Kenya, Bolivia and The Global Souths’ “Age, Ideology and Catharsis”

Kenya, Bolivia and The Global Souths’ “Age, Ideology and Catharsis”

By Takura Zhangazha*

Two recent internationally flagged events could not skip my mind in the last few days. 

The first, as an African, was the occurrence of this week’s demonstrations that regrettably turned violent in Kenya over a Finance Bill (2024)  proposed by that country’s government but also linked to austerity measures that are generally propounded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). 

These protests  tragically led to a loss of young lives at the hands of the Kenyan state.  With the one political compromise being the fact that, for now, the President of Kenya has stayed the signing of the Finance Bill (2024) as approved by his country’s Parliament. 

I am not a Kenyan but as a left leaning person, I can only empathize with the young colleagues who chose to take their struggle to the streets to challenge not only their government, but also by default, the neoliberal agenda of the IMF and WB. 

 Whether be it based on ideological grounding or a generalized resistance to taxation and the media reported high costs of living in Kenya.

The second ‘internationalized’ development that caught my attention this week was that of the attempted coup de tat in Bolivia. 

 Because of Africa’s time differences with Southern America, the notices from progressive social media platforms came in quite late at night in Zimbabwe that there had been a section of Bolivia’s army led by the its general commander that had tried to storm the presidential palace.  

And that a message from current President Acre and his predecesor Morales had galvanized their supporters to not only outnumber the section of the military at the palace but also had the solidarity of the new Mexican and  current presidents of Brazil, Venezuela against the coup. 

It has turned out that the incumbent president of Bolivia has successfully foiled the coup thanks to popular support from the masses of Bolivians amidst suspicion of the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America(USA).  

This being based on previous allegations of the ousting of Evo Morales before his term of office had been completed as president of Bolivia.

Both incidents are still not completely resolved and we are yet to understand their full import in respect to their domestic or international relations’ impacts.

We know in Kenya, the Finance Bill of 2024 has been withdrawn by President Ruto pending other Parliamentary processes.  

We also know that in Bolivia, President Acre remains in power after bravely, at least according to what we saw on social media, standing down his then commander in of the defence forces whom he subsequently arrested. 

Now on the face of it, there is no common ground between what happened in Kenya and what happened in Bolivia. 

Except assumptions of anticipation of change or resistance to change.  And/or the movers of either. 

In both cases the most mobilizable were what we are referring to as “Generation Z’s” or “gen Z’s” Even before we talk about the newer psycho-social classification of young cdes as “Generation Alphas”, particularly in Kenya. 

I have no idea what these terms are equivalently called in Bolivia.  But it is certain they were going to be called upon to defend their re-emerging indigenous and alternatively progressively  Bolivarian revolution. 

What cuts across both countries is the international attention they both got as to events as they occurred in the same week.  And their government’s placements in global international relations. A latter point that needs further explanation. 

Kenya is now a very close ally of the USA.  Particularly in Haiti before we start debating its newfound relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). 

Bolivia on the other hand is closer to Russia and China.  Even moreso after a recent trip by President Acre to recently meet the much maligned Russian president Putin for a state visit. 

The key questions become what do these particular political developments reflect that we cannot easily see? 

My naïve thinking is that they definitively reflect what the great revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana warned us as to “Neocolonialism: The Last Stages of Capitalism.”  He may have written the book many years ago but it is what appears to quite literally be playing out in contemporary international relations. 

The contradictions of fighting the IMF and WB in Kenya by young Gen Z Kenyans while  simultaneously their government is now a key US ally for the forseeable future are apparent. Together with the resistance to a precedented coup in Bolivia against the backdrop of contestations for lithium resources by Russia and reportedly Elon Musk.

All of this in the same week can only raise both ideological and other eyebrows.

What is apparent is that the politics of the Global South are no longer going to be the same.  Any major political devlopments in the global south are now essentially internationalised. And mainly for economic reasons that are easy to either militarise or politicise as has recently happened in Kenya and Bolivia. 

I mention 'economic reasons' as the mainstay because whether a superpower such as USA or Russia has a vested interest in your national politics, as of now their ideological standpoint remains çapitalism. With two different versions namely one that is neoliberalism (USA) and the other that is state capitalism (Russia)

But as a final point, which also forms part of the title of this blog.  

We are seeing a lot of quasi mass uprisings as led by young people in urban areas. The  reality of the matter as learnt from the Arab Spring,  “Age is not an Ideology.”  

Neither is catharsis. 

Both help in the moment but as always, the forces of countereaction tend to be ideologically more grounded. 

What is required before age and anger/catharsis become key factors is an equally grounded counter-hegemony. 

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

Emerging Vulnerabilities of SADC as an Historical Regional Political Bloc.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are new key political developments in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.  On top of the list are the results of the South African general election that saw what was a regional political hegemon the African National Congress (ANC) lose its majority in Parliament.  

And by dint of the results of the South African electoral proportional representation system, its right to form a government alone. 

This against a backdrop of the previous ANC government having had relatively sour relations with the major powers of the global west after accusing Israel of possible genocide at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands.   

There is also the, for now, relatively minor diplomatic tiff between Zimbabwe and Zambia.  Wherein, the Zambian foreign minister is reported to have asked SADC and the African Union (AU) to censure Zimbabwe over and about statements made by Zimbabwe’s president ED Mnangagwa when he met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on how Zambia appears to be more sympathetic to the United States of America (USA).  And by implication of the same, the global West. 

I do not think that this diplomatic rift between Zambia and Zimbabwe will extend beyond what obtains. But it is important to note the evident mistrust between the two governments. 

In SADC there are also a number of elections lined up for this year.  The most significant one being that of Mozambique, in which the ruling Frelimo party is very sensitive about a potential loss of power.  Hence the seemingly strategic appointment/election of a young presidential candidate to succeed current President Nyusi. 

And ruling parties that are former liberation movements are still smarting from the results of what happened to the ANC in South Africa. Same with the ones faced with elections scheduled for Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius this year.

All of these events point to a SADC that is probably vulnerable to a decent amount of electoral campaigns, attendant disputes and different international interests in the same.

 Mainly between the West and the East in aid of hegemonic contests as to who controls not only power but also access to resources and favorable foreign policies.  Not only in countries that constitute the regional bloc but also that hold the most sway about how the region reacts to various hegemonic foreign policy interests.   

This is an important point to make because SADC is not a typical regional bloc.  It has always had some sort of stubbornness about its historical linkages to the Frontline States and the latter’s anti-imperialism/ anti-colonialism.   

But due to changing demographics and an economically dominant neoliberalism/capitalism, both culturally and in the material sense, historical nationalism is no longer a key determinant to how our regional populations react to electoral or even other politics.   

More so, in an age where it appears globalized conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, Syria, Palestine, Sudan and the uncertainty in Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia and Ethiopia among others. 

This may seem abstract but Southern Africa has largely been the most peaceful region in Africa, barring the conflict in Cabo del Gado in Mozambique and the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  It has also been the most receptive, historically to the global east in the form of China, Russia with regards either bilateral or multilateral economic and political relations. 

In return China and Russia have generally reciprocated the same enthusiasm of forging amicable relations with many of the countries in SADC despite assumed counter-pressure from the West. 

But this also does not change the fact of the strategic importance of SADC for all global political and economic superpower countries.   The regions discovered and/or still to be discovered/explored mineral resources, its geo-strategic military importance and its broader ‘markets’ make SADC a key target for any superpower interested in claiming political and economic supremacy.   

What this also means is that as Southern Africans we are probably at our most vulnerable in 2024.  Even before we begin to talk about the regional drought that we are all faced with.   

Our vulnerability resides in the fact that we no longer have an historical generational struggle praxis.  

Because of the economic and political policies of many of our former liberation movements and in some cases those that remain ruling parties, a lot of young Southern Africans do not feel organic linkages to our either liberation struggle history or the general injustices of  a world run on the basis of war, aggression and neoliberalism/capitalism. 

 Hence our elections and electoral processes are more about populism, religion and celebrity cultures that mimic those of the urban West.  Even when the latter is returning back to nationalism imbued with a significant amount of racism. 

When I use the term ‘generational praxis’ it also points to the fact that those in leadership and in the know about same said history and ideological positioning of the region have also become victims of the materialism and deliberate obfuscation of progressive collective thinking and being. 

The lifestyles we have desired.  The lifestyles we are currently living.  The lessons we are teaching what we know is now referred to as the ‘generation Z’ or even before that in our local Zimbabwean parlance ‘ama2000’ .

You might ask, where is Zimbabwe in all of this?  The answer is not that hard to come across.  Due to the fact of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) and its shock effects on global financialized capital markets, our narrative is one that the latter want to make an example of an almost ‘never again’ occurrence.  Both at global western superpower levels but also at international business levels.   

Essentially Zimbabwe’s narrative is not going to change in our lifetimes. 

But the more important narrative is that of SADC and its historical anti-imperialist record.   That has to be protected in a world that is increasingly multi-polar as it tackles new dynamics in international relations' power dynamics.  Its not so easy to see/notice, but indeed there is an agenda to make SADC softer, weaker and even more ahistorical.

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

Zimbabwe and SADC August 2024

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe is going to host the next Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit in August 2024.  Our central government in Zimbabwe may be over stretching it a little bit.  But that does not take away from the fact of the SADC summits importance.  Historically or in terms of current international relations global dynamics. 

For those that may not know, SADC is a direct result of the original liberatory Frontline States (Angola, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana)  that supported not only Zimbabwe but also South Africa, Namibia in our struggles for African liberation from the bondages of colonialism and imperialism.

Its an issue that escapes a decent number of us because we choose not to understand the historicity of the regional organ called SADC.

 It is historically embedded in our liberation struggles across the whole region.  Not just because of geography but also because of a deliberately desired solidarity in freeing each other.  So I understand the historicity of the SADC summit being held in Harare, Zimbabwe. 

Yes we see the road and other infrastructural developments in Harare, Zimbabwe.  But we also notice the shifting political winds based on what is referred to as the youth demographic dividend.  Wherein there is an assumption that more young people of African origin are changing their historical perspectives on the future of their own continent. 

Let alone their region. 

In what we have witnessed around the recent 2024 elections in South Africa, we have had to be historically reminded as Nyerere once said, “Democracy is not like Coca Cola”.  We have had also had to be reminded that, again according to Nyerere, “the mechanisms of democracy are not the meaning of democracy”

These may seem like abstract points of discussion but their full import remain that we are not a people without a history.  Be it in South Africa, Zimbabwe or even as far back as the battles of Mavonde or Quito Carnavale that led to Namibia's and eventually  South Africa's independence. 

The historical reality of the matter is that we need to introspect.  No matter your age or experiences in the anti- colonial struggles. Whether you were a war veteran proper, a mujibha/chimbwido, a post independence shop floor worker or peasant farmer.   Let alone a post colonial left leaning struggles activist as led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Even if you became more human rights focused liberalism via the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) in 1999 under the tutelage of Thoko Matshe and eventually Morgan Tsvangirai. The tutalage was real.

But back to SADC and its full import on Zimbabwe and the region. 

The historical and generally generational historicised fact of the SADC summit happening in Zimbabwe in August 2024 is probably well known. 

 We are part of a liberation movement history.  Where generated a counter political narrative based  on leftist narratives.  Ideologically we lost that ‘narrative’ war to the rural areas, through teachers who were always our bedrock.   What we didn’t understand was the violence that accompanied this consciousness and how we were to become its victims and not pick up the organic pieces. 

But that is a story for another day.  One that is unforgettable. 

But here we are as Zimbabwe, hosting a very important SADC summit in the midst of multiple global conflicts.  

We can argue and debate about how new infrastructure is related to the same event but essentially we have to think beyond this simplicity.  SADC is not and never has been an abstract conception.  It comes from our struggles against imperialism, neo-colonialism and struggles against generalized racism. 

What this means is that I have no pragmatic problem with Zimbabwe hosting a SADC regional summit.  Or assuming the regional chair of the same.  I am more worried about what we will do with this international relations’ influence either member states (DRC included) or those beyond beyond our borders such as the Sudan. 

Zimbabwe’s placement in at least regional international relations has changed significantly,

 Our dilemma might be that we are closer to the East than the West.  We will probably suffer for it. 

As long as we do not have to go to any sort of war.  Or pick a side in one which will most likely occur.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com}

Chomsky from the Global African South

By Takura Zhangazha*

It was recently falsely reported that one of America’s leftist intellectual and media giants, Noam Chomsky has passed on. It has turned out that his wife quickly dispelled social media rumours that had spread like wildfire.

 

What  had been reported in progressive mainstream and social media is that Chomsky has been unwell for a while.   

Many progressives from both the global south and the global north were quick to also panic on the assumption that it was true. Myself included. 

Upon crosschecking, again online, I realised that either way, the man desrves that recognition of him as a living intellectual giant. Based on his influential work on not only either the personal consciousness of many but also the global impact his ideas both in academically written form or as a media pundit have had beyond America's borders and global perspectives on what the media is and what it means.

What is not really anticipated is that there would be an evident link of Chomsky with the global south.  Or that intellectuals and activists from the African same can have some sort of immediate reaction to his work.

And on this, I can attest to having African friends who are extremely skeptical of assuming solidarity between global north and global south cdes. Mainly because they cite the fact that  populations in Europe, North America are increasingly turning to the right, which can also be read as becoming more racist. 

And we can crosscheck recent racialised developmemts in Ukraine around African migrants, war and emigration. 

Our global north cdes are also losing every other new election (see the recent EU election results) and are expected to lose more this year. 

The reality of the matter is that if you consider yourself a progressive from the global south and in particular from Africa, and if you have not encountered Chomsky in one form or the other then perhaps you could easily be accused of faking your ‘wokeness’. 

I prefer to refer to it as “consciousness”. 

Or if you are an educated journalist who would be more conservative and neoliberal without encountering Chomsky’s progressive views, then again, you would be in the American turn of phrase, ‘winging’ it.

When we as Africans consider the opinions of progressive comrades in the global north we tend to sort of have an evident admiration of either their radicalism, their education, or their political positions in their own societies. 

Even if we do not have a full picture of the latter and how in the present even the progressives are losing to either the radical/racist nationalists or to dogma around immigration and assumptions of their own national being's superiority complexes.

In this we assume, with our progressive global north colleagues, a given universality of our equality that should historically since the formation of the United Nations in 1945 be an easy political and intellectual given. 

Except that in the years that have interceded since then, there have been multiple ‘liberal interventions’ that reflected a global political and world order that essentially served to remind cdes in the global south and in particular the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe of their general lower and dehumanising placement in the world.

Wars based on the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the ‘West’ left a trail of human destruction that always makes one wince when they read history books. 

But moreso when we read Noam Chomsky.  Even with the limited access we have had to his intellectual work in the global south.   And in particular in Africa.

And I may have to explain this a little bit further.  Noam Chomsky, as a left leaning intellectual came onto our quasi intellectual radars in post graduate school. Like Edward Said’s “Orientalism”, his seminal work on ‘Manufacturing Consent’ that he co-authored with Edward Herman sent us into some sort of slight shock that in the age of the expansions of CNN, BBC, there was a progressive counter narrative intellectual that could and would talk back to the dominant media hegemonies of that time? 

In our own Zimbabwean media freedom activism we looked at the structure and intent of how our own media ‘industry’  structured and used Chomsky’s analysis to sort of see how either we make it more organic (Gramscian) or we lose out to nascent media oligarchs (we have at least four).  

We understand the importance of actual objective journalism based on Chomsky’s analysis of his own North American and other societies’ and explanations’ of the causes of American led/instigated global wars.   

Especially after the tragic September 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the re-emergence of a new version of the Cold War in the internationalized  wars in for example Syria, Sudan, Ukraine, Mali, Burkina Faso, Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  We would never pass Exclusive Books at OR Tambo international airport without crosschecking if he has a new collection of essays or even a new book out. 

So Chomsky still, for most of us who were eager to understand how the global north understands the global south, is a key intellectual reference point. Not only because he speaks  a progressive language similar to ours on the historical global left but also because he gives it detailed nuances and infused it with a globalized and historicized humanity.   

Reading, watching or listening to Chomsky from as far away in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe, Harare, is always to seek an understanding of a critical approach to the global north’s foreign policy positions on the global south. And in particular Africa's placement in it. 

 He helps us understand how we are viewed largely as foreign policy pawns by the global north as did the also now late Australian journalist John Pilger.

But more significantly, with hindsight he informs us, by default, a critical approach to how we even in the global south should view international relations and its historical, imperialistic, neoliberal and cultural dimensions.  And how to avoid being part of ‘manufactured consent’. Dead or alive. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

Re-Understanding Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme.

 Re-Understanding Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme.

By Takura Zhangazha*
So a comrade asked me about Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) and its full import almost after twenty three years since it began. I replied with relative ease that it has changed how capitalism works in this country.  He retorted that it sort of works, no?

I could not give an immediate answer.  This is because the FTLRP spawned a new political economy in Zimbabwe.  What were peri-urban areas such as Seke in Chitungwiza, Harare province became at the blink of an eye ‘urban’. 

Areas that were assumedly rural became peri-urban as is the example of those surrounding Bikita and/or Chipinge.

Where we were told that,“land is the economy and the economy is land” by the central government we scoffed at it.  The reality is a different matter. 

The new political economy of Zimbabwe is based on land.  Land as private capital, land as inheritance, land as a benefit on the basis of political affiliation. 

This may appear complicated.  In reality we have a changing political economy in Zimbabwe.  One based on ironically the very fact of the FTLRP. 

When the white colonialists took our land via horse rides and legal processes that assumed we would never take the land back.
We went to war, fought a painful liberation struggle from the 1960’s through to 1980 and became politically free.  It took us eight (8) years before we could shake off the yoke of settler colonialism when we got rid of the Conservative party that was still led by the racist Ian Smith. 

We still however had the outstanding issue of the liberation struggle of ‘land to the people’.  The lack of popularity of the ruling Zanu Pf party and its ESAP motivated ideological appeal saw the rise of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to the fore of what was initially union activism which then transcended into political activism. 

 The working peoples party, the Movement for Democratic Change( MDC) was then formed with one of the many primary intentions being the return of the land to the black majority.

The key issue is what obtains now.  Not in relation to opposition politics because that is no longer worth spending time on until 2028 in Zimbabwe. 

What now appears to be more important is the meaning of land as capital in Zimbabwe.  Both in its material and financial sense. 

 Indeed there is inherited land capital, purchased land capital and politically connected land capital. 

It would appear with the multiple land developments we are seeing that these ‘’capitals” are intermingling.  We have a new form of estate capitalism in Zimbabwe.  One that is ironically based on what was assumedly the revolutionary praxis of the FTLRP.

Indeed we took the land from white colonial settler farmers.  We then appropriated that former agricultural land for urban residential use.  Understandably so because of not only our black comrades desires to live in the ‘city’ and their ‘bright lights syndrome’ but also because of our own Fanonian recognized inferiority complexes. 

The reality in Zimbabwe however is that land is capital. This is not a Marxist argument as many of you are wont to accuse me of. But Marx and Engels help.

Zimbabwe is now a capitalist society.   We are no longer  a society that believes in its own people.

And therein lies the problem. 

We need to re-learn what it is that brought us together.  Not only to fight the liberation struggle but to eventually challenge its hegemony without a white-washing of history. 

So when we return back to the issue of land and in our explanation to younger comrades, we have to be clear on its fundamentality.  Land remains capital.  Whether you are going to build a house or set up a mine or even do diverse agriculture.  It is essentially capital.

So when the land barons emerged after the FTLRP, we did not know that they knew and framed their interests as capital.

In our material desperation we assumed they had good intentions.  In reality we are faced with multiple lawsuits where the reality of the FTLRP sinks in.  Well after the sloganeering and attendant protective political events.

Zimbabwe is an example of material lifestyle capitalism.  This is in an easy point to make.  Most new urban settlements are a result of the FTLRP.  I have no idea why comrades need an eight bedroomed house. What I do know is that the political economy cannot sustain it.

But thanks to the FTLRP, as liberatory as it may have been, we appear to have lost our minds. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. 

A Changing World for Africa, in Africa. Globally

By Takura Zhangazha*

Global politics is seriously changing.  And this is not a rumour.  There are many shifting allegiances and also changing cultural perceptions of what is considered universally correct. 

 This is not only due to internationalized conflicts such as the Russia- Ukraine conflict or Israel’s genocide in Palestine nor the civil war in Sudan. Or the other one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

It is also because of a mistaken general assumption that “everything will be alright.” 
But if you have a general idea of international relations and its history you can easily tell that no, everything is not alright. 

Since the Cold War sort of ended, remember that one between the global east and west where we used to watch Rambo movies as a cultural reflection of the same? And with the Russians or Middle East comrades always either being the bad guys or the vanquished in the end? 

It is not necessarily as binary as it was before but we are getting there at what is now being re-framed as a new multipolar world.  So it not so much the East versus the West as of old but a mixture of a global reconfiguring of state-based- nationalist and economic strategic interests.  

All underpinned by fluid themes such as controlling immigration, climate change, ease of doing business, entrepreneurship and technology as it relates to what we have now been told is a ‘youthful demographic dividend’. 

At least from our African Global South perspective.  We almost have to look at young Africans in a commodified format for what are regarded as ‘markets’.  Except that these so called markets are largely consumerist, global north oriented neoliberalist perception of what should be preferred capitalist reality. 

Our African leaders have taken to this global perspective like ducks to water.  Very few, if any, contemporary African governments have what would be considered progressive Pan African economic, let alone political policies.  They tend to go with the global wind.  And hide  behind the Deng Xiaoping dictum of “No matter the cat is black or white, so long it catches mice”. 

And they also use the Singaporean and also Chinese model of what we now know to be state capitalism as a justification for many undemocratic political practices.  In this, they build mafia and oligarchic like political frameworks in which they have revolving doors between business, political and military leaders.  With the sometimes overt or tacit approval of capitalists in the global north. 

The key catch however is that Africa is almost still unfully explored for its mineral wealth.  Particularly in the contemporary as it relates to either renewable and non-renewable energy.   It is seen in the global north stock markets as almost a laissez frère for investment in mining, banking (money laundering), tourism and transport outsourcing (build operate transfer ‘BOT’).   

Essentially we, as Africans, are cannon fodder for emerging global markets.  And our governments are not willing to argue back.  Not least because our leaders are either pre-ordained by the same same controllers of global capitalism but also in relation to their own personal material interests. 

They also do not have any qualms about their policy approaches because they also know that ideologically we have entered a new phase of a lack of Pan African consciousness. Particularly with those that would vote for them, young or old.  In their pragmatism or at least their understanding of who those that they lead are, they probably know that it’s materialism (money), individualism and lifestyle opportunities that matter.  Hence African cultural celebrities or previously progressive NGO’s are always coopted into cultural and development programmes that limit a critical Pan African consciousness. 

On social media, some cdes were joking about the recent South-Korea Africa summit. Specifically they were laughing about how one country can summon a whole continent to its shores for a meeting about its own interest.  This is not a new thing.  In fact it’s a trend that fits the narrative of Africa being desperate enough to be an open sesame for what are considered ‘new markets. 

Almost as of colonial old where adverts were flouted in print media exhorting, for example, the British to come to the then Rhodesia.  Except that we are now doing it ourselves.

But as Amilcar Cabral writes, ‘No matter how hot your water, it will not boil your rice’, we, as Africans, are required to be pragmatic.  A ‘pragmatics’ that understands global dynamics, our struggle and organic history as it relates to the present and how we must move forward to a progressive future. 

In this we have to recall our most progressive African heroes and the ideological lessons they taught us.  Without the internet. Without social media. And I will end with just one, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Africa, when he said, almost as an affront to assumptions of equitable universalism, “Democracy is not like Coca Cola.  It cannot be exported everywhere.” 

The reality is that as Africans we need to be conscious of our own inferiority complexes and our penchant for mimicry of the global north culture/lifestyles, economics and politics.  I am off to re-read Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe. 
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)