The Sunday News
Pathisa Nyathi
Richard Runyararo Mahomva
Professor Brian Raftopolous referred to the current political status of the country as the ‘End of an Era’ for opposition politics and I called it the ‘legitimisation of Mugabeism’. In my concluding contribution of The Post-1980 Chimurengas Explained (Mahomva and Moyo -eds) I predicted a transition in the definitions of political contestations in Zimbabwe post the 2013 elections.
Of the key similarities presented by Raftopolous and my analysis was the donor funding breakdown to Zimbabwe’s opposition orchestrated regime change projects. Likewise, this has already manifested in the form of heightened civic society silence on what they embraced as their rightful democratic and conscious driven anti-establishment standpoint. At this same time, this has revealed that the West can only finance tangible material resources and not the ideas that inform real nation.
As such, a greater part of Western handled thought was temporary if not materialistic and weak enough to challenge the common goals of Zimbabwean national aspirations. This coincided with my prediction of the reinvention of new narratives that would challenge the centre from a more home-centred perspective. As similarly predicted, the era would be and -now is punctuated by new anti-establishment actors whose narrative shall be a rebirth, a reawakening and a reclaiming of the didactic outlines of this country’s struggle for freedom. The new debates will be –and are still energised by the virtues of our liberation values and home-centred aspirations of national belonging.
The past months and weeks have offered a clear reflection of that inevitable resort of reinventing Zimbabwe’s contemporary national belonging. Substantiations of the assertion range from the issues that emerged from the Sixth ZANU-PF congress, War-veterans indaba and forums in the interest of interrogating national belonging. It is these issues which have made the analysis of Phathisa Nyathi and Cain Mathema’s books essential. Nyathi’s book discussed here is titled Zimbabwe’s Cultural Heritage and Cain Mathema’s Zimbabwe Diverse, But One. This means that Zimbabwe still has a unifying point of defining herself despite most academic projections that challenge the homogeneity of our nationalism.
They may be contestations on whether the legitimacy of Mugabeism is in itself legitimate? That is not the correct question and hence the expected answer might not be correct. However, what emerges clearly is that the current political culture of the land will continuously draw its debates from Mugabeism as an idea and as a new parameter of determining Zimbabwe’s future from this point. This explains the aspect of a new form of oneness that is shaping our diversity as entailed in Cain Mathema’s analysis on tools used in the regime change project. Contrary to Mathema’s lamentation on the rise of a Western political paradigm which shaped political conflict in the country since the seizure of land from the Rhodes, Zimbabwe is at a point of looking for solutions from within than it is looking for solutions outside.
#ThisFlag and #OurFlag Campaigns: #WhoseFlag?
A few days after the celebration of Zimbabwe’s 36th birthday a clerical one, Evan Mawarire found himself in front of the camera executing an unstructured lamentation against the government of Zimbabwe. At that moment the Pastor of a 70 member congregation and a disgruntled pulpit charmer whose leadership fortunes could not be found at the Celebration Church resorted to finding a wider following. Mawarire’s movement was born in his office moments after cracking his head on how to make ends meet for his children’s unpaid tuition fees. As a result of pent-up emotions substantiated by his clumsy debate skills his #ThisFlag campaign was born.
I am sure he did not know that his one-man movement would have so much public attention that is if he had not prepared for it as his viral posts substantiate that fact. What is important is that Mawarire represents a new method of engagement which sees challenges and acknowledges belonging. His approach is different from that of other politicians who have disowned all the values of national belonging and attached them to the ruling party. I choose to call him a politician though he does not regard himself as one. This is common with men who abandon the pulpit for mainstream politics. In the history of Zimbabwe, Bishop Abel Muzorewa is one of such and is a precedent to be referred to when pastors turn more political than they should be faith vanguards. What is worth noting with its aberrations the Mawarire campaign acknowledges those who gave meaning to the values of our nationhood through their martyrdom and how we are obliged by their efforts to work for Zimbabwe.
In response to Mawarire’s online campaigns Professor Jonathan Moyo reciprocally engaged with his Our-Flag hashtag. What a proof of Zimbabwe’s conguisive environment for dialogue of ideological plurality. This substantiates Cain Mathema’s proposition for Zimbabweans to find common ground in their plurality.
A lesson to the prefects of democracy
Even in most of the self-proclaimed highly democratic countries state officials rarely engage citizens directly as Professor Jonathan Moyo does on social media. This is because diversity in thought should not call for building space for violence, instead it must help us find one point of belonging. The move by the Professor to engage the Pastor is a clear reflection of how our Afrocentric cultural values emphasised in Pathisa Nyathi’s Zimbabwe Cultural Heritage (book under review) are key in conflict resolution. Professor Moyo’s reaction evokes the ‘itshukwa ebandla’ Afrocentric conflict resolution approach. The use of this dialogue centred approach constitutes what Pathisa Nyathi (2005) terms Zimbabwe’s Cultural Heritage.
Indeed we have a strong heritage which when applied can promote political culture conversations and that is only possible if we begin to think in local terms to define the political destiny of this nation. This eradicates the motives of liberal disintegrations of our definition of belonging to Zimbabwe. This way the proclamation by Cain Mathema (2013) becomes a clear indication that difference does not imply denouncing belonging. Moreover, that differing with the centre using local terms of defining belonging, in this case the Zimbabwean flag does not result in outright rejection of the conflicting ideas considering Professor Moyo’s reciprocation to Mawarire. This quickly invites the need of imagining the idea of the nation from the context of a family.
Heeding to the above makes me realise that Zimbabwe is open to diversity in thought as long the premises for the diversity are home grounded. In his paper, presented at the second edition of the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium, Pathisa Nyathi (2015) argues:
“What politics can we espouse that is different and a stranger to our worldview? How can we negotiate this position given the shenanigans and intrigues of world powers that seek to derive maximum benefit, both political and economic, from our countries? Just how independent are we to navigate our worldviews and cosmologies that seem to run in the face of western traditions on scholarship and academy? Just how free are we to plot a course of our choice when our worldviews are denigrated, despised and demonised, and when world interests foist themselves on us at the self-appointed ruling ideas of the world. Just how…just how?”
The above proposition by Nyathi and his other ideas of re-awakening African thought clearly emphasise the need for thinking in local terms to achieve the true value of national belonging. This is only possible if the national dialogue is grounded on home-centred perspectives of belonging as also highlighted by Cain Mathema. This is why when we attempt to unpack the ongoing debate between Professor Jonathan Moyo and Pastor Evan Mawarire we are dragged into resolving the biggest dilemma, #WhoseFlag? However, between the Moyo and the Mawarire hashtag there is an answer for that particular dilemma. That particular answer is that at all cost we have a mandate to safeguard what gave us #OurFlag.
Nyathi and Mathema in the reinvention a Zimbabwean world-view?
Prior to the ‘legitimisation of Mugabeism’ emphasised in The Post-1980 Chimurengas Explained (Mahomva and Moyo 2015), Nyathi and Mathema found themselves immersed in explaining the being of Zimbabwe. Categorically, the two philosophers dissect the dichotomies of Zimbabwean belonging namely the country’s struggle’s liberation war well captured by Cain Mathema (2013). The second aspect of defining the idea of national belonging has a strong socio-cultural proffered by Pathisa Nyathi (2005). This clearly indicates that Zimbabwe must begin to reconnect with her lost characteristics of self-redefinition.
Due to the rise of political differences based on local and borrowed concepts of belonging the nation should rally towards reinvention new tools of thought one of which is the cultural aspect. The African nation constantly needs to go back to the traditional cultural knowledge system to find its oneness of its people’s diversity. Culture as a unifying medium of Zimbabwean nationhood, it is one significant nation-building apparatus relevant to shaping the statues that govern the land and the plurality of its citizens. Unlike other cultures that promote individualism, the African’s culture promotes one’s belonging to a group and serving the interests of that particular group. In this case, the group is the nation at large and the values to be safeguarded must not belong to political appropriations.
The liberation struggle of this country also provides refreshing reflections of the aspect of belonging which cannot be subverted by simplistic neo-liberal scales of measuring national identity and what it means to belong. As Mathema (2013) clearly spells it out we are unified by one point of history which is the country’s struggle for liberation. We are unified by the aspirations of the liberation struggle carried in the legacy of Mugabeism. This is what makes Nyathi and Mathema’s publications relevant in shaping a local anchored perspective of national belonging premised on a historical and cultural world-view.
Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network — LAN. Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on [email protected]
