By Takura Zhangazha*
Back in February 2008, before the same year's disputed harmonised general elections that gave us an inclusive government by 2009, some cdes (I cannot name them without their persmission) and I decided we needed a Zimbabwe People's Charter.
We had read on the South African anti-apartheid struggle "Peoples Charter" history ( it was very fashionable at the time) and decided to sort of contextually, organically structure the same for our own country's -post independence further democratisation struggles.
Not in a legalistic way. But more in a visionary but ideological format.
And also as an attempt to bring a run-away working people's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party as led by the late great trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai to heel.
We then (and still) understood ourselves to be social democrats or outright socialists!
You know those that wanted to balance the progressive interests of the people with those of neo-liberal private capital in a Mbekite "African Rennaisance" sense.
It was a Pan Africanist 'fad' at that time.
And in any event we, also again at that time, liked Thabo Mbeki's (former South African president and SADC appointed mediator on Zimbabwe's 2008 political crisis ) version of a modernised, contemporary, pro-democracy Pan Africanism.
Until accusations of him siding with the late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe came to the fore as he led the SADC mediation team after the still disputed 2008 election results where we had to have an opposition boycotted presidential run-off election.
But prior to that, in February 2008 as cdes we had pushed on with what we considered a very important Zimbabwe Peoples Charter.
Despite a shoe-string budget, multiple and nationally representative Zimbabwean civil society organisations came up with what we considered a progressively balanced but left leaning Zimbabwe Peoples Charter.
The event that endorsed this happened at what we still know to be the Rainbow Towers (former Sheraton Hotel) in Harare in February of 2008 prior to the harmonised elections scheduled for the same year. At least 3000 people attended.
Given the multiple global private capital interests in the economic future of Zimbabwe after the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) we were navigating difficult ideological waters.
We had for an example the remnants of the Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe (CFUZ), the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) representing the right.
With the General and Agricultural Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), the broader and most powerful workers union in post independent Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) representing the left all supporting us without reservation.
But for different reasons.
We also had the the 'never say die' attitude of a progressive Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) accompanied by the then radical feminist organisation, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and also the then nascent Women's Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCZ) which to us was a legitimate crossover from the Association of Womens Clubs of Zimbabwe.
Among them were many other progressive organisations, in no particular order of preference, such as the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe (ISO-Zimbabwe), the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC), the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) where I worked at that time.
We suffered but we continued in this peaceful non-violent and human rights based struggle for a more democratic Zimbabwe.
Cdes were arrested, beaten, abducted and in some cases killed for their progressive activism.
But we knew we were not leading an outright revolution.
We were doing what at that time was contemporary pro-democracy public advocacy.
With elections as a key instrument for delivering progressive political change. In an almost given unversal format of pro-democracy activism.
Including in the phase of the then SADC mediated inclusive government of 2009-2013.
Until the then MDC morphed into a bastion of a global neo-liberal ideological outlook.
Contrary to the history of its own working peoples movement genesis (beginning/origin).
What we did not see/envision was the political pushback of the neo-liberal and state-capitalism establishment.
That is to say, we rarely thought of the historical state and global capitalist underbelly that was also watching us and making its own plans to retain its economic and ideological hegemony/ supremacy.
As is now apparent the ruling establishment co-opted some of us ( in Parliament, local government or national commissions) and re-invented itself and survived to the extent of now talking about how to manages its assumed permanence.
With money, 'zvigananda'/ 'mbinga' culture, religion and a 'trickle down' national political economy as its populist neo-liberal ideological functional pretext.
But we have come full circle in the struggle for the further democratisation of Zimbabwe.
And we must atone for our own sins in how we have let it come to this.
The progressive labour and student movements are faltering.
The ideological arguments are becoming vague. Even if I personally remain a socialist.
And while the people of Zimbabwe are no longer imbued with any collective political optimism but materialist individualism.
But as my high school basketball coach, Blah Roderick, used to shout at us in his Arcadia accent, "YOU'VE GOST TO RECOVER EXE!!"
The struggle for a more democratic, people centered Zimbabwe continues. Its in a bad space and place at the moment.
But I am optimistic it will reconfigure itself with nationally motivated agency and a required urgency beyond personalities or racist attacks about international solidarity.
Even if the ruling establishment seeks to create an oligarchy.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
