Consciousness and Cdes We Lost or Still Have. Without Epiphany.

By Takura Zhangazha*

I will start with cde Freedom Nyamubaya. A war veteran of repute. She would tell us at the now closed iconic Quill Club that we are 'small boys'. And that we did not understand the viccisitudes of the liberation struggle. What she went through and what she endured post-independence.

Then there was Cde Dzino (Dzinashe Machingura) and his commitment to 'dialectical materialism' even as he worked to invent the chemical make-up of the now famous Zambezi larger! He was to remain one of my primary political mentors for another ten years until his sad passimg. And he is yet to be declared a national hero. (Apa vanga vari vakomana ve Mgagao!)

I also met the also still undeclared national hero Edgar Tekere in different and difficult circumstances. When he pitched up at the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) offices with Ian Smith, former Rhodesia prime minister and with the then political outfit called the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ).

We sort of ran away from cde Edgar Tekere that day in the late 1990's when he sort of hobnobbed with Ian Smith. 

But our icon at the same time was Morgan Tsvangirai as he led the late 1990s stay aways via the historically relevant and amazing Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

And with perculiar political decisiveness formed the National Working Peoples Convention (NWPC) which in turn led to the formation of Zimbabwe's historically largest opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999 at the Chitungwiza Acquatic Complex, Harare, Zimbabwe. 

There are many other cdes that are alive or have passed on. 

Some of those that are still with us have lost their ideological way for materialist reasons. 

Others have gone relatively quiet either out of general ideological despair (this is not ehat they envisioned). 

Or because their life priorities became more individualistic. 

There are however cdes that are still holding people-centered ideological fort. I cannot mention them for the sake of their privacy.  

Some are in academics (teaching), quietly pulling intellectual strings for future generations. 

Others are in labour unions, struggling with the important issues of fair wages and conditions. 

Some remain in civil activist groups relating to human rights, social services, equitable land redistribution, medicine, greener ecological mining and agricultural practices. 

As well as dealing with emerging racisms and issues of global immigration. 

The key point however is that there is need for a re-galvanisation of cdes in their progressive consciousness. 

In Zimbabwe and within regional, African continental and global progressive consciousness across continents.

A lot of cdes know this. They may however miss the point as written by Nelson Mandela that there is no single epiphany, just a thousand slights that firm up a renewed progressive people- centered struggle conviction. This is our new urgent revolutionary task. 

Whereas we can be caught up in the trap of mimicry of the global north's false mainstream intellectualism via social media, we have to contend with our own organic intellectualism challenges. 

In the words of the revolutionary Aime Cessaire and I am paraphrasing here, we must 'return to the source' of our intrinsic Pan African consciousness in order to navigate what is a very difficult future for global humanity. We have seen and lived the thousand slights. We now need to tackle them without anticipating an epiphany! 

It also remains apparent that we are faced with a younger and less ideologically focused generation of Zimbabweans/Africans. 

There is the urgent evident need to bridge the ideological gap beyond age and the craze of assuming education does not have a trickle down effect of knowledge ownership and control via the global north and its techno-feudalists.  

Watch many films or tick tock videos and you will see a global narrative that continues to look down on us from the global south. Or promote a myth that the global north is a heaven worth dying for in the Sahel or the Medittaranean sea. 

We do not need a mimicry of  Eurpeoan Renaissance. I know that respected African elder statesman Thabo Mbeki has his ideological pretext of an African Renaissance. 

That did not work out as planned even after the reform of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) which he helped spearhead. 

To be honest, cdes Pan African and historical consciousness is at a crossroads. 

We have over-mimicked other histories, nations or states. We have over-prostrated ourselves to global capitalism to a point where our own lives are deemed collateral in wars or economic subterfuge. 

We have to return to the source of our own consciousness. Not in order to differentiate ourselves from anyone. 

But in order to understand the historicity as well as the future of where we are in the present. 

So we salute cdes who led us to the contemporary progressive consciousness we have today. 

We also now know that even that consciousness is no longer enough if it is not sustained via newer multi-media narratives that combine the past, present and the future. In our minds and in our progressive consciousness. 

That is where the struggle continues. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity

New National Political Contradictions in Contemporary Zimbabwe (Preparing for the Rupture)

By Takura Zhangazha *

When we were younger and in tertiary education of one form or the other we used to play around with the term, 'The negation of the negation'. 

It was a very Marxist philosophical term that meant that things tend to return to where they were in structural format. Albeit in a somewhat advanced form. 

We used this term in tutorial and public debates in order to appear intellectually sophisticated and impress the students union! 

We however, after a few more years of handwringing examinations learnt that Marxism was more than about the same said 'negation of the negation'.

It was a critical tool of analysis of not only national but global political-economic and historical human interactions and existence. 

From issues to do with class struggle and the ideologies of communism versus capitalism through to the structural intent of the slave trade and colonialism and its contemporary offshoot, global imperialism/ neoliberalism.

We also learnt that human political, economic and social history does not function in stasis. It is never permanent and it does not come to an 'end'. 

Instead it creates even in assumptions of permanence or finality, its own internal contradictions. 

As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would come to argue in their most popular work, 'The Manifesto of the Communist Party' commonly referred to as the 'Communist Manifesto' of 1848. 

In the simplest of terms particularly under the ideology/way of life of capitalism, human history is generally always creating its own contradictions that are centered around not only class struggles but an overall struggle against societal inequality and oppression. Even when the rich in our societies appear invincible or all powerful. 

This is the stage at which Zimbabwean society finds itself in today.  

When the ruling Zanu Pf party passed constitutional ammendment number 3 (CAA3) into law it made one awkward political calculation. 

It assumed or still assumes that our country's political economy and in particular our politics are in stasis. 

Or that the legality of CAA3 puts paid to broader demands for democratic electoral politics and economic accountability beyond the publicly visible elitist accumulation. 

It forgets the key Marxist lesson of how the system or political economy they are putting their necks out for creates its own contradictions that will lead to its own downfall. 

For at least three reasons.

With the first being that an assumption of the permanence of political power via avoiding general elections is a misreading of national consciousness.

 Even if it was an attempt at changing the same said national consciousness. There is quite literally no 'stasis' in Zimbabwe's politics. 

Where, as a government you esconce yourself in power by avoiding periodic elections you are sowing the seeds of not only eventual discontent but potentially greater societal instability. 

An instability which, in the short and long term, will eventually lead to a national 'carthartic' moment. 

As was the case in November 2017. One whose evident internal contradictions we are again witnessing today. 

In the second instance, the contradictions of elite economic wealth accumulation become clearer when the masses come to a slow realisation that they cannot all be rich.

 They watch in awe and envy at the politically connected affluent pastors, celebrity business men/women, quiet money movers and miners who flaunt their material wealth in a sea of poverty. 

All to come to a realisation that as Ngugi wa Thiongo would have it, it is the 'Devil on the Cross' that they have been envying or 'worshipping'!

So our ruling elite, with their strong links to capitalism and its newest forms of neoliberalism/ techno-feudalism are sitting on an economic time bomb that will likely explode before 2030. 

Young Zimbabweans may be less intellectual about their national politics and the national political economy but as was the case in the Arab Spring in the Middle East at the turn of the century, a 'rupture' is coming. In Zimbabwe. 

With the key issue being a society in which economic equitability is no longer an even imaginable possibility with the current form of greedy ruling establishment politics. 

One in which the rich get richer and flaunt it via lifestyles and patronage with the blessing of the ruling Zanu Pf party. 

In this, it is clear that the contradictions of the current ruling party's economic policies are creating the grounds for economic equity struggles that they are least likely aware of. From land, jobs, mines and access to water, education, health, fair labour practices and disposable incomes.

They are creating a comprador bourgeoisie (false middle class) off the back of the fast track land reform programme (land barons) and informal (gold) mining without knowing that even land and minerals are finite. 

Or at least not enough for everyone. And that even internally these contradictions will eventually not only show but lead, as they did before, to resistance political economics. 

The third and final cause of contradictions relates to opposition politics in Zimbabwe. 

Our mainstream opposition political parties are in a serious dilemma. 

They are bereft of cogent ideology, run like mini-cults and desperately out of touch with any counter-hegemonic national consciousness. 

They created this situation largely by themselves but also by falling into Zanu Pfs mimicry trap during Mugabe's era and after. 

By so doing, they created the contradiction of a cyclical repetition of a defeatist narrative. One that does not seek political permanence or in flux have any revolutionary outlook in one form or the other. 

Even if they were to wish themselves permanence in political opposition until 2030, they are creating a contradiction within their supporters who will not see their leaders' added value to what were previously popular organic democratic struggle causes.

Instead their supporters will be unable to, in a George Orwell sense, distinguish the pigs from the horses! 

So Zimbabwe is in some sort of political conundrum where things appear already permanent. Or as cdes now tend to say, 'Zvaendwa!'

This is far from the truth. Hapana zvakaendwa! There is nothing permanent or insurmountable about where we are as a country. 

Even as we know we are not voting in 2028 for a government of our choice. Or that the neoliberal political economy under Mnangagwa is functioning with a trickle down patronage system and repression of political dissent. 

We also know that there is no such thing as political 'stasis'. 

And that our current politics are already creating new internal contradictions that defy assumptions of false permanence. 

If I was a pastor, I would argue that cdes must prepare for a 'rupture' before 2030. 

Hopefully it is a peaceful one. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his persoonal capacity

Our More Weakened Zimbabwe Parliament as Broader Political Theatre Until 2030

By Takura Zhangazha*

I will start with what has been politically obvious over the last three months in Zimbabwe. 

Our national Parliament and its current serving members in both the House of Assembly and the Senate, directly or proportionally elected, have made up their minds about their political careers. At least until 2030. 

Mainly because of their staying in office after supporting or oppossing the then Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 3 which is now the law (CAA3). 

Now that the whole hullabaloo of who voted in favour, against or abstained for CAA3 is over, we can now easily re-assess Parliaments assumed democratic oversight role with the Executive going forward. 

And because the Executive got what it wanted with CAA3 mainly as motivated by its two thirds majority in the National Assembly and its majority in Senate. Together with the complicity of some opposition members of both houses. 

There is not much else that Parliament or your MP can really do to resist any further major legislative changes intended by the executive.

They all owe the Executive for not only extensions to their terms of office but also the largesse/salaries/perks that comes with the same. 

The ruling Zanu Pf party MPs will make general rumblings about one or two issues over the next four years but will always be brought to heal. 

The still remaining opposition MPs will waffle their way via abstract arguments about defending democratic space, seeking national consensus while at the same time being esconced in similar perks, benefits of their now long duree stay in office. Just like their counterparts. 

So unless your MP is a person who does other things at community level (boreholes, maize distribution, health or other matters) he/she is no longer legislatively useful to the country. 

Except when needed or manipulated by the Executive. 

Moreso when they are now the ones, even within their current term of office, who will elect the next executive President. Including possibly before the current term of office of the incumbent E.D Mnangagwa expires. 

So if any MP is going to be melodramatic in either the House of Assembly or Senate, it will be exactly that, just drama! 

Even if we wanted to look at their role as incrementally useful for what remains of what we would still consider 'our' democracy. 

It is self evident that going forward this will be characterised by performative politics that will major in minors and avoid bigger national questions. Unless they are approved by the Executive and the ruling party leadership. 

It is a precarious and elitist type of politics. One that relies on the gatekeeping both by government and Parliament of this new status quo for both individualised and hegemonic/power benefits. 

At least again until 2030. 

I wish this was confined to Parlaiment and central government alone. 

Unfortunately it is not. It is also the same when and where it comes to our local government political infrastructure. Because their terms too have been extended for the same period. 

And our constitutional commissions that are selected with the role of Parliament and approval of the President will be also be wary of these political developments. 

To the extent of proceeding with caution for their tenures and understanding the dynamics of dealing with the same president, MP for the next four years. 

The media too if not already should increasingly be aware of the new elitist political dynamics of the country. And knowing its current sustainability crisis will pander to where the money will come from .

As for civil society, trade unions and churches, there are clear signs of ongoing co-optation by the state. And a desire by the same said state to control an elitist national political narrative. Embedded in Zanu Pf lingo and more worryingly with threats against human rights and attendant freedoms. As was the csse on 31 July 2026. 

But private capital is perhaps the happiest in all of this. They have  a longer shot at the 'ease of doing business' and trickle down economics. All the while profiteering as much as they can in the name of 'inhibiting' government policies that frustrate the 'free market'. 

When all is said and done, after CAA3 we now have a society that may technically, legally be considered somewhat a Parliamentary democracy. 

 But in reality and politically it is now run by elitist politics that has created new nodes of long-duree patronage networks. All of which involve the executive as the central player, Parliament as the compliant enabler ( with a few rumblings here and there) and private business as the distributer of elitist largesse via politicised networks. 

But such systems eventually fall because of their own internal and external contradictions. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity