Africa and the Potential of a World War 3

 By Takura Zhangazha*

A young Zimbabwean cde asked me about the meaning of ‘global war’.  His question was coming from a context of the general narrative of a globalilsed world war between Russia, Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).  And of course the celebrity narrative or even movie like narrative that comes with pitting Biden, Putin and now Trump (his favourite) against each other.

This was a 'small-small' conversation about the prospects of a global third world war. Or what has been referred to as the potential of/for a World War 3 due to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.    

What was interesting in this conversation was the assumption of distance of Zimbabwe and Africa from this assumed prospective World War 3 (WW3) territories.  

For the young cde this was an important point.  Because his major understanding was that it would all play out in Europe and North America.  That is it was all about the Russians versus the Americans and the Europeans. 

In his view, Africans were too far from the conflict to be concerned as though we were watching a movie in a film theatre.  He also hastened to add that Africa has been there before and therefore would survive any escalation of the conflict between global superpowers.

I did not pursue the matter further.  He had made his mind up and there was no need to challenge his thinking.  Mainly because we have to deal with a reality of a newer false consciousness among young Zimbabweans.  One that is stubborn, individualistic, highly opinionated and linked to materialism (influence, cars, money, capitalism and therefore power). 

And also the fact that no matter how much you think you know better, younger cdes will always dispute your opinions based on what they consider either their sharper minds or their access to more information on global events as they occur on mainstream and social media. 

Upon individual reflection, and beyond personalized conversation, it is clear that there is a potential for a WW3.  Not only because the term in itself is familiar from what we studied in global history as Africans but also because of the reality of the Russians bombing Ukraine with new sophisticated weaponry. 

Missiles that their President Vladimir Putin promised to use more broadly if NATO continues to allow Ukraine to use its missiles to attack Russian territory, especially because they will not know what hit them.

Historically, as Africans, we have generally known our place in the context of global wars and subsequent cold wars.  Even if our governments do not acknowledge these for diplomatic and international relations reasons. 

We are the low rung victims of these anticipated globalized or regionalized wars.  In fact we tend more to be proxies.  Where we either send our people to fight in other peoples wars or we become victims of the same.

The assumption is that we are so desperate, naïve and simplistic to be part of either side while at the same time not understanding the global international relations and war complexities of what we are confronted with.

These realities are at least in three parts. 

The first is historical.  Africa and Africans have been part of global wars at least since the First World War.  We have fought and died on behalf of Europeans because of colonial British, French and Portuguese empires.  We also did the same in the Second World War where the West and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were victorious against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi expansionist intentions. 

We became more conscious after the Second World War and realized that we had to struggle for our own national independences and freedoms.  We had seen the vagaries of war.  More-so in the instances of Mozambique, Guinea Bissau-Cape Verde, Algeria, Zimbabwe for example we had no choice but to wage liberation struggles against the same.

When we became free, barring the Saharawi Republic as recognized by the African Union (AU), we were still embroiled in the vestiges of the then Cold War between the Global West and Global East.  Nuclear war remained imminent and we were and remain bit part players in its potential import.

Where we fast forward to what obtains today, as Africans, we have to come to the realization that many of the globalized (quite literally) wars that occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were never ours to claim the spoils of war.  Neither were they in any way related to any semblance of the respect of the United Nations Charter. 

By the time we have the current war in Ukraine and its effect on world security, agronomy and food sustainability, Africa has tried to find its voice but has generally been ignored. 

Even if we have the global geo-political conundrum that is similar to the one we had at the time of the Cold War. 

What I know is that Africa has limited say in stopping a WW3.  Its an historically accepted and probably likely racist reality. 

It does not mean we cannot as Africans with our global representatives speak up against this increasingly possible reality. 

We know that the Americans have changed their government.  We know that the Russians have retained their government.  We also know that the Chinese have fortified their foreign and extractive  policies in Africa.

But in any African conversation about the possibility of a WW3, it is important to recall and remind global superpowers that we shall never again be pawns in wars that we did not create or cause.  

While international relations are complex, we have to hold fort against swimming with a global tide that we have no control over.  And I hope the African Union understands this. 

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

 

 

 

 

Re-Explaining Zimbabwe’s Incrementalist / Conservative Politics

By Takura Zhangazha*

What has brought contemporary  Zimbabwean politics to where it is today?  The easy answer is the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediated Global Political Agreement (GPA) in 2008. 

While we can talk about the legacy of Zanu Pf’s rule, the liberation struggle there is always a time when the past meets the present.  The past is never enough of an explanation of what obtains today.  Nor is it adequate to understand future political nuances as they occur. 

In fact there are always seismic events that change a country’s 'national' political trajectory.  And the GPA was one of them. Not just because of the rise of the initially leftist and labour backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the late 1990s but also because of the passage of time and changing global political-economy dynamics after the end of the Cold War between the United States of America (USA) and the then Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR) now known as Russia. 

Even more important is the passage of time and a changing generational consciousness.   The politics that were important to my mother or father in the 1980s or 1990s may not be as as important to you or me.  Neither are my own political values as important to my own children. 

And this is a completely understandable development except that it has historical nodes that cannot be wished away. As cited above you cannot forget the liberation struggle, independence, the one party state project, the introduction of Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAPs) and their eventual impact on a differentiated national consciousness.

Equally one can also not forget the coming into effect of the GPA in the midst of not only political violence but also the economic hyperinflation that lost us a currency and introduced a multi-currency regime that we live and suffer with today. 

The key point to be made is that the GPA has irreversibly shaped our current nationalist and opposition driven politics.  It set the framework for the multi-party parliamentary system that we have today, as controversial as it remains.  Based on both our lived economic-political realities and the negotiated national constitution that we have to live with. 

A constitution that came as a direct result of the tenets of the GPA and one that was also going to fracture the opposition even further than it already was by the time we had the  harmonized general election in 2013. 

And after another five years, brought the opposition together to form what was then referred to as the MDC-Alliance in a bid to finally defeat the ruling Zanu PF party from the presidency in 2018.   

That did not work.  Though it also led to divisions and factionalism in Zanu Pf itself for fear of losing the harmonized general election together with the eventual populist coup-not-a coup in November 2017 that ousted Robert Mugabe from power. 

The GPA is therefore our current political base and superstructure (to use Marxist lingo).  It has spawned a number of long-duree political developments that historically are informing our political culture. 

In the first instance, it, with the unity government formed in 2009, made it more politically acceptable to have liaison between the ruling and opposition political parties.  Something that was etched into the national imagination and is still talked about as some sort of possibility today. Even though the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) is generally looked down upon. 

In the second instance, the new negotiated constitution sort of reigned in both the ruling and opposition parties about what the courts/judiciary could do to their political or other ambitions based on not only the newer Bill of Rights but also the clauses that limited the powers of the President and Parliament.  Together what were then considered progressive electoral reforms that everyone still keeps harping on  about even after the 2013 constitutional referendum and subsequent electoral act amendments. 

More significantly, the economic policy intentions of both the ruling party and opposition were never markedly different since 2013.  The key issues were around who would get greater regional and international capital’s attention.  Including of course the global West and East superpowers willingness to either lift sanctions or provide bilateral aid. 

What has however not happened between 2013- 2018 is a growth of the political opposition in Zimbabwe, proper.  Whereas the assumption that the GPA laid a significant base for the expansion of an organic opposition politics, it became more populist.  The fact that with the 2017 November coup-not-a coup developments came with opposition support while it was largely a  Zanu Pf internal succession matter  did not make matters any better.  

These developments essentially meant that the opposition cannot talk about revolution anymore.  Nor will the ruling party.

What we have is a ‘slow change’ approach to our national politics.  Almost as though the parameters of what political ‘change’ can be have already been set.  Both electorally and in relation to any understanding of how the state power relates to private global and local capital.  Hence the general narrative of the ‘ease of doing business’. 

Whereas the opposition had been formed on the basis of a social democratic ideological agenda, it regrettably has been co-opted into a narrative it no longer controls and one in which it has demonstrated little desire to challenge anyway. 

One could almost argue that we are all now neo-liberals imbued with religious and inferiority complex fervor.  We no longer engage intellectually as we did prior to the GPA and its subsequent government of national unity.  We are more straitjacketed in our political views and are highly emotional but we do not have time for thoughts or opinions that are not ours.  

And our national consciousness is much more materialistic both by way of our newfound conservatism and very majority female controlled perceptions/ assumptions that God saves.  And we are losing our young minds to the Global North. Both intellectually, culturally and physically. 

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

SADC is Organically Historical. It is Not Going to Go Away

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many conversations I have had with many comrades about the importance of what we now know to be the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  And most times these conversations have bordered on the dismissively ahistorical. 

Wherein colleagues view SADC as this anti-democratic organisation in the region that is preventing new/ nascent opposition political parties from gaining state power after periodic elections. Except when those that they support are endorsed by the same.

At the moment in this penultimate week of November 2024, Zimbabwe is hosting an Extraordinary Summit of SADC.  Officially to discuss mainly the dangerous situation in the east of member state Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) among assumed concerns about the recent Mozambique elections.

We are not privy to the discussions of the heads of state and government of SADC. But we will know when the final communiqué is issued as to what has been either resolved or what will be put into some sort of action.  Though we know that previous decisions have been made by SADC to support some sort of military interventionism from the region via its Organ on Politics, Defence and Security which is generally referred to as the Troika.  It authorized this in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique and in the Eastern DRC where its peacekeeping mission has been working in tandem with the United Nations (UN) one. 

But back to my skeptical African colleague who derides SADC,  I always talk back to them politely and try to explain that this regional organization is not the European Union (EU). Nor is SADC the Organization of American States (OAS).  Neither is it the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It is also not like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).  Or the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in East Africa.   

Its dynamics, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, is in no way similar to the aforementioned regional blocs.

And this is not a public relations piece on its behalf. 

It is more an explanation of the historical reality and importance of SADC as a regional bloc.  Both politically and economically with solidarity being a key functional element to who we are within the formal bloc but also as a people from this much colonized and maligned Southern African region. 

SADC is formed of the Frontline States (FLS) in the early 1970s.  These states were initially Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola until others which became free such as Zimbabwe joined. 

The FLS had been established in order to accelerate the liberation of Southern African people from colonialism.  And to support the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) liberation committee’s work in this Southern African region as it was led by the late General Hashim Mbita. 

But it is necessary to re-emphasize a particular point about being a Southern African. 

Even if those in South Africa (the country) think that they are more exceptional despite the fact that any conscious continental African knows that we helped them to become free.

As Southern Africans, without a doubt, we have a shared history. Both in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial epochs.  And even now, in this disastrous neo-liberal populist age that we have to live in. 

We had the fact of our own pre-colonial migration and emigration which has made this region as diverse as it can be.  Whether ethnically or by way of societal interactions. We have had less wars than many other African regions barring the ones in the apartheid motivated ones in Mozambique or those that are in the DRC at the moment. 

Even at the onset of economic colonialism we rose above the Native Labor Associations such as the one that regionally controlled our physical male bodies the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WINELA) and became our own liberators.  Either by waging war or by long duree civic activism. 

By the time the FLS became the Southern African Development Coordinating Community (SADCC) our history of solidarity and freedom was already solid in the 1980s.  We knew we had to free Namibia and South Africa from colonialism and apartheid (Remember Robson Banda anyone?) 

And we also knew that we had to free Mozambique, Angola and ourselves from the clutches of South African apartheid sponsored rebel wars. 

By the time we became the Southern African Development Community (SADC) we had achieved peace. We had prevented invasions of many of our members, including Zimbabwe under the then global ideological aegis of ‘liberal interventionism’ as led by Tony Blair and George Bush (leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States respectively at that time). 

As a Zimbabwean I generally do not mind derogatory conversations that make SADC seem like a ‘wrong’ idea.  I understand  where some cdes come from ideologically.  And its fair enough. Their perceptions of how SADC endorses contemporary election results contrary to what is referred to as global best practices.  

Wherein we all know that there is no longer such a proper organic term in what is evidently a multi-polar, conservative and increasingly nationalist system (electoral college anyone?) 

But if you ask me proper, or if a fair debate has to go down to the wire, SADC is the most revolutionary regional organization on the African continent. Both by way of history and also by way of pursuing peace in an increasingly  and newly contested global political economy between what we knew as the global east and the global west.

We suffer. We continue. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Deliberately Forgetting Cultural Changes in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

On a recent trip to Bikita, Masvingo we did not have the now ubiquitous flash drive for uninterrupted journey music.  What was interesting was that we could purchase one without music and then get someone else to transfer music to it. The person that was to transfer the music to it was of the apostolic faith movement and he said so.  He also advised us that most of his music would be gospel related.

We just told him to give us what he had so that in between cities where there is limited radio coverage we would at least listen to some Zimbabwean music.  We did not ask him about where he got the music. But at the back of our minds we knew that the music had been probably acquired since the early 200s when Gramma and Teal records employees realized that the long playing (LP)record and the compact disc (CD) were on their way out due to an emergent digitalization of music era.

So we got this flash drive and its gospel laden music. What we did not know is that even a member of the apostolic sect does not only listen to gospel music.  He had a mix of gospel (as expected) but also Sungura and Chimurenga music that he had sold to us for US$1.

As our journey progressed we had to ask ourselves significant cultural questions. The most obvious being that the the cost of the flash drive and the addition of music to it had been about at most US$3.  And what that meant for the evolution of music in Zimbabwe vis-à-vis copyright laws and the income of musicians. 

My colleague and I couldn’t agree on this particular issue because as I argued for artists to get their due for their amazing music and talents, he simply brushed it off by saying that the issue is the new technologies that we now use to consume what would be creative cultural products. 

He continued that musical artists now make money off of their marketing and social meida presence.  And the more a song or songs are played via a flash drive the more likely a live show will be well attended. 

I couldn’t argue with this as we listened to Madzibaba Nicholas Zacharia between Gutu and the Roy turnoff along the Masvingo- Mutare highway. 

Mainly because he had a very significant point about how we now consume our cultural entertainment, what we value and its end products.

This was also before a dancehall artist called Silent Killer popped up on the playlist singing about whatever is called ‘Kuf Kaf’.  It turns out it meant ‘kufa kana kufenda’.  Or something close to that. 

By the time we reached Nyika Growth point (they should probably make it a town given its expansion), we had listened to legendary music from Dembo, Mapfumo, Chimbetu, Chimombe, Chibadura and many others.

What we could not explain was the contradiction in what music meant in the contemporary. At our ages (forties) we could not quite get the Zimbabwe Dancehall music that was on the given playlist. 

We however agreed that new music in Zimbabwe is increasingly forgettable. Especially when we consider our past cultural experiences of what ‘songs’ meant.  Culturally, historically and and politically. 

We are now in an age/era in which we live for the moment and are easy to forget.  Its almost a generational trait.  One in which younger Zimbabweans are very keen on the immediate but not the past or the future.

So we have a real ‘clash of cultures’ in Zimbabwe. One which appears to be characterized by contestations about authenticity over what is past, what is present and what can be the future.   

By the time we got to Chikuku business centre we were now discussing why young Zimbabweans are enamored to an ephemeral music culture.  And we realized that its linked to a now existent urban and rural lifestyle where what makes you happy for one day simply makes you happy.  Tomorrow will most likely solve itself.

This being a sign of a society in a specific decadence.  And we were only discussing this in relation to music and its impact on Zimbabwean society.  

We realized our current music consumption reflects the possibility that we are not as culturally smart as we assume we are.  We are now in a phase of what makes us happy is what makes us wake up tomorrow.  Individually. 

There were many more arguments to be had beyond the music on the flash drive but we had arrived at our destination.  We had to deal with dying cattle because of the drought. 

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

 

 

 

 

 

A Resurgent Colonialism in Africa.

By Takura Zhangazha*

It was Franz Fanon that wrote on what he referred to as “A Dying Colonialism”.  In this collection of essays, Fanon was generally optimistic about the future of Africa and its revolutionary and liberatory ethos.  Already in “The Wretched of the Earth” he had also sort of indicated the ambiguity of what liberation meant and how in part ‘mimicry’ of the colonial would occur.  A reality that we live with to this day. 

An over-admiration and again mimicry of global north societies as determined by global capitalism and culture. 

Now there are many angles to Fanon’s argumentation.  And they have been widely explored academically and politically. 

What is however important is to recognize the historicity of his arguments in the contemporary.  And come to an understanding of the same in its occurrence in the contemporary. 

Whereas Fanon, through his articles and speeches assumed we were faced with a dying colonialism, despite being the ‘Wretched of the Earth’ he may have misread the fact of global post-colonial continuity.  And its broader impact on contemporary African mindsets.  Both politically and more significantly economically.

In this brief wirte up I will attempt at a juxtaposition of the revolutionary theory of Franz Fanon and what obtains in Africa today. 

With a particular emphasis on my own region of origin, Southern Africa.  

When Fanon wrote about a "dying colonialism" he was, as stated earlier, relatively optimistic.  His essays as a journalist were designed to give hope to a new consciousness for many an African.  Even though he was from Martinique and had fought in the Algerian struggle for independence. 

The key issue however was the fact that he recognized the continuance of an elitist comprador bourgeoisie taking over African states and claiming a progressive form of liberatory politics.  This was to be an issue further expanded by Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki. 

This may seem an abstract argument but its significance resides in the fact of again its historicity. We were Pan Africanists.  We have to remain Pan Africanists.

Our electoral politics have been reflecting a departure from this.  And our inter-generational praxis clearly has misunderstood the same.

The reality is that we are in a bad space as Africans.  We are willingly forgetting the fact of our history.  And histories. 

Its almost like a Dambudzo Marechera argument where he says “We are what we are not. That is the paradox of fiction” in his acclaimed novella “The Black Insider”. 

The main issues are around a new Pan Africanism.  One that defies what we consider old, abstract and conservative.

In this conundrum is our education system. Wherein we have relatively naïve assumptions that the more European our kids are, in relation to their education, the better they will be in life.  Something we know not to be true. 

The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) is as important as the Cambridge one.  If you suffer from an inferiority complex, its understandable. But take better charge of you family and wife or husband.

As Africans we are faced with a new consciousness era.  One in which our placement in the global placement of politics and economics means we are lesser beings in the global scheme of things.  Whether we are with China or Russia. Or even the controversial United States of America or the increasingly racist European Union (EU).

So we have to heed the call for a new Pan Africanism beyond what Kwame Nkrumah recognized. As he said, "We neither look East or West, but we Look Forward."

In the contemporary and for the future, as Africans, we understand the  fact of who we are. Where we are and where we can be.

Even as we cross borders to sadly die in the Sahel and the Mediterranean Sea.

If Fanon could write about a dying colonialism, we can write about the need for caution about a returning colonialism.  And we must resist this.  We are not that shallow nor that abstract.

We hold true that the African Union and SADC will defend us as they recognize our liberation struggle histories and our contemporary challenges.

As difficult as it may be and seem.    

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting for the Rain: Realities of Zimbabwe’s 2023-24 National Drought.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There is currently a major drought in Zimbabwe.  Its impact is somewhat not as felt in the urban as it would be in the rural areas of the country.

In the urban areas it is more or less about the depth of boreholes and the setting up of support committees to deal with water shortages due to the inability of urban councils to deliver everyday use of water for reasons that vary from general incompetency through to actual water and attendant water-treatment chemicals shortages.

It however rarely appears to be immediate given the fact that those in urban lifestyles have no immediate direct relation to weather patterns and livelihoods. 

This is mainly because urban Zimbabweans go to formal and informal jobs trying to eke out a living that is almost a daily hustle that has limited understanding of the weather.  Or even the physical environment.

In the rural  areas of the country, the impact of the drought is much more immediate.  There is an evident shortage of water for human beings and also inevitably livestock.  There is also a shortage of food, higher costs of basic commodities such as maize for human sustenance. And as a priority food aid has to be given for many rural families that cannot afford to purchase maize on the market.

It is much worse for domesticated animals such as cattle, goats or sheep due to not only a lack of edible green grass but also stock feed and water. 

This also means that these animals are in a precarious situation at the moment.  Particularly in the Southern and Eastern regions of the country which rely more on these for sustenance. While also taking into account the fact that they are much more densely populated.

We are therefore all literally “Waiting for the Rain”, to use the title of Charles Mungoshi’s seminal novel.  Moreso in the rural areas.  The boreholes that are there can only do so much as the underground water levels dwindle. And once a day feeding schemes for primary school level children still does not provide adequate nutrition. 

The Zimbabwean government has already declared the current drought a national disaster. And it appears it is trying to provide the necessary mechanisms through which it can feed people but also prepare them for the next agricultural season.

The point however is that its efforts appear to still be inadequate.  The fact of climate change is no longer as simplistic as it used to be.  It is now a lived reality where a lot of Zimbabweans do not understand changes in weather patterns and how they are now impacting their everyday existence and livelihoods.  

So there is a political economy to our current drought. One that is as global as it is localized.  We have those in central and local government that control the distribution of food resources as well as agricultural inputs. Then there are those that are in control of social welfare for vulnerable families. The latter include food aid organisations that not only predict droughts but source the necessary grains for food sustainability.

Then we also have the animal husbandry industry that provides for example molasses and dried grass for a decent profit.

In this mix is the everyday villager who is looking at his/her family and their food security situation while also thinking about their livestock and how any loss impacts on either their ability to pay school fess for their children or at least be able to afford relish and medication.  

This also includes trying to ensure proximity to the state or food and agricultural donors at village level in order to at least survive the immediacy of the challenges that this drought has wrought on.

Or even in the urban where agricultural commodity prices have already gone up and there is more or less no social welfare back fall for poor urban families.  Unless the government or charities intervene.  Something which they do intermittently and also insufficiently.

What is clear in my mind is that even if it does rain in the immediate, we are already in a drought induced economic fix for at least another six months.  And I am not talking here about listed companies that trade in food commodities on either the local or other international stock exchanges. 

Instead I am referring to lived realities of everyday Zimbabweans who may not know where their next meal comes from. 

Or whether their livestock, which they heavily invested in, can last another day without collapsing and therefore having to be sold on the cheap to opportunistic buyers. 

The latter being business persons who are closely monitoring the drought situation in order to immediately profit from it. Be it through storing critical grain or meat and just waiting for government get desperate enough to pay exorbitant market related prices for it.   

So, yes our current drought has its own political economy.  It differs from the urban to the rural.  It affects largely the latter. And is generally dismissed in the former until you cannot buy ordinary packaged maize.  Or the meat, particularly beef, we consume is evidently more prevalent at cheaper prices due to our livestock dying from hunger and lack of water.

What I do know is that we need to have a broader national conversation about the impact of the national drought we are faced with.  Inclusive of what longer term solutions we can come up with for the rural and urban poor beyond politicizing who has come to rescue us from it as it is occurring. 

In the meantime it appears that we are all just waiting for the rain.

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