2013 and Our Coming Fourth Phase of ‘Political Evangelism’

By Takura Zhangazha*

In the numerous sites of African struggles in the then newly established settler state of Southern Rhodesia, there is the little remembered  story about a coming into political consciousness  of  Hwange Colliery ‘native’ (as we were called then) mineworkers  in the 1920s.   It is a story about an 'evangelist' mineworkers inspired strike and semi-strikes via  an end time or  ‘millenarian’ message to  the largely migrant workers in their deplorable living quarters. It all stemmed from a group of charismatic African Watchtower preachers who promised that the end time would occur by 1924.[1] Their primary message was the biblical promise of the ‘reversal of fortunes’ wherein the ‘first would be last and the last would be first’. 

It was a message that appealed to the thousands of workers and it eventually led to a new consciousness, though religious in large part, among the workers . Issues such as  unfair treatment of workers and low wages were central lexicons of the worker resistance debates and the millenarian message was made more clear  with a declaration that the white manager had to go by the beginning of 1924 (as part of the ‘end time’ narrative).  

Thus began a short lived euphoric period of hope and change among the mineworkers that was quickly thwarted via the removal of the charismatic preachers from the mine back to either then then Nyasaland or Northern Rhodesia.  While it was the repression that ended the euphoria of change for the workers, it was also divisions within their 'millenarian-cum-unionist' movement and the inability of its leaders to reach across their narrow interests to expand their nascent half religious, half labour movement into a long term and continually worker-centered one.  In essence, they misconstrued their popularity for the actual ‘revolutionary’ or ‘change’ moment so long they promised a reversal of the fortunes for their working colleagues.  However and even though it was limited to the colliery and is a somewhat microcosmic but complicated example, the case of the Hwange Watchtower twelve and their leadership style  is instructive to those that wish to understand contemporary Zimbabwean politics.

 This is because our contemporary Zimbabwean society has been structured around declarations and intentions of hope and change that have been definitive in their occurrence but to the greater extent unrealized in their aftermath.  This in similar and charismatic leadership  fashion to the religious unionism of the Hwange African mineworkers in the 1920s.

To expand further, there have been three definitive epochs of change in post independent Zimbabwe that rode high on the charismatic leadership of euphoria of hope and change. The first being that of our national independence itself with  its attendant sacrifice and euphoria, the second being the establishment of the Unity Accord which managed to stop both the war in the South and reduce the national political persecution of Pf Zapu supporters. The third phase is that which relates to our contemporary times and essentially begins with the constitutional referendum of 2000, where we now had a more politically assertive populace.

In the first phase, we indeed had a popular and charismatic  leadership, a characteristic that was seen amongst the leaders at Hwange Colliery with the Watchtower evangelists. They promised hope and change in the name of democracy, socialism (gutsaruzhinji) but before the decade was over, they had begun to implement both the infamous one party state, the Executive Presidency and  initiated the disastrous phase of neo-liberal economic policies. The sloganeering and the narratives of liberation were extremely important in their occurrence and were to all intents and purposes meant to be definitive. Like the workers at Hwange Colliery, we took to the new slogans like ducks to water and expected eagerly. 

 

 What we did not realize was that while we accepted the promises of the new leaders, we did not adequately query their pragmatism nor how organic their links with our collective national aspirations were. Instead we left all of the decisions on the future of our society to those that led us, or alternatively, we trusted them too much primarily out of their awe and charisma as opposed to the principled and democratic national agenda. 

And we arrived with these same dispostions to the second phase, that of the signing of the 1987 Unity Accord.  Our charismatic leaders  told us that there would now be peace, yet the peace was underpinned by continued suspicion of everything oppositional. When it came to the unity government’s  policy was informed by a new mimicry of the new Western hegemony (after the Cold War) that was devoid of the historical trajectory of the initial phase’s promises of hope and change.  

Again as with the first phase of change, we were somewhat euphoric about the promises of new changes under the false sophistry of charisma and personality cults. The only ‘changes’ that we came to observe  were more in the offices and profligacy of government than they were evident even in any wishful democratic reality. Our leaders of that time,  like the Hwange religious-cum-unionist activists, used the language of redemptive finality and promise as bait for us to follow their lead.  Indeed we wanted to have this told to us because it was not only liberatory language but it held out an absolute promise for the betterment of our lives (whether it was apocalyptic or not). 

It is in this same period that we were to be righteously preached to about  bracing ourselves for economic structural adjustment and accept the ‘wisdom’ of the market. We also learnt to accept our leaders mimicry of the knowledge and cultural productive systems of the west to the extent that we were more interested in the acted out World Wrestling Federation (WWF) than the fact that the state had disinvested in our own children’s education and health.  The promise again, had been popular but like that of ‘Wankie Kolia’  it turned out to be false and short lived, even if it suited the ‘consciousness’ of that time. 

Our third post independence ‘hope and change’ phase came in the late 1990s.  We were to find  leaders whom we tasked with the social democratic revolutionary task of not only re-imagining the future on our behalf but making it a reality. Against the backdrop of the betrayals of the first and second phases of the national dream, we again supported those that would have the country back on the path to the change that we have required across decades of struggle and variegated leadership. 

Our new political ‘evangelists’ promised us that they were there to struggle for our human rights (which was/is a good thing) but like the 1920s Watchtower comrades of Hwange Colliery, they appear to have mistaken the popular support for their moment and movement for the endgame in and of itself. They have ignored the reactionary nature of the ‘colliery management’ as it were, and we find ourselves celebrating more their ephemeral popularity than that of seeking organic progress. 

And by this I mean that there has been a failure to understand that within the popular moment, as in 1980 and in 1989, and with 2000 to present, comes the responsibility of organic (and therefore consistently principled commitment thereto) societal transformation.  And this is yet to be realized even four years after a valiant but violently repressed attempt at seeking to acquire a new and social democratic society as ideologically enunciated by the leaders of the third phase of hope and change.  

In relation to contemporary times, these third phase leaders have now had an interaction with the first and second phase leaders (most of whom have remained the same) in what has been called an inclusive government.  It is also a phase that has been referred to as the ‘transition’ in line with the general definitions of what has also come to be known as the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (NPIC). 

Unfortunately for us, all of our contemporary 'political evangelist' leaders have now come to a default arrangement where they see themselves as the only main players of Zimbabwe’s political future and this, not necessarily in tandem with a national dream.  Instead it is for the purposes of maintaining a new found status quo wherein it is more their own rivalry that becomes the political mainstay and not a nationally shared future for all Zimbabweans.

It is this unspoken attitude and reality that brings to an end of this third post independence phase of our struggles to be a country that respects the full aspirations of its own people. In 2013 we will enter another phase that will either consolidate the return to a structured neo-liberalism shrouded in erratic nationalism and inorganic elitist discourses of democratization. Alternatively we can use 2013 to ensure the return to the path of the true national aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe. And that would begin with a return to the initial hope and change for a social democratic state and society.

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

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[1] For fuller versions of this amazing story see Phimster I. 1994. Wankie Kolia. Coal Capital and Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe 1894-1954, Harare, Baobab Books, . And also see Ncube G. 2004. A History of Northwestern Zimbabwe, 1850-1964, Kadoma, Mond Books

Zimbabwe, SADC's Historical Obligation to Find Peace in DR Congo.

 By Takura Zhangazha.*

I first learnt of the existence of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) via an act of ‘cultural solidarity’ when it was still called Zaire and under the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.  It was when two of that country’s more popular  musicians, ,KandaBongo Man and Kofi Olomide  were revolutionizing Zimbabwean music tastes via their genre of music, then referred to as ‘soukous’ in the early to mid-90s. 

I was to later encounter and know more about  the DRC in the second half of the same decade via reading and seeing stories in the press about  Mobutu Sese-Seko initially trying to co-opt the opposition into some sort of national assembly as well as repressively dealing with massive student strikes in Lubumbashi and Kinshasa.  

But perhaps for most adult Zimbabweans, the most direct interaction they remember our two countries’ histories to have had, was that of the multi-national DRC war of 1998 in which our national Defence Forces were committed by our then government  to fight under the auspices of SADC’s Organ on Politics, Security and Defence. We would remember this particular war because we lost the lives of brave members of our armed forces.  It is a war that is also remembered because of disagreements over the nature of intervention in the DRC by SADC member states (particularly Zimbabwe and newly independent South Africa under Mandela)  as well as its increasing loss of popularity back here at home. It was also  to become a war that would significantly contribute to the exacerbation of the financial and economic crisis that became very apparent in the same year our troops were committed to the DRC.  

The motivation for this war is still disputed in some circles and for now it is the official version that when Zimbabwe chaired the then recently established SADC Organ on Politics,Security and Defence Cooperation, it had received a request from the one of the newest members of SADC, the DRC  for protection against ‘foreign aggressors’.  

The decision, along with two other SADC states Namibia, Angola and a non SADC member state Chad, to assist the beleaguered government of the late DRC President Laurent Kabila, remains one that will forever be viewed in opposite terms by Zimbabweans. Some were and continue to be in support while others were and have continued to be opposed to our role in the Congo.  Domestically this war led to the arrests of journalists such as Grace Kwinjeh then working for The Zimbabwe Mirror weekly and it was also to be one of the major public disgruntlement issues that assisted the then mainstream civil society's popular mobilisation processes against government and the role of the President in taking the country to war. 

These controversies do not however take away the historical fact that by virtue of that act of seeking to assist the Kabila government retain control of its territory, Zimbabwe cannot ignore its obligation to participate in getting the DRC back to peace and stability. And this is also true for SADC,  inclusive of  member states who may not have agreed with the Organ on Peace, Security and Defence Cooperation resolution in 1998 or even with the permitting of DRC to become a SADC member. 

Where we fast forward to contemporary times, it is almost tragic to think that most parts of the DRC have not known peace since our own intervention. This is most tellingly so for the Eastern parts of the Congo which are coveted by many in the region (both state and non state actors) for their mineral wealth and attendant porous borders.  The holding of (disputed) elections, the intervention of even the United Nations, the selective indictment of various war criminals by the International Criminal Court, all seem not to have done the trick in order to bring peace to the DRC. And even where all of these developments  must be viewed as ‘work in progress’ the fact that the largest town in Eastern Congo (Goma) has fallen to M23 rebels rumoured to be supported by that region's alleged aggressor states, Uganda and Rwanda while under the direct watch of MONUSC ,must be serious cause for concern for all Africans.  Not only because of the potential for a fully blown out war in the region but also because of the internal displacement and tragic loss of life by  civilians who have never known peace proper.

It is therefore urgent that we begin to look at the DRC crisis no longer as being just the responsibility of the United Nations or the Great Lakes intergovernmental summit or the latter's appointed 'mediator', President Museveni of Uganda. Neither should the crisis be confined to Western understandings of its full import through borderline 'missionary' arguments and residual colonial discourses about ‘hearts of darkness’, let alone perceptions that all African leaders  function  in the ‘footsteps of Mr. Kurtz’. 

If ever there was a time where Africans must demonstrate that we are not perpetual slaves to conflict (such as the evidently proxy one in the DRC) we should at least insist that our national governments, regional and continental bodies and the UN  act much more decisively to get the DRC on a more permanent path to peace and stability. It is an historical obligation and necessity and it begins with a phone call, petition, statement or request to our ministers of foreign affairs to let them know, that Africa expects peace, and in decisive fashion. Particularly for the DRC, and as has been oft said in many an African struggle, 'freedom in our lifetime'.  

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

2013 National Budget: 'Last orders' for the inclusive government?

By Takura Zhangazha* 

This month Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance will present the inclusive government’s last policy salvo in the form of the 2013 projected national budget.  It will however be presented without the air of finality I imply here.  That’s probably because it is an electoral budget both in relation to what will be its key priorities as well as in the relevant minister trying to pitch for his party’s performance legitimacy in the negotiated government.  The latter point is evidenced also by the promises prior to the presentation of the budget of not only bonuses but even pay increments for civil servants who are significant  national opinion makers in an election year. More-so after the informal announcement by  President  Mugabe that elections are scheduled for next March.

This fourth and final budget of the inclusive government will not be the subject of much debate in a Parliament that is close to the end of its term of office and more worried about party primaries than national policies. Neither will it be strenuously argued over in Cabinet, when both the President and Prime Minister are hopeful they will be presenting a less negotiated budget to a new Parliament in potentially less than six months.  So it will be a highly politicized budget with limited little by way of long term or firm policy directives. Except perhaps for the issue of civil service bonuses, income tax thresholds and customs duty on foreign goods.  And these are issues that will concern more the ordinary citizen than our ‘end of tenure’  political leaders. 

In fact our politicians are so conscious of their time being up. It has been reported in the media that members of Parliament are now asking for ‘exit packages’ or 'pensions' because they fear that they will not come back or will not have resources to launch re-election bids. And all of this somewhat conveniently before the budget is presented. Cabinet too is not to be exempted from this now apparent affinity for profligacy when one looks at Ministers' propensity to travel for almost every conference abroad  and other issues such as luxury vehicles in a country with inadequate and for the most part, dilapidated public transport. 

So as it is, the 2013 national budget might just be a case of ‘last orders at closing time’ for leaders and parties in the inclusive government. From ‘pensions’ through to the purchase of new vehicles for officials who have no more than six months left in office, these  ‘last orders’ will be many and will come from members of the parties in the inclusive government.  

What will be missing, once again, is a progressive policy imprint on the country’s economy not just for the year 2013, but for posterity. And this has been the problem of all of the last three budgets that have been presented by the inclusive government to Parliament.  They have not sought to provide a holistic and progressive framework that sets the country on a traceable economic recovery path. 

They have sought to 'stabilize' the neo-liberal framework that has informed the national economy since the years of Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP).  This means instead of using the economic crisis of the late 1990s as well as that of 2007 to change the World Bank sponsored (and for the large part, failed) frameworks of addressing the challenges of the national economy, the inclusive government has merely perpetuated them.   

This has been done through reversion to the euphemistic public-private partnerships which have been more about ceremonies than real economic progress;  the continued state disinvestment in its own public infrastructure and social services much to the detriment of the livelihoods of many; the unmitigated and elitist courting of extractive foreign direct investment and the outsourcing of key state responsibilities such as drought relief and healthcare provision  to international organisations whose terms of reference and resources are not only limited but can also be selective. 

The parties in the inclusive government have however sought to blame each other for the incoherence of our national economy and their economic policies. One party will argue that agriculture is underfunded while another will say that mineral wealth particularly that accrued from diamond mining is not being adequately or properly remitted to the fiscus.  These sort of accusations may come with the territory that has been the inclusive government but are only symptomatic of the greater problem of the lack of a holistic understanding of the necessity of a progressive social democratic economy for Zimbabwe. 

For instance, even if one were to eventually be satisfied with the funding of agriculture a key question that would emerge would be why then export the cotton when we can manufacture (even with our dilapidated textile industry) clothing and clothing items here in Zimbabwe?  Similarly, even where the diamond revenue was to be remitted adequately, why would it be proposed that it be used to repay debt to the IMF as a priority over and above the rehabilitation of Parirenyatwa or Mpilo referral hospitals? 

It is however most unfortunate that the inclusive government’s approach to the national economy, as exemplified in the last three annual budgets, has sought more a return to a neo-liberal past and not a progressive social democratic future.  Where we await the 2013 one, we must be aware that it is the final one of the inclusive government and it is most likely to be about elections and the attendant politics thereto. This however does not mean it cannot be about the economy itself as opposed to political grandstanding over our right to vote. We must therefore query its fundamentals with a broader understanding of the economic progress we envision (in my case,  a social democratic one) that will improve and encompass progressive livelihoods for all Zimbabweans in the ‘now’ and for posterity.

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

The Betrayal and Continuing Pedagogy of 'Mai Ezra'

By Takura Zhangazha*

Some leaders within the mainstream Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) party in Zimbabwe have a tendency to reclaim direct and organic links with Zimbabwe's grassroots when under sustained criticism over their policies or their performance in the inclusive government. In doing so they make reference to a person/character whom they refer to as 'Mai Ezra' and (most of the time) claim that she is based in the North Eastern Zimbabwean rural backwater of Dotito. This somewhat metaphorical reference to the image of a poor rural woman with whom the leaders have a direct link or at least with whom they have special political rapport with makes for impressive political grandstanding.  Especially if one's policies or performance as a leader is being questioned on the basis of fact or democratic principle.

What is also interesting is how the characterization of 'Mai Ezra' is intended to put paid to any criticism because it demonstrates a leadership that is in touch with people of similar socio-economic and political background. But because no one foisted 'Mai Ezra' on MDC leaders, it would also be important to analyze whether the 'Mai Ezra' that these leaders initially referred to at the beginning of their tenure in the inclusive government is the same one today and if any event, she has not been betrayed by her erstwhile admirers.

Initially and on the basis of a popular but thwarted victory, the pronouncements of her existence by the MDC-T leaders would have made 'Mai Ezra' blush at the unsolicited recognition accorded her. It may have heralded a new style to political leadership. One that spoke directly to her interests and one that would be significantly different from what she may perhaps have viewed as lethargic and insensitive Zanu Pf leadership. It has however probably not turned out as she expected or was made to believe it would. And this is probably with respect to politics, the economy and her own station in life.

Where we analyse her expectations of the politics,  'Mai Ezra', in her assumed naivety probably anticipated that the inclusive government would demonstrate and set a new path toward participatory democracy. As it turns out, this has not been realised and instead, the political parties in the inclusive government have demonstrated a tenacious commitment to elitist politics that consult more their own political elites than 'rural backwater' citizens like 'Mai Ezra'. This is whether one looks at the disastrous constitutional reform process or where one considers the reported and rumored  cases of corruption within all levels of government.

Moreover it would be apparent to Mai Ezra that the initial sensitivity to her interests and her problems has significantly subsided, with government leaders showing a rather reckless addiction to profligacy either by way of super luxury vehicles, unscrupulous use of constituency development funds and the sudden movement of leaders from simple houses closer to the people to astounding mansions. She may have thought that perhaps they deserve the luxury if she too was at least in relative and modest comfort were water, electricity and access to medicines (for her high blood pressure and her son's asthma) not so expensive or even just readily available. Alas she has come to accept that the disparity in lifestyles between herself and her once fawning leadership as something that she didn't expect but now has to live with.

Where it comes to the economy, it may have been the introduction of the dollar that got 'Mai Ezra's' economic hopes up, especially so after the MDC-T took over the Finance and also some other key economic portfolios in cabinet. With each passing month (or even year) the dollar remains elusive for 'Mai Ezra'. She has now turned to cross-border trading which sometimes involves stomaching ambiguous ministerial statements and imposition of duty on imported women's undergarments that are key to her trade. She has also now had to master the art of negotiating with School Development Committees/Associations and the local clinic to at least pay in modest installments the school and medical fees for her son 'Ezra' because the government will not subsidize access to basic education and health services.

She has  also now learnt that she must hide her maize grain or else still get a party card for the other party because, with the regular recurrence of droughts she and her son would be naive to wait for government to de-politicise drought relief. Or alternatively to avoid upsetting the field officer of one international food relief organisation or the other. And she has to teach her son Ezra things that her mother never taught her, things like not being too generous and becoming more cutthroat and cold even where a neighbour is asking for assistance that has minimal financial implications.

As for her societal standing, where in the beginning she was proud to be associated, by way of reference, with what the leaders were saying about her, now she is somewhat shy or reluctant to lay claim to being the real 'Mai Ezra'. There would be too many questions to answer about why leaders were doing so many things that some of her friends and relatives do not approve of. Yes, she still occasionally attends the rally, more for entertainment and the passage of time in her dreary backwater. Where she participates in political debates she knows not to raise issues of policy and livelihood substance because she does not want to have to deal with animosity from more than one party, especially the one that once spoke glowingly on intending to address her every political need. At least she can still go to church and even sometimes hazard a visit to the newer ones with their glitz and glamour and promise of a rich life with or without the politics.


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

Waiting for the new Samora Machels

By Takura Zhangazha*

Most regions in what is generally referred to as the Global South have iconic political heroes whose legacies straddle across borders and varying nationalisms. Latin America has its fair share and among the historical luminaries of that region is Simon Bolivar, while the Caribbean region  has Toussaint  Louverture.  Not that these key figures in the histories of their respective regions were without fault, but it is a fact that they are held in high esteem by significant majorities in the regions they lived in and beyond. Southern Africa also has key historical figures particularly in our 20th century's struggles against colonialism. Among the most exceptional of these figures is Samora Moises Machel, the former president of the Republic of Mozambique and a key player in the successes of the liberation struggles of not only his own country, but also of Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia. 

His exceptionalism as a leader is in the same league as that of the late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. The notable difference between the two is that Machel had fought a  liberation war and also had to shoulder the burden of having a hostile apartheid state as his immediate neighbour while at the same time offering solidarity and support to liberation movements from at least three Southern African countries. Against all odds, Machel held firm even where and when the Rhodesian and South African minority governments bombed not only Zimbabwean and South African refugees and leaders, but also citizens of his own country, Mozambique. 

This is  a narrative that is well known in Zimbabwe and perhaps more appreciated by those that were involved in the liberation struggle as well as those that are old enough to remember his tragic death in a suspicious plane crash on October 19 1986. But the issue here is not about his untimely death. Instead, in remembering Machel, we are remembering our own history. He may have been larger than life and one of the most popular regional leaders of his time, but what is most emblematic about him is his  deliberate and active intention to see the whole of Southerrn Africa free from colonialism and for the region’s population to directly benefit from the resultant independence. 

It was also his ability to provide leadership in the most dire of circumstances and his ability to understand a ‘revolutionary’ moment when it has arrived that separated him from the rest of the Southern African leadership.  Whether one looks at his decision to allow the main Zimbabwean liberation movements to operate from Mozambican soil, through to his insistence on negotiations with the British, and even where he signed the somewhat controversial Nkomati  Agreement with apartheid South Africa, when only at least five years later, even the ANC would begin direct but secret talks with the same. All of these characteristics and examples point to a leader who was both visionary and pragmatic. 

While some have argued that Machel’s domestic socialist experiment was doomed to fail, within the context of the global Cold War, a hostile apartheid South Africa and a foreign sponsored civil war, it is important to observe that Machel remained a principled leader.  This is the sense that he neither succumbed to either cold war camp (he even met Ronald Reagan) nor departed from the values that informed his country and the region’s liberation. 

Where we fast forward to contemporary times,one is struck by the unfortunate realisation that there are fewer and fewer leaders of Machel’s ilk that are left in the Southern African region. Not that they must all be veterans of one liberation struggle or the other, let alone be as charismatic as was Machel. Neither are they expected to be socialists nor even as revolutionary. All that would be expected is that they follow Machel’s principled and selfelss leadership example. 

This is particularly so in the wake of aggressive liberal interventionism in Africa by the West as well as the equally aggressive and publicly unaccountable pursuit of African raw materials by the East. Simultaneously, these two processes have led in part to the fortification of elitist leadership styles by our contemporary heads of state and government which is motivated by the pursuit of unbridled personal wealth via proximity to international capital at the expense of the majority poor.  

For all his faults and unlike our contemporary leaders, Machel kept in touch with the people. In our time and across the Southern African region,  leaders are seeking more and more to stay in touch with the next big mining or oil company for personal aggrandizement as well as gatekeeping the commonwealth for personal benefit. In essence our regional and national politics has come to be characterised by politics that is bereft of principle and democratic purpose unlike the politics that defined Machel. 

So as it is, we remain grateful  to the people of Mozambique primarily for their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe during our liberation struggle but also for giving Southern Africa Samora Machel, a regional revolutionary. And we can only hope for new Samoras not only from Mozambique but from the entirety of Southern Africa.  Also not only by way of names given to newborns but by way of people-centered, principled and democratic leadership. 

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

A Brief Reflection on Contemporary African Leadership

By Takura Zhangazha*

Reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography in late 1997, I remember being struck by one particular paragraph  that somewhat shocked me out of my messianic deification of the African icon. In it, he writes as if to make sure that the readers of his life story would understand that his decision to join the liberation struggle of South Africa was one based on pragmatism and necessity. The specific paragraph reads, 'I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, and a thousand unremembered moments provoked in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.' He also makes sure to insist, 'there was no particular day on which I said, 'Henceforth I will pursue the liberation of my people,instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise'.

It was a bit of a dampener because my then eager mind had been expecting a messianic narrative, even a 'Saul on the road to Damascus' moment for Mandela to make that 'final' decision to 'join' the struggle. Well it turns out he did not have that singular moment, a development that seems to be true for most African liberation movement leaders. Their leadership and participation in liberation struggles seems to have been driven by the sum total of their complete and repressive encounter with the inhumane apparatus that was the settler/colonial state at both personal and societal levels. Add to this the fact that the repression also had a Manichean character to it, then it is easier to fathom how and why not only the leaders but also thousands of Africans chose to join various liberation struggles across the continent. It was the 'age of resistance' by necessity and by the dictate of the common desire for equality and human dignity. 

It is however the aftermath of these same said struggles and the decisions made by our liberators that is now problematic. Contemporary leaders of not only Zimbabwe but also in most parts of Africa no longer understand the primary challenges of leadership and why they choose or are chosen to lead. This is because most of our leaders, even if they admire the courage needed to have undertaken the liberation struggle, have tended to be lost on why they are now in leadership proper. They do not see the thousand slights that the Mandela's and others experienced because they think that sort of leadership was only suited to era of anti-colonial movements and therefore assume the same leadership rules don't apply. This is probably a direct result of the fact that they believe the era of 'revolutionary Africa' is definitively over and as a direct result thereof, tend to apply themselves less in leadership roles and styles.

They no longer take time out to understand the societies and countries they lead, opting instead for prescriptions from international experts or transnational corporations who will promise temporary investments both into a specific corner of the countries they lead as well as an investment in their personal welfare. In other words, African leadership is now increasingly for sale. There are fewer and fewer leaders that find themselves pursuing the liberation of their people for lack of an option and as a fundamental necessity. Not that we expect them to be Mandelas or Cabrals but it would help if they demonstrated the requisite consciousness of the historic task of democratically pursuing the continuing socio-economic liberation of African peoples. And this beyond their politics of the belly.

At the risk of being accused of being nostalgic or even naive about former leaders, the key issue is that leaders like Mandela make it clear that they knew what they were doing in their time, and seriously so. Their vision was apparent but not easy even though analyzing their challenges was much more straightforward; they had to dismantle the apartheid/settler state and establish sovereign and democratic ones. After that, they had to pass on the leadership baton not necessarily to leaders that would mimic them, but those that would understand the revolutionary and founding vision of the people's struggles for emancipation. And it is in this regard that our contemporary leaders have failed dismally (inclusive of those that participated in  liberation struggles and still hold on to power). A number have gotten into or close to power on phenomenally popular waves, only to betray majorities in favour of mimicry of the West or East and in the process undermining historical opportunities for progressive and people centered democratic change.

As it is, we might need to have a contemporary African leadership that has a singular epiphany, one that remembers who we are and where we intend to go without falling prey to the easy and nefarious path of the politics of aggrandizement or unashamed neo-colonialism ( be it from the East or West). And like Mandela, in his heyday, this singular epiphany will be on the basis that, while there is no particular day in which they will say  'Henceforth I will pursue the liberation of my people,' they will simply find themselves doing so because they cannot do otherwise.


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