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Micheal Mhlanga
ON 30 July Zimbabwe will not be voting for a continuity of nationalism, or the assumption of liberalism simply as political ideologies, this time it is about the active implementation of economic transformation policies, re-engagement with capital, creation of a wealth making environment, assurance of citizenry prosperity and a sustainable livelihood.
This week I shall talk to local governance and the electorate on why maintenance of the City as a space and place with a visible protection of a grotesque history is a disservice to our national progress and citizens deserve better.
To put into perspective our discussion today, let me briefly unpack what coloniality and decolonising is.
Coloniality refers to the state of associating in colonies, in the context of this discussion, discrediting nationalism as our binding ethos, dividing society through laws and reactions that denote social status, celebrating marauding individuals through public symbolic glorification (keeping their names, stuck to their city planning, celebrating their annexation agreements that are theft mementos e.t.c). Decolonising is a challenge of the above, simply put; to release from the status of a colony.
Dear reader, let me tell you this, in Bulawayo nothing new is happening, nothing! They are simply implementing what was planned in 1978, way before independence. Nketa, Emganwini, Emhlangeni, Cowdray Park, New Parklands and anything “developmental” as we are told was planned by a colonial regime before our independence and was designed to affirm class and social division of Africans from Europeans and what it exactly represents. The City Fathers have done nothing new at all, nothing at all!
A bit of perspective
Zimbabwe in its post independent life is spanned with complicated conflicts, among these struggles, the key problem is the mandate to decolonialise. The nationalist leadership that is at the apex of decolonial mandate has been persistent in this fiat.
However, the resurgence of colonial proxies in the onset of the 21st century has presented another struggle within the struggle to decolonise the nation.
The infiltration of decolonial projects has largely manifested itself in the urban set-ups of Zimbabwe, which by the way were the strongholds of colonialism; they played a central role in the administration of colonialism.
Interestingly, the strongholds of colonialism translated to become strongholds of the emergent opposition groups.
Coincidentally, in the onset of the 21st century, it did not take long for coloniality to use the ‘City’ as its command centre to protest the virtues of decolonisation in the rural areas through the successful land reform programme.
Excitingly, the interests of the colonial machine seem to have adopted a new format, one that is de-racialised and presents itself in classist terms. It has even purchased for itself, proxies who operate under the donor aid spell which recently has been abandoned, subconsciously advancing broader agendas, which are a contradiction to Zimbabwe’s national interest.
Fathering (even women) plunder
Without mentioning names, Zimbabweans do know who has inherited the colonial strength in the urban areas. Some now call themselves the “City Fathers”, notwithstanding that they are fathering a centre of colonial spoils; they are providing a fatherly function to the reproduction of colonial brutality.
Therefore, those who have been speculating why opposition has its strongholds in urban areas, this is it, opposition is aligned to colonial interests; hence the city is conveniently a fertile setting for opposition.
Often, the voter is made to believe that good policies are those that address the politics of the stomach in the short-term; the dishonest politicians have chosen to explain their function at a policy level restricting the masses from accessing its ideological inclinations, which are central to any policy structure.
Regularly, voters are rallied around petty things like jobs and food, but little effort is invested in explaining the ideological processes involved in the bringing in of these. It is true that every political approach should meet the basic human needs, however, not every system that brings jobs and food is the correct approach to be adopted.
The dishonesty that feeds on the vulnerability and desperation of the masses has therefore gained momentum in the political rings of the urban masses.
It is masquerading itself as a solution, yet it is concealing its objectives that are antithetical to the values of Pan Africanism and the liberation struggle that are at the core of Zimbabwe’s national interests.
It should be understood that the unavailability of development in Zimbabwe is not a result of incapability, rather it is rooted in capacity discrepancies instead of capability.
Hence those who use the unavailability of jobs to judge the Chimurenga thought are misguidedly wrong to conclude that the nationalist parties are failing.
Their simplistic excuse is just another attempt to justify their existence which is adversative to nationalist values. As if that is not enough, by definition, African nationalism is unique, it is founded on the decolonial agenda, and hence the linkage between African nationalism and decolonisation means that any antithesis to nationalism amounts to being an opposition to decolonisation.
The colonial machine still has its strongholds in Zimbabwe, and it is in the decolonial trajectory to dismantle these centres that persistently reproduce the unbecoming effects of colonisation. The persistent gap that reflects itself in the standardisation of living between those who have and those who have not has triggered a concern to review the general planning of Zimbabwe’s cities.
Fatherless and fatherhood
So far, the city has been fatherless or they do not understand fatherhood (perhaps). At the core of city planning, it is not the simple allocation of space and land that counts, but rather it is how humanity inhabits that particular space in reference. One classic example would be the general distinction between the low density suburbs and the high density suburbs.
While the occupation of low density suburbs is procured according to human dignifying standards, the occupation of high density suburbs is modelled in a manner that makes conflict an inevitable phenomenon, the congestion and poor service delivery by the MDC-T led councils make conflict a mandatory case since the crowded majority will have to compete for the scarce resources like toilets availed to them by the “City Fathers”.
Ultimately this leads to the high density suburb being a perennial symbol of dismemberment and a harbour of less humans who are objects of industrial indexes. This is primarily because the “City Fathers” are failing to redress this deeply embedded crisis.
As such, the manner in which Zimbabwe discovered its city life, marred with racist thinking which had the ultimate goal of systematising the natives as perpetual imbeciles and objects of the colonial labour structures still persists in the post independent era. However, this time it has de-racialised itself to assume a class outlook, nevertheless it is still premised on unprecedented inclinations of dismemberment and exploitation.
Since the early 2000s the city has been confronted with a rare breed of complications, in spite of its immediate mandate to exorcise the traces of colonialism left, it has found itself under the governance of proxies of the same system that it is fighting against. Therefore, the city has been struck by an intersection of coloniality, firstly, by the general remains of colonialism and secondly, by virtue of being administered by an opposition which cares less about fulfilling the decolonial responsibility.
The impact of colonisation is mostly underrated in the city; scholarship and empirical logic usually fails to explain how colonialism is the reason why the native side of the City in Africa finds itself with many of these problems that include poor service delivery, congestion, poverty and poor socialisation structures.
It is the racist colonial thinking that did not value the existence of natives in urban areas leading to the systemic marginalisation of the natives in the city.
It is unfortunate that the city in Zimbabwe was politically hijacked by the opposition thereby derailing the agenda to wholesomely decolonise the city.
Opposition in its neo-liberal standing has failed to minutely attempt to decolonise the city, thereby becoming an accomplice of posthumous colonialism.
It is because of opposition that we talk of the intersectionality of oppression in the city, the general subsequent effects of colonialism and the lack of will to implement decolonial governance.
Instead, opposition itself is founded on the imaginations framed along colonial aspirations.
The correlation between opposition and the coloniality of the city planning is undeniably blatant now.
The upcoming 2018 general election presents another chance for urban Zimbabweans to reclaim the city and continue with the decolonial project, it is only in the ballot that Zimbabweans can retake the city, and part of retaking the city means rejecting those that have been accomplices in the crimes of continual coloniality.
Yikho khona lokhu!!
Online Reporter