Leading Via Organic, Progressive Values Not Educational Populism in Zimbabwe.

By Takura Zhangazha*

There has been a little bit of social media banter about the professions that populate our Zimbabwean and African politics at its most executive decision making levels.  With some of the same said banter arguing that we have too many legal professionals in our top executive government leadership.   While on the opposite side of the relatively populist debate is that if we had for example ‘engineers’ (of all types) in charge of our governments, we would easily see faster implementation of development projects and the betterment of the livelihood of the people.

Mainly because ‘engineers' are deemed to be more pragmatic, even mathematical in solving specific problems afflicting our societies. Be it in the form of infrastructural rehabilitation or even in some cases the militarization by army engineering corps of health or transport services. 

I must confess that I was alerted to this debate by an engineering cde who is based in the Diaspora and is very passionate about Zimbabwe and its progressive future.   It had already been doing the rounds, as it turns out, via a blog he also shared title ‘Zimbabwe’s Lawyer Heavy Politics Not Good for Development’.  

It is not clear who wrote this particular article.  

But the article as its title suggests its main argument is to pit the legal profession against what are perceivably more pragmatic professions where and when it comes to governance of countries.  Something that dovetails almost too nicely with the new educational emphasis of many African governments around Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) syllabi frameworks. Not only for educational purposes but also for preferred leadership purposes.

There are however at least two sides to political leadership.  There is the ideological or value based side. And then there is the administrative and technical or administrative side.  Both work in tandem. But with the ideological/values based element being in charge. 

Almost like we used to argue during our own liberation struggle about the politics leading the gun.  Because you cannot fire a gun without a cause.  You cannot fight for the sake of fighting without a justiciable or even popular cause. 

Nor can you establish a rules based system for legal professionals or lawyers without an underpinning value system. One that may recognize human rights as is legally but not pragmatically the case in Zimbabwe.  While expecting those read in the rules to be the only ones best at either implementing or interpreting the same said rules.  

For a clear example of this one just needs to just crosscheck the USA and Trump’s administration of justice and how it is disrupting long held democratic value systems.  To the extent that it is now a society now arguably ruled by fear of what the government will do next via executive order.  Even if their president is not even a lawyer.

So the argument about the background professional qualifications of a president or prime minster may be populist in nature but it does not really matter.   In fact it should not matter.  

But what I consider relatively abstract and populist social and other media conversations make it matter.  Including particular competitive economic interests for state power to enable self-enrichment at the expense of a majority poor. 

These interests include private capital, religious sectors, self regulating professional associations (lawyers, nurses, doctors, teachers, engineers, labour unions and even makorokoza or others 4ED, women’s and youth groups that all want a specific narrative about ‘qualified’ leadership. One that suits their peculiar material and political interests.

So leadership is not as simple as is being made out on social media banter.  Be it between engineers and lawyers.  Or even as is the case in the current Zanu Pf party where its being regarded as ‘our generational turn’ to be at the top of the table between nationalist, militarily trained nationalists, pure guerillas and subsequently ex-detainees of the Zimbabwean liberation struggle. 

Or in the opposition political circles where religion and messianic tendencies gained un-politically believable ascendency.  Much to the destruction of the opposition where you had well known lawyers and engineers falling into a valueless trap of ‘cultism’ in order to either become a president, member of parliament or councilor. Something that still obtains today. 

But back to my Diaspora based engineering cde and I.  The issue of the professional background of a political leader is important in its own electability right.  Adding a prefix like Dr. or Engineer, Reverend or LLB to your electoral ballot and rally name helps you win votes.  It is however not the sum total of leadership.

What matters the most is the underlying value system of your politics and its relevant or organic historicity to the existence of the country.  Hence we talk of the now both historical and proverbial ‘struggle’.   For example while revered national heroes such as Chitepo were lawyers they knew the fundamentals of the struggle beyond the legal skills they had acquired.  They wanted the independence and freedom of all Zimbabweans from a very political angle that eventually ended up being a long drawn guerilla war.  With their say so.  As illegal in then Rhodesia as it was.

Even in post indepedence Zimbabwe, we had many technocrats trained in the global east running government departments including the late national hero Chidzero whose expertise regrettably missed the historicity of ‘gutsaruzhinji’ and introduced the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) that decimated local production and caused severe poverty among the people.  A development that led to the reawakening of Tsvangirai (a miner) led Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).   

For brevity I will not delve into the formation of the MDC against such a rich organic historical background in the labour movement of Zimbabwe since at least 1948.

It is however important to indicate that the issue of qualifications in political leadership is not a new phenomenon.  It is both colonial, anti-colonial and post-colonial. The more educated you were the more likely you were to end up in some political leadership role. 

The question that emerged was who were you leading for?  Were you going to be a Muzorewa (a bishop), a Chirau (a chief), or a Mugabe (teacher and lawyer).  

Or alternatively were you going to be like the agronomist Amilcar Cabral and lead for the people?  Or Samora Machel the nurse and again lead for the people?  

Or Julius Nyerere, a teacher, Mwalimu and lead the whole continent together with the lawyer Kwame Nkrumah? This is before I mention Mbeki the economist and his dream of an African Renaissance or Thomas Sankara, a soldier, and his brave Pan Africanism.

You see cdes, leadership is not about where you went to school.  Or how much you ‘engineered’ or ‘lawyered’ up. 

It is about your values, the values and fundamental ideology of the organization that you are leading and its progressive acceptance of those by the masses of Zimbabwe.   Always therefore, in political  leadership, ask yourself the questions, ‘Who are you leading for? Yourself? Acceptance by the global North and global Capital?  Or the people? ”

And most importantly, “Why?” In that way you establish an organic value system beyond your education certificate that you most likely acquired from a university or college run by your previous oppressors.

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

 

 

  

 

 

 

The Fluidity of Contemporary African Religion/Historical Spirituality, Class Division, Materialism in Zimbabwe

 By Takura Zhangazha*

 At one point in my activist life I was accused of ‘not being on the ground’.  

This was an accusation based on a perception that progressive political activism always required having a physical ear on the needs of the people by regularly attending community meetings/events and travelling the length and breadth of the country. Almost in a generic sense. 

I took up the challenge and travelled across many rural, urban and peri-urban areas across the country.  

Sometimes deliberately and in most cases by invitation by education and community health workers.

From Mudzi to Wedza, Bikita, Uzumba-Marangwa-Pfungwe through to Gwanda, Bikita, Chivi, Chipinge, Chiredzi, Bulawayo, Hwange, Victoria Falls, Mutoko, Wedza, Chikomba, Mashava, Zaka, Gutu,  Guruve, Mahuhwe, Mushumbi, Thsolotsho, Lupane, Gokwe and others that I cannot mention in this write up.  Though I must be honest that the only place in Zimbabwe I have never physically been to is Beitbridge. 

 So in taking up the challenge of ‘being on the ground’ as given by the populist comrades we had in our midst there are certain things that came to my personal realization. 

These included the fact that their populist predisposition was a myth.   It was unstructured and unrelated to their lived or desired political experiences.  And I am being very polite here.   It mixed as is the subject of this brief write up, religion, politics, materialism and a specific carryover of an emergent African spirituality as it related to the aforementioned three elements.  It however always forgot ‘class’ and the ‘class structure’ of postcolonial Zimbabwean society. 

It was essentially a reductionist argument.  Or to simplify it further, one that sought to make sure intellectual engagement was to worship at the altar of what was basically political populism. 

All within the ambit of a drawn out newer cross generational understanding of the meaning of post- independence democracy in Zimbabwe.  As it mixes together with liberation struggle historical recognition and global hegemonic counter-narratives to anti-colonialism that are now embodied in the new cold war between the USA as it pits itself against China and Russia in an expanded neoliberal and again global economic order. 

But over the last half year it is relatively clear to see where Zimbabwean politicians and political culture are blurring the lines between religion/spirituality, materialism and default economic class designations.  And I am making this argument in a Marxian and Fanonist sense. 

Our current politicians while touting both liberation and post-colonial struggle histories have by default (that is without organic strategy) decided to steer our national consciousness toward faith, money/ materialism (or desire for money) and by dint of the same, inferiority complexes that come with both.

This includes creating a false political culture around what it means to be a successful Zimbabwean while the majority others are suffering and blaming it on them for not being ‘tenderpreneurs’.  Or not being connected enough to the ruling establishment including not being opportunistic enough to ensure a political seat at the official opposition table where your material needs and gaps are covered. Individually.

But the fluidity of religion/spirituality , class and materialism is somewhat worrying in Zimbabwe. 

Whereas Fanon would have warned against a comprador bourgeoisie (middle class) or Marx warned against misunderstanding global capitalism. Or Nkrumah warning against what he referred to as ‘Neocolonialism, The Last stage of Imperialism”   With all of them warning us of its historical political, economic and social after effects, inclusive of what in our case are its apparent contradictions. 

I will give an anecdote for this point.  If you are Zimbabwean, have you ever asked yourself a question about why we have an ease to material cruelty?  As we link it with either a religious way of life or an assumption of economic success? 

The answer lies in the fact of the fluidity that we have come to accept between religion, politics and wrongly ignoring specific class differences as determined by global capitalism.  And refusing to overcome them.  

Instead we seek to mimic them. 

It is a post-colonial generational fault that I often discuss with comrades.  Something that I refer to as a ‘climbing the colonial mimicry ladder’ approach to our Zimbabwean society.  

As based on our own parents aspirations as they got mainstreamed into colonial/ postcolonial education and production political economies. On this one I hope we all remember the Native Labour Associations that formed our contemporary townships, even as they are now expanded in the same historical formats.

Let me also use a religious allegory for this. Have you ever noticed at least two things about religious services in Zimbabwe?  The first is that those that are well to do or politically ambitious/connected have the time of the preacher/priest/pastor/prophet/ mudzidzi?  And that in tandem they tend to give the impression that they completely agree with the religious dispositions of those that they are allowed to address? 

While at the same time giving out messages of economic and cross-class promises of wealth.

And this is my final point on the issue of the fluidity of religion, spirituality, class and materialism.   There is a false assumption that we are all equal in a patently unequal society based on the four aforementioned points.

What has been happening in reality is the blurring of economic class lines by religion and politics.  Wherein our people are falsely motivated to assume they are in a religiously equitable society in order to hide the wealth of those that are at the economic top of the table.  Not in a Marxian sense (opium of the people).  Instead in a fluid methodology of mixing everything up in populist political culture that Fanon would have frowned upon.    

Go ahead, eat, pray, believe, vote as is your right. But you have to also learn to understand your own society better, more critically.  Nothing is at it seems.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity.