ELECTIONS & ZIMBABWE

AS ZIMBABWEANS brace themselves for a national referendum scheduled for November 2012 and national elections planned for March 2013, there is need for a sober but critical reflection on the core elements of a relevant past that gave birth to Zimbabwe; the murky present and the mysterious future of this great Southern African nation that is at stake.

The murky present is locked in a series of debilitating contests pitting:

# Forces of progress against those of both puppetry and tyranny concealed under bastardised ideologies of democracy and nationalism respectively,

# Angry victims of violence and terror seeking justice and accountability against a terrified political-military leadership fearful of leaving public offices because of active participation in violence and massacre of fellow citizens,

# The terrified, hungry, impoverished, oppressed citizenry against a brutal and selfish elite cabal engaged in naked primitive accumulation ala colonialism and which has elevated itself to an alpha and omega leadership of Zimbabwe that only God can remove from power,

# Forces of global imperial designs ever ready to sustain Euro-American hegemony against pan-African solidarity seeking to propel Africa into a dignified global space,

# Forces of progressive decoloniality against those of reactionary neo-colonialism/neo-liberalism;

# Forces in favour of devolved power and governance structure against old-time forces of centrism informed by imperial Westphalian and Berlin Consensus thought,

# Forces of narrow ethnicity, clannism, regionalism, tribalised nationalism against inclusive, civic and pan-Zimbabwean nationalism,

# Forces of traditionalism, masculinism/dodaism and patriarchy against femininity and wamanism,

# Forces of gerontocracy against ‘born-frees’ and the future leaders of Zimbabwe.

Indeed, we need to be brutally frank on the diagnosis of the Zimbabwe problems before we tease out prescriptions. There must be no sacred cows as we seek for solutions to the Zimbabwe problems. We need to revisit our national history that gave birth to Zimbabwe and isolate the progressive cultures and values while critiquing the negative tendencies, before launching ourselves into an understanding of the murky present with to try and forecast into a dignified future for Zimbabwe. This thinking takes me to the liberation history which is the foundation for modern Zimbabwe.Zimbabwe has a proud and heroic past which is capable of propelling its living people into a dignified future of citizens capable of choosing a leadership of its own choice. We must remember our rich past, which exist as a secure foundation for our future. The Ndebele-Shona Uprisings of 1896-7 ranks among the other heroic anti-imperialist struggles such as the Boxer Uprising in China, Maji Maji Uprising in Tanzania, Battle of Isandhlwana in South Africa, Nama-Herero Resistance in Namibia, Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya and many other heroic responses to colonial encroachment. Academic problematisations and complications of these heroic African heroic deeds of whether the Ndebele and the Shona acted in concert and were centrally commanded aside, the point is that Zimbabweans have never voluntarily surrendered to colonialism. What became Zimbabweans in 1980, are a people with a rich history of resistance to colonialism. It is a people who resist colonialism, puppetry and tyranny, coming from whatever colour of the perpetrator(s). As we look into the future, we must be guided by these principles and values.

We must also be cognisant of the fact that along the political journey from being colonised subjects into ‘independent’ citizens, a number of blunders were made that compromised our nationalism and raised questions about the calibre of those who claimed leadership.

The coupling of Chimurenga ideology with Gukurahundi strategy messed up the decolonial revolution. The practice of acting as nationalist in public while practising tribalism behind the scenes complicated and compromised our liberation struggle. The practice of creating a ‘party-nation’ and a ‘party-state’ after 1980 opened the flood-gates for the return of ethnicity and tribalism in their most detestable forms. There were even strange demonstrations of ethnic thinking taken too far, where in the course of the campaigns for the 1980 elections one of the leaders of the contesting parties had the audacity to tell Lord Soames without blinking that there was ‘Nkomo’s country’ where he could not expect to raise a crowd of supporters and advised Nkomo not to expect to raise a crowd of supporters in ‘his country.’

Such dirty thinking must surely die if Zimbabwe is to live as nation. The perpetrators and victims are paying the price today for this obnoxious thinking. The yoking of ‘our guns and our votes’ into inseparable twins enabled, authorised, routinised, and normalised violence as mediator in politics in Zimbabwe and the consequences are out there for anyone with eyes to see. The other downside of Zimbabwe’s political evolution was allowing puppetry to permeate our body politic resulting in miscarriage of the Zimbabwe nationalist revolution. There is no one with a clear knowledge of history who doesn’t know that the Lancaster House in London became a political maternity ward in which British and American political mid-wives of Euro-American global designs actively participated in the delivery of Zimbabwe as a ‘neo-colony’ rather an independent state!

That was the beginning of puppetry which was followed by knighthoods being accepted. Policies of reconciliation and notions of forgiveness were used to dignify puppetry. As noted by Ibbo Mandaza, reconciliation policies were in reality manifestations of ‘the mourn of the weak’ even if proclaimed from high moral ground. How do we make sense of a leader who went at length to justify reconciliation with colonialists while at the same time engaging in Gukurahundi operation in Matabeleland and the Midlands regions? Because of puppetry, the Euro-American world condoned what was happening and raised no complaints about human rights as they do today.

The simple explanation is that within Euro-American notions of subjectivity, black people rank at the lowest end of the ontological scale. Suffice to say, in the 1980s puppetry was disguised as a mark of being a statesman and it developed into blind acceptance of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) in the 1990s that became known as Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP).  Accepting ESAP at a time when students, workers, and intellectuals advised the Zanu PF government against it epitomised the highest levels of the consequences of puppetry.

Due to puppetry, Zimbabwe lost its role as the bridgehead of decolonisation. The Third Chimurenga became muddled in violence, corruption, economic meltdown, ‘executive lawlessness,’ and resuscitation of the hold of Euro-American imperial designs over Zimbabwe. The message of decoloniality became imbricated with post-Cold War neo-liberal messages of good governance, human rights and democracy.

The MDC embraced this discourse at a time when decoloniality was in paralysis. What escaped the minds of many is that neo-liberalism is a child of the Washington Consensus. The Washington Consensus is leitmotif of global imperial designs. Consequently, Zimbabweans became caught up in an invidious situation of incomplete decolonisation that was opening the way for coloniality.

Coloniality is a reference to the continuation of colonial relations long after the end of direct colonialism. Both Zanu PF and MDC formations are guilty of a complacent understanding of operations of Euro-American imperial global designs underpinned by invisible colonial matrices of power.

Zanu PF is guilty of concubinage with Euro-American world in the 1980s and 1990s only to rail against its dangers of coloniality when the designs and the matrices were directly ranged against it. Zznu PF thought it could do what it did to the Ndebele-speaking people to the remaining white commercial farmers without any response from the Euro-American world! That was a misreading of the politics of classification of human population according to race that ensued in 1492 where whiteness assumed a heavier ontological density and value above blackness that was depicted as constituted by ‘deficits’ and ‘lacks’ (lacking souls, lacking writing, lacking history, lacking civilization, lacking development, lacking responsibility, lacking democracy and lacking human rights).

MDC formations are guilty of blindly embracing neo-liberal thinking to the extent of finding themselves not only caught-up within Euro-American imperial global designs but also having to defend themselves from the accusation of being running dogs of imperialism. With vigilance such a scenario could not have arisen in the first place.

Simply because there were global imperial designs that hovered above the Zimbabwe crisis partly reproducing it and partly seeking to act as part of solution, the Harare political disputants could not fully realise the invisible hand that made negotiations impossible. The cardinal mistake they did was to blame each other and resort to violence.

The reality is that both Zanu PF and MDC formations are caught up within the web of invisible colonial matrices of power that need to be clearly understood. Global imperial designs have tied them by tails so that they exhaust their energies on in-fighting and in the process sparing the real enemy which is coloniality. They must avoid finishing each other in this unnecessary violence.

The violence that has engulfed Zimbabwe ever since 1980 is part of missing the ball and getting the player. The ball is Euro-American imperial global designs in place since conquest. It is coloniality. Our leaders are caught-up within its snares.

Its long-term solution is three-pronged long-term investment in decoloniality aimed at addressing the issues to do with being black in this world that is best described as racially hierarchised, patriarchal, Euro-American-centric, hetero-normative, Christian-centric and modern order; addressing the issues of enduring global asymmetrical power relations in which the USA and NATO are at the apex and Zimbabwe in particular and Africa in general are at the subaltern bottom; and addressing the issue of hegemony of Euro-American knowledges of alterity that not only result in colonisation of the mind but make it almost impossible for as black people to imagine another life and world beyond the present that was shaped by imperialism.

It is a struggle that involve the mobilisation of the whole continent as it cannot be won by one country fighting alone. Zimbabwe needs to play a leading role in this struggle drawing from its rich revolutionary history and avoid missing the point to the extent of devouring its own innocent citizens.

Looking into the future of Zimbabwe

There are number of clear actions that must be taken to re-build Zimbabwe. It entails simultaneous pursuit of twin goals of decoloniality and democratisation. This future direction must build on what is already underway.

# The experience of inclusive government must be used to deepen confidence among Harare political disputants. They must work from the perspective that they are political opponents not enemies. They must wake up to the reality that the liberation struggle was partly aimed at enabling Zimbabweans to actively participate in the politics of their country through forming political parties and exercising the right to vote that was denied under settler colonialism. Men and women sacrificed lives for this right to vote and it must not be denied to Zimbabweans once more.

# What must be transcended is both puppetry and tyranny informed by misconceptions neo-liberalism and neo-nationalism respectively. The three years of the existence of inclusive government must not be down-played; instead important lessons must be drawn to enable correction of ideological mistakes and misconstrued perceptions of politics by both Zanu PF and MDC formations that landed Zimbabwe in an unprecedented crisis that opened flood-gates for easy external infiltration.

#  As part of furthering the pursuit of decoloniality, Zimbabwe must be re-imagined beyond the confines of Westphalian and Berlin Consensus discourses of centralized states that were imposed by force on society ala the colonial state. Zimbabwe is ripe to enter a genuine decoloniality route that involves a deliberate the drive towards devolution of power as an opportunity to re-model inherited colonial power structures and governance structures that do not enable Zimbabwe space to fully govern themselves at the local level.

Zimbabwe is as great country that must be ashamed on continuing colonial ways of governing its people. The constitution-making was a great missed opportunity where Zimbabweans could have genuinely embarked on state reconstitution and thorough decolonisation of this inherited political formation. Devolution of power is just but a beginning of a journey towards resolution of the national question involving further decolonization the state; indigenization of power and further democratisation of practices and styles of governance.

# While what COPAC has put together into draft constitution might not be what was expected by some constituencies among us, the referendum must be allowed to go ahead to bring this constitution-making to an end. What the leaders must ensure during the referendum is zero-tolerance for violence. The referendum will be a test-case for the level of preparedness of Zimbabwe for national elections next year.

Everything is possible for Zimbabwe if our present leaders genuinely seek to soft land this great nation. The courage that propelled Zimbabweans to fight the liberation struggle must now be deployed to democratise the state, socialise power and this can be done if we dedicate our collective efforts to face our history, seek truth, accountability, forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing.

Our violent past has become hindrance to political progress and this cannot be allowed to remain like this before it compromises the future of the next generation. It is possible to transcend our ugly past, only if we commit ourselves to openness about the wrongs we have done. Such priceless gestures as apologies work wonders for those committed to build nations comprised of various people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds.