Dystopia, Mortality and Zimbabwe’s Covid19.

Dystopia, Mortality and the Political Economy of Zimbabwe’s Covid19.

By Takura Zhangazha*

Zimbabwe is currently in its second national lockdown as caused by a rapid expansion of the #Covid19 pandemic. Many Zimbabweans have lost loved ones or are at least trying their best to ensure the latter survive this pandemic in this moment.  It is as depressing as it is dystopian.  Or even unbelievable that this is possibly our new reality in the immediate.  

One in which we cannot mourn our lost loved ones normally or in most cases cannot afford support for further treatment measures for them when they fall ill from Covid19 complications.  While having to function on a wing and a prayer that they will hopefully get well soon. 

The pain of the latter experience has numbed some of us.  I know of comrades who no longer check their social media accounts/feeds for fear of receiving the terrible news of losing a loved one.  Or for fear of even further trauma via some people assuming ‘main actor tendencies’ about the death of others as though they will never be directly affected by the pandemic. 

In most cases however I reflect on the frontline workers in this pandemic.  The nurses, doctors, support staff and even those that are in the funeral services business. Not only in relation to their safety and health but also the fact that they have to deal with the potential and reality of mortality on a regular basis.  Hence it is important, always to salute their sterling work which they do at great risk to themselves and their families. All for our betterment.

As with any national health crises wrought by Covid19, we are wont however to try and behave in what we consider our ‘normal ways’.  Even when we should not. Either based on contradicting the science or refusing to accept the basic understanding that mortality in the time of a pandemic is not selective.  No matter how rich or how poor you may be. 

But we tend to miss this key point because of our desires to live beyond the pandemic.  To assume that we, either individually or collectively, cannot fall victim to it.  Until we arrive at a Saul on the road to Damascus moment.  Except that it always comes with terrible news about a loved one. 

But again we must begin to ask ourselves important questions about our Covid19 realities.  Particularly as they reflect on our Zimbabwean national political economy.

In these reflections we must understand at least two key points.

The first being that #Covid19 has no political affiliation.  It does not remember history nor does it function for a progressive future.  It is us, the humans, that can do so.  But that doing so involves us re-thinking about dismantling not only colonial or neoliberal approaches to public health and safety but also getting over our own inferiority complexes where it comes to not only to anticipating solutions from the global north but also within or own midst.  Wherein we assume that religion will pull us through this and not our own concerted, conscious and organic national agency.

Secondly we must come to terms with the reality that Covid19 will disrupt our relationships with our families.  Both within the immediate and long duree.  It will challenge previous cultural practices that we have been used to and create a more concentrated individualism that this time last year we would never have anticipated.

But we have to challenge these developments as they have emerged. And in doing so we must revert to the centrality of the state in looking after its inhabitants.  In this, we must understand that the state is fundamental to tackling the Covid19 pandemic.  Even in we prefer public private partnerships.  It is the state that remains the guarantor of human life.  Not those that are functioning for private profit.

For many Zimbabweans on social media our approach would be simply one of stemming corruption in the public service tender provision system.  The reality of the matter is that this is not what it is only about.  We need a holistic structural re-alignment of what we mean when we say public health is a human right in Zimbabwe.

To explain further, the right to public health is not an emotional feel good issue. It is more ideological than it is about who recognizes your social media write ups and/or persecution.

Those in the ruling Zanu Pf party or the mainstream MDC opposition need to realise this with the urgency it deserves.  While we may not claim to have a solution to the actual affliction of Covid19, we can act to make our preparedness for its societal impact much more organic and therefore better. 

Every life matters regardless of class, material wealth or geographical location.  Sally Mugabe Hospital is as important as the private ward at a Parirenyatwa referral hospital or the Avenues Clinic. 

Where we understand our basic humanity in this pandemic, we will be better for our own Zimbabwean humanity. While keeping in mind that we need to nationalize the entirety of our public health delivery system. For the many. Not the few.  

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

 

 

 

Emerging Meaning/Effect of Disputed Elections- “Main Actoring the Electoral Moment”

By Takura Zhangazha*

It is now a universally accepted norm and preference that all countries hold regular elections as legitimating mechanisms for the acquisition or transfer of political power.  Even in countries that are generally not considered democratic. 

At their onset and as motivated by the United Nations, elections and electoral processes have been considered democratically meaningful.  But not necessarily revolutionary.  Though in some cases, such as those when African liberation movements won inaugural pre-independence elections, they may have been considered so.  Or if we go to the global north and recall the election of the United States of America’s (USA) first black president in 2008. 

But we also know that apartheid South Africa and closer to home, Southern Rhodesia also held elections.  On the latter Masipula Sithole wrote a very interesting analysis on what he referred to as ‘intra-white settler democracy’ wherein in the settler state there was the regularity of elections for the white minority. And how these were also regularly recognized by the ‘global international community’. 

In our contemporary times however elections have begun to take on a new meaning. Mainly because there are now international standards expected of how they are conducted, including their regularity.  But more significantly because of the fact that they are now viewed, in most cases, as representing  a ‘winner takes all’ approach to political power.  As well as to a direct control of state capital as it relates to a global neo-liberal economy. 

Because of the latter point, which I am sure a number of academics are avidly working on expanding, elections and electoral processes while requiring minimal democratic standards are no longer as of traditional democratic old. 

Their periodic occurrence, which remains an important and democratically good thing, has come to mean so much more than their mere occurrence. Vested interests on either side of the global capital divide are avidly competing for what they would consider to be the 'peoples' will' and the more significant attendant exploitation of national wealth that is perennially at stake. 

All characterized by disputes over final electoral results.  Wherein the majority of cases disputes on results are about who has won the post of the seeming 'winner takes all' executive presidency.  As opposed to who has won anything else such as the legislative or local government vote counts.  The key challenge and desire is attaining or retaining ultimate executive political power. And its all fair enough but we would have to look at a few recent examples to expand my argumentation further. 

In the USA, the incumbent president, Donald Trump, went down to the wire in disputing the results of the November 2020 presidential plebiscite.  Including being accused of being directly involved in a siege of that nations parliamentary buildings in Washington DC in early January 2021.  A development that has led to unprecedented impeachment proceedings on a sitting USA president by the American Congress.  Despite this, it is still reported that Trump intends to give the presidency another go in 2024.

The second example is that of the even more recent Ugandan elections in which long serving ruler Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner against a younger Bobi Wine.  The latter is vehemently refuting the results and has been reported in the media as seeking to challenge the validity of the results in court.

The third and final example is that of the Tanzanian presidential elections where again the incumbent John Magufuli was declared an overwhelming victor over his strongest rival Tundu Lissu.  The latter has since gone into exile. 

In these examples cited above, there are certain common characteristics that come into vogue.  The first being that there are arguments about urban versus rural votes.  Or in the case of the USA, the conservative hinterland versus the liberal coast cities. 

There is also the case of arguing about the youth vote and how again it relates largely to the rural/urban dichotomy.  Including the same’s populist trends, intentions and ephemerality.  Amid allegations fo rigging, the youth vote has become the holy grail of contemporary electoral politics.  Based on population demographics and assumptions that images of relatively mature people running for office can never sit well with the same population demographic.  A point that remains as arguable as it is based on the emotive but privately owned social media company platforms’ clicks, likes via their algorithms. 

Thirdly, there is the argumentation around methodology and technicalities of voting.  This is always a long running ‘reform’ argument that seeks to make more transparent how votes are counted, tallied and relayed to some electoral center or the other.  From postal ballots induced by Covid19 in the USA or polling station tallies in remote areas of Uganda or Tanzania, the trend is clear about the technicalities as they eventually arrive to be argued at one electoral court or the other.  And in most cases with the same courts deciding against the challenger.

But we still have to ask the question about what it is that is making elections, electoral processes and their results such highly contested occurrences in the now.  At the risk of sounding over philosophical, I would argue that it is the retention of a consciousness that is pre-occupied by the reality and possibility of the passage of time.  In order to live to fight another day and ensure that same struggle is retained in the consciousness of those that would be quasi-cultist supporters of an electoral candidate.  Ones' who remember more the past than they would envision a better future for all.  On either side of existent political divides.  A pre-disposition that I personally refer to as ‘main-actoring’.

We need to ask ourselves the key question of what we advise political leaders at the emotional heights of claiming electoral victories. Its not too complicated. They need to think beyond themselves and their egos.  Both in victory or in contested defeat.  But expanding on this is for another write up.

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

 

Zimbabwe in 2021: The Necessity of Optimum Equality for All

 By Takura Zhangazha*

The passage of the year 2020 in our memories is something that will be with us for a long while yet.  Mainly because it brought with it a global pandemic that we all have now come to know as the corona virus (Covid19) and its devastating impact on our common/shared global existence.   The abrupt changes that the pandemic has brought to what we considered ‘normal existence’, even here in the  Global South,  has led many of us into the trap of not thinking about short or long term futures. Instead we have understandably become focused on the immediate.  Even via asking ourselves apocalyptic questions such as,  "Will I/we (family) survive this?” Or, “Where will my income emanate from in a lock-down situation for me to pay for the general upkeep of my family?”  

We now also know that 2020 sort of put paid to a lot of  our personal short and long term 'normal' plans. And depending on your class status these would be either at a subsistence or highly materialist level (car, urban house/ travel). 

What appears to have mattered the most in all of these now hindered aspirations is what was and probably still is our individual desire not only for the material but also recognition at, again, individual success.  Be it in the form of individual material success such as the purchase of urban property, modern technological equipment or sending the children to privileged private schools or universities (and their colonial recognition baggage). 

The year 2021 should have a new significance for Zimbabwean society. And I write this not as a revolutionary thesis.  But more out of a personal desire to establish a balance between individual material desire and what would be considered in the global north as the common good of a society.

Before Covid19 changed our lives fundamentally we all seemed set on certain chosen paths. Some which we still stubbornly hold onto. Be it politically, economically or socially.  In these as argued above we sought 'individual' progress. Never mind the system we were operating under.  One could wake up and talk of nationalism one day while fronting ‘land barons’and their attendant urban land theft. Or alternatively arguing about how bad the national economy is while  pursuing highly individuated material interests in the name of the 'people'. 

In either case we found ourselves in what can be considered to be 'contradictory' value systems.  That is value propositions that while arguing for a ‘collective national well-being’ are comfortably ensconced in quasi hedonistic individualism, consumerism and materialism. 

The year 2020 and Covid19 should have made us pause to reflect on such approaches to our national existence and consciousness.  But they did not.  

But in order to be clearer about the immediate and long term future that we anticipate particularly for the year 2021, we have to be as realistic as we are honest with ourselves.  And where we desire a specific type of future, then we have to be both optimistic and idealistic. 

In being realistic about 2021 in Zimbabwe there are two key considerations we must take into account.  The first being that our national political economy has been set on a trajectory of pandering to the interests of those that already have money.  

Even in the context of Covid19 the government has made it clear that it will prioritize private capital’s needs with a vainglorious hope that there will be a ‘trickle-down effect’ from the latter’s ‘investments’ that we are still being exhorted to ‘patiently’ wait for. Hence already even in the access to treatment for Covid19 symptoms, it remains easier for those that have wealth to get first preference. And in some ridiculous instances for some of those with wealth to advise everyone else to buy personal ventilators.  Add o this the loss of livelihoods for many urban and rural poor due o rising unemployment caused by closure of small o medium enterprises and the limitations of the informal trading sectors.   

In the second instance our 2021 realism has to take into account the fact that we are faced with significant changes to our social relationships and lifestyles.  Mainly because of Covid19 and the tragic loss of lives.  But also more significantly because of lock-downs and the associational restrictions that they bring.  This means that the regularity of given interactions with family, school, work or other association colleagues will remain not only rare but in their occurrence, less convivial. This means our society faces a fundamental change from being one in which we were used to general association to being one in which we will be increasingly isolated.  Either as individuals or in our immediate family.  It is almost like a tragic involuntary societal rapture as necessitated by Covid19.   

Where we choose to be optimistic about 2021 we need to harness our deepest thought processes for big ideas that focus on how to deal with Covid19 as a collective society.  With a candidness that seeks above all else the pursuit of optimum equality and social and economic justice for all Zimbabweans.   

By optimum equality here I mean that within the context of the Covid19 pandemic we should be ensuring that there are basic social and economic rights that are available to all Zimbabweans and as provided for by the state. These rights in our current context should fundamentally be about access to healthcare (including food), education, water, shelter and free expression for all of us regardless of whether we are in the urban or the rural. Where we seek to politicize the pandemic, as we are naturally wont to do, it would still be imperative that we establish this baseline approach to how we seek to ease the effects of Covid19. As opposed to adopting a socialism for the already rich or those that mimic them.

The mantra that is often used by those in power is that of ‘no one is left behind.’ They are not being honest.  The agenda we must set in 2021 is that no one should ever have been left behind.  And that we must ensure hat we are in 2021 living on soicio-economic level playing field.  Not just based on salaried income but economic structural equitable distribution for all.  With the priority being optimum equality of access to social and economic rights for all Zimbabweans. Especially in the context of Covid19.

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

Covid 19 Zimbabwe Advice from Year 2020 to Year 2021

 By Takura Zhangazha*

Some things are not expected to happen by default. For example, travelling by aeroplane from one place to the other from Africa is supposed to be a status symbol.  Especially getting a Visa to attend a conference in the Global North. Particularly Europe or North America.  Until a pandemic such as Covid 19 makes you think twice about status or symbol.  Let alone the arduous paper work for travel for a black African.  

And in so doing give pause for reflection as to what contemporary reality truly means on this side of the world. 

There were some things that 2020 was never going to warn us of.  Let alone ask us to remember.  Even as key a question as ‘Whose Humanity is it?”, in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic.  Even though known to have emerged from Wuhan-China, Covid 19 was always expected to reach enormous proportions by way of morbid impact in what has (colonially) historically been viewed as the source of all pandemics, the continent of Africa. Particularly South of the Sahara. It did not.Instead it chose Europe, North America and the rest of South East Asia to demonstrate the dilemmas of underfunded public health systems versus their privatized for the rich corporate counterparts.  

But we were not really expected to think of it that way.  We were expected to think the worst of our circumstances and of possibly ourselves. Friends, family especially those based in Africa tremendous Diaspora kept asking via social media, almost in given anticipation, ‘Has it hit yet’? Waiting for the images akin to those of when the Ebola virus in West and Central Africa arrived and where thousands of black bodies would be buried in mass graves as the global (Murdoch and others) media paid handsomely for the images.  Well, that did not happen.  Not that it makes it any better. Death, after all is death.  Regardless of race, colour but of course except for ‘class’.  

The latter point being reflective of the false assumption that "no way could the ‘rich could die of the ‘Rona’ " (said in an American accent).  It was assumed to be a disease, be it in the global east, west, south or north, of those without access to health care.  Especially the expensive, private kind which is not accessible to all by way of privileged cost. 

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) pronouncements on Covid 19 were taken to be the usual ones couched in either what Said referred to as Orientalism or Conradian, where it came to considerations on Africa, particularly again South of the Sahara and the impact of the same. 

Again it turned out to be neither. 

Here in Zimbabwe we sort of followed the WHO’s guidelines.  Again as somewhat led by our regional hegemony South Africa which behaved like a global urban superpower in what still remains and perceived of as proverbial ‘heart of darkness’ and in defence of private capital.  Lockdown orders were issued and we, in Zimbabwe with some understanding of regional immigration/emigration patterns to ‘Egoli’ (South Africa)  sort of followed suit.  Even if we remained thoroughly but a-historically unwanted there. 

But let us not overthink this.  Because ‘thinking’ on social media does not get eyeballs or clicks.  Lets lay it down as simply as we can. Particularly for many Zimbabweans within our borders, the Diaspora or those that would court the ears of global superpowers. 

The year 2020 as it writes a letter to 2021 will advise the latter of the fact that Covid 19 made it(self) as eventful as it would be non-dramatic.  Whereas it (2020) assumed there would be emerging key questions about the capitalist system and its inability to deal equitably with an urgent public health crisis caused by the ‘Rona’, it turns out those directly affected never found time to question the fundamentals of the pandemic.  They tried to continue their normal lives until it knocked on their doorsteps but regrettably and tragically also moved on afterwards. Having learnt little and tried to normalize tragically affected lives of especially young ones.

Almost like main actors in Hollywood films do when their close supporting act (in the script and visually also do) ‘dies’.  Except that sadly in reality people have been dying. In our Zimbabwean context untested or tested for Covid 19. But the main actor mentality falsely keeps us confident that one way or the other we will get through this.  Especially now that ‘hope’ has emerged with the introduction of a vaccine for Covid 19. 

Ironically in our Zimbabwean context, we have tried to do our politics as usual. As did many other countries.  In fact some like Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, the United States of America (USA) have proceeded or are proceeding with constitutionally bound elections.  In our case we are still trying to demonstrate a specific ability to permit specific human freedoms except where and when it is not convenient to the ruling establishment (warts and all).

What 2020 definitely will metaphorically advise 2021 is that its occupants, actors and survivors were not thinking straight.  Not only about the past, the present but more significantly about the future.  This being an issue that this blog on behalf of 2021 may respond to before the end of the week prior to its newfound existence. Almost as involuntary lessons learnt.  

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

 

 

The Political Economy of Social Media in Zimbabwe (An Urban Dog’s Breakfast)

By Takura Zhangazha* 

This would generally be assumed to be a rather boring subject matter.  Because social media is exactly what it is- social and ephemeral.  Except that it comes with human behavioral modification elements that cannot be ignored.  Especially at an individual level.  It easily remembers as quickly as it can forget.  Even though a majority of us desire recognition by its algorithms for the things we post. That is wanting to either trend, get in touch with long lost high school friends that we would never have remembered in our previous analogue as opposed to our now sort of digital lives.  

And in most cases we are somewhat justified in feeling like we own social media.  Individually.  The number of spats about trying to take each other timelines, newsfeeds or tags is always amazing to watch or read.  And of course the emergence of influencers, even in a Zimbabwean social context, is also astounding.  With a decent number of these being either musicians, pastors, models, comedians or in some cases journalists that eventually take one political angle or the other as it relates to either their values or their desire for eyes/views of their social media content. 

But like everywhere else in the urban global world, social media in urban Zimbabwe has come to mean highly personalized access to information.  More so information that you individually prefer. Be it political, social, entertainment or economic.  A phenomenon that has been described as the ‘echo chamber’ effect of social media. 

As it is, social media as represented in our national case largely by WhatsApp, Facebook and eventually Twitter, functions in its own awkward political economy circle and cycle.  

And it all begins with ownership for profit. In the Zimbabwean context, there are service providers that are in control of access to social media as well as more significantly the internet.  Initially there were three of them that provided, at cost, this access.  Namely NetOne, Telecel and the largest of them all Econet Wireless Zimbabwe via mobile telephony.  Now the latter has become a primary behemoth via its expansion/investment into not only fiber optic cable companies such as ZOL but also its reach into the yet to be fully explored rural market via transmission towers. 

These companies however do not directly own social media.  Neither do they own the devices that we use.  There are other bigger players such as Facebook (which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram), Twitter and the mobile device manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and Huawei.  The latter also operates transmission equipment that the three aforementioned Zimbabwean companies also use. 

Simply put, mobile telephony and internet/social media access is seriously big business at not just a national scale but more significantly a global one.   And we are the pawns in this profit motivated game.  Which we all, within the Zimbabwean context, quite thoroughly enjoy as it gives us some sort of quick political and social opinion empowerment that we previously never had thanks to the government monopolizing mainstream state and even in some cases private media content. 

We have therefore taken to social media like ducks to Zimbabwean water.  Except that we do not own that water.  But it is sold to us, like snake oil, on the basis of our desire to not be left out. One way or the other.

So for example, and I am sure a number of cdes reading this will attest to this, you do not pay Facebook, Google or Twitter to open an account with them.  It is for free.  What is however not free is your voluntarily given data.  It is then sold on to potential advertisers by way of quantitative reach for the profit of these owners. AS they deem fit via their privately owned algorithms.

Because it’s a general given that in our Zimbabwean context, the right to privacy is not high on our human rights priority list, we would sooner be recognized than protect any assumption of privacy on these social media platforms.  Hence we are happily social media ‘cannon fodder’ or like ‘lambs to the slaughter’. 

What becomes ironic is that we do not really seek recognition among ourselves but more from the owners of the platforms themselves and their global north societies.  For many of us it does not really matter where the ‘followers’ or subscribers are from, we desire that official recognition (Twitter blue tick/YouTube shield) more than we desire influencing our own context via these platforms.  In some cases, as soon as the United States or United Kingdom local embassies retweet or like a specific post then we appear to have arrived at a necessary recognition.   Except that we forget the ephemeral nature of social media and its equally temporary ‘recognition’ status.   Let alone those that would control such ‘recognition’ algorithms depending on what is permissible for you to post on what you falsely consider your personal social media property. 

The primary value of our Zimbabwean social media content is that it affects our ephemeral urban feelings. And that the owners of our local telecommunication companies, those of the attendant social media platforms and those that sell the actual mobile telephony gadget profit from what we are feeling. While at the same time urging us on to feel in specific ways via algorithms.  It is an urban dog’s breakfast. 

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

 

A Casual Neo-Colonial Cruelty: Zim’s Urban Local Government

By Takura Zhangazha*

What is the meaning of the urban and its attendant aspirational lifestyle for many Zimbabweans?  This is a question that rarely gets asked in the now because the answer would be assumed to be historically obvious.  But in most cases remaining oblivious of the same past.  This is a point I will return to during the course of this write up.

Recently there has been a public outcry over the demolition of houses in one of Harare’s densely populated suburbs, Budiriro.  According to mainstream media the now demolished houses were built on illegally allocated residential stands. And that it was the City of Harare (CoH) that went out of its way to seek a high court order to not only evict but demolish the houses that had been built by what one can consider poorer urban residents of the capital city. 

As is known, no public outcry can/will occur without catching the attention of political parties and their leaders. In the immediate aftermath of the demolitions the political blame-games and showmanship began. In reality and on social media.  The ruling Zanu Pf party and senior central government officials accused the opposition MDC-Alliance run CoH of being corrupt and incompetent.  In turn  the opposition leadership not only countered the accusation but went a step further to seek to tour the affected areas.  And in saying ‘affected areas’ I do not mean it in the sense of a natural disaster, but a fundamentally ‘man-made’ one.  

On either end of  the political divide what without a doubt will be quickly and sadly forgotten are the voices of the victims of such violent evictions. Never mind the ineptitude of CoH local authorities and the central national ministry in charge of the latter. 

Some pundits will be wont to argue that there is also the question of the gullibility of those that purchased these allegedly illegal residential stands from land barons.  On the face of it, this is a fair point.  But it misses the fundamental issue I raised earlier in querying the meaning of the urban for many young Zimbabweans.

And this is perhaps where we should put on our thinking caps. Even for a little while. The urban settlement is historically an aspirational one.  Even as we read urban geography books in high school, we were taught about the ‘bright lights syndrome’. As it related to rural-urban migration.  What we never understood was the change of that so called syndrome into one of assumptions of permanence (arrival) and recognition forty years plus after national independence.

Whereas in the settler colonial years of Rhodesia, the city or the urban had gatekeepers who would determine those allowed to come, go or stay along racist lines, in our post-independence years we have not changed these repressive and exclusionary approaches to the same. Save for the fact that we do it to gate keep ‘class lines and sill imagine success in neo-colonial materialist terms. Hence the majority of housing demolitions always happen in previously black only residential areas. 

 Even more importantly we have not sought to make the city/the urban an equitable social livelihood arena for those that seek opportunity in it.  Especially as they arrive from what many of our policy makers probably still consider a ‘backward’ rural. Hence the ease with which Operation Murambatsvina occurring as it did in 2005 has been easily forgotten in urban memory. And its victims’ voices long lost to the rural.   

Returning to the aspirational materialism that the city represents it is a commonly held perception that owning urban property is a symbol of individual success.  In many conversations, and I know that if you are reading this you will attest to it, a key lifetime achievement is to own an urban residential stand, house or flat.  Its something that your parents/guardians, even as they are living relatively frugal lives in rural areas will relate to as not only an achievement of their offspring but also themselves.  Hence even if we were to blame gullibility of individuals for falling into the aspirational and materialist trap of getting illegal housing from ‘land barons’, we would still need to consider their desperation for success in the urban.

What this slightly historical narrative indicates is that we need to rethink the city and the urban.  Not just in relation to legally planned housing Instead a broader approach needs to look at the urban for a post-colonial (as opposed to neo) new paradigm that values equality, inclusiveness and social and economic justice.  This would entail newer architectural re-imagination of urban landscapes that defy repressive colonial frameworks that we still regrettably use to this day.  All within the ambit of ensuring the urban provides equitable housing, education, health, transport, water and other ancillary social services.  While keeping in mind that these services should be availed to rural areas too as we work to create new rural futures. 

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

 

Mnangagwa’s NDS1 Economics: Angling Performance Legitimacy via Private Capital

 By Takura Zhangazha*

There is an increasing ambiguity when influential Zimbabweans debate their current government’s macro-economic policies.  This is probably because they do not have structured differences with its neoliberal/free market/ease of doing business thrust. 

Ordinary Zimbabweans are not so ambiguous in their own debates and discussions.  From general observations they remain highly skeptical due to issues such as allegations of corruption.  Or their own political biases as they relate to internal Zanu Pf or mainstream opposition factions/formations. 

There is however nuanced comments on issues to do with infrastructure development.  Particularly where it concerns roads, bridges and state owned buildings/monuments.  Something that points to Mnangagwa’s keen eye on some sort of eventual ‘performance legitimacy’ putting paid to his vociferous detractors.  Especially as they emerge intermittently on social media. 

Mnangagwa’s economic blueprint for the next five years (2021-2025) is referred to as the National Development Strategy number one (NDS1) which was launched on 16 November 2020. With the assumption that there will likely be NDS2 as we head toward what they refer to as a ‘middle income income economy’ by 2030. 

And the caveat that he wins the next elections scheduled for 2023. And also that all national annual budgets including the recently presented 2021 one should be read within the overall ambit of NDS1.  (For an overview of the key issues in the 2021 Zimbabwe projected national budget you can visit NewZWire website here.) 

But it still remains important to analyze the priorities of Mnangagwa’s anticipated and desired performance legitimacy over the next five years.

Priority number one is clearly pandering to the whims and intentions of private capital.   And this is outlined in the NDS1 document which states,

“The 2021 -2025 Macroeconomic Framework is premised on the adoption and swift implementation of bold strategies, policies and programmes aimed at achieving economic transformation. This will be done through the creation of a thriving private sector led competitive economy, implementation of sound macroeconomic policies anchored on fiscal discipline, monetary and financial sector stability including enhancing an open business friendly environment, which promotes both foreign and domestic investment.” (Item 93)

You could easily refer to it as has been done in the global north as a ‘socialism for the rich’ Wherein the intention is to make it as easy as possible for global (east or west) private capital to do business in Zimbabwe. Particularly in mining, agriculture, energy and telecommunications/digital companies.

In tandem with this first priority would be a second one which is referred to in Section 94, the re-engagement of the international community (again read as global private capital).  

The key principle of this international re-engagement is the sanctification of private capital/property.  Regardless of its nefarious colonial history of dispossession and eventual profiteering motivated globalization. In perpetuity. (Crosscheck Thomas Piketty’s most recent book “Capital and Ideology”)

Reading between the lines, though it is not directly mentioned, there is an intention to then arrive at priority number three at ‘performance legitimacy’.  This being the assumed ‘trickle down effect’ of neoliberal economics. 

As highlighted earlier, this begins with the pursuit of a massive infrastructural development or rehabilitation programme. This includes some of those currently underway with regards to roads (some which urbanites like me do not know of), airports, Parliament, power stations and hospitals.  What the public eye can literally see is what it will appreciate.  Hence social media has been slightly agog at the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge road rehabilitation project or even the new Parliament building in Mazowe.

This infrastructural development has the end effect of demonstrating a ‘man at work’ persona for Mnangagwa and he knows this.   

Through this he however is ensuring the creation of a local private capital investment, for lack of a better word, ‘mafia’ that not only sees business opportunity but also understands that once in, they are all in this together with the current government.  It then becomes an elite state-local business/private capital pact about how if ‘you look after me, I will look after you’.  And this is the trend in global superpower countries wherein the revolving door between state and private capital is not only regular but is an establishment or oligarchy on its own.  

Including new pacts with former white commercial farmers that are now scheduled to be compensated for the ‘infrastructural developments’ they undertook on land that in the majority of cases was acquired during the period of Rhodesian settler colonialism. 

And a fourth priority becomes one in which there is the elevation of public-private partnerships for social service delivery.  The key issue being that these services such as health, transport, water, energy, education, media and broader social welfare can be achieved in tandem with the profit motivated interests of private capital.  As it accedes to and recognizes the fact that its latter-said profits will come from state capital. 

But lets go back a little bit to conversations on the national political economy of Zimbabwe under Mnangagwa’s government.  Many neoliberal economists, civil society activists and political actors are finding it difficult to fault the NDS1 except on the basis of implementation and allegations of corruption at various levels. In other words, they in all likelihood silently/secretly agree with it. I personally disagree with it in relation to its ideological premise of setting up a free market framework for a ‘socialism for private capital’. 

The reasons why some would want it to succeed is not so much politically partisan on either side of our political divide.  It is regrettably mainly about recognition and a return to what Mnangagwa himself has referred to as ‘normalcy’ in international economics/private capital. With the primary question and competition being about who in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, achieves this under the judgmental gaze of private capital. 

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