By Takura Zhangazha*
Most of us as Zimbabweans do not examine the trajectory of
our contemporary but also individual national consciousness. For example we do not really ask, what shapes
our individual political opinions? Is it
the school we went to? The churches we
attended or the political processes that we witnessed or experienced? Let alone the economic success desires we harbored,
did not achieve and blamed multiple political establishments as to how we did
not get to where we wanted?
Or how we got to where we materially wanted to get to via affiliation
to particular political and economically linked political establishments?
The truth of the matter is that we do not have to. We generally live in the moment. And we do not also have to overthink our
existence as individuals or as a society.
Mainly because we assume everything is already established is unchallengeable. At least not in the short term.
This might appear like a complicated concept but it
basically means, there are now things that we think can no longer be challenged
economically or even in a societal equitability sense. At least in terms of our own opinions.
And this is the point of this blog or brief write up.
Where we remember how we all grew up, the aspirations our
parents or even grandparents had of us, we suffered an initial primary weakness. One that was embedded in an ahistorical
desire for success that remains essentially one of mimicry of colonial and
post-colonially defined material success.
This is a debate I occasionally have with comrades that
tends not to go beyond organic discourse because at our (multiple) ages, certain
decisions and social behavioural standards have already been conservatively
set.
The questions we must however begin to ask ourselves, even if
you are a rich person in the now, an urban or rural urban worker, a nascent
youthful or successful entrepreneur (as is the global trend), a pensioner or
civil/public employee, is how did you come to your specific political and/or
economic consciousness in Zimbabwe?
I am talking here about you, if you are reading this, at a
personal level. It is always something
to reflect on as it relates to what your value the most, individually and in
relation to like-minded individuals. Be
they from your workplace, your place of worship, your sports club(s), Whatsapp
groups or any other social activities that motivate you to feel you are human
and belong to some sort of social value based community. Beyond what you earn
or what you can earn.
This is a non-gendered introspection since we are all equal
intellectually. Though gender remains not only a societal construct but a lived
repressive reality for many women in Zimbabwe.
But back to the main
question. What informs your political and
economic consciousness? What makes you
have an opinion on either anything or everything? Do you read, do you feel it, do you pray it? Do
you pay for it?
Or in some cases do
you experience it based on personally lived pains and experiences (Zimbabwe’s national
economic and drought crisis of 2008 as an example?) Including the possible reality of you being
in the Diaspora across rivers or across seas and oceans and its multiple identity
and economic implications for yourself or your immediate or extended family
back home?
These are questions I also ask myself on a regular basis. I have at least two immediate answers.
My consciousness is based on what I have read. It is based also on my own political activism
and understanding of Zimbabwean politics.
And here I will give a specific example of once having been
a progressive constitutional reform activist based in Marondera, Mashonaland
East in Zimbabwe. And how you get to
grasp the reality of a dual Zimbabwean society (urban and rural) as you
interact with the people for various activist reasons. While in the process realizing
that at some point, in your preferable consciousness, you do not quite understand
your country. Until that experience of those
moments of grasping differentiated national realities in Murehwa, Mutoko or
Mudzi districts. Before going home to
Bikita for a Christmas or other holiday break.
Which included an emergent understanding of both rural and
urban poverty, its attendant political economy and how our national cyclical electoral
politics have never really changed since the year 2002.
The key issue however is how we as individual Zimbabweans view
our political opinions and what inspires or dissuades them.
In the majority of cases these are about our families’ survival
( school fees, rent, home construction, small scale entrepreneurship,
tenderpreneurship, marriage, the Diaspora and some sort of material satisfaction
or happiness).
Where you mix this up with political ambitions you have politicians
that are hard pressed to see an organic national political and economic future
beyond their personal interests. Particularly those that choose to live in the
moment of either their ascendancy or their victimization en-route to some sort
of power ascendancy.
But if you ask them and yourself this key question, “What
motivated you to have these ideas, these values, these beliefs?” The answers
you will get and you will reply even yourself remain ambiguous.
These answers are generally multifaceted. They will begin with history from both
collective national history and also an individual’s role in it. And end with the necessity or pragmatism of the
contemporary situation. A pragmatism that essentially points either to a desire
to return to the old or embed our society in a global neoliberalism and as the
Chiyangwa adage goes, “Make Money!” Even before you get arrested on allegations of corruption.
What is more of a reflection exercise that most Zimbabweans
remain to talk about is that their knowledge, their personal experiences, beliefs
do not make our society revolutionary.
We are now more incrementalist politically, economically,
collectively and individually. And this
is historically understandable. To simplify it again, we are now a ‘slow change
society’. Even if we think of the next general election in 2028. We are
not waiting on a revolution. But a new reality of our politics. It will be slower and less populist.
What Zimbabwe has gone through, given the diversity of our views, and the influence of global capital on our economic systems and our politics, our collective and individual thought processes about our own consciousness, we are clearly not yet ready for what we really want.
Rethink what makes you politically conscious. Individually and collectively in your next WhatsApp post.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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