Rethinking ‘hydro-politics’ in Bulawayo

22 Jan, 2017 - 00:01 0 Views

The Sunday News

Today we continue with the review of Prof Muchaparara Musemwa’s publication, Water, History, and Politics in Zimbabwe: Bulawayo’s Struggles with the Environment, 1894-2008. As the discussion unfolds, this week I will also touch on other happenings which I will relate to the discussion at hand for the past two weeks. Of interest is the fact the water debate has not been only going here; other press spaces have also been covering the subject. On Monday, the 16th of January, Bulawayo 24 (a private online correspondence space) published an article by Eddie Cross titled, “Zimbabwe water crisis — The background”.

For record’s sake, Eddie Cross is a revered Zimbabwean anti-establishment economic analyst with strong connections to the Rhodesian order which he publicly dispels for modern political relevance. But we all know, once a Rhodesian always a Rhodesian.

In a capsule, Cross’ article asserts that Zimbabwe’s (Bulawayo) water crisis is a result of state ineptitude and does not dare to talk about the environmental factor of the problem. Instead, all fault is attributed to the central government which he was part of during the Government of National Unity (GNU). Using a contrast, Eddie Cross submits that Rhodesia had a well-structured public service system, particularly in the area of water supply. However, Professor Muchaparara Musemwa’s research reveals Cross’ concealed and unfounded glorification of colonial governance.

Cross’ point in the water debate is reflective of the common abuse and arrogation of history by individuals with a public ordained “expert” claim to national dialogue. Cross and other authoritative intellectual figures like him pose as credible sources of information and are blindly endorsed by irrational discipleship to polarise Zimbabwean politics. As a consequence, this fractures the expected rational and candid culture of public dialogue. It is sad to note that we have endorsed dishonesties, lies and deceits reproduced as public knowledge by bitter Rhodesians.

I classified this (Rhodesian) culture of misrepresenting and reproducing colonial immorality as moral standards of civilising the colonised the as the “good makhiwa mentality” when I was reviewing David Coltart’s memoir. From a linear point of a racist belonging Coltart and Cross do not only belong to the Rhodesian glorification epistemic cabal of colonial hangover vanguards in modern Zimbabwe.

They are the founding fathers of the anti-land reform Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Though they now belong to different formations of that party; what is common about these two Rhodesians (Cross and Coltart) is their fake and unnatural claim to Africanness and rightful belonging to Zimbabwe. Coltart traces his rightfulness and entitlement to Zimbabwe from 1820 through his maternal grandparent. Cross only traces his claim to this land from 1867 and quoting from his website, he writes:

“My great grandfather came out to southern Africa in 1867 as a Baptist missionary to the Eastern Cape. He played a significant role in the country of his adoption and founded several Baptist Churches in South Africa. My grandfather became a Magistrate and rose to become Chief Magistrate of the Republic of South Africa and at one stage played a key role in the Smuts administration that was defeated by the Nationalist Party in 1949, paving the way for the formal adoption of apartheid — an ideology that was to dominate South African politics until 1994.”

Just like Coltart whose family prospered as a result of looting Xhosa herds of cattle, as history tells of such colonialists, Cross is not only an ordinary representative of the colonial class. He is belonged to a privileged colonial family with deep roots in missionary and legal entitlements.

The same legal and religious power used to repress the Africans at the same time eroding their cultural identity and arresting their access to wealth. To maintain that hierarchy of hegemony, in 1940 on the 17th of April one Edward Graham Cross is born. By no coincidence, he had special interests in Agriculture (like the rest of the Rhodesians at the centre of colonial capital) and was also an economist:

“I started work in 1957 and took a Diploma in Agriculture in 1962 and a degree in Economics in 1968. I worked largely in Agriculture — first doing resettlement of people in the Gokwe/Zhombe districts and then as an economist with the Agricultural Marketing Authority, becoming Chief Economist in 1976.”

This is a common character of all White/Rhodesian political entrepreneurs from Roy Bennett (an ex-force of Afrophobic British South Africa Police) right up to Coltart and Cross. Their place and relevance in Zimbabwean politics is guided by selective amnesia when it comes to the cruelties of the Rhodesian government. They always distort the realities of Zimbabwe’s current state of peace and political stability with their re-membering which dismembers. As such, when I read Cross’ analysis of Zimbabwe’s water crisis from a historical point of view, I juxtaposed his reason with that of Mucharaparara Musemwa’s research grounded submissions only to realise that there is more to polarisation and glorifying a dark past than the truth whenever Rhodesians unpack Zimbabwean issues. As such their pathological affection to unmaking, dismembering and dismantling the memory we are creating for the future must be exposed and challenged.

Challenging the lies and the easy claims of victory

There is no doubt that the colonial system was not set out in our favour. As Musemwa argues in chapter three of his book, the architecture of Makhokhoba and its symbolism to urban development is a clear indication of institutionalised segregation.

While the White minority enjoyed the suburban pleasures, Africans lived in dehumanising conditions. As a result, there is no amount of propaganda that can be used in the 21st century to silence the defiant echoes of historical truth on the condition of the African plight. Not even the fake claims of political repentance by Rhodesians will make history forget their individual and family contributions to the immiseration of the African race to this minute as I write this article from some Western suburb of Bulawayo.

It is ironic that the progeny of colonial privilege are members of an essential religion of problematising Zimbabwe’s crises from 1980 and ignore the country’s historical burdens largely owing to colonial plunder. This is the same historical burden which they want to present to us as a model of modernity which we were supposed to follow and maintain after 1980. We cannot and must not be stupid to buy into that misrepresented reality of our past and aspirations to be truly independent.

The colonialists’ claim to time and space is always within the confines of their contact with Africa as if before them everything was in a space of nothingness. In other terms, development of this country starts and ends with them according to their personal experience and contact with the African space and the African people.

To them real development ended in 1980 when they were forced to surrender power to the victory of African nationalism and the stubborn reality of that time’s pan-African wave of change. This is confirmed in Cross’s biographic recollection as he presents himself as one of the mentors of the political transition which new Zimbabwe was going to assume:

“As an economist I played a role in the transition in 1980 by assisting the two leading contenders for power (Zanu and Zapu) prepare for government and then subsequently in the preparation for the first, post-independence donors conference. I wrote the agriculture paper presented to that conference.”

It is as if there were no capable Black economists at the time who could do the same. However, we all know that the power transition was colonially guided. It is the emergence of nationalist post-independence epistemic disobedience to the colonially set transition which saw the seemingly nation-building “philanthropy” of Rhodesians like Cross vanishing:

“In 1999 I joined the Movement for Democratic Change and was made Secretary for Economics in 2000. I am now the Policy Coordinator General for the MDC and sit on the National Executive. In 2008 I stood for the Constituency of Bulawayo South and won the seat against several other candidates with a majority of 58 per cent. In 2013 I ran again for Parliament and doubled my majority, retaining the seat for another 5 year term. In Parliament I sit on both the Budget and Finance Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.’’

Therefore, when Cross condemns failure of today’s government in exchange of Rhodesian eulogies one needs to understand that Rhodesians have maintained a radical loyalty to their past. This is confirmed by one book I once reviewed here titled, Rhodesians Never Die: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia, c.1970-1980.

The title of the book substantiates a culture of brutal colonial defiance to a long gone reality which is still resident in the minds of unrepentant colonialists. This is why Cross will continue to make Rhodesian praise claims which demonise public service efforts of Zimbabwe’s current government as indicated in the aforementioned article published by Bulawayo 24:

“In the pre Independence era the Town planning authorities and Central Government planned that each City/Town should have roughly three years supply in storage at any one point in time. At that time with population growth doubling every 20 years and urban populations growing at six per cent per annum with the drift from rural areas to the urban centers, this meant that we had to build a major new dam for raw water supply every five to 10 years. Urban Councils were left to build their own dams with State assistance and water sales constituted a significant proportion of income to Councils on top of electricity sales, license fees including vehicle licenses, rates and taxes.”

This claim to Rhodesia’s excellence is not exhaustively in touch with the realities and experiences of the Africans whom Musemwa writes about.

We may have our challenges, but it does not mean that we have totally failed. It does not mean that there is no hope for improvement. We do not need to reflect on standards set by Rhodesia to determine the present and the future. The solution to Zimbabwe’s problems is not Rhodesian academic yardsticks formed against the ruling to demonise the victory of our liberation successes and our continued aspirations never to make Zimbabwe a colony again.

Nhai Sisi Linda, nemi futi?

In other news — of lies and easy claims to victory. Followers of Zimbabwean politics were hit by a fresh exposure of lies and claims to easy victory. That woman; Linda Masarira! However, having digested the “Cross-lie” coming across the Linda Masarira saga was more comic.

The celebrated “anti-Mugabe firebrand” posted pictures of her distended face on social media. As if that was not enough, she went on to claim that her live-in boyfriend, Makomborero Haruzivishe’s had disappeared inferring that he had been abducted by her erstwhile attackers.

Later, it so emerged that Makomborero was never kidnaped as Linda’s false alarm suggested. However, I don’t blame Linda for taking this easy route to consolidating her easily gained political fame.

This is because anti-establishment activists have always exploited the MDC metanarrative of misrepresenting and sabotaging the country’s image. Those prominent in the game of lying make it to the top in opposition politics. This is why some Rhodesians would lie and make their followers believe every lie that comes out of their mouths.

Mayibuye!

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]

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