A Dying Progressive Global North, War and Consciousness.

By Takura Zhangazha*

In conversation with a comrade (yes I generally have many of those), we discussed what in our African context constitutes a ‘World War’.  We didn’t have an evident answer except to borrow from history . 

We knew about the First World War at the turn of the 20^th century which led to among many others, the Russian revolution in 1917.  We also knew it led to the rise of the nefarious Hitler and his Nazi republic that killed not only many but established a regrettably enduring culture of racism and assumptions of exceptionalism of colleagues in the global north.

We also learnt via Eurocentric history text books of the Second World War and its full import on how eventually the Union of Soviet of Socialist Republics (USSR) as led by Stalin, with the eventual assistance of the British, the Americans and in part the French defeated Hitler in 1945 Berlin.

We however did not know enough of the fact that in both world wars, Africans had been key in winning the wars on behalf of what we now know as the global west/north.  Our forefathers from all corners of the African continent and former African colonies had fought on behalf of colonial empires against two German regimes that intended to dominate the global political economy.  With the one under Hitler intending to be globally and a racist hegemony. 

As is now historically given, wars and battles were fought.  As Africans we won some in for example Ethiopia.  We lost many lives (African and African American) in the European hinterland where we are now no longer wanted.  Even though we have many recruits in their armies by both descent and now contemporary voluntary recruitment. 

We learnt the hard way in the second world war that, as an historical fact that, we are as human as ‘white people’ and also that ‘they also die in war’.  That is, if they get shot, they die too.

From thence we also learnt to launch our own liberation struggles as learnt from the USSR and the emergent philosophy of the Chinese and its metaphoric/ideological Maoist linking of the people as “fish to water”.    

Eventually we won our liberation struggles for African independence barring the Saharawi Republic by 1994, a case which remains outstanding with the African Union (AU). 

And in our naïve assumptions we thought the age of global war, cold or otherwise was over.  We thought we had become equal nations before the global United Nations (UN) except for the fact of the UN Security Council veto of the five member states of the same.  A matter that remains outstanding today.

As African, people,  states and governments, never mind our democratic credentials as measured within the context of  international allegiances based on the then global Cold War, we  punched above our global weight and formed not only the Organization of African Unity (OAU) but also further expanded it into regional anti-colonial organizations such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which thankfully we still have in the contemporary. 

But there is one thing that as Africans we have generally agreed on.  Given this historical background and across many of our regions, we know that we have experienced war.  We have experienced it in an immediate pre-colonial context (where we have some victories), a colonial context in which we lost some major wars such as the First Chimurenga in Zimbabwe and subsequently won the Second one in the late 1970s (even if the white settler regime negotiated and refused to accept complete defeat, we still won that war.)

The key point however of this blog is that we know war.  We have experienced it and we have said to ourselves, as Africans, that never again should we allow it to visit not only our shores but also our interiors. 

The only problem is that we are not the ones with a proclivity to war.  Given what is going on in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya and  what failed but might be revived in Afghanistan or what might happen in Iran, we know who the real war mongers are.  Globally. 

It is the governments’ of the global north (North America, Western European and now Eastern European).  Be they conservative or liberal.

One may ask what is the basis for proclivity to war by people in power in the global north and east.  The easy answer is always access to strategic resources such as oil, gold and of late lithium. 

The aforementioned point is generally accepted across ideological divides.  Including progressive ones in the global south or the global north.

What remains a bit more perplexing is that ‘progressiveness’ in the global north is no longer a flag post as to what can happen in the global south.

Progressive leftists and liberals are losing ground in the global north.  They are becoming fewer and far between for reasons that they are probably best able to explain themselves.  With the cold reality that they are unable to win national or even local government elections as an example to comrades in the global south,

I wanted to write this short blog almost as an indictment of the progressive global north comrades.  But that would be unfair. 

I am of the firm view that whether we are in the global north or global south, progressive ideological thinking is dying.  Electorally but more sadly, organically.  But I remain optimistic.

Indeed I will argue with many colleagues in European and North American capitals about why they voted for Trump, Steimer or a conservative government that hates immigrants of colour in particular .  They generally tend to say ‘we tried’.  The only catch is that we are also trying over here.  Perhaps in less free circumstances.  But we are trying.

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