By Nqobizitha Mlilo M
Zimbabwe pains me every single day. I often wonder whether people and organizations who call themselves revolutionary and express one view or another on the political trajectory of Zimbabwe ever put themselves in the position of millions and millions of Zimbabweans who labor daily, whether from within or from without Zimbabwe, in ungratifying circumstances? Do they understand the implications of their actions and words, or to them it is some dead rubber game whose results are of no consequence?
Do they not understand the pain they cause to many of us when we hear them speak in such unmanaged words? They debase us, dehumanize us and insult us daily and on whatever platform they get as people who do not know what is good for them, and they and they alone know what is good for Zimbabweans. Can they not see the yearning by Zimbabweans for a peaceful and democratic Zimbabwe which would offer them equal opportunity to prosper and enjoy decent lives?
In the midst of this recklessness and grandstanding, how do Zimbabweans find that elusive road to an environment in which they can regain their dignity and sense of humanity? In earlier contributions, I used to express a view to the effect that Zimbabwe will for a long time in the present and in the future trouble students of political science and international relations alike as they theorize, explain, educate and ultimately offer humanity tools of state and interstate management.
However, of late, evidence is abound to anyone paying some modicum of attention as to what the problem in the democratizing of Zimbabwe is. By problem, one is referring to the problem faced by what, in Zimbabwean lingo are ironically referred to as, ‘pro-democratic forces’ in their appreciable goal to democratize Zimbabwe. The problem is how to Africanize discourse of Zimbabwe‘s democratization.
But what is happening in today’s Zimbabwe?
Let there be no doubt and contest that Zimbabwe is not a democratic country, whether in its current rented majesty of the Inclusive Government, Government of National Unity, Transitional Government-call it what you may, and much less during the past twenty nine or so years under ZANU PF bondage. There is nothing inclusive about the ‘Inclusive Government’, neither is there anything unifying in the ‘Government of National Unity’ much more, what transition is there in the ‘Transitional Government’-transition from and to where?
If any notice, however remote is made to Lenin’s immortal contribution in State and Revolution in 1917, it would be difficult to dispute that the Zimbabwean state has remained effectively in the hands of and controlled by ZANU PF and therefore nothing has, in real terms, changed post the so-called Global Political Agreement. The submission is that all objective signs are that Zimbabwe is still effectively the same as it was prior to the signing of the Global Political Agreement on the 11, or be it 15th of September 2008. Even the very concept of ‘Global’ political agreement is as meaningless and deceptive as the practical re-engineering of state power which happened with the constitution of the government on the fateful 11th of February 2009. What was ‘global’ about the agreement and what was ‘political’ about the agreement? Indeed was there ever an ‘agreement‘?
Baring some miraculously extraneous events, the deception will remain for some agonizingly long time. Zimbabwe will limp along in a false sense of progress. Those committed to an immediate realization of the ideals of the struggle against colonialism, which we all thought the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had been formed to fulfill and finish as a result of what the Secretary General of the MDC, the exciting Tendai Biti refers as exhausted ZANU PF nationalism, will have to budget for years of despondency.
In these years of despondency, there has to be a nurturing and deepening of a new thinking. This thinking has to be anchored on the premise that the MDC, as the only reliable hope for the people of Zimbabwe, has to shed skin as a sign of growth and renewal. In this renewal, a new narrative of the MDC’s noble struggle for the people of Zimbabwe will have to radiate and gain audience within Zimbabwe and on the African continent. Put more honestly, unless the MDC understands African politics, speaks of Pan Africanism, relates in practical ways to the dream of the founders of the Organization of African Unity, its leadership and membership befriend other Africans in an enriching discourse of our pride as African people-then we may as well remain in despondency, and democracy in Zimbabwe will be as elusive as the summer heat to an Eskimo.
In other words, unless the people of Africa understand the MDC’s struggle as a genuine struggle, which it is, informed by the same values and considerations which brought so many to struggle against colonialism, then whatever the ideals of the struggle against colonialism, noble as they are, will not be realized in Zimbabwe owing to a mistaken belief in fellow Africans that the MDC shares none of those values.
Unless Africa accepts the MDC as a genuinely Zimbabwean political movement, which it is, democracy will not find expression in Zimbabwe. Those who have power and sway in the Southern African region and indeed the continent as a whole, will excuse the excesses of ZANU PF under the pretext of revolutionary violence and necessity in defense of African land from imperialist stooges.
It must then of necessity follow that it is futile for the MDC to continue to clamor for the involvement of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or even the African Union (AU) in the ‘talks’ or every time there is a problem when SADC has not understood the political values of the MDC as a movement inspired by Pan African views. It is simply taking the struggle into an arena in which the MDC is weakest.
Let it be understood that the MDC is a genuine product of the people of Zimbabwe’s yearn for a democratic country and a government that is responsive to their needs and aspirations. This mantra and propaganda, now being parroted by some who call themselves revolutionary, that the MDC is an imperial clone is preposterously baseless and a sophisticated way of rewriting Zimbabwe’s post colonial history in colorful emotive Pan African rhetoric.
That the MDC has failed to deal effectively with this propaganda is undeniable. However, that does not make the propaganda materially factual and true. The history of the process of the formation of the MDC, which is available to any that cares, the gathering of and writing of the document Raw Data led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union, the resolution of the resultant National Working People’s Convention which gave birth to the MDC bear testimony to an illustrious dedication by the MDC to the cause of Zimbabwe and Africa in general, and in particular, its working people.
While the MDC has been wavering and inconsistent in the rather idealistic hope that ZANU PF will enter an honest national debate, ZANU PF has been consistent in a rampaging malicious propaganda and therefore has manufactured an otherwise non-existent reality.
As to how the MDC must proceed thereon in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe which is Pan Africanized, the solution seems clear. There has to be an acceptance that first the MDC is a multi-class organization which some how muddled up its theoretical ideological grounding. The problems referred to herein about the MDC are partly, and I mean only partly as a result of the negligence of the South African Communist Party (SACP) as a party which has internationalism and the spread of political consciousness as an irreplaceable pillar, a responsibility the SACP carries in particular to the South African region.
The SACP should have, at the formation of the MDC and beyond, known that the MDC was a multi class organization and therefore had and has an inherent capacity to sell out, be inconsistent, waver and unable to deepen ideological grounding. Further, the SACP should have been alert that multi class organizations have an enormous appetite to swallow progressive people that over a period of time you can not recognize them anymore. At the formation of the MDC from the progressive ranks of the trade union, student, youth and woman’s movements, there were many progressive people. Indeed there are still some in the ranks and file of the MDC who are progressive, but by virtue of their numerical numbers are too weak and lack support.
The SACP would have been and should be able to make the MDC understand that a struggle is not waged on the basis of common sense-a struggle is scientific. It is fair to observe that most of opinion pieces, articles or documents written on Zimbabwe are often generally descriptive of the problems in and of Zimbabwe, and do not scientifically or ideologically unpack the situation. They are written as unending responses to ever present and changing conjectural issues. This is all because the progressive theoretical debates which happened immediately prior and in the run up to and including the National Working People’s Convention which resolved to form the MDC seem to have died a natural death. It is now bordering on common sense politics, and such politics is inherently unstable and inconsistent. Are we surprised then of some of the inconsistencies we have witnessed?
In simple terms therefore, the SACP should have and should assist in the grounding of the MDC. The MDC, its President Morgan Richard Tsvangirai and his collective leadership are unquestionably the democratic preference of the people of Zimbabwe. What is needed in Zimbabwe is a Communist Party to assist and teach a multi-class organization, the MDC, to mobilize, organize and educate. It is the responsibility of the SACP to lead and assist in the process of the establishment of a Communist Party in Zimbabwe, and there is no time or room for excuses or technicalities-just do it SACP!
The point is simple, whatever one’s views may be on and about Communist Parties, it is hard to contest that they know what needs to be done in a struggle, a struggle like in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans will stand ready to be mobilized and organized and in the process educated ideologically so they can have a scientific understanding of the issues at hand. No doubt, in the process some of the glaring Pan African weaknesses of the MDC referred to earlier will be ameliorated.
Putting it crudely, without a Communist Party in Zimbabwe, I can not phantom how the MDC will deliver the ideals the struggle against colonialism which no doubt, the MDC carries. Therefore the bondage under ZANU PF’s excesses excused by fellow Africans will continue, continue, continue and continue. A lasting solution to Zimbabwe will remain elusive.
[newsletter]
