See You End of November 2022

Insignificant announcement for those who read my blog, takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com I shall be taking a break from posting on it. Fingers crossed, I will be able to work on an at least 10k word write up titled "A Treatise for an Equitable Zimbabwean Society"  This should be until the end of November 2022.  #Zimbabwe (And I am only posting this in the hope I can keep my promise 😃So even if I don't, hazvina mhosva! Mubikirei! )

Being Zimbabwean #Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

There is a book called “Becoming Zimbabwe. A history fromthe Pre-Colonial Period to 2008”.  It is one written by two amazing academics that I personally admire.  Namely Professor Mlambo and Professor Raftopolous and was published in 2009 at the height of our political and economic crisis during that time.

It was and remains an amazing academic project.   What it however probably didn’t answer, beyond its time based historical event narratives, was what it meant to be Zimbabwean. Beyond how we “became Zimbabweans”.   Even in the days of poignant polarization of our people.  It had its own nuances that have stayed with us today.  This being an historical narrative of Zimbabwe that sought to indicate that we were not only a failed state but probably a failed people.

But in this brief weekend write up I do not want to focus on the book cited above.   I am more curious about what it means in the contemporary to “Be a Zimbabwean”.  As opposed to becoming one.

And this is a very complicated question that the fewest of us are willing or able to answer.  With the easiest one being that  like most of Southern and East African countries we are immediate constructs of post-colonial settler states.  Something that is hard to swallow given that fact in the majority of Southern African states we undertook wars of liberation that should have led to new revolutionary societies.  We did not and with hindsight could not given the fact of the Cold War, the Non-Aligned Movement and the South African Anti-Apartheid movement that we had to contend with in the 1980s. 

In the contemporary and to be specific to my own country, Zimbabwe, our sense of belonging is fundamentally defined by our birthplaces(s).  As long as it was within the territory that we now call Zimbabwe.  The only catch is that again it is not that simple.  We also attach to this sense of belonging, issues to do with culture, language and gender in order to reaffirm the element of being what is referred to in anthropology as being an “autochthon”.  Or an original inhabitant.  Geographically, culturally and in some cases, spiritually. 

But we now know that being Zimbabwean is a very complicated experience in the contemporary.  By way of age, ideas and material well being and not necessarily in that order.

I will however start with the issue of age and experience by way of analysis. We perceive of our being Zimbabwean through the lenses of not only what we personally experienced but also because it was not our fault.   But the fault of the then adults.   I remember having a heated conversation with a very good comrade Thomas Deve (MHSRIP) on this matter where I mistakenly sought to blame his ‘age group’ for the hard times Zimbabwe had fallen upon. He brushed me off and reminded me of the meaning of the term “generation”.

Or when I interacted with two specific war veterans, Cde Dzino (Wilfred Mhanda) and Cde Freedom Nyamubaya. 

In another instance and in my personal heady days of what was serious political activism, I told one of my then mentors Professor Lovemore Madhuku that in everything political that we do, we do for posterity.  And with due process.  But I couldn’t argue with his then struggle credentials and I lost that debate. 

In this it meant that being Zimbabwean appeared to be a very political standpoint. An almost either “you are with us or against us one”.  In absolute terms.

But I do not think absolutely.  I always try and see what the future holds. Based on the actions of those in leadership and even ‘supporter’ positions in the present.

In this, there is an assumption of political correctness about what it means to be a Zimbabwean.  Either one is fighting the status quo or defending it. 

The assumption being that there can be no other way to be a Zimbabwean.  A perception that is the direct product of our many years of political polarisation.

On the factor of ideas or to put it more directly, ideology, we are almost lost at the proverbial sea. We can only hold on either to our radical black nationalism or pander to the neoliberal ideological intentions of the global north and east.   Hence our governments rather vacuous term of “ being a friend to all and an enemy to none”.  Its as abstract as it demonstrates a naie perception of how international relations work.  Eventually we will take a side as a country in the global affairs of things.   One that is already known by those that do not like us. 

But again, just for emphasis.  Ideologically we are at sea.  At both the elite and ordinary but poor people levels. The only “idea” that seems to bind either of the two is religion.   

But what is most important in being Zimbabwean is the idea of ‘materialism’.  It is our fundamentally measure of success and being.  Something that is not unique to us had we not undertaken since the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP).  Except that in such an assumed revolutionary process we mimic those that we sought to replace. Both materially and ideologically.

So what does it mean to be a Zimbabwean now?  I do not know.

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

Abstract Take: The Passage of Time and Zimbabwean Politics.

*By Takura Zhangazha

In our Zimbabwean politics we rarely discuss one key issue.  This is the passage of time and its impact on historical, contemporary and future perspectives on how we view ourselves and our country. 

It is an interesting issue in so far as it relates to how we combine views on what time or age in our politics can come to mean.  Or how we are wont to have short memories of events that have come to define the general political culture that we live with in the present. As well as how it may shape the future.

Not just politically though.  We consider time in many respects.  From the religious to the economic.  For example, in our churches we often say that ‘time is not ours’, an adage that is reflective of the Christian bibles teachings and also indicative of sad moments that we undergo such as the loss of a loved one. Or in economic terms with the occurrence of a serious material misfortune that we then hope that with the passage of time we will eventually be able to solve.  

What is more interesting for some of us who are almost born frees (born in the late 1970s) is the fact that we are almost on the time conscious horizon of having learnt of the significant time of the liberation struggle, experienced post-independence/freedom, its eventual challenges and assumptions of a return to revolutionary values of the ruling party Zanu Pf.  While at the same time being key elements of the trade, women’s and student union movements that would seek to challenge the former’s hegemony in our nascent adult years. This was in the late 1990s and as we approached the millennium. 

In some cases we looked at time as almost historically static. On either side of the political divide. On the one hand war veterans assumed that they could revert back to the heady days of the idealism of the liberation struggle.  While on the side of the social movements led by trade unions and civil society organisations there was an assumption that because of the passage of time and generational demographics, time was no longer on the side of the ruling establishment.  In fact with the latter it was almost a given that because of their long duree dominance in national politics, the inevitability of the passage of time was their primary nemesis.

What is more impressionable however is the fact of the symbolism that we attach to the passage of time in our politics.  Or the lack thereof. As well as how we may possibly misunderstand it and its role in our political being.  As abstract as that may appear. 

There are three issues I would therefore like to raise about the passage of time and our Zimbabwean politics. 

The first is that the fundamental national shaping occurrence of the liberation struggle against settler colonialism cannot be wished away.  Historically or in the present and in the future.   No matter our divergent views on the actual experience and the years it took to achieve national independence, inclusive of the factionalism that accompanied it, that fact of that time and struggles for emancipation is undeniable.  And never mind populists who argue on behalf of the settler Rhodesian state They are in the wrong on this one.

The second issue is that the passage of time, as historians generally advise, constructs cultural and political societal meaning. One that talks to values, principles and beliefs that even the original actors in the passage of specific epochs of time wish to last beyond themselves.  Including new actors who seek to borrow from previous time epoch values to garner newer legitimacies as they relate again to ‘times of struggle’, the present and the future. 

In this is the language of assumed betrayal of major revolutionary and historical processes, values and principles.  Though the ambiguity is always about global political and economic dynamics as they occur. Time and values therefore interlope and become a new beast that seeks validation where it need not to.  And time inclusive of age becomes a central consideration in any new politics when it suits specific narratives that are ahistorical and at best ephemeral.

The final consideration I have on the matter of time and Zimbabwean politics is the clear lack of intergenerational praxis.  Or to put it simply, a lack of a shared basic consciousness between various age groups in Zimbabwe about what we are, can be and should be.  This being a specific carry-over of colonial false consciousness that assumes specifics about what is “success” and what is “failure”.  Both at individual and collective societal levels.  And to get a clearer view of this just crosscheck our education system and how unequal we desire it to be with our perpetual pursuit of a British education system as better than our own. And again our perpetual occupation of former privileged social spaces as our own.  Not only physically but by way of cultural and other desires. 

To conclude, the passage of time constructs specific meaning that we need to harness on the basis of our intrinsic values and principles.  These are generally universal and based on our long term interactions with the United Nations in pursuit of human equality.  We should never forget that. 

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

 

Contemporary Political and Cultural Entrapment in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many reasons why political opinions and cultural practices are formed. Both in relation to general society and also individuals. These range from history itself, cultural, religious practices as they shape and influence a given political economy.  With the latter being an encompassing of everything cited above. 

But this a universal societal given as established by academics and thinkers in multiple disciplines.  Yet I still find Zimbabwe to be in a uniquely different situation on this subject matter.  Particularly where we consider our last quarter of a century (25 years). 

We have established a political and cultural system designed for an assumption of continued permanence and not progress.  Both by way of individual perception and in collective societal reality. 

This is mainly because our national political economy since 1997 created at least three things.  A highly polarized political culture; a hybrid neoliberal economy that mixed radical nationalism with smash and grab capitalism; and a social system that prioritized individualism and high levels of religiosity.

The uniqueness of this lies fundamentally in the now given historical fact of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP).  And it’s far reaching impact in how Zimbabweans perceive of themselves and also how they want to be perceived by others.  These others being those in the sub-region, the African continent, the East and more significantly in the West. 

I say significantly in the West because it is the latter that has the greater global and media reach to control the narrative of what Zimbabwe is, should be and also can be.  In the past, the present and regrettably so, in the future. 

It is a narrative that our current ruling establishment has sought to counter with reference to history and radical nationalism. As well as seeking the protection of regional and continental bodies while also getting key protection from Russia and China who are permanent members of the UN Security Council.

These narratives have however had a greater impact on Zimbabwean lives than we are wont to agree upon.  From political polarization through to challenging economic circumstances wrought on by both politics and unilateral sanctions. 

And this is where our own agency as ordinary Zimbabweans comes in. There are certain matters that we now consider permanent in a polarized political and economic fashion.  Mainly because in dealing the story or narrative of what Zimbabwe was, is, can be, we have become entrapped in our own experiences which then shape some of our now almost now unmovable opinions either side of political divides.

And I will give the two most evident examples in our society.  The first is the general immovability of a ruling party supporter on the matter of either the liberation struggle or the radical nationalism that was the FTLRP.  Not just because they believe in both but more because at one point or the other they were involved in either. It shaped their individual political experience.  And because of the narratives I cite above they are persuaded that no matter what happens the ‘enemy’ is always at the door. But with the caveat that they cannot in and of themselves believe that after all they have gone through, they can be found to have been at fault for their actions and opinions. They have no choice but to hold onto what they know and believe. Whether or not it can pass some sort of rationality test.

In the second example, if you take an opposition supporter and ask their views they will reflect similar immovability of their views. This is mainly because they either suffered at the hands of the ruling party via the state of the economy from 1997 or due to political violence being meted on them or their relatives particularly in rural areas.  Their views tend to be strident on this and no matter what handshake of peace they are offered they do not trust it.  Even for example during the period of the unity government in 2009-2013.  It is of limited consequence that their narrative of Zimbabwe then resonates with that of the West because of not only their anger but also their experiences. 

In these two examples I have given it is also clear that in order to have one narrative triumph over another there is a turn to what I consider the perceived and currently popular ‘finality’ of religion or God as the arbiter of a true and expected victor.  By both narratives. Meaning therefore anyone that loses either an election or property still has a firm belief that no matter what a religious deity remains on their side and therefore they have to stick to their proverbial guns. 

In all of this we get caught up in a trap. We cannot let go of our experienced actions and reactions because it would appear that it is all we would know. Especially politically and even where new developments, locally or globally, indicate that it no longer makes sense to hold on to them.  Meaning we may have entered a specific phase where dogma is our cultural staple diet.  Again based on narratives that remain entrenched with no urgency that they be resolved.

For this brief write up I used the term ‘entrapment’ deliberately.  It would appear that we are now prisoners of our own political and economic experiences.  To the extent that we appear unchangeable or unable to reimagine what remains possible beyond the victory of either political or economic hegemons that we support. 

We may need to take time to pause and rethink more carefully what we share in common in our diversity and stop holding on to narratives that blur a better future in their stubborn consistency.

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

 

 

 

 

Dilemma of Political Populism in Zimbabwe

*By Takura Zhangazha

Political populism is a well-studied term.  Or at least now it is more ‘googled’ than studied. And it is also no longer as much a contentious issue as it was in the heady days of political ideological argumentation. It has however generally changed formats historically across the globe.  Especially after the end of the Cold War and the assumed triumph of neoliberalism and the now proverbial prediction that the ascendancy of the latter signified “an end of history”.

In its contemporary occurrence, particularly in our own Zimbabwean context (and probably many other African country contexts) populism is not just political.  It is reflective of a national culture, including enabling communications technologies, national and global political economies.  Together with attendant historical processes as they occur or are remembered. 

In its essentially ‘us’ versus ‘them’ simple format political populism pits an assumed elite versus what would be considered “the people”.  With the people being in radical ascendancy in the hope of victory or conquest.

What is interesting is the interchangeability of both terms, the ‘elite’ and the ‘people’.  With the question being who represents who? And at what point? 

Even more significantly, populism generally requires messianic political figures. Who may or may not have some sort of ideological grounding but would all the same be in complete control of whatever agenda they are setting. Even if it creates or follows general political sentiment.

In Zimbabwe we have an interesting encounter with populism.  It is a mixture of many things.  A dabble of ideology, a heavy dose of national emotion, religion, history and individualised political and economic experience.  Not forgetting a specific mimicry of how it occurs elsewhere on the African continent and globally.

The ‘dabble of ideology’ largely relates to nationalism as it relates to history and the liberation struggle.  That on its own has been used by the ruling party to retain a certain instrumental populism. 

The “heavy dose of national emotion” relates to the general anger over the passage of at least three decades at the state of the national political economy since national independence. This has been used to great effect by mainstream opposition parties or movements. And as aided and enabled by an even heavier dose of religiosity and individualised materialist desires.  With the latter being motivated by what we see on television and on social media as being the assumedly enviable “good life” of the global north. Aligned with an unbelievable intention and desire at mimicry politics and its attendant recognition.

In contemporary African and global politics this is not unique to Zimbabwe.  It is populism that led to colour revolutions in the last two decades.  All of which were reversed almost at the blink of an eye by either military coups, big business and/or global superpower foreign policy interests.

 The damaging end effect of political populism is however not seen in the immediate. Mainly because it is ephemeral and highly emotional. Only in the immediacy of its occurrence or its moment.  And this is a key point.  Political populism, whatever it gets its progenitor, is unfortunately easily reversible and easily swayable in the opposite direction of why it existed in the first place.  Even if, with a dabble of ideology or religiosity it had initially appeared noble.  And tragically it also costs peoples lives and livelihoods because it is never designed to be organic with the people but with the political moment.

Again in our Zimbabwean context and in the contemporary we have to accept the reality that our national politics are largely driven by populism for many reasons. These as outlined above can range from some ideological considerations of the liberation struggle, emotive anger at the state of the economy, materialist individual desires and religion.

As such, we have come to stubbornly accept populism as though it were progressive politics. Especially because it responds to our emotions and waits for the next electoral cycle.  It does not do posterity.

If one were to ask if in the short term there is an alternative, I would despairingly say no. Mainly because this is a global and inter-generational phenomenon. More so when it is based on the fact that our democratic processes, particularly in Zimbabwe, are based on a first past the post system at a majority of levels. 

But in the long term I can easily argue that this is a dying phenomenon that is dependent more on our own recognition of progressive cultural and political habits based on our past, present and how we want to own and imagine our national political futures.  

To conclude, in conversation with some war veterans of Zimbabwe’s second liberation struggle, one can sense the angst that they have that a lot of young people do not understand or positively recognise their national stature. This is not necessarily the young people’s fault.  It is the coming to full circle of political populism in its immediacy. And in the opposite direction.  

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

 

 

#Kenya #Zimbabwe and the Disputability of Elections

 

I have been keenly following the Kenyan 2022 election court case. Mainly because as a Zimbabwean I have to reflect on electoral result disputes as they occur in my own country.  As it turns out the Supreme Court of Kenya has decided, at law, that William Ruto is the duly elected president of Kenya.

And the reasons that court gave are varied.  At least on the nine (9) points that they gave. What is important is the fact of the disputation of presidential election results.  Both as a general expectation and as a general electoral habit.   A development that remains completely understandable.

Even if when presented before a court off law, the mathematics or legal argumentation appears to fall short of expected requirements.

What is apparent is the fact of all elections in Africa, South of the Sahara being expected to be disputed.  Or at least ending up at one constitutional court or the other. 

This is the case in Kenya and Angola.  As will be the case in Zimbabwe, Botswana or Nigeria when they hold their next elections. 

What remains in vogue is the fact of the disputability of election results.  And how such disputes will always end up being presented to a Supreme or Constitutional Court. Together with the fact that in most insistences this becomes an international relations issue.  Almost as a force of habit.  With the expectations that after every other five year election period, this is actually an expectation.  Meaning that no matter the assumptions of ‘electoral reforms’ there will always be disputation as to the results.  Even if the same assumptions are made in Global North countries. 

What is apparent is the fact of an emerging culture that we should and can dispute electoral results.  For the sake of it.   It is almost an electoral campaign that so long we run for political office we should be able to dispute electoral results.  Or in other words, we cannot lose an election.  Especially if we have the sympathy of the Global North and its foreign policy intentions.

In this what emerges is the assumption of what is an election? Who actually votes and for whom? Even if the candidate is as straight forward as can be, we have to realise that it reflects more the interests of those that prefer that particular candidate than they would an opposing one.

But this may not matter as much.  The essence of electoral campaigns’ in contemporary Africa is a specific populism.  One that manages materialist desire and legality of the same.  And this is a complicated point.  “We are what we are not.  That is the paradox of fiction”.  I am quoting here from Dambudzo Marechera from his novella “The Black Insider”.

The fact of disputation of elections is one that means we are what we are not.  Our anticipation is that we will always have victory.  Yet victory always eludes us. As though it was a curse.

Our abstract struggles at liberatory beings are those that tend to belong to the immediate.  The struggles for the organic understanding of the future of the people of Zimbabwe is not abstract.  It is immediate.  And we know that those that fought the war of liberation understand this. If they do not then we have to have a conversation about the fact of the reality of what it meant actually fight the oppressor in the most trying of circumstances. 

It is apparent that the liberation struggle was complicated. And that it remains an historical reality we can never wish away.  Even if we were in the political opposition. The importance of Zimbabwean being is that we do not dispute the war of liberation.  We also do not argue with the fact of desire for electoral change.  Nor the reality that democracy has mutated to mean many things to many people.  Some in power. Others close to power. 

What we do know is that democracy represents a political culture that is essentially about posterity. It is not about the immediate.  And more about the future.  Where we embrace it for posterity we will be alright.

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

 

 

 

 

Pensions, Gas/ Oil in Muzarabani

 By Takura Zhangazha *

I once posted a tweet on how Muzarabani would never be the same again. With the benefit of hindsight, I was one third correct and two thirds wrong.   The one third is based on the fact that there would be and is exploration of gas in the Zambezi valley that will change not only its landscape but perceptions of what it would become.  The two thirds where I was wrong was that I assumed this is a project that would be designed to change local and global perceptions of what it can possibly mean to have a national project that is people centered. 

On the first third, the Muzarabani Invictus gas project is an intensive capital investment one.  Based on, you can guess it, globalized financial capitalism.  As a basic lesson in how these global financialised capitalism things actually really work.

Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans have always owned the potential gas deposits. Its our national resource by birthright.  Even if these anticipated deposits were then ‘discovered’ via exploration initially by experts hired by the French company Total and now to be explored by Invictus with newer advanced gas or oil drilling technologies. 

The major difference has been the fact of our national government taking a free market economic approach on mining.  A process it has referred to as the “ease of doing business”.   In this, there is a prioritization of the listing of investment companies on global stock exchanges in order to raise capital for investment in Zimbabwe.  It is blunt capitalism based on speculative market profit  intentions.  And in order to keep the actual owners of the specific commodity at bay.  Especially because of the capitalist assumption that they would never have raised the required capital to invest in their own commodity. 

In following closely media reports on the Muzarabani gas investment I have realized a number of issues.  First among them being that it is a high priority investment by not so new private players in Zimbabwe. And that the state has a vested interest in this via what it has called, in global capitalist parlance, a Sovereign Wealth Fund.  One in which it hopes upon actual discovery of gas, it can share the profit with the Australian stock exchange listed company Invictus. 

In this, it has roped in pension funds that are both public and private, as reported by local media website NewZWire, to invest in this highly speculative gas and oil venture.  The pension funds officially declared that they are optimistic that we will find the gas and their percentage shareholding in the Sovereign Wealth Fund will bring them a return on their investment.

What crossed my mind was the fact that the pension funds may have done this without consulting the owners of the money. These being Zimbabweans who toil day and night contributing monthly pensions for their inevitable retirement.

A friend familiar with business explained that this is fairly normal. Because pensions, both public and private function on the same pretext.  They take government guaranteed money and invest it where they deem fit.  With or without consultation with the actual pension holders.   So if you have a National Social Security Authority (NSSA) Zimbabwe pension you have no say on where proceeds from your pension are re-invested.  Especially if you are young. It just appears on your statutory pay slip as an abstract payment until you learn that there are many of you and it is a real determined of your future in your older, retirement years.

To be honest though, I really wrote this brief write up because of pensions and this particular speculative investment in oil and gas in Muzarabani.  Or any other investment that does not consult the people that it is meant to benefit. The working people contributors to both private and publicly owned pension funds.

One can easily argue that this is “capitalism”. But we know from global economics that this is what creates ‘oligarchs’ and to use a Rhumba term “ Big Mulemenas”. Cdes that are in no way accountable for wealth acquired from nationally owned resources. Cdes that eventually claim ownership of these same said resources as their private property yet they were acquired via what should have been people centered policy and political processes.

At the stage it now is, it is near impossible to stop the Muzarabani gas exploration project. In fact it may turn out to be an economic game changer.  The question that remains in vogue is for who? And why it has taken this global financialised private capital particular format? Even in the so called Second Republic of Zimbabwe. 

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

An Overview of Zimbabwe’s Rural Political Economy 2022

By Takura Zhangazha*

Many years ago my brother and I had a discussion on the meaning of the ‘rural’  in Zimbabwe.  The discussion focused on how we could balance the fact that we were originally from there via our parents and how in the moment we had to confront the reality of success as being determined by urban lifestyle expectations vis a vis the ‘rural’.    

The key question we grappled with was whether urbanisation of the rural was preferable.  We agreed on the technicality of this question.  There is no rural area that does not desire electricity or running water.  In this we also agreed that we need to modernise the rural in order to achieve equitability in Zimbabwe’s human development agenda.  

We sort of got stuck in relation to customary and civil law.  We had to interrogate the question of whether the rural in its modernisation was ready for a civil legal system.  We never came to an agreement.    And this is a matter that remains outstanding between us.

Over the national Heroes holiday which is held every August, I however noticed a number of emerging trends about our rural political economy.  Albeit from one district in Masvingo but I am sure these are likely to be occurring elsewhere. 

The first is that there is a default urban culture creep in the rural.   With or without the assistance of central or local government.  There is an increasing use of battery power to charge mobile phones and listen to radio broadcasts. Mostly via singular solar energy panels that connect to old car batteries or newer smaller ones that are designed for that particular purpose. 

There is the expansion of shopping centres in places that were previously remote and isolated for basic goods and commodities.    This also includes emerging bars and places of leisure that immediately link up young rural Zimbabweans with entertainment such as watching European football on generator or solar powered televisions. 

Another interesting factor has been the general expansion of what we still refer to as ‘growth points’. These pre-urban areas have increased residential settlements which are more formal and run by rural district councils and in some instances land barons who know how to work the system about land use permits and changes.  Especially for land that is in the immediate vicinity of these same said growth points. 

There is an evident rural-urban migration that transcends what would have been previous rural-major city migrations of the past.  Migratory patterns on the face of it appear to be young rural men seeking employment opportunities in mining towns or disused mining areas in various parts of the country. An employment term that is commonly referred to as ‘chikorokoza’ in our local lingo.  Though South Africa is still in vogue for many of these young men as an option barring birth certificate and passport access.

For young women, it is intra-rural migration that appears to be unique.  Particularly for the purposes of providing domestic work services to the wealthier rural families.   There is however still a decent number of rural –urban migration to provide the same services in urban centres that is viewed as a major employment option, even though it can be ephemeral particularly due to the challenges caused by the Covid 19 lockdowns.

But perhaps what is more immediate is political perceptions of what the future portends.   There is a clear generational gap in rural political consciousness.  At least from my own personal perspective.  What I noticed was that there was an eagerness by those that have been travelling between cities and mining areas but based in the rural to demonstrate support for the opposition. At least to me. And as motivated by what is clearly a desire to find the elusive US dollar in the rural political economy.  It is as emotional as it is populist in fashion and form.  Almost as a declaration of desire, intent while being a testament to realistic placement in the national political economy. 

This includes historical recognition of previous episodes of political violence and the general import of being defiant that older generations are quick to remind younger ones of.  With warnings of the danger of going against the political grain of the ruling establishment in the rural realm. 

There are many other nuances that I considered but did not get enough of conversation on.  These include the directly gendered dimensions of the rural political economy. Especially after the Covid 19 lockdowns and the changing role of young women in bearing the brunt of job losses for breadwinners during this period. Or that of the bubbling role of religion via new emergent small Christian church congregations and allegations of witchcraft that occasionally emerged in casual conversations.  Or the increased uptake of illicit alcohol and attendant violent episodes particularly with young men.

What I did get a sense of is that the rural provided a temporary reprieve for many who had been working in cities and mining areas during the lockdown.  And that a probable decent number of young Zimbabweans resorted to their parents\guardians in the difficult economic times caused by lockdowns.  Particularly to look after their children while they sought new opportunities locally and across the Limpopo or Save rivers.

To conclude, we have an increasingly urbanising/modernising rural political economy.  Both by way of material developments or cultural desires (solar energy use, batteries, enclosure of fields, expansion of growth points and default privatisation of land ownership.) What I definitely got a sense of is that Zimbabwe’s rural political economy is changing. Both by way of physical/human geography and culture.

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

 

 

Individual Life Experience as National Consciousness in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Our Zimbabwean national consciousness is a debate we continuously need to engage and debate upon.  Even if a decent number of us may consider it relatively abstract. But it must be had all the same.  With the key question being “What really informs contemporary Zimbabwean national consciousness?” By way of history, generational interactions and the multiplicity of its progenitors in the present. And as a result in the future.

I am also aware that this is a Fanonian question and that a decent number of comrades may imagine this to be part of the past than it is of the present.  Let alone the future.

What is increasingly in vogue however about this national consciousness question in our post independence era is that initially it is no longer popularly considered to be an urgent one.  At least not universally. We have sections of our society that may still hold it dear in their own recollections of it during the liberation struggle. Others still who consider it within the context of the first decade of independence with feelings of exclusion.  And those who at the turn of the first independence decade largely frame it within the context of economic failure.

Moreso in the present day where the latter perceptions of pessimistic perceptions affect organic  national consciousness. And I will return to the issue of organic national consciousness toward the end of this brief write up.

As is historically appreciated, at the occurrence of our national independence ‘national consciousness’  was popularly collective. Both by way of struggle and life experiences. Almost every adult Zimbabwean was clear on the reality of the necessity of national independence and its long term collective goals. 

This became somewhat ethnically charged with the tragic occurrence of  Gukurahundi which was eventually temporarily calmed with the signing of the Unity Accord between our then two main former liberation movements, PF Zapu and Zanu Pf. A development that surprisingly remains underplayed in the contemporary.

What was clear in the first decade of independence was the fact of former liberation movements actively leading the narrative on what would be considered progressive national consciousness.  In this, regrettably they failed even before the end of the decade that was the 1980s.   Their one party state endeavor floundered at the hands of not only the trade and student unions but more significantly because the Zimbabwean population had no particular interest in it. 

And this lack of public interest was based on downturns in the national economy after the introduction of the IMF and World Bank inspired Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP).  With the latter it became clear to the Zimbabwean public that there was an ‘us’ versus the ‘political elite’ situation in the country.  Hence there were so many hit protest songs during the 1990s.  From Thomas Mapfumo’s ‘Mamvemve’ and also Leonard Zhakata’s “Mugove” and many other songs that came to reflect a shift away from a collective understanding of what can be a progressive national consciousness.

Or by the time the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions  (ZCTU) escalated questions of what can be the newer national consciousness through its performance legitimacy questions beyond the combined ruling Zanu Pf party’s nationalist ethos.  And going one further by founding a working peoples party in the form of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) with the deliberate intention of changing the discourse on national being and national consciousness from focusing solely on liberation but also national economic wellbeing. Initially for the collective national good.

What has happened in the interceding years after the turn of the first decade of the millennium has been completely astounding.  Based on both the expansion of economic globalization and austerity or Fanonian desires for recognition by the Global North. And as fundamentally personally experienced. 

And this is the key point to consider that Zimbabwe’s contemporary national consciousness is now derived as a result of the foregoing on the basis of what it is that we have individually experienced. Whether as we grew up or fell from material favour.  We have a very angry national consciousness and sentiment.  And as with such emotive perceptions of who we may think we are, this emotion is generally easy to take advantage of.  Or to hold onto.

If you lost an urban shelter during Operation Murambatsvina or were a victim of politically motivated violence and survived, it is least likely you will ever forget about it. Let alone change your mind about the ruling party. 

Or if you suffered the end effects of the 2008 inflation while growing up and are now an adult it is within your memory to refuse to accept those that you have been told all along caused it.

Even after the 2017 coup-not-a-coup, assumptions individual Zimbabweans may have had of what change meant forgot that national consciousness essentially is always collective and not individual.

In our contemporary context it is now clearly individualistic and not collective.  Even as we seek the comfort and acceptance of those that appear to be more collectively conscious than we could ever wish for in the global north. To the extent that they create fortresses around their continents and generally have no qualms about deportations and setting up asylum bases on our own African continent.

What I have however learnt is that we need to regain a more organic sense of national consciousness that cuts across generations of Zimbabweans.  We cannot wish away our own history as at the same time we cannot forget our own lived realities. But even our personal life experiences should never defeat the collective well-being of our society.  After all, geographically, politically, economically and generationally, it is one country.

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

 

 

 

The Trouble With Local Government in Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

The architecture and administration of local government (also referred to as city/town/municipal/ rural district councils) is very interesting in Zimbabwe. From varying perspectives.  These are namely historical (also colonial and therefore psycho-social), economic, legal and political/electoral. 

Historical or colonial because local government finds its contemporary structure still being informed by the intentions of the Rhodesian settler state. Psycho-social in how our attitudes toward this remain embedded in a preference of the city/town or what we generically refer to as the urban economy and life(style). Or what we naively referred to in high school geography or history lessons as the ‘bright lights syndrome’.  Almost as Fanon would have predicted. Even if we arrived at it in the now by way of racist and therefore discriminatory policies.  And how this continuing contemporary attitude is also predicated on mimicry of a then racist political economy.  

This latter point can be expanded by understanding that the ‘urban’ in Africa tends to be regarded as the epitome of material  and political success.  And the city is globally perceived as the most efficient form of human settlement.  Hence the tragic challenges we have of young Africans’ migration to what appear to be the best of them in the global north at the risk of life and limb.  Zimbabwe is not an exception.  Hence we are turning some of our peri-urban areas into mini-towns and cities.  Or what we considered ‘growth points’ having haphazard residential urban plans that are unsustainable. 

In the contemporary therefore we have not fundamentally changed what we have considered ‘local government’.  It regrettably has a heavy colonial hangover as informed by the principles of the protection of the private property of the privileged and the retention of an exploitative ability to retain the physical labour of the materially dispossessed.  Both in the past and in the present. 

In the third instance the legal differences in our local government systems are as cyclical as they are real.  The legal dichotomies between the urban and the rural are now well documented and argued academically.  With again the greater literature around this deferring/ more focused onto the city and not the village.  As it relates to property rights, tradition, culture and assumptions of individual or collective senses of belonging.  This even after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) where the rural even after expanding into former commercial (urbanized) land, remains on the periphery and at the interface between what is considered tradition and modernization.  With the current government intent on reinventing the rural into industrial and private hubs for mines and large scale commodity agriculture.  A development which again closely links to the economic paradigm of local government in which the priority remains the unequal urban as of old.

Strictly spoken for this is how capitalism developed and becomes cemented.  It values its most key element, the right to private property in tandem with various forms of nationalism and assumptions of belonging to a geographical territory by elites in charge of what they consider lesser mortals. 

And this is where the contemporary politics of our local government system comes in.  We know that there are political strongholds of two main political parties that are based on who controls cities, towns and/or rural district councils.  This has been the case since 2000.  With the opposition in its still many formats controlling a majority of the major cities, some towns.  While the ruling party in turn in charge of the rural district councils and a sprinkling of towns.

What is lost in these political contestations is the fact that our local government system  structurally remains the same.  In most cases for political reasons such as a deliberate lack of the political will.  And I will give a quick example here. We are still designing our urban and rural development programmes based not only on pre-independence masterplans that exacerbate inequality and difference based on class or physical location. Even after the FTLRP.  And while many of our elites either side of the political divide think this is what works, the irony of it is lost to again our inability to reinvent a democratic form of local government beyond electoral results and populism.

While some may argue that this is work in progress because there are new processes around devolution, it is how we re-imagine local government that is more challenging. Devolution is essentially playing catch up to the urban and its specific lifestyles. Particularly for political expediency and as a result default development projects that may not be as sustainable as they appear without the politicians that are pushing for it.  But again, by default it helps stabilize migratory patterns even though it would increasingly appear we are in an age in which the rural is dying and on the verge of privatization.  Its only saving fact for now is that it remains the strongest support base for the ruling party in Zimbabwe.

Let me conclude by a brief argumentation recap.  Our local government system is not working democratically or with a functional interest in equitable development between the urban and the rural.  This is due to the factors cited above, namely, history (colonial legacies) that incorporate the legal and the economic aspects.  But also because of the political contestations as they relate to elections.  It needs to be re-imagined beyond land barons, matchbox houses and the newfound intentions of government hand in glove with local and global private capital.

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

 

 

Zimbabwe Mainstream Media, Journalism in Context and in Trouble.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe’s media sector has not been in a good situation for a long while.  And I am not just referring to the country’s consistently precarious freedom of expression context. The challenges it faces are fundamentally about professionalism and sustainability.  Two elements that are symbiotic in keeping it viably afloat.  These can also be contradictory because either can cancel out the other.  That is to say, the sustainability of the media in Zimbabwe can be considered to be more reliant on its own unethical conduct in order to garner more readers, viewers, listeners based on preferential journalism.  The latter being journalism that is biased, non-factual and in keeping with what its authors deem to be what a paying public prefers. 

It sort of fits into what I consider the rather awkward adage of ‘news is what sells’.  Particularly for mainstream print and broadcast media globally and in Zimbabwe. 

The particular uniqueness of Zimbabwe’s media situation is as interesting as it is now worrying.   In at least five respects. Namely, ideological preferences, political bias, the profit motive, caution about crossing government’s media policies and the interface between old and new tech motivated media platforms.

I will address each of these elements separately in this brief write up.

But it also remains important to mention from the get-go that Zimbabwean journalists are also caught up in this conundrum as it affects their own welfare and/or unionism.  Even where and when they seek to be as professional and ethical as possible, they are beholden to these aspects I have mentioned above and will explain below.

To initially understand Zimbabwean media’s current situation requires understanding its ideological positioning. Before we even talk of assumptions and realities of political bias.  Our mainstream media is cut from a very similar ideological cloth.  It is essentially, in the contemporary, a liberal media ideologically.  This is largely by way of the legacy of colonialism and our media training institutions. Particularly where and when it covers issues relating to the national political economy and private capital. Even where we try and consider its ideological approach in the first ten years of national independence, it remained enamored to a relatively liberal understanding of Zimbabwean realities.

I know that this is a disputable point but our media and our journalism were generally designed in the framework of colonial legacy journalism. Hence by the time the Nigerian government bought, on our behalf, Argus Publications (now Zimpapers) the tradition of what journalism can be had already been ‘liberally’ set. Despite our attempts at socialism.

Structurally however Zimbabwe’s media was designed to be pro-capital as a legacy of Rhodesian settler colonial hegemony.  Both in its state owned or private forms. Hence even with the then Information and Media Panel of Inquiry (IMPI) one of its primary recommendations was that of considering the ‘media as a business’.  We may never have gotten out of that mindset, hence our current mainstream media reflects more the views of political and private capital powers that obtain.  It is not valued as much as a purveyor of freedom of expression in the public interest than it would be considered for its representation of elitist interests.

This brings me to the second element of ‘political partisanship’ in our contemporary mainstream media.  As highlighted earlier this partisanship or bias in our media is linked to elements of its sustainability.  Taking specific sides is not as ideological or as value driven as it would be in say for example the global north’s media.  Here it is almost as though bias and a lack of media ethics is what leads to a sustainable mainstream media based on target audiences which include those in power or those in opposition politics and their supporters.

And even more significantly those that create advertising or other revenue for the mainstream media. Such a situation enables journalism that is unprofessional as it relates to what is required for the mainstream media outlet to either make money or be accepted as credible in the eyes of its target audience.  We can argue that this is typical of all media but in our Zimbabwean context its exaggeration is that it is considered the norm and not the exception.

The third element is that of the assumption of the profit motive of the media.  It tallies closely with the discussion on the matter of political bias.  Media owners are largely responsible for putting pressure on senior level journalists (editors in particular) to function like chief executive officers.  At the expense of their journalistic roles.  And all at the same time thinking that journalism in and of itself can only be successful if it ratchets up sales via increased eyes and ears. In this sense, the ‘media as a business’ model falls short of expanding free expression and public interest access to information.  This approach commodifies not only journalism but also free expression.  Though the media owners have limited interest in this as they crunch dwindling profit numbers. 

The fourth element is that of how the mainstream media remains wary of our national government’s media laws.  And how they curtail free and independent journalism.  While these laws have been undergoing reforms that have been cautiously welcomed by stakeholders, the government’s approach to media freedom has also led to skepticism, anger and mistrust.  It has also had the end effect of creating a very public perception that the private media is always correct when reporting on government transgressions. Especially because of the continued arrest and harassment of journalists that are either just doing their jobs or perceived as being pro-opposition.

Finally, mainstream media has a dilemma with social media because of the disruption of its long obtaining ‘news cycle’.  To the extent that no one can really say which leads the other at the moment.   From social media influencers through to bloggers/vloggers the mainstream media I Zimbabwe appears to be playing catch-up most of the times. It is a development that has opened up the journalism profession to that perennial question, “Who or what is a journalist?” 

In essence however this question is really about how does the Zimbabwean public value journalism.  Both in its more traditional or newer formats. I do not think the profession is as valued anymore largely due to the fact of technology enabling almost anyone with mobile telephony and access to social media the capacity to tell their own version of a news event.  But more significantly because freedom of expression is now highly individualized in tandem with its individualization. 

I do not know if Zimbabwean journalism is in need of a rescue. Only practicing journalists and media owners, organisations can respond to this matter.  What I do know is that it is in trouble and that as elsewhere globally, it is losing ground on the public interest value of free expression as a fundamental democratic right.

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

 

Questioning the Commodification of Free Expression in Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many issues about our general and specific political conversations that require flagging out in Zimbabwe.  Not only as they relate to our hard held opinions but more significantly our political consciousness.  While this may appear to be abstract, we probably need to understand the necessity of getting ourselves as Zimbabweans to be a bit more frank with each other.  Particularly about what we consider to be progressive politics and its full import on our society. 

I am going to make an attempt at this. 

In the first place what I have noticed is that there is indeed a political economy to our opinions or our right to freely express ourselves. The foundation of this is our long drawn historical assumptions of what it means to be successful in life.  Both by way of education and materialist accomplishments.  Key questions that Zimbabwean society asks of us, including the Church, are how educated are you?  What degrees do you have (including if you have a PhD), what car do you drive, do you have urban property (stand), and where do you work? 

This is a general global trend in capitalist/neoliberal societies.  We may not quite be such a society in the strict sense of the term our national mindsets appear set on it.  Especially based on our desires for departure to the global north. An issue I will come back to later. 

What has been more interesting is the fact of the carry over habits of assumptions of what it means to be successful in Zimbabwe.  It’s a very complex argument but the general impression is a given with how we relate to each other at work, in churches, families, schools, rural associations and also political parties. 

So when we express our political or even other opinions we are, by default, mindful of this political and economic framework of consciousness.  We quite literally reflect it more than it does our own perception of who we are and who we can be.  Beyond ourselves and as we pass it on to our children. 

Our opinions appear to have become rigid beliefs.  Especially where they concern politics.  It is as expected but it also has specific queries that would accompany understanding our realities.

Almost as though if someone says in your face that ‘Jesus Saves’, you should be allowed to ask a question as to. How does he save?” And proceed as you consciously desire.  But this is not the case in contemporary Zimbabwe. 

We have been made by many to believe that free expression is dogmatic and partisan.  That even our mainstream media can only be found on one side or the other of our political divide and therefore are only worth listening/reading to where and when they reconfirm our own perceptions for what we may already have decided we should think. 

The title of this blog is however more interesting. The political economy of free expression in Zimbabwe reflects the fact of the material and political desires that a majority of us have. Both in the urban and rural areas.  That is, to own a car, house and to send our children to the best private schools/ universities.  In order to again reap the material wealth of our efforts.  From the children. 

The only catch with this is that we assume we are now in control of our opinions via social media.  Yet is generally established that the latter pushes us in specific directions about how we should think about ourselves and our opinions.  It reconfirms, in general, an assumption that our individual opinions matter. Collectively.  And therefore because of the combination of the individual opinions in to a numerical collective we are therefore correct in the same said opinion.  Even though we do not own any of the social media platforms that we belong to.  They are owned by individuals who determine, via algorithms what can be shared and posted on them. This includes our angst at local  mobile telephony and internet service providers when their services break down,

So the political economy of free expression in Zimbabwe is probably three fold.  It begins with the actual political economy which is neoliberal (an assumption that the free market will solve all of our problems).  And it is then followed by a desire for individual recognition for your opinion as it fits the latter narrative and sadly a simultaneous recognition from the global north. Not only for our social media influencers but also for our mainstream media.   Thirdly, it combines the ideological with the emotional. Your feelings are reconfirmed with your desires. What you believe, even without facts, is what obtains. And it is what you go with.  The only key difference is that at the moment in Zimbabwe, there is no drastic motivation to act on it.

This has been a relatively complicated blog. What appears to be real is that free expression is increasingly becoming a commodity in Zimbabwe.   Both by way of who owns the platforms you use to express yourself and the ideological parameters you chose to do so.

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

 

 

 

A Changing Pan Africanism: A Need to Return to the Source.

By Takura Zhangazha*

The current chairperson of the African Union (AU) and president of Senegal, Macky Sall recently met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in the former capacity.   In representing the African continent, not much was reported on the geo-political implications of such a meeting save for stories claiming that agricultural products that Africa heavily relies on from Ukraine and Russia are still able to reach our African shores.  For any discerning mind there was probably more to the meeting than what was reported.  Hence on social media there were memes on how close Sall was to Putin as compared to for example the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.  A meme in which one can assume a deliberate ploy by Putin to demonstrate that at this time of the Russia- Ukraine war he intended to demonstrate greater Russian proximity to Africa in international relations.  Not only based on the number of United Nations (UN) votes from African countries (Zimbabwe included) that refused to suspend Russia from the  UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)   

Be that as it may, Africa’s response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been interesting to observe and reminiscent of a Pan Africanism of yesteryear to reflect upon.  

And it is an historical given that a majority of African states were closer to Russia during their anti-colonial struggle than they were to what we then referred to as the global West.  While mired in the global politics of the Cold War, a majority of African countries in all of its regions (East, North, West and Southern) did have greater solidarity with the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).  Even until the latter collapsed in 1989. 

But before that as far back as the 1960s, the inimitable Ghanaian and African hero Kwame Nkrumah had sort of set the framework for Africa’s interaction with the rest of the world with his now famous dictum, and I am paraphrasing here, “We face neither east or west.  But we face forward.”  This was in relation to the fact that Africa would undertake a Pan Africanism that related to its intention to play an even hand with global superpowers in its particular interests.  Especially where it concerned the outstanding task of liberation from colonialism but also the economic development of already independent states on the continent. 

We also had a phase post the Cold War and its global international residues that our post-apartheid era African leaders decided that it would be important to rename and reframe the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the AU which obtains today.   The main thinking was that we were almost done with the primary purpose of the OAU barring the Saharawi Republic of the liberation f the African continent from colonialism. 

We moulded the AU along the lines of the European Union (EU) yet the two organisation’s geneses are historically incompatible.   The former having been formed for liberation, the latter for primarily expanding economic cooperation between European states and eventually coagulating that into liberalism beyond economics. 

I remember the big academic and continental debates about what we then referred to as the African Renaissance with a new crop of intellectual leaders.  These included for example the still inimitable Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the long duree Olusegun Obasanjo, the now late Abdel Aziz Bouteflika and the one who eventually hosted the AU monument in Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade. 

The thing we did not to fully comprehend at that time and probably now is that taking charge of what we would call our own destiny as Africans is as historical as it is grounded in catching up with the rest of the world.   A process which is historically ongoing as opposed to being considered in phases as we did when we formed the African Union. Noble as it was.   And I do not make this point lightly. 

Where the AU is now setting us on course for Agenda 2063 and insisting for example on what it calls a ‘youth dividend’ in terms of our continental demographic, we are saddled with the sad reality that this is no longer our own organic Pan African narrative.  We regrettably may be returning to being slaves of a ‘free’ market that commodifies us again. 

We need to insist we are not a market for global neoliberalism.  Neither should our Pan Africanism, or what remains of it gladly be open sesame to the dictates of global capital.  

Where we return to the origins of our initial Pan Africanism ideologically and in relation to the Cabralist aspirations of our people, we become a better continent. Based on our Pan African liberatory history and an understanding of the promise of the future.  

But back to the meeting between Sall and Putin.  Whatever motivated it and how Africa places or argues for itself within the ambit of this increasingly globalized conflict and its potentially devastating impact, we need to revive our organic Pan Africanism.  As taught by Nkrumah, Nyerere, Cabral, Fanon, Mbeki and others.  There has never been a better time to remember those famous words of Nkrumah, “Africa Must Unite!”

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

 

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