Africa Should Talk Back on Regressive Politics in the Global North.

By Takura Zhangazha* 

 So I have had friends or at least academic classmates from at least four continents. And in no particular order, Africa, Europe, America and Asia. In the majority of cases all of my friends were halfway between being leftists and also being liberally progressive. They would hear me out on my Pan Africanist views and support them on the basis of the assumption that human rights were universal. More-so after Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States of America. In conversation, we would argue late into the night about the meaning of a progressive universality of human beings and how we could consolidate it beyond race, color and class. 

 While keeping in mind the fact and reality of the global historical injustice that was not only colonialism but also the global resistance to the same. From the late 19th century home grown anti-imperialist struggles against nascent imperialism such as the Maji Maji In Tanganyika (present day Tanzania), the Mau Mau in present day Kenya or the Chimurenga in present day Zimbabwe to the multiple modern anti-apartheid movements’ in South Africa, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique. For many of my liberal friends, this history was of limited consequence in the present. 

 The narrative was one where progress after historical colonial injustices were a thing of the past and how I and my black African colleagues’ needed to “move on”. And indeed we sought to move on. We argued about how the world had sort of found itself in a ‘progressive space’ even after the millennial invasion of Iraq. We assumed as Africans that liberal interventionism’ based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its attendant United Nations' infrastructural system would eventually make the world political and international relations system much more peaceful and progressive. 

 We were wrong. 

 Both liberal interventionism as a global domination strategy of Western superpowers and our own assumption of universal equality of not only nations but the principle of sovereignty was easily shattered by events that happened in Syria, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Egypt, Palestine and Burkina Faso.

 And these examples are where physical warfare in one form or the other took place. Also bearing in mind where economic warfare and sanctions remain intact in many parts of the globe for those that do not easily accept either the hegemony of the global West and its allies or those that would otherwise not tow specific UN General Assembly resolutions. 

 What we however did not realise was that this was not just international politics/relations at play. This was and probably will be for the foreseeable future, a direct result of domestic sentiment in the same said global superpowers. All foreign policy stemming therefrom is almost now predetermined by domestic political sentiment. 

 Whether on the eve or aftermath of general elections which are now also surprisingly beginning to be disputed in their self-proclaimed citadels. And where racism and racist attitudes toward immigration have come to hold sway over a majority of voters in global north source countries. 

 To explain a bit further by giving an example of the #BlackLivesMatter movements that swept the United States and Western Europe in the last few years, we assumed that an anti-racist movement would lead to progressive politics in the global north. On the contrary, it appeared to exacerbate its opposite. 

 More right leaning if not right wing governments have either retained power or become more influential in domestic politics. And are worryingly still in vogue. This can be taken to mean that the direct influence of domestic politics and international relations is much more organic in a more negative sense than we initially assumed. And that assumptions of global north exceptionalism are less about a foreign ministry’s approach but ingrained in the mindset of the country where that foreign ministry emanates from. 

 Where we thought ‘democracy’ or ‘human equality’ to be universal, we are beginning to read between the lines in our newfound global realities and wars that we are seeing or experiencing. Both as they relate to emergent forms of discrimination and nationalist gatekeeping in the global north as evidenced by electoral outcomes in a number of countries. As well as neoliberalism or its more direct form of resource capitalism as a potential reason why this is now beginning to be more frequent with every change of government or election. 

 These are conversations that fewer and fewer of us as Africans are willing to have for many reasons. The main one being that we are losing our critical consciousness of global events and how they are increasingly presented in a way that places us at the bottom rung of the global opinion shaping ladder. Unlike in the heydays of Nkrumah, Nyerere, Cabral, Machel, Neto, Nasser and others. And the other one being a form of self censorship in order to retain either the ability to get a visa or alternatively retain a job in one form or the other. 

 This has also been compounded by what I refer to as the “departure to leave” syndrome that we are daily confronted with when dealing with our young African colleagues. Almost as the equivalent of the “bright lights syndrome” that we had to read in Urban Geography about rural-urban migration. 

 A development that has been weaponised in the politics of the global north to either retain or gain power. Even as multitudes die in the Mediterranean Sea or crossing treacherous mountains, deserts and rivers in North America or the Sahel regions. 

 Africa needs to begin to find a brave voice and call out progressive cdes in the global north about the turn of political events in their own backyards. It may not appear to be as important now, but it will matter for posterity. And to paraphrase Nyerere on electoral politics with a my own personal focus on the global north, “The mechanisms of democracy are not always the meaning of democracy.” And without global exception.

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

We Are Not Abstract Thinkers: Critical African Consciousness Still Exists

We Are Not Abstract Thinkers: Critical African Consciousness Still Exists.

By Takura Zhangazha*

 

There are certain things that will always remain politically abstract.  Except for your own political choices and what they may mean to you personally. 

Many of us are almost politically predetermined.  By way of individual experience.  Either we were involved in the Zimbabwean liberation struggle, lost lives close to us in the same or experienced Gukurahundi in the early to late 1980s. 

We are therefore shaped by what we emotionally consider our own personal opinions as based on our own, again, personal experiences. 

There is never time for a holistic approach.  Everything is almost as written in historical stone.  Almost as though we are going to be arguing about ethnic issues concerning, where you were born, what your ancestors did to mine, and why we should continue fighting over the same. 

These are things that cannot be wished away.  It is part of our very abstract national consciousness.  One which we have allowed to exist within the ambit of an equally shallow desire for universal recognition of a false recovery at meeting the requirements of a the proverbial “white gaze”. 

One of the most infamous lines from the famous Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera that I still cannot fully understand is the one that reads, “ We are what we are not, that is the paradox of fiction. ”  

As complicated as that literal line may sound, it is would remain evident that we do indeed leave ambiguous “consciousness’ lives.”  Almost like a battle between personal, other regarding and familial desire. 

Like we have to lie to ourselves about what matters the most about who we are, who we can be and who we ideally should be. 

There are things you have to crosscheck about what you have to be ‘essential’ about.  It can be about money, keeping your partner happy, your extended family satisfied at your role or even ignoring all of the above.  But existentially you need a value system that transcends your own personal desires.  It must somehow find a way to be shared.  For personal or work related validation.   Moreso where it relates to your own personal health challenges that others may not know or care about. 

So you can walk into a library and crosscheck your African history.  Or alternatively link up how Rodney wrote on “ How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”  and use one form or the other of a scientific method to prove that he was not entirely accurate.  But principally he was correct. 

The triple C’s ( three C’s) of David Livingston, Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation were never a good idea for the black peoples of Zimbabwe.  Let alone Southern Africa.

I have referred to a critical African National Consciousness.  And it indeed exists.  It is under pillows, in workshops, in dry satirical humour, but most Africans, particularly black Africans know who they are. 

It is almost as abstract as asking a question like “ Did we fight a liberation war in Zimbabwe?”  The evident answer is, Yes”.  And that it’s not even a rumour. It happened. 

Or asking us, again in an abstract sense, “ Did black people have a contradictory envy of white people?” Reply would again be yes.  Except for different reasons.

We would have to repeat/argue the sensitive topic raised by Marechera, and for purposes of clarity, “We are what we are not. That is the paradox of fiction”. 

Even if we wanted to dismiss ourselves we remain confronted with the reality of who we meet, who we make deals with and who we share the same ideas with.

Sadly there are fewer and far between cdes that we still share similar social democratic and democratic socialist values with. 

It gets awkward with each passing year but its understandable.  Even Bob Marley sang that we lost god friends along the way.  But to be honest, “ Zvimwe zvacho, mazvokuda mavanga enyora”.

You have overnight conversation with cdes, laugh, lean, learn and remember those gone on.  You also over intellectualize what others don’t really prioritise and you learn to handle yourself.

But at the back of your mind you remember that “Fuck it” you never owed an explanation to anybody except your mom and father about who they think, thought you became.

I have never argued myself out of existence.  Nor tried to argue another human being out of the same.  Occasionally I get bored. I also get broke. Like a scholarship power and promise of the future thing. We will get lost either way.  I am still waiting for the sort of assumed rain. Out of Respect.

 

Being Zimbabwean Revisited on a Road Trip

By Takura Zhangazha*

So I recently went on a road trip to Bulawayo. I had not been to the second city in years.  And road trips that long, are amazing insights into how much the country is changing.   They are almost reminiscent of both youth and the transcendence of time over individual “main actorism”.  Or alternatively how time does not in the proverbial sense “wait for no man”. 

Because this was a journey that I have traversed over many years, it was more about reflection than it would be about basic arrival.  Getting out of Harare on the highway would not, over five years ago given sights of an expanded Kuwadzana or Dzivaresekwa.  Let alone a sprawling Norton and shockingly expansive housing construction in Chegutu, Kadoma, Kwekwe, Gweru, Shangani and on the outskirts of Bulawayo. 

Like I said, it had been a while since I had done a long road trip  out of the capital  city which is not not in the direction of my rural home in Bikita, Masvingo.  The issue was not the evidence of the rapid evidence of an increasing urbanization of Zimbabwe ironically based on what was the still controversial fast track land reform programme (FTLRP) of 2002.  Which ostensibly was about the reclamation of land for agricultural and mining purposes by black Zimbabweans but now turns out to be more about a rapid urbanization programme while at the same time promising to “feed the nation” through new methods of industrialized farming that the Dutch are now fighting about. 

The trip was essentially a reminiscent reminder about “belonging”.   In a very nationalist sense.  You explain to a fellow traveler that you are crossing the Manyame, Munyati, Sebakwe, Vungu and Shangani rivers almost based on your backhand previous knowledge of travel or high school geography.  With a silent knowledge that you belong to this land, rivers, mountains, vleis and all. 

You even go further and explain that the rivers you have pointed out flow toward the Zambezi and that Harare is situated on a watershed which is a source of water for both the Save and the Zambezi. Both of which flow into Mozambique. 

With the added rider that the other major river, the Limpopo, flows from the west of Zimbabwe and ends again on the Mozambique coast. 

In typical travel fashion you crosscheck whether you have mobile network data connection and put your mobile phone battery on “power saving” because you need to ensure you can catch  up with family and friends.   But at the same time you look out the window and see the open farmlands trying to remember who owned what during the FTLRP?

And you mentally crosscheck the past with the present when you last traversed the Harare-Bulawayo highway.  Comparing what you used to see and what now obtains.  Sometimes its barren, sometimes its lush with newly planted crops and you try and understand the complexities of the historical contradictions. The blacks took back the land you think to yourself. The whites had mined and farmed on the land since the onset of colonialism.  And you ask yourself the driven question, so what does it mean now?

By the time you are getting to Shangani, you are remembering the possibility of elephants crossing the highway. Like they did one of the last times.  But you are also looking at the railway line (Stimela) and recalling Ngugi’s narrative of the “Iron Train” in his “Grain of Wheat” novel.  And you try and explain to your contemporary passenger the history of the steam train and how it runs all the way, eventually, to Cape Town.  Or how Cecil John Rhodes always wanted conquest of the Ndebele Kingdom. So much so to be buried in the combined sacred hills of the Matopo. 

There is always however a sense of a very real foreboding.  Almost a fear of fact.  That being as you look across the undulating terrain, you realize that you belong here.  That this is your country of birth.  Not necessarily in a patriotic sense, but just that.  A sense of belonging. 

Not in a Wilson Katiyo “Son of the Soil” sense  (amazing novel) where departure is a big theme, but in a manner in which the landscape speaks to you. The people you watch as you travel with their scotch carts or stalls selling fruits and vegetables make you think deeply about.  Or even the restaurant and toilet people when you make that recess break.  Or the other cdes that you can tell are spending big money from illegal mining in the middle of the country (Kadoma, Kwekwe , Gweru) And that their new business investments are evidenced by the newest fuel service stations, bus companies and accommodation lodges.

In observing all of this you shrug your shoulders and realise that we are living in many different but one Zimbabwe.  You do not, cannot lose your sense of belonging.  You just ask yourself about the sum-total of our national consciousness.  And then you post a picture of yourself on Facebook. You are Zimbabwean. Wherever and however you are.

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

 

 

 

We Do Not Write, Think for Ourselves.

By Takura Zhangazha*

I recently got lectured about my being off the Zimbabwe and African political opinion radar.  I would have shrugged it off had it not been for the fact of where the criticism was coming from. The accusation was made by cdes form the left who are also incidentally long standing trade unionists. And they talked about ‘narratives’ and how those that remain dominant in Zimbabwe are either populist, religious or  non-ideological. 

I retorted that one of the primary challenges of writing opinion is that you always have to ask whether cdes still have time to read.  Moreso in a time of audio visual social media content which is there at the press of a mobile phone touchscreen. 

Then I also remembered a conversation in rural Bikita where I was asked, "So why do we not read you in newspapers or see you on Al Jazeera or hear you on radio stations anymore?  I informed the cdes that I was tired of writing let alone analyzing issues in a way that did not have resonance with progressive cdes or populist affirmation.

The response was relatively abstract, almost as a desire for entertainment and information.  They argued that they do read though they cannot comment or social media their opinions.  Mainly because its not necessarily what is desired or what fits into populist echo chambers. Or that it would in one way or the other affect their livelihoods. 

The key point was they do read. They do listen to the radio or watch televisions and other videos as and when they are available.  And their political opinions on matters written or commented in newspapers, radio or television appeared to matter to them.  The only catch was that if they don’t see, listen or read those they are familiar with, they get disappointed.  It does not change their general opinion, they said, but at least it informs them. 

The essence of their arguments was pretty straight forward.  They are not my personal supporters.  They just need to read, watch or listen to varying opinions.  With an intent to make their own judgements even if they disagree with them. 

And that’s where I learnt my small lesson.  Freedom of expression is not just about who agrees with you.  Its more about the fact that it has occurred.  Where it does not, you short change society and the national consciousness. 

How we act is generally determined by how we think or are led to think. Wherein in a majority of cases we think because of what we learn or consume culturally, intellectually or by way of lived experiences.  Which still comes down to the same thing, the written, sung, spoken, televised or even “videoed” representation of our contextual societies matters.  

This, at least for me, means that narratives must clash on a regular basis. Be they dogmatic, abstract or based on what we know to be very real materialism in a capitalistic context.  And this should be beyond the political.  Its also about lived everyday ideas.  

Almost like telling a cde that it is ridiculous and unsustainable to be part of a ‘share your pay’ monthly Ponzi scheme.  Or that where it comes to for example, the rural-urban divide, the rural remains more pragmatic for a Zimbabwean.  Beyond the “bright-lights syndrome”.  One that has crossed over from just about being from Bikita to Harare, to being from Harare/Bulawayo to London or Ontario.

The key point that I get from all of the aforementioned conversations is the importance of avoiding political correctness and wading into the murky waters of even self-censorship.  And to understand that a holistic view of Zimbabwean society requires a lot more candidness than what we are currently experiencing from our mainstream and social media platforms. 

We need to learn to stop lying to ourselves.  And for this, we need to write, think, vlog more, even if for egoistic purposes as is the current majority of cases with those that would influence us and our perspectives on our own society. 

I know that there is no uniform ‘national consciousness’.  More-so in the materialist times that we live in.  Its in part due to the fact of our Christian evangelist culture that has been exacerbated by Pentecostalism.  Including our political economy’s mimicry of western culture (the things we enjoy, the holidays’ we seek, the cars/houses/schools/hospitals we desire and assiduously work toward)

The reality of the matter is that this is a false national consciousness.  Yes, you can get into a car, or aspire to have one. Build a double story mansion on agricultural land that was urbanized under the fast track land reform programme.  Or get a job in the global north that is more about your status than economic reality (bright lights syndrome) or get a trophy husband or wife.  But that is not the essence of our national Zimbabwean being. 

That is why we need counter narratives.  That is why we need to write or express them.  That is why we need to fill a specific ideological gap that I was informed about by longstanding labour leaders.

That’s why I promise to write again.

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