The Sunday News
Micheal Mhlanga
Mugabe is gone and “back”. ED has eloquently spoken about strategic economic turnaround models, however, the Zimbabwean youth is still in the peripheries of the economy, both systemically coerced and opting to.
Today, I want to trigger dialogue on the space of young people as we collectively map our way forward as a nation restoring its legacy, cognisant of the era we are now in.
The post-Mugabe challenges to Zimbabwe’s political economy have presented numerous pedagogues to the diverse constituencies in Zimbabwe.
The youth being a constituency itself, has compromised its own identity in the quest to realise Zimbabwe’s nationhood which is predominantly hinged on addressing what the esteemed George Charamba tagged, Horace’s burden.
In the unfolding of the deeply embedded Zimbabwean challenges, while the nation is struggling to realise itself in the broader economic definition, the youth is also struggling to locate itself in the economy of Zimbabwe. The youths are not only subject to the nation’s global economic isolation but are also subject to the unsystematic in-house rejection from the national fortunes.
The intersection of economic dismemberment for the youth in Zimbabwe probed my colleagues and I into debating the “disenfranchisement” of the youths.
When Robert Mugabe was in power, take it or leave it, the young person was pitiable. Put aside commendable structures such as a Ministry of Youths, Zimbabwe Youth Council, mottoes of youth empowerment and modified chants that made many to believe that we are economically liberated, the sour truth is that only a few, if not mentionable by their genealogy benefited. Prosperity was a reserve for those closer to power, yet the constituency that deployed them languished in sewers of paucity.
Well, I cannot conclude that Comrade Mugabe was the reason, but cogently put, he allowed himself to be surrounded by those who did not execute his directives of generation continuity — I mean the youth leaders.
Lately we have been grappled by the discussion of what ED’s 100 days are, so much that many blindly misconstrued its character — John F. Kennedy had his, Barack Obama screamed his and so did Donald Trump.
Even the flip flopper, Tendai Biti in 2009 homilised his own, yet suddenly, ED’s 100 days unfortunately is bantered by those with less to nothing to give. So much for learning history in school, only not to study it.
That is the bane of a selective memory culture, we are only good with what we choose to remember, forgetting that we have forgotten. We need to think beyond the number 100, what is in it for young people?
As political institutions in Zimbabwe have changed, both the establishment and opposition so have the individuals that are gatekeeping the ideas those institutions represent. All this has reformed in the face of a motionless economy hard to repair after decades of scrawling. Blatantly exclaimed, poverty among youth remains unchanged. The youth are the poorest people in Zimbabwe and many of them barely afford attention and the post Mugabe era needs to expediently address that.
Ever since the international investors deserted the economic landscape of Zimbabwe, production has been a micro case in economic language.
The youth in its high hopes of employment has been largely affected by the choices made by international investors towards the Zimbabwean economy, in its pedestal hope of employment, the youth in Zimbabwe is confronted with an opposing reality to their anticipation.
Amid such a professionally worrying reality, with or without investment and employment, youth lives have to proceed and the daily demands of the politics of survival are inevitable. In the complexity of the entire economic quagmire, political decisions seem to be the crux of the struggle in the economic empowerment of the youths. In our intellectually charged discussion, Tedious Ncube, a Political Science scholar argued that the lack of investment and Zimbabwe’s extended history of sanctions is a genuine cause for the prevailing economic misfortune plucking Zimbabwe.
However, even in that narrative, national continuity cannot be suspended hence the nation has to unpack other inclusive strategies of national survival and state continuity.
I advised that usually when a nation’s economy is dismantling, political decisions are at the helm of exploring the possible alternatives. In Zimbabwe where the youth constitute the majority of the direct economic citizenship, the quest for economic solutions seems to be selective in endowing dividends of access to state means of production.
I referred to a previous politicisation of the available means of production which had resulted in the economic othering of the youth which to-date has misled youths into disengaging in economic affairs as a means of production and flocking into the political spaces to feed neo-patrimonial structures and benefit from systems of patronage — Evidence: Violence led by youths at MDC-T offices in Bulawayo.
When the youth choose to think political for their problems they subconsciously neglect the critical vessels of their empowerment which happen to be the economy.
I further tutored that the major problem facing the youth now is no longer the fractured politics of who has the power, it has translated into who is producing what and where. Production has become a major challenge to Zimbabwe’s youth.
Contrary to Nkrumah’s 20th century belief of seeking first the political kingdom, the 21st century has suggested otherwise for the youth, “seek ye first the economic kingdom and the political demands shall be added unto thee”.
The dynamics of generational politics need not to be confronted in an unquestioning perspective; it needs a critical questioning approach which interrogates the correspondence of speech politics and the generational transition demands in economic spaces.
Fact or fallacy (be free to subscribe), in the 20th century, production was fecund hence it was justified to seek political kingdom. The 21st has presented a factual opposite for its youth; the ever evolving demands of living have warranted an ever evolving mindset for the general citizen, the Zimbabwean youth has to locate itself in economics of modernity before locating itself in politics to record a balanced engagement with other constituencies.
When the youth fail to produce, they intend to coerce the other generation to produce for them. The reality of the situation is that “nothing comes for mahala” hence youths tend to be used for uncouth practices in exchange for sadza and beer and other short term economic dividends.
Despite the volatile perspectives on youth positionality in the post-Mugabe era, we agreed that youths need to reclaim their space firstly in economics and in politics as well; these two supplement each other, without the other there is no functionality of any.
In economics and politics, the assumption of the means of production is key, by means of production it is a reference to physical, non-human inputs used for the production of economic value, such as facilities, machinery, tools, infrastructural capital and natural capital.
Instead of negotiating for the transition of power alone, the youth should also negotiate for a sustainable transfer of means of production from the other generation to itself.
The discussions we should have in this post-era should not be stationed at the meaning of the past 100 days, but on how young people negotiate their space in the economy of Zimbabwe. The mirage of opportunities and prosperity is one of the many reasons why young people are joining politics en masse — they believe that bread is buttered in Parliament and nowhere else — one reason why many young politicians are and will be corrupt.
The realisation that with or without the youth at the helm of Zimbabwe’s political leadership, the youth have to be empowered is the first step towards genuine national development.
Whoever wants to win elections should embark on a facility audit and industrial audit to topple the underutilisation of critical national industrial components.
In Bulawayo alone there are more unused buildings compared to utilised buildings in the industrial sites. Considering that the youth do not have the immediate capacity to rent or buy those spaces Government should consider leasing those spaces to young people.
Whether the youth open churches or become traditional healers in those spaces, as long as there is production that services the mandate of national development, the Government should support.
Apart from availing those spaces, policy should provide practical subsidy for capital for the youth to engage in meaningful entrepreneurship instead of unsustainable vending.
It is thought collapsing to listen to a young person complaining how youths in the first world must come and invest in their African businesses, what is so special about them that you as Zimbabwean don’t have? I am not dismissing the peculiar challenges facing the youths, however, the Zimbabwean youth must defy the odds of rehearsed complaining.
The only economy that will be satisfactory to the Zimbabwean youth is one that they construct in cognisance of their nationhood. Where I come from, there is a saying that goes ukudla kwamahala kuyingozi.
Till next week.
Yikho khona lokhu!
