A Presentation to the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) Marxism 2025 Conference.

 "A World in Crisis, World in Revolt: Solidarity with the Peoples of Palestine and Sudan."

A Presentation to the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) Zimbabwe Marxism 2025 Conference.

Venue: Briggs Zano Working Peoples College Campus, Waterfalls, Harare.

Date:  Saturday, 06 December 2025

By Takura Zhangazha*

Dear Cdes,

Thank you for inviting me to this important annual Marxism conference.  I am happy to say I know that you hold it annually with various presenters and themes. 

So it is a personal recognition pleasure to be here and be part of an organic ideological debate.

 I am a Marxist myself and I have a deep appreciation of Marxism in its variations. 

An issue I will return to later in this presentation.

Though it is sad to say, it is now a rare occurrence to have these honest discussions within the context of not only Zimbabwean politics but also global developments and identity debates. 

Hence I am sure the leaders of ISO-Zimbabwe chose the topic under serious consideration. 

That of how to look at a ‘world in crisis, a world in revolt”  With a particular emphasis on Sudan and Palestine.  

And this is understandable for many cdes who are like us based in what is referred to as the Global South.  We have witnessed the genocide in Palestine and Sudan in some sort of reality and also via mainstream and social media.  

We are also witnessing the war in Ukraine and its neo-imperialist import based on the historical global cold war in which the world was ideologically divided between socialism and capitalism.  

With capitalism claiming victory and now trying to prove this historical point of it being the sum total of an ‘end of history’ as had been previously prophesied by western academic acolytes and apparatchiks.

As is now well known and discussed we have not reached any form of any ideological end- game where neoliberal capitalism as linked to neo-liberal politics prevails. Or ends 'history'.

Instead we now know, in 2025, that we probably have a new realignment of global ideological traits. 

These new ideological battles center around almost complete ‘free market’ neo-liberal capitalism (via Trump) and its increasingly more visible alternative of direct ‘state capitalism’. The latter as defined by China, Russia and the oil oligarchies of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. 

All of this in a new battle for control of mineral resources that are now commonly referred to as ‘rare-earth minerals’ in an age of tremendous technological advancement via Artificial and other intelligences we are yet to find out about.  

So what we have, cdes, is a mixture of history repeating itself (i.e the vestiges of the global cold war/colonialism), technology as a new key global competitive ‘rush to arms’ and the nascent cultural wars that we are now confronted with about dealing with individual and collective societal realities /possibilities. The latter being mainly via the rising importance of social media in cultural consciousness.

So when we talk about Palestine or Sudan we have to understand our ideological and time- based contextual placement. Even as Africans

We are now in a period where being African and a people with struggle history is being belittled.  Even though we were assisted and also assisted the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in our collective anti- colonial freedom struggles.

Or where with Sudan we had to recall the fact of its liberatory civilization, its civil wars and where it evidently requires Africa’s solidarity today. 

Even though this is the subject matter of today as advised by ISO, we have to contend with a newer global reality.  

This being the globally funded attempt at wiping out our own historical reality and our own national/ African continental consciousness. 

And I may sound like I am on repeat. 

If you are a progressive African, you are of the left.

 No matter your version of what you consider the same said ‘left’ to be.  Be it Leninist, Maoist, Trotskyite, Nkrumaist, Nyerereist or Machelist ideological narratives. Or whether you are Trumpian by persuasion.

But that being on that left means a search for an historical economic and social justice.  

Now what I know is that we cannot re-invent the past.  As organic as it was and is. 

Where as Nkrumah said, we neither look east, north, west or south,  we still have to look forward!

We now have to understand that our revolutionary imperative is to look to the future and our role in it. 

Both by way of biological and generational epoch age. But more significantly by way of ideological clarity for posterity. 

Cdes, we are at a global crossroads where our choices are increasingly limited.  We can choose to go left or right.  But we can also choose to combine both and go forward.

Where we say the world is on fire we must know what the fire is about.  Beyond Palestine and Sudan. As painful as that may be to consider.

The world is on fire because of its hunger for new progressive ideas.  And these are beyond privatized financialised capital. 

These are ideas of equality with the people and for the people. A rallying point that we cannot run away from.

So as you claim a new car, urban residential property  proximity to political power, remember where you are coming from and why?

 As you do when you go to you own rural home.  There are no narratives of arrival only. But there are also  narratives of false consciousness.  

These matters are beyond the immediately material. They are also about what you think about the future of not only your person but more importantly your country and your continent.

The cdes in Palestine, Sudan and beyond in countries such as Venezuela, South Sudan, Western Saharawi, DRC still require your socialist solidarity. One in which they, like the rest of us,  require a life of peace, equitable prosperity and belief in a progressive future. 

As we used to say in our anti-colonial struggles- “Aluta Continua”  “The struggle” continues comrades”

Warts and all. 

We must remain optimistic that a better world for all can become a reality.

Ndatenda. Siyabonga. Twalumba. 

*Takura Zhangazha spoke here in his personal capacity

  

 

 

An African in Defense of Venezuela

By Takura Zhangazha*

This write up will be brief.

Africa and African’s knowledge of the subcontinent of Southern  America is generally limited.  As an African myself, I had to learn that there are historical linkages between us and that sub-continent which we were taught as being “Latin American”. 

Mainly in order to distinguish it from what was considered a more developed, liberal and progressive North America. With the latter being inclusive of the global hegemon, the United States of America (USA).

We would sometimes get slightly confused about the USA.  We would naively assume that every time someone mentioned in class the term America, we were talking about the USA.  

It is via taking on mid-level school history lessons that we began to learn of the broader significance of liberation struggles in Africa and South America as they occurred after the second world war that ostensibly ended in 1945  

So we got to know that there was for example an island called Cuba. We also got to know that there was another island called Haiti, the one that led the first successful slave rebellion against the French in the late 19^th century and inspired millions of others across not only the Caribbean but also in South America, continental Africa, the USA itself.   

All to pursue human equality and freedom from racial/setter colonialism as a universal global goal.

And there are many other lessons to be learnt.  We have had the Brazilian, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile (remember Salvador Allende) examples of a new working people driven progressive politics.  All of which countered American CIA sponsored narratives of how allegedly undemocratic those countries were as defined by a USA neo-imperialist foreign policy. As led by the infamous Henry Kissinger and his successors.

And then in the immediate contemporary, we have Venezuela.

We know for a fact that multiple USA administrations, from Clinton through to Obama, Biden and now Trump have had an imperialistic eye on Venezuela. Not only for its massive oil reserves but also for financial interests in its mineral resources such as gold.

We also know that the USA deliberately undermined the late Comandante Hugo Chavez’s government and that of his successor president Maduro.  This through, as is the case in the global south, via allegations of disputed elections and opposition leaders that in most cases do not hide their open admiration for American style neoliberal celebrity politics and economics. 

But now the elephant in our African solidarity anti-colonial room is the renewed intention by Donald Trump to invade Venezuela physically.  He had previously tried the same via what was called Operation Gedeion where the USA sponsored a group of former Venezuelan soldiers to try and take over Caracas via an ocean landing in 2020. 

That failed.

What has since happened is that in 2025, Trump is accusing Venezuela of being a drug trafficking hub and enabler to the USA.  A point that has been disputed not only by mainstream global media but also expectedly by the Venezuelan government itself.  There is no direct evidence linking the Maduro government to any forms of international drug smuggling.

And yet now they are faced with the USA’s largest warship and aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford in the vicinity of their international waters. And with an imminent threat of a physical invasion by the USA.

Maduro and the Venezuelan military have, and understandably so, tried to shore up their nationalism and regional solidarity to counter the intentions of the USA. 

As Africa, given our experiences of these type of ‘neo-liberal’ invasions in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)- remember who killed Lumumba? Or in Libya and Sudan.  

Before we even mention the intentions of the Trump administration in one of our largest populated countries, Nigeria, over convoluted claims about the alleged mass killing of Christians. 

Or in South Africa where Trump humiliated President Ramaphosa by accusing him of a genocide against Dutch origin Afrikaners as well as the recent announcements he has made about the recent G20 summit.

As an African and Zimbabwean, I have no option but to stand with the people of Venezuela. Mainly because I have been taught about the historical nastiness of imperialism, racism and neo-colonialism. 

But also more significantly because I do not have an inferiority complex that assumes that what the USA or the global north says is ‘democracy’ is what should be considered a given.

 I understand the complexities of global capital and how it intends to run the world for profit at the expense of human life.  This regrettably includes its pillaging via war and globally financialized capital  of sovereign states in contravention of the United Nations (UN) Charter that holds all human beings to be universally equal. No matter their race, religion, language or place of origin.

It is my prayer that at some point as Africans, at least through the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, we see through the veneer of an expected differentiation between ourselves and cdes in South America. And condemn any invasion of Venezuela before it occurs. For the record and for historical posterity.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

 

  

 

 

Remembering Covid19 from a Zimbabwean Perspective.

By Takura Zhangazha*

This may be a very sensitive subject matter so please read-on with caution. Based on your own individual experience(s).

It is sensitive because it is a conversation we rarely now have in contemporary Zimbabwe. 

Almost as though we refuse to remember that  the Covid19 in 2019 pandemic ever historically occurred. In our lifetimes. 

Or that lives, many lives, were lost.  And families were affected. From the immediate to the extended. 

Inclusive of our health, education and working environments.

We no longer talk about it formally in relation to the state and its expected roles. Or how global pharmaceutical companies reacted to the same said pandemic. Including limiting supplies of vaccines or in other instances gatekeeping knowledge on equitable global solutions. 

Or even within our own families and the ostracisation that came with coughs , flues, sneezes and requirements for oxygen which was almost like gold at that time. 

It was a very painful national period. We lost many relatives, friends and work colleagues at that time. 

And we will never forget the very real pain we went through. Nationally or personally. 

But the Covid19 pandemic occurred. We could not control it 100%. Nor could we foresee its full impact on society. 

What we could not do is walk away as if it never occurred. 

Tragically and regretably, it did. 

In its occurrence it changed who we thought we were and now who we are. 

Both societally and within the the ambit of medicinal and epidemiological science. 

This being a reality we still refuse to embrace until it hits us from China, the United States of America (USA) or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

As popularly argued as sources of major biological epidemics or pandemics globally. Via Hollywood and social media as it is expanding to create awkward global hegemonic contestations. 

What we, in Zimbabwe, have not nationally discussed is the aftermath of what the pandemic of Covid19 meant to all of us.

Politically, economically and socially. Or in some instances in relation to mental health challenges at an individual or collective workplace level. 

Covid19 changed as is generally now given our ways of working, formally. More so if you were in a white collar job. It also changed how the work on the 'ground' differed from work 'online'. 

While at the same time, in its aftermath, pushing us toward a cheapening of both physical and online (internet based) labour.

With the latter being more preferable.  

What we, as Zimbabweans have not come to terms with, officially and unofficially is the fact of the aftermath of Covid19. 

And this is not about healing from loss of lives. It is beyond that. 

Instead it is about the gaps that have ignored the fact of our national being. 

Indeed we lost lives but we did not learn from that experience.  

We did not react with a necessary urgency to our health services for the people. We claimed that China was key in our recovery yet we still hear stories from the mainstream media of a delipidated health system. 

We still have children that are disadvantaged in the national education system as was the case during the pandemic

And we still yet have war veterans that cannot tell the difference of our before and after the pandemic. 

In the long and short of any argument we have not reflected enough on what the Covid19 pandemic has meant to our country. 

And what lessons we should draw from it. Whether you are rich or poor. 

Or in a rural or an urban-peri-urban area as your primary source of livelihood. 

What I know is that we need to sit down as a country to assess what Covid19 meant. And where want to go. 

From the shutdowns we had to encounter and in part evade In order to shop or visit the local bar. 

Through to the re-opening of our commercial society and assumptions of a return to normalcy as backed by national government. 

After the re-opening of society after Covid19 we half thought we were going to have better health services, education, public transport and access to water. 

This has not turned out to be true. 

We have a greater concerted attempt at privatising the state, state resources as if Covid19 never happened. 

It's almost like wiping out an historical epoch. 

But as we say, sing, "tungamirai tondosangana ikoko". 

The people will recover.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity. 

Social-Humanities Studies Remain Key for Zimbabwe’s Progressive Future.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Whenever there are contemporary discussions about for example Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Zimbabwe, Africa and most of the Global South, there is always the question of ‘language’.  Both as an historical identity theme but also its algorithmic implications where and when it concerns the internet, social media and new technologies. 

These discussions tend to be somewhat lopsided in favour of what we now know to be very real technology.  Mainly because you cannot quite beat electricity, technological gadgets (computers, televisions, mobile phones, tablets) by word of mouth.  We tend to react to them more than they react to us and our contextual societal/cultural and in part, political-economic needs.

This is also dovetailed with what we know formally as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in our current and many other’s educational curriculums. 

Because its priority is what is obtaining largely in the physics realm. Where life is determined largely by given geophysical and technological facts.

While at the same time assuming a specific (global) universality of  physical/natural sciences as they relate to their ironic cultural origins in Western countries.

It is from this key point that we need to examine the status of social science studies in Zimbabwe.  

With an initially regrettable point being that they are being placed on an academic national backfoot. 

Almost as a repetition of our national academic history where social sciences, education, arts (music, theatre, painting, sculpturing), journalism, political science, economics, anthropology, sociological, religious and historical studies were frowned upon.

Whether as promotable professional qualifications for primary and secondary level education young Zimbabweans. 

Or within our current economic context, again based on technological and economic livelihood trends, for those that pursued these social science related qualifications and are faced with the dilemma of being caricatured for having them (kushoorwa).

The reality of the matter is that social sciences are in deep trouble.  Not in relation to their epistemological/ knowledge production importance.  

But more because they are less recognized as nodes of knowledge significance professionally or otherwise by Zimbabwean society.  More so by the state and private business/capital. 

This point requires a throwback moment. 

When, for example the Chiadzwa diamond rush occurred in Manicaland in the mid 2000s, young cdes abandoned school to seek fortunes in the now same said infamous diamond fields. 

Some of them would find these fortunes via arduous physical circumstances and return to the village to laugh at their former struggling teachers.  

Thereby demeaning the all-important teaching profession in Zimbabwe.

Or to give another example.  Those that were studying the ‘arts’ in high school were generally derided for pursuing potential careers in which no major money could be made. Hence most high schools have changed a pure arts curriculum to mix it up with business and science.  

With the key argument being that it is a ‘global trend’ for students to be eligible to go to universities abroad.

The truth of the matter is that in those educational systems that are ‘abroad’ they have never and most likely will never abandon their social sciences.  Be it in the teaching profession, history, journalism, political science or anthropology among others.

Contradict this with our newfound over-enthusiasm for STEM. Without cultural and historical context.  

And at the clear expense of social sciences that independently and academically investigate our national historical political and economic culture. 

Without the propaganda that we are witnessing today where even music, art, religion and history all appear to be for sale to the highest political bidder!

As a penultimate point, I once had a fairly deep but non-academic discussion on this matter of the undying importance of the social sciences with a colleague.

We argued about the meaning of African culture, its metamorphosis in the age of the demeaning of social science studies and the expansion of captive AI.  

We could not come to an agreement on the fact of how we are interacting, as Africans, with technology. 

The key differences we had were on matters to do with, as ridiculous as it may seem, the impact of the ‘light bulb’ or the ‘medium is the message' moment as argued by a Canadian- British academic, McLuhan.

I argued that we need to contextualize technology and assumptions of a more advanced global West.  He argued, in retort, that all of this doesn’t matter anymore because the world will invariably become one global technological village. 

I still disagreed as did he with me. 

I only sort of won him over where and when I assiduously referred to Antonio Gramsci and the theory of ‘hegemony’ while at the same time referring to Kwame Nkrumah’s argument on Neo-Colonialism as the last stage of Imperialism.   

Key to the discussion however was the fact that we cannot abandon our social sciences as though we are throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Or to put it into context, ‘kuramwira munda kumakudo’ (to abandon your fields to the baboons)

I am a firm beliver in the importance, necessity and historic importance of our social sciences. 

And I am not a fan of STEM within our national and African contexts.  Indeed while we may be able to compete haphazardly on this (STEM), we need to retain a grounded understanding of our own being. As Zimbabweans and as Africans.

And this comes from your local geography, history, literature teacher. Your local anthropologist who explains Great Zimbabwe.  

Or your historian who tells you of the liberation struggle, the working peoples struggle. 

Including your teacher, journalist, spirit medium, pastor/priest who helps explain events as they occur in the contemporary.

Lastly, my colleague and I joked that the last social science standing in this convoluted age of STEM and AI, is probably religion. Though we (finally) agreed that everything does not belong to Jesus.  It belongs to progressive human consciousness.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rural Laughing at the Urban: Zimbabwe's Reverse Development

By Takura Zhangazha*

A close relative of mine, after a recent family function and a couple of the inebriating waters (maSuper) jokingly said,

 " Sekuru, munotiseka varikuno kumamisha asi hatina zvatinoshaya!...Tine mombe, mbudzi, huku, minda, mvura nerugare rwamusingawani kumadhorobha!"

Translated and paraphrased he basically said in good humour, 

"You laugh at us here in the 'reserves' but there are many things we have here. We have cattle, goats, chickens, ploughing fields, water and rural peace which you do not have in urban centres." 

Additional conversations centered around toilets, running water wherein he countered with arguments on how even in Harare we do not have running water on a regular basis. And asked about the difference with him and his well. 

He also boasted about his solar system and how it at least charges his phones and how after he affords a television and satellite television he will be able to watch football. 

His was a general comparative lifestyle analysis. In the midst of inebriation. But he knew what he was saying would stab at my own urban consciousness. 

Though he did not know that his humour driven input also had the double edged sword of a potentially catastrophic wish for an uncontrollable urbanisation of his (and my own) rural area. 

But his own personal experience of raising children who would eventually depart for Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Masvingo and Johannesburg taught him a key lesson. Moreso when the only return from their departures were grandchildren. Ones he had to look after, send to school and only watch them depart as they also came of age into the same cauldrons of the urban. 

There is however a shift, hence the humour of it. 

There is a new rural-urban prioritisation of Zimbabwean existence. Not necessarily because of its proximity to home but more because rural lifestyles can be modernised. 

And this is not a difficult point to make. The urban lifestyles are increasingly ephemeral for many young (majority) Zimbabweans. 

They argue that they need to retain a home where they are not asked about rent, bills beyond what the local traditional authority wants. Or also beyond the political party expects. 

Outside of the ambit of the urban municipality until a point where they feel they are comfortable with its rules and regulations.  

So there is a scramble for this type of land without too many questions asked. Inclusive of land barons after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). 

 With the latter having taken control of new peri-urban residential settlements based on their proximity to major cities. And also their ability to weave their way through local councils (opposition or ruling party ones). 

Either way our property business boomed as a result of our default nationalisation of urban land for individual profit. 

What this urban planning mess has created however is an observatory angle from the rural. Not only because it is not sustainable but more because of the real social welfare back up problems it causes. 

Whereas the rural to urban problems were more significant, it is the urban to rural ones that are more significant now. 

Young Zimbabweans, due to the competitive nature or urban life are sending their offspring back 'kumusha'. Even as they live in new sprawling urban settlements in various urban corners of the country. 

Now, I gave the anecdotal example of my relative laughing at us 'urbans' struggling with everyday life.  

The main reason I did that is because the rural Zimbabwean is correct to laugh at the rest of us. Moreso those that think the urban lifestyle is always superior. 

It is evidently preferable as we were taught in geography about what was then referred to as the 'bright lights syndrome'. 

Except that with solar power the bright lights, after a struggle can be at your home or local shopping centre. 

So that's why the rural can easily laugh at the urban now. There are no inferiority complexes as of old. 

The key difference is in understanding national consciousness. 

We are all equal. Even if though in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Gweru, Masvingo, Kwekwe and Marondera (I love that town) we were aspirants.

The question that arises is the sustainability of our lifestyles. 

The cdes in the rural are awaiting our return. Dead or alive (mostly dead) to prove a point. This being that we needed to balance both and not look at the rural as 'escapism'. But more a sense of belonging. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity 

When Tanzania Politically Sneezes, the Rest of Africa/Southern Africa Coughs.

Historically and in the Present.

By Takura Zhangazha*

In a very recent online discussion concerning democracy and governance with colleagues based in the Diaspora I was asked to talk about the Southern African Development Community (SADC).  This was in relation to the historical role the regional body had in the liberation struggles of as its name suggests of Southern Africa. 

It was a difficult question given the fact that we are no longer fighting liberation wars in the same said Southern African region. 

We are now more electoral in our political questions and contestations for power.  History may remain important but it is no longer central to any notions of retaining popular political support during elections.

Ditto Tanzania. 

That is one of the most liberatory countries in Southern and broader Africa.   There is no singular Southern African country that cannot claim that it did not receive help in both civilian and military struggles against direct settler colonialism from the people of the then Tanganyika which became the United Peoples Republic of Tanzania and Zanzibar.  Under the leadership of the now still ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCMP) party and through the years from Julius Nyerere, Al Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa, Jakaya Kikwete and John Magufuli. 

 Not only was it one of the founding countries of the the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) now the African Union (AU).  It was also a founding member of the Southern African liberation oriented Frontline States (FS) together with Zambia and Mozambique.   The FS were to eventually become the historical precursor to two regional organizations.  These were the Southern African Development Coordination Committee (SADCC) and eventually what we now know as SADC.  

So whenever Tanzania politically sneezes the rest of Southern and broader Africa coughs.

This has been the case in the most recent disputed Tanzanian general election that saw the still controversial election of incumbent president Samia Saluhu and the parliamentary victory of the CCMP in both the mainland and also the island of Zanzibar. 

A decent number of Pan Africanists like myself are in shock at how the narrative of these recent elections have turned out.   Their elections have never been this controversial.  But as argued by some it was always going to come to a head. At some point.  Particularly after the discovery of rare earth minerals, gas and oil in the country and the death of former president John Magufuli who was keen on centralized control of the state.

The key question that is emerging is that what has changed in Tanzania beyond what we already knew about its electoral tendencies. 

The reality of the matter is that it is a society that has changed in its political outlook mainly based, as most African states are now, on a change of national consciousness. Contrived (foreign economic interests) or even if by default.  With the default element relating more to urban and rural divides and the rise of not only a new African cultural materialism.

But more importantly a generational praxis gap about the liberation struggle and contemporary lived political and economic realities of many young Africans.

Three things therefore come back into vogue when we reflect in a Pan Africanist sense on Tanzania and its recent political events and elections.

The first one is how its founding president Julius Nyerere once argued about the ambiguity of the meaning of democracy.  He once intoned, writing a Foreword for Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s biography that the ‘mechanisms of democracy are not the meaning of democracy’.    He also, in an address to the South Africna Parliament as invited by Nelson Mandela that ‘democracy is not like Coca Cola’.  And I am paraphrasing here, he probably said something that it cannot just be exported everywhere like a commodity.

In the second instance we have to reflect on our own continually disputed African elections and their cycles.  Or in South Africa’s case, their increasing conservatism despite having fought a protracted African liberation struggle.  

As Nyerere argued, we have to think beyond elections in their occurrence.  What matters most is what happens in-between them.

We cant think of elections as weather cyclones that occur every five or six years simply in order to share a populist national cake. We have to reflect more deeply on this and how younger generations understand the meaning of elections beyond mimicry of what happens in the global north that creates the likes of Trump and chainsaw totting Argentinian president Javier Milei. 

In the third and final instance, we have to understand the internal complexities of each our Southern African countries. Tanzania included. Beyond the internet and globalized media narratives.  For example I do not speak Swahili, nor if I was to go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lingala. What the majority of cdes in these two aforementioned countries perceive as democratic progress may not be as universal as we deem. Or prefer.  Not because we are better educated not only in English languages but because we are sadly increasingly ahistorical in our understanding of universalism.

To conclude, the recent elections in Tanzania are indeed a blight on Southern Africa.  Not only because of the significant historicity of that country to the region and the African continent.   They can and should have been done better.  But it will never take away the importance of Tanzania and its iconic role in a people centered Pan Africanism.  No matter the undercurrents of global international relations, geo-political private capital economic interests.

All that matters for now, and it is sad it has come to this, is that Tanzania recovers. And that its people return to safety, security, solidarity across rural and urban divides.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

 

 

 

Shifting Meanings of Art, Culture, Technology Across Generations in Zimbabwe

 By Takura Zhangazha*

We probably need to talk a little bit more about our arts and cultural spaces, actors, even industry(?) in Zimbabwe.  

This would also include the interaction of the same with politics, private business and the general public’s cultural progressive expectations of entertainment and finding meaning about everyday or even long term Zimbabwean life.

And I will start off the discussion with an obvious point about our ‘Arts’.  

And by the term ‘Arts’ I mean it holistically as it relates to theatre, satire, music, film, literature and the technological (media) mediums through which they have been historically conveyed.  As well as their changing inter- generational impact.

Whereas between the 1980s- 90s and very early 2000s, our Arts, as defined holistically above were conveyed through technological formats such as mainly radio (FM or Short wave frequencies), long playing records, radio/video cassettes and eventually compact audio and video discs. As well as via musical and cultural festivals or shows.  A greater official number of them were sponsored by the state or private business for marketing (profit) and propaganda (political) purposes. 

There was however also organic, grassroots and historical based Art, that relied more on physical interaction than it did the technological mediums it could be conveyed through.  Thought after our national independence it did a seismic crossover to radio, television and the attendant commercialization that came with this (record/cassette sales/ advertising contracts for artists).

I have raised this fairly generalized historicity around art and culture because it cannot be ignored.  And it can help us understand why today there has been significant changes to how it is publicly appreciated in the contemporary.    

With again the major change being the fact of the new technological mediums of its conveyance to the public.  

To state the obvious, the internet, social media and mobile telephony have distinctly changed how we all view holistic Art.  Not only its immediacy for our entertainment, self- valuation or reflections on our society and existential or idealistic realities.  

Whereas in the past we could have easily argued that Zimbabwean Art should serve the people in some ideologically organic or even highly politicized way as it related to the liberation struggle or workers rights and sustainable livelihoods for all, now we do not really think about it that way. 

Not only because of the changes as to how it is conveyed technologically but also because of the way the latter also changes its meaning.   So where we used to listen to the music of legends such as Mapfumo, Chimbetu, Zhakata, Majaivana, Dembo among many others for deeper reflections on our society.  This has now clearly changed. 

This together with the likes of Safirio Madzikatire (Baba Rwizi), Susan Chenjerai (Mai Rwizi), Phillip Mushangwe (Paraffin), Aaron Moyo and Simon Shumba (Mutirowafanza).  Including the amazing theatrical plays of Theatre in the Park (Harare), the amazingly talented Continue-Loving (Cont) Mhlanga’s Amhakosi  theatre centre in Bulawayo, Mai Musodzi Hall (Mbare), Zimbabwe Hall in Highfields Harare and the Masvingo Theatre club among others scattered in our urban centres.

Their artistic physical and digital dramas and within their contexts had a different meaning because of of how they occurred within their own contexts, values and preferences. As they related to then Zimbabwean society and what the general populace valued.    

This was slower and more deeply thought out Art. 

Mainly because the technological mediums of its conveyance that I have cited above were also slower.  It was also Art that had a fall back of very key state funding support that did not directly editorially interfere with content creation.  (Did you for example know that there was a once well funded Zimbabwe Traditional Music Dancers Association that once received grants from the state?) 

What was since happened is what can be referred to a significant cultural disjuncture in the history, practice and appreciation of the meaning of holistic Art in Zimbabwe.  

Not only because of the global changes in its technological mediums (internet, social media, mobile telephony) but also because of the cultural assimilation of Zimbabwean and African holistic Art by these mediums.  This included a quasi-privatization of Art via changes in economic programmes where it began to be seen as a luxury and not an integral part of an historical identity. 

In the process, our Art began to mimic not only the structural changes to its mediums but also following a new found celebrity trait that came with its rapid commercialization and privatisation.   As owned by what in cultural academic circles are known as ‘media moguls’ and now individualistic, materialist owners of the  internet and social media platforms.  As they also now interact more directly with political power/politicians and globalised private capital. 

To be particular to Zimbabwe, our Arts landscape has significantly changed as a reflection of global technological-cultural developments. And our easy cultural acquiescence in this. We generally don't defend our Arts as much as other countries are wont to do.  (Hatina nharo).  

Our new younger holistic Art practitioners are a product of their technological and attendant cultural time.  A few of them are the new Marechera’s who couldn’t care less about global ideological questions and would easily tell you as the latter once wrote ‘if you write for a specific nation or a specific race, then f*ck you’. Mainly due to their own commitment to their own view of what it means to be a genuine artist and their right to free expression.   

A greater number of others are both patriotic and link up with the state and private business for social media skits, clicks, likes and sponsorships that appear to be sustaining their livelihoods quite well. This would be the ‘ephemeral’ influencer generation that now appear to be the favorites of ruling Zanu PF politicians and tend to be given vehicles and large monetary payments based on the affinity of their content to the same said party.

There are others that are decidedly oppositional in their Art. Also for the same sponsorship and recognition reasons.

The fewer ones are those that still believe in the meaning of their Art as a somewhat objective reflection on what is happening in Zimbabwean society and how it resonates with the more youthful population of the country.   But they are unfortunately largely unable to harness the new mediums of conveyance of Art (social media and the internet) due to either the algorithmic tyranny we know exists or just to lack of funding and mimicry of cultural and highly sexualized cultural content from the global north. 

To conclude, our holistic Art in Zimbabwe has changed seismically.  It is now mediated by new mediums of technology.  Which in turn create new public expectations of it.   It is understandably steeped in new cultural mimicry of global trends and the ephemerality of social media which we do not own. 

Is there a way forward?  Sure there is.  It is one that resides in our own re-emergent cultural recognition and understanding that a progressive African society can never function without Pan African, free, organic, critical and stubborn non-mimicry holistical Art.  Across generations.

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

     

Zimbabwe’s Forgetful Mode: We Cannot All “Make Money!” Mr. President.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There are many ways to look at Zimbabwe’s current political economy (where politics meets economics). 

One could easily begin to look at the state of the current ruling Zanu Pf party after its recent 2025 annual National Peoples Conference and go mentally hay-wire with speculation at its succession politics.  Which a lot of anlaysts have already done in the last week. 

Or one could look at our national fundamentals around the national economy (jobs, money, goods and services) and how the future is not as bright as the ruling Zanu Pf party presents it. 

And then there is the social element as to how to look at this.  One which would include our little talked about rural-urban and again urban-rural divides, drug and substance abuse and not forgetting our increasing over-religiosity, superstition and gambling tendencies. Even before we talk about 'class' and and 'class aspirations' as they are occurring in the country. 

It is easier for a lot of us to deal with our politics as they are occurring. Mainly because of what has occurred since the year 2000. You are either for or against one political party.  Or in support of specific populist narratives as they have occurred.  Mainly because we can all have a political opinion.  Moreso with the expansion of social media and its related influencers. 

But it all sometimes appears a bit ephemeral/temporary.  In fact, it arguably is.  Zimbabweans have a new tendency to move from one issue to the next.  In short-shrift time and attendant ease.  Which is what one considers to be the stuff of populist and celebrity style politics ala-carte the USA. 

There is however a specific political precariousness to this that we are not discussing.  Whichever way one wants to look at it.  We talk about Zanu Pf’s factionalism with a specific casualness. Almost as though we intend to sit in front of a television, lap-top or smart phone and watch a soap opera.  In the moment. Until soldiers start rolling tanks in the streets of our major cities (2017).  And then we shift in shock but more significantly in awe and in support of changes that with hindsight do not really change anything!

So we all have a visual and partially thought out impression of why Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have their factions.  And also why the opposition that we have known for at least 25 years (MDC, MDC-T, CCC, MDC Renewal, PDP, MDC-M), there are also highly personalized factions that are irreconcilable.

Even though, with application of a bit of common logic, we would/should be able to think beyond these factions in a broader, non-partisan national interests. 

There are many reasons why we are entrapped in this populism.  And they are quite literally inter-generational.

We have failed to understand our own society beyond its immediacy in our existence.  I know this sounds somewhat complicated but it is necessary to outline. 

And this is where history matters or cannot be whitewashed.  On a number of occasions I have had to remind young Zimbabweans of who we are.  Even if the populist winds are pointing in a different direction as to what can define the present. Be it money, religion and combined family material expectations.  

At the same time we find ourselves in an unfortunate political and economic conundrum where one has to ask themselves for example a question as to what is it that they work/struggle for? Or what is the purpose of life as do others in different nations. Except that in our case we are not steeped let alone willing to capture a specific historical understanding of who we are and who we can be.  We want to mimic more and leave the platitudes to the politicians. 

There is no future in that for the country. Such an approach would regrettably be ahistorical. 

If we continue to live in immediate political moments such as the ones we are living in now such as these Zanu PF political factionalism moments, we are refusing to imagine a different political and economic future. 

This may seem slightly philosophical (something that we should embrace a little bit more as did our ancestors), but it is necessary to consider.  

While we cannot live in a past consciousness (for example the liberation struggle), we cannot also accede that history to a simplistic, populist and materialist present (neoliberalism mixed with religion).  Let alone an uninformed future of global economic and cultural mimicry (kuteedzera zvavamwe/ open for business).   

So we need to recover a more organic and progressive national consciousness. For many of cdes my age, this is almost a no-go-area.  Almost like as Thomas Mapfumo sang in his song, “Dangerzone”.  For cdes in their 30’s they are more keen to heed Mnangagwa’s convoluted and ambiguous but unsustainable advise of ‘make money!’ While failing to answer the question that no matter how rich you are, you still live in a broader society and in any event, the ‘money!’ you have been advised to make, however you make it, will dissipate.

Or those in their early twenties and beginning to explore the Zimbabwean political economy in admiration of ‘mbingas’ or the publicly and politically rich may not understand that no one above their age group and in power is looking for an equitable Zimbabwean society.

To put it as simply as I can without giving you the usual relevant but important quotes of Fanon, Nyerere, Biko or Nkrumah. Or even Marx, Gramsci and Lenin, we are faced with a crisis of national consciousness in Zimbabwe.  Almost like an ‘age group’ differentiation of what Zimbabwe can be.  One that is also ‘gendered’ through marriage, materialism and how our children are preferably educated and raised.

We know for a fact, in as capitalist and unequal society as ours, we cannot ‘make money!’ in the manner that Mnangagwa is always advising us.  It is an elitist and cutthroat competitive argument that does not build a better more equitable Zimbabwe.  Almost like watching the much discredited movie ‘Wolf of Wall Street”.

We must return to our national liberation ethos.  Our post-independence anti-neoliberal struggles and in the final analysis, no matter the ages of our current government leaders, understand organic progressive generational praxis. 

In this, Zimbabwe is a country that does not belong to those that claim to be ‘vene’ (owners) as though they are inimitable oligarchs.  It basically belongs to a hopeful, progressive and compassionate people.

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

Zanu Pf’s “Liberation Capital” 2028 Succession Battles: A New Nationalist State Embedded Capitalism

 By Takura Zhangazha*

This is a slightly complicated article. So it is easier to get some of my own definitions out of the way for your ease of understanding. I have also put some sub-titles for your ease of reading.    

* “Liberation Capital”- refers to the Private Capital acquired after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) of 2000 and ongoing Urban, agricultural, mining, tourism and general resettlement land) as controlled by the ruling Zanu Pf Party

*  “Succession Battles” - refers to the ruling party’s political contestations on who can/should/will succeed current president Mnangagwa

* “Land Baron”- refers to those that benefitted from the economic ambiguity of the FTLRP cited above, including those that acquiesced to it

 Introduction.

Ever since the ouster of one of Zimbabwe’s luminary liberation struggle leaders Robert Mugabe from executive presidential political power in 2017, there have been many evident conversations around who, again within the same party, should succeed his successor.  

The current president Emerson Mnangagwa was post 2017 seen as the most able to bridge a gap between former liberation struggle fighters and nationalists as determined by the historicity of the liberation struggle against colonialism.  

He was deemed not only the most senior after previous nationalists but also one of the few who could command a healthier respect from a military that was composed of former guerrilla fighters who had ascended to positions of army colonels, lieutenants and commanders. These would be the likes of current vice presidents Chiwenga and Mohadi and others who are currently serving at the highest level in the security services of Zimbabwe.

The unwritten rule during Mugabe’s tenure was that there was an eventual succession plan after what was anticipated to be his voluntary and in part benevolent departure from power.  This was as explained by war veteran cdes such as Wilfred Mhanda (cde Dzino) and cde Freedom Nyamubaya who outlined the anticipated hierarchy of succession in the then liberation struggle but which also never became a reality.

In their outline, they had been advised, even after national independence, that those that were the original surviving nationalists such as Mugabe, Nkomo, Nyagumbo and other who were at the forefront of negotiating the Lancaster House agreement were to be supported as the ones to take the country forward immediately after independence.  They would eventually give way to those that were the guerilla commanders who were more radical such as Commander Tongogara, Lookout Masuku and other members of the then separate high commands of either ZANLA or ZIPRA to be at the apex of political executive authority in the country. These were considered half nationalist-half military.

And this unwritten succession plan would go on sequentially to those who were full guerillas such as Chiwenga and others that I cannot mention but who claim they bore the brunt of the war at the various fronts. 

Then it would follow that those in the then training camps, through to those that were war collaborators and be completed by those that were part of post independence youth brigades. 

Before we as Zimbabweans could easily say we are done with our liberation struggle history and its organic kneading of our politics. 

Mugabe’s Mis-anticipated Long Duree Rule and the Rise of Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC)

This was obviously disrupted not only by Mugabe’s long duree holding on of power and delaying of succession but also the emergence of a labour backed opposition movement in the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) at the height of not only a national but global economic crisis between 1997 and 2000 caused by neoliberal economics (World Bank/IMF) and what we now refer to as climate change.

This was as serious a challenge to Zanu Pf’s hegemony as ever since 1980 and that of ZAPU as led by Joshua Nkomo. 

The FTLRP of 2000

What happened thereafter politically is common knowledge around the role that war veterans of our liberation struggle with the support of a united Zanu Pf decided to do with the programme that we all now refer to historically as the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP)- and with thanks to Professor Sam Moyo for helping coin this term.  

The multiple elections that occurred after the 2000 constitutional referendum (2002, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2018 and 2023)  were indicative of a shift in our national consciousness.   It was clear to many urban based Zimbabweans that politically Zanu Pf was no longer invincible.  More so by the time we had the SADC mediated inclusive government of 2009-2013. 

The FTLRP as Part of the National Political Economy

But by then the FTLRP had become embedded in our national political economy.  White farmers had been quite literally in radical nationalist fashion been kicked off the land they either inherited, had purchased for many years by the ruling party.  And even within the ambit of the inclusive government were never going to recover that land with any sense of immediacy. 

This led to the creation on either side of the political divide of what we now refer to as ‘land barons’ (LBs)

Now these LBs did not just look at land in an historical sense of restitution. They looked at land as primarily private capital.  Be it urban land, agricultural land and also mining land.   And they knew that when Mugabe at his many rallies announced the FTLRP as irreversible, all they had to do was play the game right in relation to newer statutory laws, including black indigenization policies about their claim to ‘revolutionary ownership’ of the ‘new land’. 

This also included opposition political party funders, functionaries/leaders and members particularly in the urban areas who had the protection of various ministers of local government so long they towed the political-economic line.  

A New Nationalist State- Embedded Capitalism

This national political economy has birthed what we can now refer to as a new nationalist elitist state-embedded capitalism (NNSEC).  One in which the state as the harbinger of the FTLRP can easily get into various forms of private capital to control the national political economy. Be it in mining, urban land development, agriculture, rural development (privatization) and religious allocations of fixed capital for political survival of the ruling party. 

This includes the financialisation of state capital, primarily land, for climate carbon financiers and claims to be part of a global neo-liberal (pro-private capital) village. 

So Where Do Current Zanu Pf Succession Battles Fit into All of This? 

It would appear that the ideological economic framework for the country has been pre-set by Zanu Pf after the 2017 ouster of Mugabe.  The removal of indigenization laws and the oxymoronic nationalization and privatization of land as capital is no longer in dispute.  The question that emerges is one of who controls the levers of political power and economic largesse stemming therefrom. Even in trickle down format. Or downstream industries.

 Either by courting the West or the East and ensuring a new elite economic class for control beyond loss of power.   Both via direct political control and secondly via controlling the narrative on what can popularly be deemed nationally benevolent national progress.

As has been publicly reported by credible mainstream media, all is not well in the Zanu PF presidential camp.  Be it rumour or reality, we do know based on what happened in 2017 that there is no smoke without fire in Zanu Pf about issues of who is ultimately in control.  At least until their next congress in 2027.  

But as ordinary Zimbabweans we are allowed to comment on what we see, hear or even perceive. 

Conclusion

And in this, we are seeing a battle for what I have defined above as battles for what can be considered a uniquely Zimbabwean ‘liberation capital’ after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) being key in Zanu Pf’s succession battles as they play out on their and opposition social media platforms. And in their physical realities (rallies, conferences, and pending Congresses). 

It creates new nodes of competitive individual and almost cartel/mafia like wealth that we are now suffering for.  And where sometimes we are purchasable for it (tisataure mazita).  Across economic, political, social and religious sectors. But more significantly among more individualistic and materially oriented younger Zimbabweans who could not care less about the ideological nuances of the First or Second Chimurenga.  And where we lose them, the values and the younger generations simultaneously we may never recover.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

 

 

After the UN General Assembly 2025: Beginning the End of an Egalitarian Global World Order

 By Takura Zhangazha*

The United Nations (UN) recently held its annual General Assembly (UNGA80.)

It was its as social and mainstream media generally advised us the 80^th anniversary of its founding.  As Africans we remain grateful for the UN and its role in our own struggles for national liberation.   Despite the contemporary reality of the fact that we do not have any veto power in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Not for a lack of trying.  Even Zimbabwe is trying to at least get a rotational role in the same global organ and for now appears to be doing a lackluster job of it.   

Watching and listening to the speeches made by various heads of state and government at the UNGA80 one could be forgiven for asking the abstract question, “is the World at a crossroads?”  Particularly in relation to what we had assumed was a universal world order based on democracy and human rights? 

The speeches were relatively poor beginning with the host nation the United States of America (USA) whose president Trump was more concerned about escalators, tele-prompters and the invincibility of his country’s global hegemony.  

Other states were more focused on the genocide occurring in Gaza and their newfound recognition of the state of Palestine.  With the African states referring to the need to reform the UNSC (one that still falls on deaf ears) and the important challenge of the impact of climate change.  Or in a few cases the capitalist and cultural impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its primary owners.

All in all, the UNGA80 did not have any peculiar global resonance as in the past when it was addressed by the likes of for example, Fidel Castro, Kwame Nkrumah, Nikita Khruschev, John F Kennedy, Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere and even our very own Robert Mugabe.   It did not give any aura of a sense of progressive global egalitarianism and the universality of human rights. 

Instead it appeared to be more about a new global strategic repositioning around superpowers. In a nostalgic “Cold War” sense.  Where again countries were being pitted against each other with regards to their loyalties to the east or the west.  With questions emerging on whether your country is with Russia or Ukraine, Israel or Palestine?  Or simply put,  a question on whether your government is with Putin or with Trump? One that many African and global south governments rarely answer directly.

What is evident with the rise of new nationalisms and what Trump referred to as a necessary closure of borders by member states of the UN is an increasingly polarized world where and when we look at the ‘never again’ principle of preventing world wars. 

Instead there is continual escalations of conflicts/wars based on exploitation of mineral wealth (Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo).  While geo-political interests between the European Union and Russia, China and the USA continue to take center stage around tariffs, trade and military technology/.  Inclusive of emergent culture wars that are emerging from techno-feudalists and AI. 

What is apparent is that we are in a global age of the end of a neoliberal global dream of a false equality.  And this is not an easy point to make.   The re-emergence of capitalist motivated nationalism and racism, cutting of global solidarity international aid and the face offs between the USA and China/Russia indicate an evident change in the previous comfort zones of global politics. 

We, as Africans at least should have seen this coming.   And now again we have to leverage our natural resources and peace against at least three global superpowers, namely Russia, the USA and China. And their variegated subordinates in the form of the Middle East’s Emirs and Kings.  

All the while facing a volatile political and economic environment where our governments are perpetually squabbling with their citizens and attempting to mimic ‘mafia style’ politics of perpetuity in power for either oligarchs or long-standing ruling parties.  In the assumed name of electoral democracy.  As recognized by the UN and other pro-democracy international bodies.

What we may need to be more honest about as Africans is the fact of our placement in the global order of issues, commerce, capitalism and the Livingstonian assumption of ‘civilisation.’

What the UNGA80 showed is that the revolutionary progress made for human equality and national sovereignty is under serious threat.  And that there is a clear hierarchy within global world politics.  With the West moving to reassert its capitalist dominance and ensure historical revisionism that deliberately makes the world unipolar again. 

Because of these developments we need to return to a more robust and historical Pan Africanism.  While non-alignment has helped in our economic development programmes in one way or the other, Africa’s engagement with eh rest of the world needs to be more grounded in our own value and less global capital’s interests.

In the final analysis, while we have new nodes of African consciousness as shared on social media, the realistic questions are around Africa’s placement in the contemporary global events as they are occurring.  We have to grasp the reality that we are low rung interests to the USA, China or Russia.  And that we regrettably remain exploitable politically and economically.  Hence we are led to our own deaths in the Sahel and Mediterranean sea.  Even if we were to become football stars in major European or North American sporting clubs. 

We just need a serious reality check after the UNGA80. It is no longer the UN we grew up knowing.  Its global egalitarian values are being diminished.  And while we cant stand up with immediacy and ask that this be stopped we may need to redraw our placement in global politics.  As Africans. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity  

 

 

 

Decolonizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Africa

Technology Ownership, Cultural Mimicry and a Necessary Renewed Progressive African Consciousness.     

A  Brief Presentation to Shoko Festival Hub Un-Conference, Wednesday 24 September 2025 , Harare, Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

I would like to thank the Shoko Festival, Hub-UnConference team and their stakeholders for inviting me to give this brief presentation on ‘Decolonising Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Africa’.  A topic which is very important not only in the contemporary but also for a future in which Africa gets more connected via electricity, mobile telephony and the multiple nodes of what we now refer to as the internet (social media, streaming, email and Wi-Fi or more recently Starlink.)     

To begin with I am certain that most of you in this particular physical and also virtual audience watching are likely basically aware of what AI is.  Technically and culturally.  

On the simplistic technical front it is a system in which computing systems essentially use data and algorithms to replace what would be otherwise scientific human behavior.  That is such processes that would otherwise have been done by medical doctors, engineers, nurses, motor mechanics, airline pilots, taxi drivers and medical laboratory experts among many others.  

Culturally, AI, is also the computing of cultural traits and the modification of human behavior.  It is beginning to paly an much larger role in how we perceive or learn of ourselves, our music, drama, television and most significantly in our languages.

Ask any teacher or college/university lecturer how they now have to cautiously guard against receiving assignments written by ChatGP or DeepSeek even at secondary school level. Let alone university and PhD levels.  This is before we even start discussing music, drama, television and movies that are now increasingly run by algorithms that are designed to re-align  your cultural preferences.  Not only to ignore the repressive nature of African colonial history but to create new revisionist meaning to it.

Because I don’t have much time, I will make a relatively controversial point.

AI is the new cultural and economic ‘maxim gun’ in Africa.  For those that may not have studied their African history, we were, as Africans, based on our numerical numbers against the colonialists in the wars of the late 19^th century, going to win those initial struggles against colonialism. 

Until the arrival of the maxim gun which proved pivotal in protecting the colonial larger across Southern and Eastern Africa.  

Mainly because we did not see it coming.  And could only learn both within the ambit of tragic circumstances and after how that machine worked.  To only mount more modern liberation struggles at least 50 years later after the second World War and the formation of the United Nations. 

With AI we are quite literally not only seeing it but using it now. Even if by default.

 But not understanding its ‘maxim gun’ cultural and economic effect.  It is not killing us physically but with its current trends, it is modifying African human behavior into falling in line with global north or western values.

Ad this is in three main respects.

The first being the technological.  We do not as Africans own an iota of AI.  It is owned by what academics and global north progressive activists have referred to as ‘techno-feudalists’.  These are those that are for example around the current acerbic American president Donald Trump who own AI related platforms that have the public form of social media platforms but are essentially also working on machine generated learning and algorithms.  This also includes China ’s Xi Jinping and its own AI companies that intend to have a hand over the global wests ones. 

To put it simply, you do not own your Facebook, Tick-tock, Whatsapp or X account.  You are given the impression of owning it.  The algorithm is not yours.  At all.   More so if you post matters that are  against a given global north narrative. 

Essentially always bear in mind, every time you log into a social media account or decide to use ChatGPT or any other forms of technology to construct  something you do not own it.  Its copyrighted at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 

In the second instance and as I have alluded to with my metaphoric reference to the ‘maxim gun’, AI is intended to be a mixed bag of technology and its awe with its cultural indefatigability (sorry for the big word). 

Depending on the size of the population/market, you are from, AI has its cultural preferences.  Hence our colleagues in Swahili speaking East Africa are a step of us in trying to counter AI and its emergent roles in languages and cultural productions.   But more significantly our fellow and equal human beings retain a cultural (and in some cases quasi racist) supremacy over AI.  In a very hegemonic sense. That is where culture meets economic realities and manufacture materialistic desires.  

Hence our local influencers are getting cars and cash handouts based on what the algorithm accepts and what those with power find palatable to their stay in political and economic power. 

In the final and third instance, as Africans, we need to establish a new way forward.  One that focuses beyond mimicry of global north AI.  Even if we don’t own it.   We need to understand that there is more to the technology, its sources of origin and our own context. In this, it is necessary to reclaim cultural identities and Pan African mindsets as a priority.  Nationally, continentally and globally (with an emphasis on the Diaspora.) 

While at the same time remembering it is not always about the money or mimicry for the same.

To conclude, AI, is not going to go away. It may change format as did the television, the fixed telephone line, but it will be with us for not only the lifetimes of those here among us an online, but for the long term future.  The question is the extent to which we can harness it to our contexts.  We will neve own it technically.  But we can challenge its hegemonic intent culturally.   Just like what you choose to watch, create on or for Netflix, Meta (Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram) has to be made to overwhelmingly challenge the numbers and language challenges of AI.  Before we, in Africa can even begin to talk about the machines that we do not own. 

Takura Zhangazha spoke here in his personal capacity.  

 

 

 

 

Remembering James Jemwa: An Holistic Journalist and Visionary of the Media's Future: By Practice.

Sunday, 21 September 2025

By Takura Zhangazha*

This is not an obituary. Journalistically others will do so. They will give you date of birth and date of death, background, education and achievements. As are their jobs. 

I will just start from this premise in remembering our late media cde James Jemwa. 

Many of us never remember the camera man. Or the photographer nor the producer. 

We tend to remember the verbal journalist in front of us. As important as the latter are. 

And we tend to easily forget the wholesome or even holistic nature of what journalism is and has always been. 

It is the sum total of multiple important parts. From production/ownership, to written words (print), static visuals (pictures), audios (radio) and audio-visuals (television/videos). Through to free expression. 

It also includes, as is now globally the case, cultural audio-visual productions as conveyed via the Internet on music, drama and podcasts in their various thematic forms. 

In fact all of these media forms even before Wi-Fi and the Internet expanded it's reach there was always a central player. Whether you were going to write about it (again print), broadcast it electronically (via radio or television) or put it on social media platforms (Facebook, X, Tiktock).

You were always going to need that brave, creative and in some parts arrogant camera-technician-journalist. 

And in Zimbabwe one of the foremost go to persons for this difficult role was always going to be the now late James Jemwa. 

When colleagues in Zimbabwe's media profession shared the sad news that he recently passed after a reported road traffic accident that occurred on Friday 19 September 2025 and that he succumbed to his injuries on early Saturday the next day many of us were shocked and emotionally devastating.

Many of us who had worked with him in direct journalism especially with international and local media electronic broadcasting houses, knew his professional mettle. His commitment to the 'story' if you agreed on its parameters and the necessary camera-work. (Including equipment issues). 

Others who worked with him on documentary, drama, music related cultural productions will attest to his easy progressive (he was not for sale even when broke) commitment (again) to the themes that they sought to convey to not only the Zimbabwean public but also globally. 

I know for a fact that he worked in all of these issues with multiple media stakeholders such as Al Jazeera, civil society organisations, nascent young activist organisations such as #ThisFlag , theater companies and incidentally also covering personal social events such as marriages and funerals. Be they political or deeply personal. And he also had disputes with some producers and celebrity journalists that he always preferred I should not mention. He would say "haisi hondo yako cde Zheng, regai tipedzerane" -It's not your war cde Zheng, we will finish it off without you"

His speciality was his digital camera. And how to manage angles, emphasis on visual points and how the optics were going to make sense to a person who was going to view the same much later. In his absence as a 'behind the scenes' person. And sometimes without accreditation or payment. 

He was what I personally considered the 'composite' journalist. He could do the filming, the editing and partly script writing across various audio visual media formats.

The only one thing he personally told me over a couple of beers at the now closed Quill Club at the Ambassador Hotel in central Harare was that he was terrible at print media. 

He said, "We leave that to you ana cde Zheng. Isu tiri vemafirimu nema camera. Imi nyorai" -(we are for filming and cameras, you should just write). 

And for that, following the audio visual media story emphasis of his journalism, he and cde Paidamoyo Muzulu as journalists they once got arrested and sent to remand prison for covering the demonstrations as led by the Dzamara brothers (in succession) at Africa Unity Square. 

It was the advocacy and legal work of organisations such as Misa-Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and many others that got them bail and eventually acquitted. 

I am sure those that they were with him during the arrest and detention such as Promise Mkwananzi can better attest to that repressive experience and their liberatory role in it. 

When I last met him earlier this year in the company of our shared cde Paidamoyo Muzulu he, as is the case now with many journalists,formally employed or freelancing, was lamenting the poverty stricken state of the profession.

And tasked us all in that conversation with seeking a holistically progressive way forward. One that not only remembers the importance of  journalism as a profession with fair wages but more importantly it's important role in a democratic Zimbabwe. 

After that we laughed about how he was the first to make me have a YouTube video and how he had generally tried to encourage others to do the same. 

He argued that this was the future of sustainable journalism. Where print could not do without audio-visuals and the latter could not do without professionalism. 

Then we had a couple of beers and he had to catch a kombi to Mfombi (Mufakose). It was getting late, zvikanzi 'regai ndirove pasi macde'

May his soul rest in peace and may his family be comforted in these difficult times. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity