Rural Education in Covid19 Zimbabwe, Radio as Key.

By Takura Zhangazha*

In recent conversations about the impact of Covid 19 on rural livelihoods with relatives and friends from my rural home in Bikita, we touched upon the important subject of education.  The particular subject matter was, as is the conversational norm, initially approached from a generalized angle.  With the familiar subject being the safety and health of the children as the main reason why schools must remain closed. Or issues of how the difficult payments of school fees from communal farming incomes was now appearing to have been in vain.  With some schools still insisting on payments for school fees despite the uncertainty of when the teaching calendar will possibly resume.

The conversations became slightly more organic when it shifted to that most difficult of subjects called home-schooling. As caused by Covid 19’s impact.  In this there was an evident difference between how it is being done in urban and rural areas. In the urban areas it was explained that there are online learning platforms that are being explored by parents and schools such as live online teaching or in poorer residential areas, Whatsapp platforms for home schooling.  Or that schools were examining and utilizing the option of emailing lessons/modules for parents to try and teach their own children from home at scheduled intervals. 

In the rural communities however the idea of home-schooling the children at either primary or secondary education levels is almost practically non-existent.  For a number of reasons outlined in conversations with colleagues based there.  The most obvious being the fact that the teacher and regular teaching materials cannot be availed to the parents due to the lack of mediums with which to do so.  These mediums being threefold; electricity, internet/data accessories (computers/smart phones) and/or television sets.  The only medium much more widely available would be the radio receiver which again requires electric power either directly or in the form of battery or solar power. I will come back to the radio a little later on.  Suffice to say the online home education option is one that technically is not available to a majority of rural parents, teachers or students. Or even the schools themselves as they cannot integrate it into new teaching strategies due to the fact that parents cannot access them. 

A second element pointing to differences between urban and rural homeschooling was what one parent advised was a lack of their own capacity to teach.  In rural areas most parents and grandparents who are permanently based there have not have had much formal education.  And in most cases are unable to grasp concepts that they would be assumed to teach their own children even at primary education level. While this is a characteristic common to both urban and rural households, it is more pronounced in the latter.   So even if rural schools were mandated to come up with user friendly printed manuals for home-schooling, the parent/guardian may not be in a position to enable it.

As a third observation, it was interesting to hear what the children who had initially been somewhat happy about what they thought would be a temporarily extended holiday had to say.  From the conversations it was fairly apparent that there is a desire to go back to school.  Not just for educational purposes but to also occupy time with friends and other extra curriculum activities. Especially because there is no access to television or smart mobile telephony connected to the internet.  Even their parents recognize the boredom of necessary chores (cattle herding, fetching water etc) for their children but it would still appear that there would, for the moment, be no other options.

A fourth observation is the telling psychological impact on rural based parents of this closure of schools and the (temporary perhaps) uncertainty of the future of their children.  By way of general analysis, education in rural areas is/was seen as a means through which parents can give their children a chance of escaping rural poverty for what remains mythical urban employment and therefore success.  So tilling the land, keeping livestock all in order to raise the necessary school fees to see the child through the required levels of education is an aspirational priority for the rural parent.  It gives one a sense of purpose and drive to work hard even under tenuous rural circumstances.  Where it is disrupted as is the case with Covid 19, these dreams are dealt a heavy psycho-social blow.  This is also the case in the urban but the context and available options as outlined above differ significantly.

While I am certainly no expert on education policy, I would still hazard suggesting a couple of way forwards on the emerging challenges in rural education.  As alluded to earlier, radio is the most ubiquitous medium of access to information in our rural areas. It is therefore the primary medium through which rural homeschooling must be undertaken.  The Zimbabwean government through the ministry of education in collaboration with the state broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) must urgently set up a national educational radio station on frequency modulation (POTRAZ and BAZ have the FM frequencies) in the short term.  And this national radio station can interchange broadcast lessons for various primary and secondary education levels per week and publicise these to schools and parents as is pragmatic. 

In the medium term there is a need for a radio receiver roll out programme to poorer rural households as identified by school authorities and parent’s associations. This would also include the attendant power accessories such as storage batteries or solar panels.

In the long term the role of community radio will be important for home schooling. Work on licensing and capacity building of these to respond to not only Covid 19 but also embrace new ways of learning for rural and urban children is key. 

All of this with an understanding that where we seek to mitigate the challenges posed by the Covid19 pandemic in Zimbabwe, the rural is not a distant hinterland.  It is an integrated national space that requires, as anywhere else, urgent national attention.

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

Emerging Temporality, “Ephemeralism” in Zim’s National Consciousness

By Takura Zhangazha*

It is always going to be a difficult question to answer.   The one about how something that effectively represents temporality can evolve into a more regular/cyclical pattern or occurrence.  And generally with the same probable results. 

Almost as a situation in which the immediate suddenly also becomes the future. On repeat.

I am referring here to the emerging patterns of what would be Zimbabwean’s national consciousness or to be more straightforward- national or ‘nationalized’ emotions.

But with an explainer that this is not just peculiar to our own country.  It is probably a global phenomenon caused by various factors.  With the most prominent being the world political economy as determined by the neo-liberal ideological straightjacket and misplaced faith in the ‘free market’ as defined by the interests of private capital and our general global consumerism/hedonism.

But for this write up it would be much simpler to focus on Zimbabwe.

In doing so I am aware that not many of us would be aware of the turn of phrase ‘national consciousness’.  Save for those who may have encountered revolutionaries such as Franz Fanon and read their organic analysis of what should inform struggles for the liberation of not only African countries but also African minds. 

In our current context however this may be too complex an analytical angle to attempt.  Not for lack of trying but because of the very same emerging culture of ‘temporality/ immediacy’. Or what I would call ‘ephemeralism’ that is emerging in our national political, economic and social culture.

In this, there is no general national desire to understand things, events as they occur more holistically.  We function essentially in the immediacy of the moment. With convenient and scant references to our preferred versions of either national history or societal models in the global north/east. 

And it is understandable. For at least four relatively ‘easy’ reasons. The first and more obvious being that of the fact of the mediums in which we now expand our understanding of issues and the world.  Foremost among these being social media as we immediately access it via technologies such as the mobile phone and its accessories. Or how those with the aforementioned access bring it to those without. 

Social media is essentially designed to function in the immediate for its users.  But not its owners, a point often lost to us when we claim it as our very personal own. And there have been a number of researches on the psycho-social impact it has had in either modifying human behavior or establishing ‘echo-chambers’ that fortify our own prejudices or even resistances to progressive change.  Hence you will not find that much critical or ideological analysis in the privately owned Twittersphere’s, Facebook and WhatsApp platforms in Zimbabwe or its Diaspora.  Again, for emphasis, this is not a bad thing because free expression can never be prescriptive. It can however be assumed to have some sort of long term progressive perspectives and understanding of events as they unfold. 

And this is where we probably are.  It is easier to move from one #hashtag to the next than take a step back and try to understand the underlying causes.  Probably for fear of getting left behind.  In any event it would definitely be easier than trying to speed-read an e-book or detailed article on the #hashtag subject matter.

A key question would then be,  “Are events that have been occurring in Zimbabwe that unexpected beyond social media’s ephemeral gaze?”  Their (events) shock and awe characteristics as presented via social media platforms tend to make the heart skip a beat but the mind to also set aside some sort of due contextual cognitive process.  It is therefore a question of, “How does it make you feel?” As opposed to, “what does it make you think?”

The latter two questions are now interplaying themselves in real life offline situations such as how we handle the short and long term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Zimbabwean society.  And many other forms of activism that either seek to challenge or affirm the ruling establishment.  And in this, as individuals, we function with too much that we may want to be ‘recognized’ for.  Even if briefly and with too little time.

To the extent that before we know it, our target audiences have moved on to the next new phenomenon with limited little learnt or gleaned. Except for entertainment and probable expansion of again, ephemeral influence.

Beyond the new mediums of ephemeral national consciousness/emotion there are also other factors that play a significant role in its expansion. 

These include in the second instance the role of religion in its new found focus on the materialist aspects of Zimbabwean human existence. Almost as though it is arguing ‘we are what we consume’ in order to find ‘eternal life’.  The inter-changeability of material hedonism with mainstream and newer religious outfits in an age of global neoliberalism has been phenomenal to say the least.  Especially in Zimbabwe’s last twenty or so years.  Something that some have called the ‘rise of the prophets’ into our national consciousness.  And in most cases, for rather short term reasons and end-effect.

Thirdly, the ‘curious’ state of mainstream political parties (ruling and opposition) has unfortunately led to an undermining of what should have been a long term ingrained democratic culture in Zimbabwe. In the instance of the ruling party the fact that it could not effect a democratic leadership succession plan brought Zimbabwe to the precipice via the intervention of the military in a coup. 

In the mainstream opposition, again the same affliction of a lack of intra-party democracy means that consciousness remains mired in the immediacy of power than any longer term considerations beyond the same.

Fourthly and finally, our increasingly ephemeral national consciousness is probably down to a lack of a continuum of previous and new ideas that sift and shift through our national history for organic alternatives that young Zimbabweans can learn from, look up to or at least teach others. A situation that in borrowing from Gramsci refer to as the lack of a ‘generational praxis’ approach to an ideologically liberatory history.  It may sound a tad too intellectual or academic for social media, religious institutions or mainstream political actors. But I am sure it will help at some point.

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

The Important Symbolism, Consciousness of the New Nehanda Statue.

By Takura Zhangazha*

 The Zimbabwean government unexpectedly announced that it is going to place a statue of liberation icon Mbuya Nehanda in central Harare.  And that the work has already started on the same.  I was pleasantly surprised at this move by the current government. Not only because it is important that we recognize more publicly the significance of the role that the spirit medium of Nehanda played in leading the First Chimurenga against colonialism but also how we should never seek to willfully forget our own national history.  Even in the most troubling of Covid 19 pandemic times and with the array of economic challenges that the country faces. 

The public reaction to the announcement has however been muted.  Most likely because statues are probably not top of many Zimbabweans’ priority lists.  In opposition circles this was even more apparent with opposition leaders and activists referring to the memorial statue as being the equivalent of ‘worshipping the dead’.  Obviously they are entitled to their opinion on the matter even if it said in the moment and probably only to oppose Zanu Pf’s policies.

A few activists have also brought in the religious angle around the statue.  In doing so they appear to be taunting the fervently religious to not understand the importance of Nehanda in history and acknowledge the role of, in this particular case, Christian religious institutions in not only Nehanda’s execution but also colonialism.  All juxtaposed with their knowledge that the Christian faith generally denounces traditional African religious practices such as the recognition of spirit mediums and ancestors as intercessors of life with Mwari/Umlimu.  As it relates to everyday lives of Zimbabweans.

Some friends and cdes I interact with have indicated their fear that such a statue may probably be an ‘easier’ option for the ruing establishment.  Mainly because there are so many other female leaders and heroes of Zimbabwean liberation struggles that continue to go unrecognized.  Others still are fearful of what the late historian Terrence Ranger called ‘patriotic history’ in which only the ruling Zanu Pf party's version and interpretation of history dominates official state narratives across the media, universities and the basic education curriculum. 

What has not happened however is any outright protest at the idea of a Nehanda statue in central Harare.  A development that is indicative of the general legitimacy of this act of recognition.  To the extent that the only emerging issue would be the artistic creativity of the statue and where it is placed.

It is however also important to fully grasp the symbolism of this Nehanda statue.  As it relates to not only our struggles against settler colonialism via the first and second Chimurenga/Umvukela but more importantly as to how the leadership example set by Nehanda applies in contemporary Zimbabwean society. 

And these leadership examples are, in my view, threefold.  The first being the fact that in leadership, as exemplified by Nehanda, we should strive to be organic and visionary.  Or to put it much more simply, to anticipate what is probably coming.  While preparing to mitigate or counter detrimental potential events with a firm belief in the values of your people.  And this is not about prophecy or supernatural powers.  It is about being able to understand events as they occur in your society and try as far as is organically possible to always struggle for social and economic justice of the many, not the few. 

Secondly, is the fact of how female leaders, who are hardly given due recognition for their role in our national liberation struggles, have historically been important in defining Zimbabwe.  Nehanda’s statue would essentially re-affirm that in a much more public way beyond either the name of a street or a hospital. While many adult Zimbabweans may not need the reminder based on what they were taught in high school history lessons, it would be imperative that subsequent young generations get reminded of this history outside of the exam class.  And that they also understand the equal roles that men and women can play in revolutionary, progressive leadership to better Zimbabwean society. All in order to emphasise not only a gender equality national consciousness but also to  keep progressive history in vogue even when contemplating the contemporary as it influences preferred futures. 

Finally, the symbolism of Nehanda’s statue in central Harare, is one that would recognize history not only for what it means to the national consciousness but more importantly the necessity of never having to repeat it.  To know the struggles Nehanda led and also helped foster in the Second Chimurenga/Umvukela, is not to desire that Zimbabwe relives these same said struggles.  It is in order to recognize the values, the pain and sacrifices made in order to get Zimbabwe to its freedom. But not in order that we go back to those struggles. Instead Nehanda’s legacy tells us to hold fast to the values of liberation and move the people forward in fulfillment of the aspirations that led her and others to fight colonial and all other repressions in Zimbabwe.

So while I will not be among the first to be photographed at the Nehanda statue when completed, I understand its national importance and symbolism. 

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

Zanu Pf’s Shadow Boxing with Private Capital.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Presidential spokesperson for the Zimbabwean government, George Charamba this week made what would be relatively startling remarks.  Quoted in a story carried by the Herald newspaper titled. ‘Plot to Destabilise Economy Exposed’, Charamba is, inter alia, reported to have said,

“ We have realised that there is a clear nexus between runaway market activities and runaway opposition politics, that more and more, the security threat to this country, the destabilisation to this country is finding expressing through the market, so there is heightened smuggling of gold, there is heightened transactions, there is release of precious foreign currency into the black market, all to create a generalised instability which have the effect of creating disenchantment on the part of the Government..”

While it read like a familiar script from state officials against the mainstream political opposition in Zimbabwe, it has a different tone of tongue lashing.  Especially where he goes further to reportedly state,  “The politics are being shaped from the market…you will realise that we are in a phase where destabilisation has assumed a market form. The calculation was a health sector led generalised public strike, we are aware of such plots.”

I have quoted his statements at length because they reflect either a sense of panic at the top of the government (presidency) or a new found intention at redefining the relationship between private capital and the ruling Zanu Pf party via the state. 

In both likely circumstances, Charamba is not speaking for himself.  Even if his words may also betray his personal opinions on the matter to a keen reader. 

It would however be easier, if not popular(list), to view his comments as reflective of a sense of panic in the ruling establishment.  All happening in a national political economy in which the political elite and private capital/ big businesses are panicking over control of mobile money, foreign currency exchange rates and the suspension of the symbol of global financial capital, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE). 

It is a narrative that fits into a neo-liberal framework of anticipating that where a government acts arbitrarily against what would be private capital (in this immediate case, components of Masiyiwa’s empire: Econet and Cassava), a national economy collapses.  

So the ‘market’ that Charamba refers to here is probably comprised of three key players. The state (and its regulators), domestic fixed and financial private capital (local big business) and thirdly, the latter’s global financialised off-shoot as represented by the ZSE. Including what would be considered its hegemonic outfits in the form of political parties, consumers and other forms of Gramscian civil society.   All being together in an axis of and for profit. 

In all of this there are those who would hope that the ‘economy screams’ in the hope that Zanu PF loses its hold on political power in the country. Hence the accusations of plots to destabilize the country.  While on the other hand those sympathetic with Mnangagwa hope he can keep not only power but his own party and its patronage system somehow intact. 

Hence anyone sensing a panicking within Mnangagwa’s government cannot be considered off the mark.  Even if they may sound conspiratorial about coups, potential coups and foreign interventions in Zimbabwe’s domestic political affairs. 

Where one takes the view that Charamba’s statements are indicative of a potential changing of the rules of the relationship between the state and private capital (market), it is probably a more ideological view of matters. 

In this, it would be clear that what is not going to change is the open for business free market policy of central government. At least not in ideological intention.  Instead what appears to be an issue is the assumed dishonesty by private capital toward the olive branch that Mnangagwa had been offering since assuming and retaining power thus far.  Coming from Mugabe’s purportedly radical indigenisation programme, his successor thought he had private capital in his palm. It turns out big business would want to have its unfettered financialised and extractive profit more than seek to help him retain power. 

Hence, if one reads between the lines of Charamba’s reported comments, there would be both a warning and intention of a new approach to government’s neo-liberal project. It would be a change that most likely would be characterized by a reconfiguration of who the state does business with or allows to extract more profit from state wealth.  And this would, academically at least, take the form of state capitalism i.e a neoliberalism that follows the free market, but with the state/government parceling out profit motivated opportunities of the same. 

So there is probably an attempt in central government to redraw the rules of doing business in Zimbabwe.  But because they are courting global private capital, it is least likely that this change of the relationship between the state and business will be more significant beyond regulatory warnings and threats.  Fundamentally, established domestic capital and global financialised capital are looking at this as a storm in a tea cup.  All the while angling for better concessions from the state to continue to open up national wealth for their profit motivated pillaging of the same.  Almost as though the state is inviting them to the dinner table and saying, ‘let’s play nice, we can all eat together’.  And in this, as long as Zanu Pf insists on neo-liberal economics as a panacea to Zimbabwe's economic challenges, it is least likely to win against private capital. Or those that it thinks are conspiring with the latter. 

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

Bolivia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe: In Alphabetical Order?

By Takura Zhangazha*

There was a little noticed story about Bolivia that was carried by the New York Times and ably analysed by investigative journalism online website The Intercept.  It turns out that the data on the disputed election that the Organization of American States (OAS) used to justify the claim of massive electoral fraud and therefore justify the undemocratic ouster of former president Evo Morales was flawed.  This, according to what the New York Times referred to as independent analysts. 

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, writing for the Intercept takes specific note of the role American mainstream media played in pushing the OAS’s now disputed data says, 

“In sum, when it came to the 2019 Bolivian coup, the U.S. media played its decades-old, standard role whenever the U.S. wants to depict a military coup against a government it dislikes as a victory for democracy: Namely, it blindly and dutifully adopted the State Department’s view and uncritically waved the flag.”

The right wing transitional government that was undemocratically put in power by the security services has so far failed to hold elections.  It has also ensured that it limits free expression, assembly and association particularly for Morales' indigenous supporters.

In Venezuela the same strategy however has not met with success.  Both from the very intention of imposing a president on the country after, again, disputed elections. And more recently in an attempted military raid to oust current leader Nicolas Maduro. 

Where we cross the Atlantic Ocean to another country in the global south, Zimbabwe, the same circumstances do not necessarily obtain. But they may be wished for.  Not only because of a recent mention by Mr. O’brien, national security adviser to US President Trump of Zimbabwe as an ‘adversary’.  But also as a result of evidently frosty diplomatic relations between Washington and Harare.

The key difference between Bolivia/Venezuela and Zimbabwe is that while the former’s regional bloc OAS is the USA’s priority regional sphere of influence, the latter’s equivalent in the form of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a much different regional actor in international relations. Not that  SADC is invincible.  It is just a bit more historically and organically grounded than its OAS counterpart. 

This does not however stop a number of Zimbabweans from misconstruing political developments as they have occurred in either Bolivia or Venezuela as preferable.  Not only out of a general lack of knowledge of the histories of the two countries. Or out of evident ideological bias against leftist global south governments that do not pander to either neo-liberal foreign policy. As informed by what would likely be a falsely motivated idealization of neoliberal societies in the global north or east.  Moreso in the wake of a potentially new global understanding of the imperative for racial equality as motivated by what the African Union referred to as the ‘murder’ of George Floyd by police in the USA. 

In any event Zimbabwe’s current government is nowhere being as leftist as that previously led by Morales in Bolivia or the Venezuelan one that Maduro retains a hold on.  In fact, Mnangagwa’s government is decidedly neo-liberal with a keen eye of normalizing relations with the USA. It is however a strategy that appears, on the face of it, to not be working.  Much to the delight of the mainstream opposition which has deliberately positioned itself as the go to political leaders of the preferred interests of global capital.

It also appears to be that Mnangagwa is now probably mulling a tougher stance on what his national security council recently called, “Western governments through their local embassies”.  Apparently in a recently released statement for ‘peddling’ rumours of a military coup in the country. And probably therefore signifying a potentially significant shift in Mnangagwa's foreign policy strategy of ‘re-engagement’. 

Either way, the reality of the matter is that in Zimbabwe we must be careful what we wish for. Either side of the political divide.  There is limited little to envy about events as they have unfolded in Bolivia or Venezuela.  The key task is to understand their end effects on the majority poor of those countries. 

Just as we learnt of the devastating effects that liberal interventionism had on the stability and national cohesion of countries such as Libya, Somalia, Syria and Iraq among others.  For all the insistence on some sort of ‘responsibility to protect’ it is very evident that things have not panned out well in the immediate or the future for the aforementioned countries. 

In our various domestic political persuasions and agendas we will invariably require global allies in one form or the other. Historically, in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa, a greater majority of these have been from what during the Cold War was referred to as the ‘East’.  In the contemporary, these are now varied largely because we are naively living as though ideologically we have reached what would be an illusory ‘end of ideological’ history (as now somewhat rescinded by Fukuyama).

We would still do well to still embrace the Cabralist values of organic activism and its attendant intellectualism.  Which is that revolutions cannot be imported.  And that where we don’t seek to understand the full realities of our domestic realities, we will be unable to effectively navigate the turbulent waters that are the open and unpredictable ocean of international relations.

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

From Washington to Harare and Back: Black Lives Matter.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Recent demonstrations in the United States of America (USA) against racial inequality and police brutality have led to some surprising developments in Zimbabwe’s placement in international relations. 

In what we, in Zimbabwe, would have assumed would be accusations against the ‘usual suspects’ of aggression and interference in the domestic affairs of the USA,  the national security advisor to President Trump, Mr. Robert O’brien pulled a cat out of the hat.  To the great astonishment of many who would follow Zimbabwean political developments, he is reported to have referred to our country as an ‘adversary’ of his country.  All in the same sentence as China and on live television.

He quite literally said the following,

“ I’ve seen a number of tweets from the Chinese today that are taking pleasure and solace in what they are seeing here. I want to tell our foreign adversaries, whether it’s a Zimbabwe or a China, that the difference between us and you is that that officer who killed George Floyd, he’ll be investigated, prosecuted, and he’ll receive a fair trial,” 

The Zimbabwean government through its ministry of foreign affairs responded by firstly denying any role in the anti-police brutality demonstrations that are occurring in the USA and also summoning, as would be diplomatic protocol, the latter’s ambassador to Zimbabwe in Harare for an explanation.

Soon after the formal meeting in Harare, the resident American ambassador Brian Nichols issued a statement in which while acknowledging his own African American heritage essentially emphasized by implication and in not so many words, a dictum of American foreign policy.  That of exceptionalism.

Outlining how his government will not be denied its right to speak on the fate of peaceful protesters in Zimbabwe, not only in recent times but also in the immediate past, he made clear that his country would continue to, “meet the ideals of our founding”. And that it would, “change this world for the better”. 

The formality of the engagement between Harare and Washington (as represented by the local USA embassy) would make for a local diplomatic tiff.  With the only difference that this particular one did not originate in Harare but in Washington after the remarks of US national security advisor, Mr. O’brien. And as picked up by the international mainstream media. AS well as within the context of the formal statement of the African Union (AU) statement condemning what it called the ‘murder’ of George Floyd.  

As a consequence, Zimbabwean social media went agog at the turn of events. Either in keeping with the general global apprehension at the violence against black people in America. But mainly in a partisan fashion based on our own local political perceptions about the role and moral worthiness of American foreign policy in our domestic politics. With those that would be sympathetic to the ruling Zanu PF establishment attempting a moral high-ground criticism of events in the USA.  While those aligned to mainstream opposition politics pointing out in every other way possible the hypocrisy of the former’s social media content.

Both postulations, while expected in our Zimbabwean context, may full well miss the global historicity of the current moment. All for many reasons but perhaps for now at least two will be easier to outline.

The first being that African American history and the history of the African continent are inextricably intertwined.  Not just because of the crime against humanity that was the Trans-Atlantic slave trade but more importantly because of how the African American experience in fighting rascism gave birth to the Pan Africanism that in turn led to struggles for liberation on the African continent.(Crosscheck W.E Du Bois, George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah )

So if there is unfinished business of African American liberation/freedoms in the USA, it is something that cannot be ignored on the African continent. Let alone in Zimbabwe. Not by way of preference but by way of historicity and the emerging contemporary as it represents legacies of the former.

The second reason is that where we want to compare human rights records of African countries versus those of the USA, we would be careful not to be either simplistic or populist. Both in relation to the implications of domestic or foreign policies.  And this is perhaps the most difficult part for many Zimbabweans.  

Not only because of the high esteem they may hold the USA but also a lack of an objective knowledge of global history and contemporary international relations.  We would still however be correct to point out, in the expected fact of the universality of human rights, violations as they occur in our own African countries. Not just because we hold any global superpower in high esteem but because we believe in these universal democratic values and principles with or without the approval of another country’s gaze.

As a Zimbabwean, I have been to the USA courtesy of the same country’s State Department’s International Visitor’s Leadership Programme (IVLP) in 2010. This was during Obama’s first term presidency.  While visiting the latter’s ‘home’ city, Chicago, in my naïve enthusiasm, I wanted to go hang about the ‘black’ neighbourhoods.  I was politely told, that it was not ‘safe’ and given a brief summary of drugs and gun violence. I couldn’t argue with that as a guest of the State Department.  After all I thought I was there to de-mystify and experience the ‘land of the free’.  I was also astounded to hear of the equivalent of ‘Native Reserves’ for American Indians, even if they do not appear to have problems with them.  Something that still baffles my mind today.

Even my own recent attendance of this year's Black History Month festivities at the invitation of the USA embassy in Harare did not prepare me for the recent diplomatic incident between Harare and Washington. What I would understand however is that any further fallouts, accusations and counter-accusations do not help either of our countries.

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

Whose Covid-19 New Normal Would It Be Anyway?

 By Takura Zhangazha*

Nostalgia and memory tend to combine to create unexpected ideals.  Especially in times of crisis.  In the contemporary, the Covid 19 pandemic is probably doing the same.  It sometimes would seem like decades ago that we could go to work, send our children to school, go to football matches, attend church or pay a visit to our relatives and friends.  With full or partial lock-downs as advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and executed by governments all of the above appear distant ideal ways of urban and in part, rural living.

In all of this, there is talk of how things will never be the same again after Covid-19. Or even how the same applies in the midst of the pandemic. In real time.

These conversations get fortified by expert views on how the world requires a ‘new normal’.  While at the same time definitions of the latter are varied and at times invariably confusing.

From an African perspective discussion of any ‘new normals’ are for the time being highly elitist.  They are couched in the language of neoliberal solutions to what is a very public health crisis. Private capital and its attendant philanthropists are lauded as being integral to the new normal.  Government ministers act more or less as chaperones of private capital. Courting and wooing in the times of corona.

And private capital knows exactly the sort of new normal that it would want.  One in which it gets new and easier access to profiteering from social service delivery.  A role that should democratically be done by the state, social service delivery is being mortgaged in the name of fear of Covid19.  And assumptions of the efficiency of those that straddle what we know as the ‘free market’. 

Big and small business therefore look at the new normal as the new profiteering opportunity.  All on the basis of trading on what will inevitably be a very real fear of a global pandemic.  Hence there will be limited public protest at these neo-liberal solutions being preferred by our governments at the behest of private capital. 

Our individualism and again individualized assumptions of invincibility because we think that  so long we have access to some sort of money to pay for health makes us extremely vulnerable to a revamped ‘disaster capitalism’.

Whereas, for example, the British government reportedly approached the Covid 19 pandemic with what’s referred to as a ‘herd immunity’ strategy, we in turn are being herded into a ‘new normal’ that is undemocratic. Almost like a throwback to desiring what would have obtained prior to the outbreak of the pandemic because it would be assumed that it is all we know.  Or all we would want. Even if we didn’t want it, social media would be deployed to makes us desire that straightforward neo-liberal consumerist past that obtained prior to the outbreak. 

And already it is apparent that the debate of what would be a new normal is remaining firmly entrenched in an actual desire for the past as an ideal. Albeit one which can be shifted more to the right. 

What is apparent is that as the Covid 19 pandemic becomes increasingly existential, private capital fully intends to be ingrained in national/public psyches as always having  the best possible solution(s).

One might ask, so what does it really matter? The reality of the situation is that if we are not going to learn that the very fact of the spread of Covid 19 to become a global pandemic should teach us to change our approaches to our own existence, then we, regrettably, are in serious trouble. 

In our African contexts, we need new social democratic frameworks that envision people centered public health and a welfare state as integral to a better future for all.  We know that this is something that global capital does not want to see.  We know that instead it wants us to mimic the demographics of the global north (city states and the like).  Or for us to forever hold in awe,  knowledge systems and approaches as they are disseminated with clear and hidden hegemonic intention from global private capital.

This essentially means as Africans we would have no choice but to be increasingly counter-hegemonic in an organic and progressive way.  This would entail thinking beyond neoliberalism as an economic panacea and re-embracing the state as a primary enabler of the democratic livelihood interests of all.  All with an understanding that exclusion and profiteering from a pandemic that knows no race, colour or class is never going to be in our best democratic interest.

It may appear initially as not being pragmatic but we can at least put minds together to frame the future better.  The ‘new normal’ should never be a reversion to a casual idealization of the past.  It should be about quite literally a new future.  One that takes into account lessons of the mistakes made in the past but holds on to the collective hope that our lives are worth more than the money.

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