ONCE again “we the people” of the land between the Limpopo and the Zambezi rivers are facing the greatest task of choosing between two different but similar parties — Zanu PF or the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) — to govern and usher us into a land of milk and honey that has eluded us for 42 years.
Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it would seem Zimbabwe is a cursed country. Our neighbours (Botswana, Zambia, Malawi and Namibia), perhaps except for South Africa, have come out of or are emerging from economic quagmires, yet we are still stuck in a vicious political and economic conundrum which is taking its toll on our psyche and humanity.
What is important to understand is that we are in this mess because “we the people” failed to fashion a leadership for ourselves and to be experts in our own destiny by directing the trajectory of our revolution after gaining political independence.
Forty-two years after independence, we are still poverty-stricken, a basket-case (from being breadbasket), with health and education infrastructure collapsing, weak and porous institutions.
The Zambian experience is instructive. After changing ruling parties for years with “repetition without change”, it would seem they have found a Moses who will lead them into a land of milk and honey.
As we are heading for the 2023 elections, allow me my fellow Zimbabweans to critically examine the choices we have in this watershed election.
It is a fact which needs no repetition that if we do not vote wisely this time around, our future as nation is doomed. Our choices are limited and have been narrowed down to two parties: Zanu PF and CCC.
Unfortunately, I am not a Jewish prophet who can speak with exactitude, but unless a miracle happens these are the choices we have.
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The purpose of this article is to help us to be informed voters, and to critically think which party we are to vote into office. As Zimbabweans, we have shot ourselves in the foot because we do not engage in dispassionate debates and discussions. We allow our emotions to take control of our decisions. Slogans, name-calling and hero worshipping are our specialties.
In this article, I am deploying Fanonism as espoused in Franz Fanon’s books Black Skin, White Masks (1961), The Wretched of the Earth (1968), A Dying Colonialism (1959), Toward the African Revolution (1964) and the autobiography of Abigail Adams written by Natalie S Bober Abigail Adams, Witness To a Revolution.
Fanon’s thoughts will be employed to critically examine the nature and character of Zanu PF and CCC as political parties, their ideologies, their leadership and capability to radically transform the colonial institutions necessary to create an authentic post-colonial State, not a “post colony”.
Abigail’s autobiography in instructive in that it demonstrates the spirit of dedication and selflessness on the part of leaders in critical moments of a nation’s history.
There are three key features of Fanon’s thought, namely: Radical anti-imperial theory anchored on race in the context of colonial oppression; revolutionary activities as psychological to be accompanied by material transformation; and individual freedom within the context of constructing a post-colonial dispensation.
Fanon disagreed with Vladimir Lenin’s concept of a political party being “vanguard”. He visualised a political party initially led by radical intelligentsia but learning and becoming one with the masses.
The exploited masses due to revolutionary politics churned and propagated by the radical intelligentsia gain knowledge and skills to exercise self-leadership leading the party to develop a completely different internal organisational culture.
The cumulative effect is that the party becomes a mass, radical and democratic movement in which the masses (grassroots) have the power to participate in decision-making and dictate the direction of the revolution/party.
Are Zanu PF and CCC “vanguard” parties or do they fit the description of Fanon’s conception of a political party? Zanu PF since its adoption of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism christened itself a vanguard party adopting democratic centralism as its political philosophy.
Zanu PF has never had a radical intelligentsia as its leadership. It has been (and still is) led by nationalists who were educated at mission schools and assimilated colonial thought and alienated from the people they lead.
Although a mass organisation, the masses were led like sheep and never given the opportunity to participate in decision-making or democratically direct the agenda and direction of the revolution. Coercion and not consent and consensus was and still is the modus operandi of Zanu PF. The leaders teach the people the Zanu PF way, and that Zanu PF way is not a product of consultation and debate.
Similarly, the CCC, a by-product of the MDC, is a creation of Zanu PF. It is a party born out of the failure of governance by Zanu PF. Unlike Zanu PF, it is not a vanguard party, but is also not led by the radical intelligentsia who “learn and have become one with the masses”.
At its inception, the party (and still is) a motley collection of disparate groups united by their opposition to Zanu PF.
It has witnessed so many splits in its short tenure of existence because of disagreements within its leadership, not the masses.
The masses were left confused and bamboozled and have never in Fanon’s thinking taken control of the party. As it is the masses within the CCC have been denied the opportunity to choose their leaders on the pretext that Zanu PF agents would infiltrate the party.
Therefore, the CCC is led from the top and the masses were never consulted about this decision. To this end, CCC is metamorphosising to being a vanguard party. It can be argued that in Zanu PF and CCC the people have failed to ‘fashion a leadership’ for themselves, but have a leadership that “tolerates the people”.
The cult of personality which Fanon venomously attacks and condemns is deep-rooted in Zanu PF and CCC e.g., Mugabe Chete; Chamisa Chete Chete; ED Pfee. However, what is disturbing and worrisome is that the two parties are led by a “national middle class” or “national bourgeoisie” whose major concern is to assume positions of political and economic dominance.
The history of Zanu PF rule since 1980 confirms Fanon’s assertion. The national bourgeoisie in Zanu PF since Uhuru with 1980 have been preoccupied with “taking the place of Europeans in the post colony serving as middle-men, mere business agents of European capitalism”.
The Africanisation, nationalisation and indigenisation agendas are self-serving mechanisms to advance the national bourgeoise’s own interests.
As Fanon correctly puts it ,“they are perfectly willing to [function] as subordinates of international capitalism and continue to exploit the people”.
The same can be said about the CCC. The behaviour of the former MDC leaders who occupy senior positions in CCC, during the power-sharing government clearly indicated the hurry within the leadership to catch up on the gravy train. It can be argued that the middle class within the CCC wants to take the place of the Zanu PF “national bourgeoisie” and “perfectly willing” to be agents of neoliberalism.
It is doubtful that its political, economic and social programmes as gleaned from its leadership talk during campaigns is “well thought” and geared for the radical economic, social and political transformation of Zimbabwe. CCC policies are reactive, rather than transformative and may lead to “repetition without change” or at the very least be equated to crumbs falling from the rich man’s table.
Both the Zanu PF and CCC leadership may learn from the founding fathers of the USA. According to Abigail Adams the wife of the second president of the United States, the salaries of George Washington, John Adamas, Thomas Jefferson as presidents were meagre and pitiful.
These early presidents depended on their personal income and their presidential housing was pathetic. To these men, it was service to their country and more than what they would get as presidents. They sacrificed their health, families, and professions to build a credible presidential institution.
This is what we expect from our leaders, moreso from Zanu PF leaders because they have been in government since 1980. Will their bellies ever be satisfied? Not drawing their salaries and benefits for just two months can go a long way to finance our health and educational infrastructure.
Alternatively, the CCC leadership can set the pace (those who are able to do it), then we can know that they are in politics not for material and financial gain. I am reliably informed that the current Zambian president has not drawn his salary since assuming the presidency. This is commendable and worth emulating for both the Zanu PF and CCC leadership.
Now let me turn to governance and ideology. Zanu PF has moved from “nationalism to ultra-nationalism, to chauvinism and finally to racism”.
Of late, Zanu PF’s ideology of African nationalism has metamorphosed to Afro-radicalism and nativism. Some scholars have severely criticised Afro-radicalism and nativism as “fake philosophy founded on the neurosis of African victimhood”.
Those who are sympathetic see it as a “reverse discourse”. Zanu PF, under the late former President Robert Mugabe espoused African radicalism and nativism not as choice, but a reaction to the existential threat from the newly formed MDC at the end of the 1990s.
African radicalism and nativism ignored issues of good governance, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The concept of national sovereignty was irrelevant in the face of economic challenges facing the country.
“Regime intellectuals” at the behest of the Mugabe regime praised Mugabe and Zanu PF as the “embodiment of Pan-African memory” and “reclaimer of the African space”.
This period witnessed the revival of nationalism or cultural revolution or patriotic history. The ED administration has maintained this tradition at the same time trying to open the space for international finance capital, with no success.
What is noticeable is that nationalism that produced the post-colonial State “looked like a liberation, but really began as one, but did not continue as [liberation].”
The most profound criticism of post-independence nationalism is its failure to create its own institutions and being governed on European models, chiefly the models of Britain and France.
The MDC under the late Morgan Tsvangirai enunciated a post-colonial project rooted in civil society and social movements antithetical to the Zanu PF political ideology that, unfortunately, visualised nationalism as an end, not a means to an end.
What is evident is that the MDC, now CCC’s political paradigm is anchored in neo-liberal ideologies of good governance, democracy, and human rights.
By default, the CCC is unwittingly subscribing to the “defects and lacks” syndrome ascribed to Africans which characterised Africans as “people without history” in the 16th century, “people without history in the 18th and 19th centuries”, “people without development” in the 20th century”, and “people without democracy and human rights in the 21 st century”.
Nether of the two parties’ ideologies are adequate to address the myriad of Zimbabwe’s problems. A blending of the two parties’ governance and ideologies is the best course of action.
Neo-liberal policies that propose that the land of milk and honey is possible through “liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within a framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” is an entertaining half-truth.
Afro-radicalism and nativism policies without good governance, rule of law, protection of private property in a globalised word is akin to shooting yourself on the foot.
Whither to Zimbabwe?
Zanu PF and CCC all claim their political, social and economic programmes will lead us into the land of milk and honey. It is doubtful that the leadership and ordinary people of the two parties understand what development means within the context of coloniality.
Do these parties understand the colonial discourses of development? Ngugi wa Thiong’o aptly spells it out for us-dismemberment “from the land, from labour, from power and from memory, the result is the destruction of the base from which people launch into the world”.
The fact that both Zanu PF and particularly the CCC mimic Western developmental paradigms is indicative of “weak thought” within the movements.
In addition, paralysis of analysis leads to pathetic understanding of international and local power dynamics and hence the glorification of experts from the developed countries even though structural adjustment programmes have dismally failed in Africa.
The CCC and Zanu PF must take heed that “nation-building and economic development ... are twin goals and intimately related tasks, sharing many of the same problems, confronting many of the same challenges; and interrelating at many levels of public policy and practice”. (Arnold Rivkin).
For development to take place in Zimbabwe, the post-colonial State must be deconstructed i.e, radical transformation of the neo-colonial State and re-directing the State to serve the interests of the ordinary people, not those in power or international finance capital.
The Zimbabwean State must be tailored to suit the needs of its people and demands —the creation of a people State by the people, not leaders. The re-constitution of the Zimbabwe State must be holistic, not reformist or superficial.
The post-colonial Zimbabwe State should be re-anchored in Zimbabwean history, values, traditions and indigenous political systems.
For this to happen, our minds as Africans need to be decolonised to help us imagine alternative development and political models. The absence of the radical intelligentsia who are people-oriented in both Zanu PF and the CCC means that the foregoing is not possible.
The leadership of both parties is characterised by “weak thought” and gullibility to Euro-North America development and political models.
Sadly, the youth of these parties suffer from a serious identity crisis and think that “to achieve an approximation of whiteness, [they] must denounce [their] own blackness” (Franz Fanon).
The realisation of a Zimbabwe full of milk and honey is not an overnight project and can never be realized by simplistic and cosmetic political, economic, and social programmes. We need amadhodha/omama sibili (real men and women).
- Lovemore Sibanda is Professor of Education and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism Faculty Fellow at Liberal Arts University in the United States. He writes here in his personal capacity and can be contacted on email [email protected].
