The Forgetfulness of Social Media In Zimbabwe.

 By Takura Zhangazha*

I am writing this because you will forget it. You may notice it.  It may trigger some emotions or emoticons.  But essentially you will forget it.  Unless you quite literally undertake some investigative research on my assumed digital footprint because you intend to employ or troll me. But even that too will be temporary and in your own digitally motivated moment. 

And these are essentially a series of moments of information as it relates to how you want to feel, think and where it is directly personal, act. 

But there has been a lot of important work on the true impact of social media over the years.  Including its ability to be a catalyst for progressive and also regressive political, economic and social change.   Even more important has been studies on the psycho-social impact of social media.  Though largely focused on its expansion in the Global North and issues such as the right to individual privacy, the various studies on social media remain important to our African and in particular our Zimbabwean national context.

What has been a very interesting aspect of studies of social media and its ownership is its structured approach to the modification of human behaviour. This includes the relatively established fact that social media owners are in it for the profit and we voluntarily share our personal information about lives with them.  All within a framework that has been defined by Shoshana Zuboff as ‘surveillance capitalism’. 

But there was always an abstract statement that we encountered in these new nodes of our own behavioural modification.  Even here in Africa we were told that the “internet does not forget.” Social media and the internet are generally now not considered to be one and the same thing though a decent number of us conflate the two. 

The complexity that has appeared to emerge is that it is not the internet or social media that does not forget.  Instead it is us that forget what the medium has presented to us. 

This is a relatively complex point to make.   How we have come to view for example our social media accounts and presence is essentially consumerist.   And not just in the sense of quite literally consuming information but how we also give it out with the assumption that we are in control of it . And also with limited knowledge of algorithms and their neo-colonial preferences.  Let alone their priority audiences.  Hence what trends is always what is preferable.  Both in relation to language but also specific images.

In our African and Zimbabwean context to be a bit more specific, while we may not value as much as we should rights to individual privacy, we have to contend with the fact that the impact of social media and mobile telephony is as ephemeral as it is a reflection of our shortened attention spans. 

This is likely because our interaction with the technology that brings social media to our fingertips is also a ‘status symbol’.  Not just materially (what type of mobile phone do you own/control”) but also in relation to a preferred algorithmic consciousness (does it trend?)  And with the latter question being about again the priority target audiences of the algorithm(s).

It however remains in vogue that social media and our other interactions with the internet are here to stay with us in Africa and in Zimbabwe.  What is increasingly striking is our ability to move on from what it purveys to us.  Both by way of actual information and also by way of our individual preferences, which are also referred to as echo chambers.  Not necessarily by the day or hour but by way of our own emotions and what we prefer to read, listen or watch based on our own preferences.  Except for the fact that these preferences need to be fed with the relevant content in our social media newsfeeds. Where this content begins to contradict itself, based on facts or reality, we turn to other content that feeds into the mill of our personal preferences. But if only we would also remember what was said, posted and shared in relation to our own beliefs and same said preferences.

Our contextualised social media, even though we do not own it, because of our voracious appetites for its real time content, makes us forget more than we should remember.

You may ask so what would be the way forward.  I would suggest that we begin to rethink our own true representation on these various platforms beyond an abstract mimicry of how they are used in the Global North. While holding true to the democratic principles of freedom of expression, access to information and that little considered right to individual privacy.  Within our own context.

But again we are faced with the fact of the speed of information and the modification of our human behaviour.   In this regard, it remains more important, still, to be more organizationally organically (including literarily/physically) focused than on a social media we do not and will likely never control.  That meeting, those minutes to it, that constitution, that ideology and its democratic ethos remain the foundation of any assumptions of progressive consciousness. Everything else, while it helps, is ephemeral. Because you will forget it. 

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

 

 

On Leadership in Zimbabwe: We Cannot Lead People Backward

 By Takura Zhangazha*

I like motivational speakers and people that are in the profession of advising others how to better themselves.  I also like prophets, traditional healers and mainstream church leaders that help all of us improve our personal and professional lives.  This also includes those that write books on motivation, leadership and well-being in our contemporary social and economic context.  I must however confess to not listening or following them that much.  This is mainly because of their ideological pretexts that do not tally with my left leaning proclivities.

But leadership as a concept is very important in Zimbabwean society. It is one that we rarely explore to its fullest meaning in our local context.  Including questions such as, “What is it?”. “Why does one want to lead?” “What is its purpose?” “What does it result in?” 

Such questions may appear to be abstract because in our Zimbabwean context we assume in most instances, that leadership is about money and political power at varying levels.  Be it in churches, associations and political parties. 

We also assume that education is the sine qua non of acquiring any political leadership role.  While education (including our ability to be proficient in the English language) was important during our liberation struggles and in order to learn the ways of the coloniser, it remains inadequate for a new future.

Hence most of our political leaders in and outside of government acquire or are in the process of doing so, PhDs, masters degrees or law degrees.  All mainly for the title and not the academic prowess the academic qualifications are originally intended to signify. Education cannot now be the sole signifier of leadership acceptance. Values matter more.

But more prevalent is the assumption that material wealth is what makes one eligible for leadership.  Something that young Zimbabweans now consider as the ‘mbinga’ culture or wanting to be “chilling with the big boys”. This being a basic wrong assumption that materialism and wealth, no matter how it was acquired, gives one a mandate not only to lead but to be chosen to lead.  Or at worst to choose those that would lead.

What is perhaps important is a discussion on the three questions I raised. These being, “Why lead?” “What is leadership?” and “What should it result in?”

There are multiple answers to these questions and a greater number of them stem from a very corporatist understanding of leadership. This being an assumption that leadership connotes profit for a company or for oneself. And demonstrating wealth thereafter.

But the reality of the matter is that a personal decision to lead is very much straightforward.  It is to better the circumstances of those you choose and are chosen to lead.  This may seem to be an abstract point but it talks to the heart of individual ambitions of many among us.  You cannot lead for yourself no matter how big your ego. Nor should you lead because you feel you are some sort of messiah because messianic tendencies end in tragedy or coups.  And you lead in order for the organisation or entity that you lead to survive beyond your tenure or your life.  But more fundamentally one should desire to lead based on their own progressive and people centred values.  Such values are not by default but must be evidently apparent to those that you seek to lead. 

Where we look at the ‘purpose’ or the ‘why’ of leadership, we must understand that it is to enable others to learn how to lead.  It is also to enable a progressive understanding of the change that is required in a society or organisation.  While values remain fundamental they are not dogma. If you are a president or chairperson it is advisable that you focus on enabling others to eventually lead.  And to strengthen the internal and external organic understanding of the democratic values of those that you lead and will be led by others after your inevitable departure.  Including a clear understanding of inter-generational consciousness (praxis). 

In the third instance where we ask what should leadership result in? The answer cannot be more apparent. Leadership must always result in majority people-centered progress.  It’s as simple as that.  Anyone who desires leadership and the recognition that comes with it cannot lead their people backwards.  Even if they concoct excuses it is in no way progressive that by the time they leave those that they led are worse off than they were before your arrival.  Not just materially but more importantly in relation to progressive, people-centered values and principles. 

Finally, where we think about leadership in Zimbabwe, we must remember that we cannot all be presidents. And no one was predestined to become a president. Leadership is in our homes, our churches, our sports clubs, our workspaces, our unions and our companies. Moreover, progressive leadership is a value that looks more to the future than represents a contemporary fad. We must learn to lead for posterity.

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

 

 

 

 

Miseducating Our Future in Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

We need to deeply rethink our national attitude to primary and secondary education in Zimbabwe.  I use the term ‘attitude’ because formal education is fundamentally about how we approach and value it. It is both personal and collective given the fact that it is about our children and the futures that we invariably desire for them (I will come back to this point later).

You may ask, ‘why a deep rethink on education?’  The answer lies in the history of formal education in Zimbabwe.  One which remains very much straightforward.  It may not be a palatable historical fact for some but formal education is a direct result of the onset of us being colonized. Even if initially a greater number of our forbearers rejected it.

Many of us with rural roots will invariably remember fireside conversations around an uncle or aunt who instead of going to school would hide in the hills in abstract resistance to the classroom or ‘kwa fata’ as it was referred to in those early days of the entrenching of the colonial political economy. With ahistorical hindsight we would find humour in this but the reality of the matter was that the introduction of formal education to young Africans via initially mainly missionaries was about disruption of African knowledge production systems. And also our forced cooption into a colonial political economy that promoted not only capitalist inequality but also the racist narratives that came with it.

What became contradictory however for us as Africans was the fact that education in itself expanded our consciousness.  It is a fact that a majority of our liberation leaders came from missionary education backgrounds.  Including those that would eventually be most militant.

Upon attainment of national independence and liberation the end effects of formal education and its contradictions were to become more apparent.  While we pursued ‘education for all’ we failed to dismantle an unequal education system as pre-defined by the colonial settler state.  We retained an unfair ‘class’ approach to education based on our desires to have our children occupy those schools that historically had been the best for white pupils and students.  And in this, we were far from revolutionary. 

Again, this is as contradictory as it is ironic.  Together with how it now applies in the contemporary.  And I will explain how this is so.  The assumption that is given is that every parent wants what is best for their children is an important one.  Particularly where it comes to education.  Hence in most cases and in conversation with a decent number of cdes, where we discuss our children the most quotable quote is that, “Whatever happens, my children should have a better education than I did.” 

And this is a completely understandable expectation of any well meaning parent.  Except for the fact that the future of all Zimbabwean children are our collective national responsibility. And here lies the rub.

There is a tragic assumption that the best primary and secondary education should be the preserve of those that can afford it.  Or even if they cannot, they should pay through the skin of their teeth to get their children to private schools that reflect more the societal reputation of parents than academic progress for the children. 

This is what sometimes crosses my mind when considering the key differences between public and private education schools in Zimbabwe. Differences that can be honed in around whether or not a student writes a Cambridge syllabus or a Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZimSec) one.  Even if it is established fact that the Cambridge or ZimSec syllabi equally make students eligible to a majority of international high schools or universities.

It then becomes a matter of preference via tragic inferiority complexes. As informed by a colonial education system and its attendant long duree political economy. 

And this is where I return to the point of the parents desire for their children that I mentioned  . In desiring the best education for our children we must remain aware of the reality of the whole of our society.  No matter which school we send them to, our children will come back to the mix and cauldron that is Zimbabwean society. 

Even where we may assume that a specific school grooms a child for departure to the global north, the truth of the matter, again, is that departure should never be preferable for young Zimbabweans. Especially because it cannot be defined as an organic career aspiration. 

In order to avoid the miseducation of our future generations we need to focus on at least three things. 

The first being that education will never be an isolated experience for our children.  They will eventually meet and mingle in general Zimbabwean society.  It therefore becomes a collective societal responsibility to make education equal for all.  Without the false pretenses of writing Cambridge or ZimSec (after all there are no major end effect differences between the two).

Secondly, all parents need to come to terms with the fact that their personal aspirations and experiences within the primary and secondary education system should not translate entirely into their own personal ambitions on their children.  Even if they had a hard time of getting educated their former schools are not pariah.  Never mind the fact that they helped them to be as successful as they now are to want rapture.

Finally, we should be cautious about how “education as a business” has eased its way into our national consciousness.  While people are free to set up private or even missionary schools the government has an obligation to ensure an equitable framework for providing education for all. That means prioritizing and expanding government/public schools at all levels and in all areas of the country. And ensuring that ZimSec is more efficient in its work beyond inferiority and departure complex comparisons with Cambridge.

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

 

 

 

 

Dear South Africa: Shallow, Trump-Style Electoral Xenophobia Will Not Work.

By Takura Zhangazha*

A couple of months ago, after the November 2021 South African local government election results were officially announced I came to the realisation that xenophobia was becoming an electoral issue in our neighbouring country.  This was mainly because some of the emerging parties that had made some sort of newfound headway in the elections had carried a 'South Africa first' message.  And in the process had affected the traditionally anticipated majorities of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party.  Even with the mainstream opposition parties such as the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the seemingly radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). 

Even when the issue of special permits for Zimbabweans came to the fore in the aftermath of these local government elections, I had penned on this platform an article titled, ‘Special Permits as Passes:  Countering South African False Consciousness’.  In it I had argued in the main about the umbilical cord that binds all black Southern Africans historically on what would be considered a basic and easily understandable historical point.  Based on again historical migration patterns, the colonially forced labour migration to mines and farms from countries surrounding the settler colonial state that was South Africa.  

And how a lack of a more popular understanding of this history has led to what would be a false consciousness among South Africa’s majority black population.  By way of a regrettable assumption of proximity to colonially inherited capital and ‘whiteness’ as a symbol of post independence national success.  Let alone revolution. 

Not that I thought my brief write up would amount to much in South Africa itself since it was written more to reach out to our own Zimbabwean colleagues in the regional Diaspora as well as try and affect our local policy makers’ understanding of emerging foreign policy concerns. 

What has happened since the turn of the year (2022) in South Africa should raise a lot of Zimbabwean eyebrows. The current minister of home affairs of the South African government Aaron Motsoaledi undertook a visit to the Beitbridge border post between Zimbabwe and South Africa to briefly inspect preventative measures of what were referred to by the media as illegal border crossers. With the South African mainstream and social media referring to them as mainly Zimbabweans as a predetermined media story line that thrives on raising (black) xenophobic alarm and despondency.

More recently, the whole xenophobic aspect of the local government election results has been playing itself out in disputes at forming coalitions or electing council committees by political parties in major South African cities such as Johannesburg and Pretoria.

And only this week opposition leader of the EFF Julius Malema launched a rather convoluted programme of visiting restaurants, farms and security companies to inspect how many foreign nationals are employed there.  Even though before the local government elections he had taken on a Pan African tone of seeking to embrace all Africans in South Africa’s political economy. 

All of these immediate events between December 2021 and now January 2022 point to a newly reinvigorated desire by South African political leaders to exploit what they now know to be a general xenophobic sentiment among their electorate. 

Especially after the results of the local government elections indicate to any serious analyst that this will be in an electoral issue within the context of internal party congresses leading up to the 2024 general elections in that country.   Especially because the newer opposition political parties have been effectively but tragically playing to its populist gallery.  Never mind how it will also spiral into ethnocentric connotations given the divisions within the ruling ANC as well as the white liberal counter hegemony of the opposition DA in the Western Cape. 

Cutting across these populisms and assumed counter narratives is the common factor again of South Africans and their leaders assuming an ‘exceptionalism’ of their country as separate from the rest of the African continent.   Almost in similar fashion to that of Donald Trump’s American populism.  Where everything foreign is seen as a threat to either jobs or a populist South African ‘way’.  Which in reality does not exist because the history of the country has no singular trajectory or narrative.  But it is all now being done in order to reposition parties in the expected highly contested general election of 2024 . 

It is really a question of who can rise above this Trumpian parapet in order to counter such shallow xenophobic populism we are seeing today. 

Let me turn to a penultimate point that some of my colleagues here in Zimbabwe and in South Africa will obviously raise.  And this, again, is a populist argument that Zimbabwe must fix its own country in order for its citizens not to want to cross borders.  While the Zimbabwean government can never wash its hands of its own complicity neither can its South African counterpart instrumentalise populism at the expense of regional historical solidarity that extends beyond even Zimbabwe.  Neither should we as ordinary citizens either side of the border gate-keep political-economic histories of colonialism and its post/neo-colonial political economies to our collective detriment. 

Finally, and this is primarily a message to South African politicians who are seeking to mimic Trumpism on this African side of the Global South. The making of progressive, Pan-African history is never realised in immediate populist or hate motivated languages based on gatekeeping colonial political economies. Or the ‘othering’ of those that you are, have been, essentially struggle comrades with.  The xenophobic electoral strategies that the ANC, EFF, DA and newer political parties now seem to be employing do not bode well for who we were, we are and who we can be. As Southern Africans and as Africans.

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

 

What Happened to Zimbabwe's MDC?

By Takura Zhangazha*

When Zimbabwe’s largest post-independence opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was launched in September 1999 it was as popular as it was organic. Stemming from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) it was a party defined initially by pro-poor and centre left (social democratic) ideological leanings.  It was however also a multi-stakeholder project beyond the working class as led by ZCTU.  It also involved civil society organisations namely the then National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the Association of Women’s Clubs (AWC), the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU), the Zimbabwe Chapter of the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) and a selected few progressive religious organisations. 

The organic aspect of the MDC was that at inception it was ideologically social democratic in its internal and external intentions.  All largely because it was challenging the hegemonic narrative of free market and economic liberalisation that had led to dire economic circumstances for ordinary Zimbabweans because of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP).

The popular aspect was due to the fact that mass actions such as labour strikes and stay-aways as led by the ZCTU under Gibson Sibanda and Morgan Tsvangirai’s leadership had made an indelible imprint into the public imagination.  And a new popular culture of defying Zanu Pf was fortified via the 2000 constitutional referendum which delivered an historical ‘no vote’ to the intentions of Mugabe’s government. 

The subsequent parliamentary elections of the same year and the presidential plebiscite of 2002 saw the cementing of the MDC as the most formidable challenger to Zanu Pf’s hegemony since national independence. To the extent that a lot of Zimbabweans (young and older) came to view the party as a vehicle of organic struggle. Or as the only hope for an alternative and better economic future for Zimbabwe. 

This success and show of political strength by the MDC brought in other stakeholders.  Private capital in its domestic and international formats also got involved in the nascent party and was to eventually water down its leftist narrative to one that while remaining popular and even populist was in tandem with a neo-liberal outlook.  Particularly in the midst of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme instigated by Zanu Pf. 

The internal dynamics of the evolution of the MDC are however something that a lot of us tend to overlook.  Or in some instances choose to forget. 

As big as it was not only at inception but also over the last two decades, the MDC has had its fair share of internal challenges.  The most prominent and one that started the ball rolling toward an almost permanent state of flux was the initial split of the party in 2005 over senate elections.   By the time the controversial and disputed 2008 harmonised elections were held there were two MDCs’ on the ballot paper. One led by Tsvangirai and the other led by his former secretary general Welshman Ncube and Arthur Mutambara.  Both versions of the MDC would go on to be part of the SADC mediated Global Political Agreement and the unity government that lasted until 2013. 

In the immediate aftermath of the 2013 harmonised elections, the mainstream MDC as led by Tsvangirai split again resulting in the formation of what came to be known as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by former secretary general Tendai Biti. The PDP was also to subsequently split when Biti and his secretary general Elton Mangoma disagreed with the latter going on to form what came to be known as the Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe. 

When Tsvangirai passed on, again his MDC was to split into at least two factions.  One led by his then  recently appointed vice president Nelson Chamisa and the other elected one Thokozani Khuphe. Both went on to contest the 2018 elections separately with the former ironically leading an alliance of two splinter groups of the MDC and a few other opposition parties.

In the contemporary, even what is now referred to as the MDC Alliance has also split into two with former secretary general Douglas Mwonzora now leading what he refers to as the MDC-Tsvangirai. 

I have deliberately given a cursory overview of the history and splits within the MDC to demonstrate at least two things.

The first being that these splits were fundamentally about clashes of egos and assumptions of either popular/populist or academic individual superiority.  Inclusive of undeclared desires for recognition as being individuals who are most able to challenge Zanu Pf hegemony by neoliberal/ private capital global players with vested economic interests in Zimbabwe. This in itself being a key departure from the original founding values of their own party. They may not find each other ever again, but they need to return to the source of their original values and the organic expectations the Zimbabwean people had and may still have of them.

In the second instance, I wanted to illustrate that the passage of time (inclusive of age) does not also mean the passage of ideology, values, intra-party democracy or at least specific democratic principles. Opportunism is allowed in politics without a doubt.  But it must result in progress as opposed to disintegration of purpose, organisation and belief in progress. Even where cdes find themselves in inclusive governments or in alliances with their former rival’s factions. There is always need to stay the course.

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

Brief Take: Zimbabwe in 2022.

By Takura Zhangazha*

The last two years, 2020 and 2021 have been almost dystopian.  Not only for us here in Zimbabwe but also globally due to the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic which in its various mutations, still remains with us.  Having lost so many lives we can be forgiven for, at some point, having functioned in fear and without specific reason to hope that things will get better in the immediate future.  And this includes the year ahead, 2022.  And from our recent experiences during the pandemic, if previously we did not, we now know that twelve months can give the impression of a lifetime. 

And it is these ‘lifetime’ twelve months that face us in the form of the year 2022 that I will focus on.  Not on the basis of religion (I am not a prophet) but on the likelihood of events as they have occurred in the past, the recent present and how they will likely pan out in the immediate future. With a specific focus on Zimbabwe.

I will do this in at least four respects but with an underlying perspective that regrettably Covid19 is still going to cause disruptions and a continuum of fearful if not tragic national consciousness.

These are as follows; the form and shape of the national political economy (I will explain later why I combine the two), the social lives of Zimbabweans, the placement of the country in international relations and finally the potential realities that we will still have to face at the end of 2022. 

Where we consider Zimbabwe’s political economy in 2022, it must be done mainly from an ideological angle.  I have deliberately combined the ‘political’ with the ‘economy’ not for academic purposes but in order to make it more apparent that in our current context, it would appear that in 2022 neither can function without the other.  This is mainly because the ruling Zanu Pf government has taken a neo-liberal approach to how they run both politics and the national economy.   If at the beginning of their five-year tenure in power at the helm of what they have referred to as the Second Republic, they sought to create a functional framework for the ‘ease of doing business’. In 2022 they will consolidate this.  And the signs are already there with major mining deals being approved and witnessed by the president, public-private partnerships being implemented for infrastructure development. A situation which has sown the seed of the establishment of a revolving door between the state (government) and private capital (business).  Something that never re-occurred with Mugabe’s government. 

This means that all our politics will largely pivot around a neoliberal belief in the efficacy of the ‘free market’ and ‘trickle down economics’.  A template that immediately makes for very populist politics either side of the political divide.  While the greater curiosity particularly on social media will be around what the shape and form of opposition politics will be in 2022, my riposte would be that it will be more of the same.  That is divisions, splits, counter-splits but all still worshipping at the same altar of neoliberalism as is Zanu PF.  In short our politics will not have any seismic shifts beyond electoral campaigns for 2023 and the accompanying polarisation. 

On the social and livelihood side of Zimbabwean lives, 2022 will see a lot more young Zimbabweans focusing on their individual lives beyond collective responsibility.  The question, “what is in it for me?”, based on lifestyle desires and ambitions will become more prevalent.  Especially within the context of the current pandemic.  Hence our emerging populist ‘celebrity culture’ of following people who are referred to as ‘Mbinga’s’.  One that will retain a mixture of religion and material consumerism.  A materialism that religion can now only hang onto as a lifeline given the current pandemic.

Thirdly, Zimbabwe’s placement within international relations will take on a more ambiguous turn. Not that our pariah status in global media will ever go away but because of the current government’s ‘ease of doing business’ approach to support global private capital our story will become more nuanced.   It will not be human rights organisations that will be at the forefront of the Zimbabwean narrative but private corporations.  As is the case now with mining projects such as the  Invictus oil and gas endeavour in Muzarabani,  the financialisation of capital (selling of Australian listed Arcadia mine to Chinese interests) and outsourcing of infrastructural development. 

Finally, and as we look ahead, the year 2022, will likely be one that may perhaps teach us a few rapid lessons. With the most paramount one being that unless our political culture is driven by collective values beyond individual leaders, it will be subjected to materialist ‘performance legitimacy’ public judgment. In other words, very raw populism which will rise in its crescendo for 2023.  Even in a pandemic.  Beyond this political angle, we need to embrace the real possibility that 2022 should be year of greater honesty to ourselves as a country and one in which we take greater care of each other.  Personally but more importantly, institutionally.

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

 

 

Lessons We Refused to Learn in 2021 #Zimbabwe

By Takura Zhangazha*

The calendar year 2021 should have taught the world in general and Zimbabweans in particular a great many new lessons about our shared common destiny as humanity.  Not least because the Covid 19 pandemic did not relent and emerged with various political, social, economic and technological end effects that we are still not clear about how to equitably redress.  Or the ongoing challenges of climate change that are no longer just scientific arguments but increasingly lived realities across the globe.  Particularly in the Global South.

In this brief write up I will however only focus on my own country of origin, Zimbabwe and the lessons that we have refused to learn. Or at best only arrived at by default in this year that has come to an end. 

And there are at least three of these ‘refused lessons’ we may have refused to learn that I will focus on. 

The first being that even within the context of a global pandemic and a national vaccination drive, we still sought, as is our current social culture to politicise this global challenge.   Continued narratives about how Zimbabwe was not going to able to mitigate the pandemic as well as other countries through to other narratives about vaccine efficacy by way of origin (SinoVac vs Johnson and Johnson for example)  were widely accepted conversations.

The tragic passing on of many of our citizens, despite all the pain should also have pointed us to our under appreciation of the value, right  and principle of access to public health for all.  Instead we expanded private health services and introduced our own form of local Covid 19 treatment ‘apartheid’ or inequality.  Even though in most cases the end results were tragically the same because whether rich or poor, all of us have suffered a Covid 19 related loss of a loved one.  Or if we got it and survived it, we are still counting our material losses or our appreciating more our own luck/religion

Beyond public health we also had again, a sort of Covid 19 related inequality around access to education.  With those in government schools at primary and secondary levels of education experiencing slower school calendars and less teacher attention because they could not access online platforms and electricity. 

Again this was the same with actual access to livelihoods/jobs.  While we made jokes about how for example, those in the urban were migrating back to the rural at the extended height of the pandemic the reality was that both spheres of our lives were negatively affected.   With those in the urban, including Diaspora, facing challenges of sending remittances to their rural folks due to limited employment.  And those in the rural having to shoulder the burden of taking in their kin who were having to come back home for economic respite from urban rents, rates while under lockdown. 

Secondly, as an unlearnt lesson in 2021,  and again because of the high levels of political polarisation in our society, we also did not fully understand the urgency of new approaches to how our society is holistically run.  And this is as things/issues relate to democracy, human rights and the best public interest.   When faced with such a crisis as Covid 19, there should have been greater public knowledge and understanding about key events as they occurred, greater ideological perspectives (including the reigning in of private capital from profiteering from this)  on public health and other issues even though we were under lockdown. What we sort of had instead were all sorts of dogmatic narratives and stubborn insistence that things could still be done in the same way, at least politically.  Even though we could not meet physically.   And even as we suspended physical electoral processes we hid under the cloak of the pandemic to retain political power at varying levels (civil society, churches, political parties, social clubs, beef committees, among many others).  This is despite the fact that in select urban and per-urban instances we could do online meetings in one form or the other.  Or even, with lockdown regulations permitting hold limited physical meetings.

The third key issue I would like to raise is the contradiction of not wanting to re-imagine a new future.  Two years of a pandemic, and a global one for that matter is a very serious occurrence in the lives of our people.  In 2021 we have retained a desire for what I consider the ‘routine’.  Or even a return to a preferred ‘normalcy’ of life (though in Zimbabwe that’s a difficult proposition.)  Our re-imagining of our societal future would be one that is ensconced in neoliberal assumptions of ‘innovation’ and less embedded in our democratic values and intentions to make our society much more equitable for everyone.   Based on the lessons learnt from the pandemic.  As it is, we are more about the figures (number of infections, deaths) than we are about the urgency of ensuring that we are always partly and democratically, accountably ready for any such pandemics in the future.  Particularly with regard to creating public health service, education, transport and sanitation systems that are fair, accessible and affordable to all our citizens.  Be they in the rural or urban areas where they make their livelihoods. 

In conclusion, 2021 was initially a year in which we had placed great hope that we would be over the current pandemic.   As indicated earlier, there is probably no single Zimbabwean with friends and family or individually who has not been affected by Covid19.  Yet we still need, while using our best science to mitigate it, still need to look at the bigger societal context and future on how to learn lessons that build an equitable society.

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