By Takura Zhangazha*
The Zimbabwean government under the ruling Zanu Pf party has had as a central narrative and dictum to its foreign policy, "A friend to all and an enemy to none."
In this it also adds the caveat that in all its dealings with Zimbabwe's central national interests in international relations that our country is quite literally 'open for business'.
It has maintained these foreign policy positions since 2017 when President Mnangagwa announced what he refers to as the 'second republic.' And also after the 2018, 2023 harmonised elections where Zanu Pf retained both legislative and executive authority over state power. Albeit in still disputed circumstances.
But their electoral and, in the contemporary, functional retention of power is a reality that we live with.
As is with their government's foreign policy positions as they affect how we look at the world and how the world in return looks at us.
A little bit of history is important here.
Zimbabwe over the years between 1997-2009 was viewed as a 'pariah state'. A term which was both academic and political in the global north as well global liberal (read that as neo-liberal) democratic or Blairite/Clinton 'third way discourse.
This was mainly due to two main issues. The first being that in the late 1990s, we had a radicalising left-wing motivated workers movement that was countering the ruling Zanu Pf via labour unions that went on to form the mainstream opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) before the turn of the 21st century.
This was against a perception that the world had reached what we now know as a discredited assumption of a global 'end of history' as ennunciated by intellectual and populist supporters of global neoliberal ideology.
So Zimbabwe was, contrary to the late 1990s popular opinion, not liked for its emerging left leaning opposition politics which were eventually re-harnessed into more conservative narratives.
The second historical point about Zimbabwe's global 'pariah status' was the still politically argued but structurally real, Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) from 2000 to present day. Though today it is increasingly more formalised in relation to central government land policies.
This is Zimbabwe's almost, to use a biblical term, 'original sin', within private property/capital motivated international relations post the start of the millenium.
A sin that a decent nunber of future generations of young Zimbabweans will still have to resist, suffer or eventually atone for at the altar of globalised financialised capitalism.
Now that was just a little bit of history of Zimbabwe's placement in the world. And why it is viewed, even in an African context as 'pariah'.
But where we look at our current context with a government that claims to be a 'friend to all' and 'enemy to none' in the world, we should raise a number of questions in the 'global now'.
The first question is if we have had this foreign policy since 2017, what has it achieved that changed our pariah status? Others may argue it has opened up new avenues to global financialised capital and investments from the west.
But the counter argument is that this has only been incremental over the course of at least 9 years. And the country remains under a complex western sanctions regime that is more intrumentalised than seeing its own backdoor on Zimbabwe.
So it has not had the intended immediate effect. Nor is it guaranteed to.
The second question that arises is that of, okay, we did the FTLRP, challenged assumptions of colonial private property rights and fulfilled one of the key tenets of our own national liberation struggle.
Only to turn back as a 'friend' to former colonial and post colonial white farmers and offer them compensation. As part of an appeasment foreign policy framework? At an estimated US$3,5 billion cost.
The third and final question that arises from Zimbabwes current foreign policy trajectory is what does it mean in an emerging age of global unilateralism by global superpowers and the undermining of the United Nations 'rules based' global world order. Especially by Donald Trump of the USA.
And within the global economic protectionism by the same said supepowers (EU, Russia, China, The Emirates, Israel) as they scramble not only for new markets, rare earth minerals but more significantly for compliance with their own foreign policy interests.
In such a polarised and unpredictable context, Zimbabwe cannot be a'friend to all'. Or an 'enemy to none'.
That is unrealistic and dangerous to our organic national interests in global relations. As a matter of fact, its highly impractical.
As of old, Zimbabwe's foreign policy has to revert to principled historical, solidarity and non-aligned tenets with Pan -African countries, the global south and the global east before it assumes what is essentially a 'false global neutrality'.
Historically and progresively our foreign policy was never designed to be self centered or self absorbed since not only the liberation struggle but after it and as designed for posterity.
Where we think we can stand alone with this current unprincipled foreign policy, we will fall alone as a country. Unless we change it and return to the source.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
Twitter: @TakuraZhangazha
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