ZCTU over-shadowed by evolving social base

By Allen Hungwe

The poorly-attended demonstrations called for by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) last month, reflect the perpetual changes that are evolving in Zimbabwe’s social base infrastructure, as well as the failures by traditional civil society institutions to detect and respond to such changes.

When the ZCTU called for the mass demonstrations across the country, one could tell that such call and its planning was motivated by historical mindsets that have ceased to capture and fully understand the new social fabric, its requisite nature, temperament and disposition.

The reasons that ZCTU quoted for the supposed demonstrations seemed genuine and justified, but the method through which the organisation sought to address them seems to have been overtaken by social evolution.

The ZCTU is best remembered during the times and tenure of the likes of Morgan Tsvangirai, when he was then secretary-general of the then popular movement.

The movement is also known for birthing the MDC political party.

The movement is also known for its mandate, which in the late 1990s and early 2000s cascaded beyond just the loyalty of the workers but encompassed fervent and paranormal allegiance of broader civil society and ordinary Zimbabwean public.

That magical era is since gone and the ZCTU now appears more in the shadows of its original self. Many blame the misfortunes of the ZCTU on the dwindling formal employment numbers. This is somehow true but not the cause of the entirety of the calamity.

Part of it is the failure by ZCTU, and many other civil society actors, to note the crucial changes that have shaped the social base and its inclinations. The ZCTU’s past glory was shaped by its unmitigated capital as a protest movement.

In fact, that is what the labour movement has always been since time immemorial, crafted along protests and the demand protocol for better working conditions.

This protest capital is, however, no longer germane to societies that have evolved especially under what Zimbabwe has experienced since 2000.

Protest capital has a shelf life. When a crisis hits a community or a country, protest is usually appropriate in the immediate to intermediate phases after such crisis.

Beyond that, the protest capital is sustained by any progressive changes that a society experiences as a direct or indirect dividend of protest action and pursuits.

If the socio-economic and political system/environment however, remains unchanged in the face of incessant and consented protest pursuits, this tends to deflate the hope and expectations of the public to an extent that they begin to invest their optimism in other forms of resolution outside of protest pursuits.

The failure to break the ZANU-PF hegemony through past protests, elections, international pressure and natural degeneration, in the past 20 or so years has led to the social base evolving away from what ZCTU still wants them to do today.

The social base has been reshaped into smaller aggregate and self-organising groups whose priorities have shifted from the national to sub-national discourse.

Many civil society institutions, including ZCTU, that still desire to mobilise citizens at a national level and for national processes, will always fail.

This is because the social base has constricted itself more into community and lower level social structures, where people best sense they can score some small victories even if these aren’t necessarily political.

The social base has become more prone to self-organising than to being organised by large civil society and national bodies such as ZCTU.

The social base has also resorted to codifying their own priorities based on day-to-day and pertinent needs with less appetite to lend their support to over-arching national issues, which are necessary, but considered as too distanced from immediacy.

This is not because national processes are less important, but this is the reality of a social base that has been exposed to a political hegemony as long-drawn and dominant as that of ZANU-PF.

When a social base becomes exposed to a hegemonic regime for so long, and such regime appears invincible, then there is a likelihood of reaching a point of “inverted optimism”.

“Inverted optimism” is when a social base gets to a point where it begins to believe that solutions to its prevalent challenges can only come from the same source that they once considered as the cause of such challenges.

This “inverted optimism” is the very reason why many now pin hopes in the recently formed or touted ZANU-People First (PF), as the main leverage that can “deliver” the nation from ZANU-PF hegemony.

There is a re-investment of optimism in the same convolution of ZANU-PF that has been the cause of what many consider to be the country’s perennial challenges. “Inverted optimism” basically makes short memory of how the likes of Rugare Gumbo, Didymus Mutasa, Joice Mujuru and others were actually part of the same system that they have now become so critical and opposed to.

Not that people don’t transform, but if such transformation is based on how they have personally suffered power and economic loss, rather than self-realisation of the need to re-orient value systems, then such transformation is somehow superficial.

The question for civil society, the likes of ZCTU and even opposition political parties is around how much has the social base evolved and how do they need to realign their strategies to tap into this social base. The old adage of being protest organisations will not give them mileage.

The old rhetoric of calling for mass demonstrations, will not find serious takers. The historical strategies of building processes that are pitched at national levels without grounding in community and self-organised community processes are no longer viable.

However, in order to do that, and to gain mileage, these organisations need some credibility and mandate at these community levels. Such mandate and credibility does not come from protest capital, but rather from transforming towards being value-proposition based institutions and organisations.

Cessible medical assistance schemes for their members. In certain instances where the informal sector has been growing, labour movements have moved in to assist set up trading stalls, provide health and sanitation at trading markets.

Others have mobilised the setting up of micro-finance facilities and saving clubs for members and those in the informal sector. Some have even gone on to set up trade promotion activities for the informal sector, as a way of providing value-proposition to the emerging and evolving social base.

If ZCTU continues to be pre-historic and stuck in the past eras, then the organisation, and many others in civil society, will simply fade away and fail to be relevant.

Should they not transform, then they will have to give in to the embryonic evolution of the “inverted optimism”, which is threatening to take away the mantle from traditional civil society processes, and invest it back into other forms of ZANU-PF.