally have an aversion to internal party procedures that promote collective leadership and membership accountability. While always waiting for the next election as the foundational reason for leadership. 

What remains to be seen is how this new hegemonic project by Zanu Pf pans itself out. But it is clear that it is beyond being just about elections in 2023.  The active recognition of historical figures and monuments is telling in this regard.   Mnangagwa’s intention is to reduce again, contestations over history and establish a national understanding of its importance.  Even if by default this suits the ruling party’s own historical narratives well given the fact that it has in most cases always also referred to this same said history as its own.  But also beyond history, the continued courting of the religious sector leaders and their churches/believers is something that gives the ruling establishment continued confidence.   Add to this also the continuing but somewhat more elevated respect and retention of traditional leaders and customs also completes these clearer hegemonic intentions of Mnangagwa. 

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