I am a Southern African Development Community (SADC) aficionado. I believe in it. Always. This started when my father cried when Samora Machel died. Young as I was, it was not easy to wish the emotions away as we also listened to songs from the then Runn family about how we were tired with the then apartheid South African government and its alleged role in Samora’s assasination.
I make this point early on because there are many who denigrate SADC as though it was as economic an union as the European Union (EU).
Some of us grew up on SADC’s solidarity. We knew and lost relatives that were part of SADC missions in Mozambique against for example Mozambique’s RENAMO or with the Banyamulenge in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
At the University of Zimbabwe we even coined the term “UBAMulenge” in light of the role Zimbabwean defence forces under the aegis of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security were playing there.
We did not quite understand the full historical import of SADC. But we always had it at the back of our minds as an organic regional organization. And I do not need to delve into its well known history. From the Frontline States through to its historical evolution into a revered regional institution headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana.
Nor do I need to over explain how post the 1980s it was defended by historical luminaries such as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Samora Machel of Mozambique and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Among many heroic others.
Where we fast forward to the present, it is apparent that the historicity of SADC to the region may be lost to some of us. And reminders of this are necessary.
I have written on this before but it is worth repeating. No matter who your president is. No matter their ideological orientation and how they got to power, they cannot wish away SADC.
Ofcourse the recent SADC summit held in Harare, Zimbabwe comes into vogue. There are many among our pundits that would want to either dismiss it or over celebrate it.
That is of limited consequence to the reality that is SADC. It is not going to go away because of abstract denial or affirmatory opinions. Moreso when they come from the global north and its attendant global media narratives.
I will add an anecdotal point here. In 2017 I was asked to make a presentation to some young activists about regional Southern African advocacy for freedom of expression.
This was just before the Covid 19 pandemic.
This was also before Zimbabwe’s general and harmonized elections of that year after the “coup not a coup” populist marches that ousted Robert Mugabe from power.
I told them to calm down and remember the history of SADC.
As undemocratic as that whole process was, SADC stood by Zimbabwe. Not because it knew better but because it had learnt lessons from what had occurred in other regions such as in North Africa, Libya where liberal interventionism led to nightmares for the people.
The essential point to be made is that SADC is not a fly by night entity.
In August 2024 Zimbabwe has assumed a rotational chairpersonship of SADC not because we are particularly unique but more because we are part of an historical family of the regional struggle for liberation from colonialism and neo-imperialism.
There is no other African region that exhibits this unique historical trait in Africa. We have less wars, less electoral disputes and less economic ‘cold wars’ than any other region on the continent.
I know there are quick questions as to what it means for Zimbabwe? Where and when we consider our leadership of the region.
There are at least three quick answers.
The first being that Zimbabwe has been presented as a pariah state in Southern Africa. Our chairing of SADC counters this narrative, even if those that do no like us insist on the fact that we will remain the same.
Chairing SADC for Zimbabwe means we can talk back to neoliberal tendencies that dominate global media narratives about us.
And its not as though we are abstract or lucky members of SADC. We are organically embedded in it.
Not only because we are one of its founder members but also because we have trusted it to help us solve our own internal political problems as much as we have helped other member states.
Secondly, SADC in its historicity represents a specific historical strand of Pan Africanism that is increasingly lost in translation by neoliberal economics. We may read all their economic blueprints and how they reflect the diplomatic etiquette of global financialized capital but we cannot lose the historicity of SADC. Even if we wanted to.
The objective truth of the matter is that SADC means much more for economic and social justice for the people of the region. Our regional political economy has always been historically intertwined. What has happened since the 1980s is that we have allowed ourselves to be bifurcated by private capital as of colonial old.
In the process we have a majority of our leaders being lackeys of the same said global capital without contextual placement of their countries’ lived economic realities.
Thirdly and finally, a little discussed matter about the role of women at the recent SADC summit. It was Kwame Nkrumah who wrote, ‘Educate a Woman, You Liberate a Nation.’ He was correct. The progressive representation of women in SADC remains of fundamental importance. Not only for optics but also for organic representation.
It is female comrades that shape national and regional consciousness. From the day we are born through to the day they either take us to church or hospital.
In conclusion I am happy that we hosted the 44th Ordinary Session of SADC; It was a good thing. Albeit over-celebrated and with many cdes incarcerated for one reason or the other.
But SADC is us. It is our history. It cannot be wished away.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com
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