Privileged proletariats: When the beautiful ones are not yet enough

George Charamba, believed to be the author of this column

YOU cannot miss the editorial ethos, can you? In the beginning is a story on Chanakira and the Meikles family, with a clear subtext advising Minister Biti against "wading" into the Rhodesian "kingdom war".

Further on, you have a story featuring Deon Theron and Collin Taylor on Insingisi Farm, now owned by one Dick Mafios who, unlike Moxon, Jovner, Theron and Taylor, can only be introduced by whose brother he is (Minister Kasukuwere’s), what party he is chairman of (Zanu-PF), never in his own right as a man well, well over 18.
Then there is an alleged dispute between the RBZ and one Magiel Casper Jovner, over the alleged exploitation of diamond deposits in the Midlands.

And General Peter Walls?

Then comes copious comment. Comment on why Zimbabwe must not indigenise as per its own laws. Comment on tears that must be shed for late General Peter Walls, Rhodesia’s last general reportedly "exiled" into penury by "the Mugabe regime". The comment on Walls — that notorious Rhodesian genocidal killer of blacks — is set against copious opinion and opinionated stale pieces against war veterans, Walls’ opponents in the war of liberation. You have comment in "defence" of the Sadc Tribunal — itself the white farmer’s last outpost — purveyed through Namibia’s Minister Hage Geingob, whose opinion seems weightier than that of Sadc’s 14 countries which took a unanimous decision on the same matter. The Rhodesian cause needs to speak through blacks. It cannot stand on its own. But more follows. You also have a spirited defence of homosexuality.

The story of Meikles

The only trouble is that readers do take and digest one story at a time, and thus have little time to reconstruct a whole world view being sold to them in the name of fruits of Press freedom.

Forget about all those pretty self-claims, the Zimbabwe Independent takes the colour and worldview of its Rhodesian owners, and it is important that this insidious yet assiduous re-issuance of the Rhodesian ethos be exposed for all to see.

I have had occasion to comment on the Meikles-Kingdom saga, at once berating Nigel on the folly of measuring his success as a black businessman through partnership with Rhodesia’s whites, while defending his cause on grounds that his defeat would rob indigenes of an important myth and symbol, right at the dawn of their struggle for economic emancipation. Moxon, who is brother-in-law to the Meikles is minding Rhodesia’s own home-grown capital, in fact a symbol of Rhodesia’s ingenuity and longevity. Meikles is a statement that "Rhodesia never dies".

. . . and the Chiwashira clan
But for me, there is a personal dimension to this whole matter. The Meikles family comes into this country as part of the so-called pioneer column, with their first real establishment being at Fort Charter, now better known as Charter Estate. Gladly, the whole Estate has since been liberated. As the Meikles asserted their power and authority over "the natives" they judged to have been in their way, they carried out a bloody war against the native Chiwashira family, itself descendent to my own family.

The Chiwashiras, operating as the Mutekedza chieftaincy, ruled that whole demesne which takes one to the shores of present-day Featherstone, will standing back-to-back with Chihota. Today you go to Charter Estate, you find the Meikles’ first ever attempt at hotel, business, a very small modest structure with the distinction of being present-day Meikles Hotel’s forerunner. It still stands still, defiantly ageless, quietly proclaiming that indeed Rhodesia never dies. Until very recently, old settler families used to frequent the estate for rituals, much like we do, but for different gods.

Where the Chiwashiras fell

East of this stolid, Victorian structure, you have a graveyard containing remains of a number of members of the Pioneer Column and their families, those with weaker constitutions and could not proceed any farther, succumbed and had to be left there. You wonder beyond that settlement in a direction I shall write about next time, you have a huge pit after which the district of Chikomba takes its name.

It is a mass grave housing bones of many natives, including the Chiwashiras, off the block of which I am a mere chip. The place smells death, death whose smell has beaten time and its passage. Those remains have one thing in common: they came from a very violent encounter between this small settler community asserting its foundations, and resisting Africans defending their land. With time and well after the "pacification of the natives" of Chikomba, this violent put-down of natives was transformed to become a rain-making sacrificial ritual, with refractory and unsuspecting natives being lured to the pit, already roaring with raging flames, only to be pushed into the cauldron, to appease the gods of white settler laughter and amusement.

Those who missed on their poll taxes, breached the native stock control, or any other malfeasance, however light, got their hell here on this earth. So the Chanakira saga means a lot for me, both as a descendant of the Chiwashiras, and as a conscious African.

Whose diamonds, Mr Jovner?

Among the oldest Afrikaner families who came into the country and also settled on the land are the Jovners. They owned land in many places in the country, including land between Gutu and Chivhu and quite a bit in the Midlands. It was and still is a cattle family.

But it was restricted to the second outward circle of settler settlements, well away from patrician English settlers who occupied the well-watered Highveld. Like other settlers, the Jovners lost land to the reform programme and must thus be angry and embittered. Well, now it is their turn and I don’t hesitate to say so with some relish. We have been angry and embittered for much longer, over what is rightfully ours and hey, no tears from me. The bit which interests me is that to do with diamonds.

When did the Jovners know of the existence of diamonds on our land? What did the family do with that find? Watch it with disinterest, even occasionally urinating on these precious stones? Come on Zimbabwe Independent! You want to convince me that the story on those deposits starts in 2007, with the so-called partnership agreement with RBZ’s Carslone Enterprise? Why is the paper not curious about what went on before this matter? How much was the prejudice to the country?

Blaming victims

And the story on Mafios? When you go round the country, or better still, round ZimInd’s newsroom, do you get the impression that only "violent land reform youth corps" wallow in poverty? The impression that outside Insingisi farm, all is aplenty? Or more significantly, that before Mafios, during Collin Taylor’s tenure, Mashonaland Central had no one like Muza Fredrick who "wallowed" in poverty? And Gwapuz? I have no difficulties with anyone defending white farmers. But let it be done cleverly, and without abusing and taking advantage of unsuspecting poor people. I have no difficult with anyone playing poodle to white interests. But it is wrong to use victims of those racist landowners to justify the second coming of that same victimization, all in the name of the victim or their welfare. Which takes me to the subject of this week.

The land question again

Speaking at the graveside of his brother-in-law, the late Reward Marufu, President Mugabe this Sunday raised three fundamental issues at the heart of current struggles in our country. Firstly, he wondered why white farmers continue to fight land reforms, including by approaching the Sadc Tribunal whose constitution and jurisdiction he had just successfully challenged at the Sadc Summit in Namibia. The white farmers could approach any court anywhere in the world, he added, but the reality and outcome of the land reform programme would not change. He proceeded to attack blacks who, after receiving land through this programme, proceed to contradict the programme’s core objectives by sub-letting that same land to the same white farmers ousted by the land reform programme. To these, the President had no kind words, warning the land so sub-let would be repossessed and redistributed to favour those intent on using it.

War veterans and their sacrifice

Secondly, he underlined the sacrifices made by war veterans, among them Reward Marufu, in liberating this country. After that act of supreme self-sacrifice, the only sacrifice remaining — and a lesser one at that — was the defence of that independence and sovereignty through less onerous duties, less onerous sacrifices.

A sacrifice comparable to what the war veterans would only arise in circumstances in which Zimbabwe suffered another invasion and occupation, in which case Zimbabweans would be called upon to offer their own lives for a second liberation. With what Blair has just released, it is clear that such a development, even though once contemplated, recedes with each day that passes.

Reticent beneficiaries of empowerment

Thirdly, he emphasized the need to validate our Independence through empowerment programmes that would see indigenous Zimbabweans taking charge of our national resources. On this score, he expressed puzzlement over the disposition of our elites for whom the whole programme of empowerment is meant. These elites seemed to oppose it even though they were the best placed to benefit the most from it.

They have the education; they have the skills; they have the managerial experience; is some cases they are already in those enterprises targeted for share dilution. Yet they seemed to prefer their menial status as glorified super-workers, euphemistically called managers. They have an open invitation to become gods, yet choose to remain mere men!

Could this indicate that we remain awed by the white man many years after a liberation struggle, 30 years into self-rule, the President wondered. Remain overawed the same way blacks under Rhodesia of the fifties and sixties were at the mere mention of a struggle to oust the white man from the country? And he went to some length in explaining the extraordinary things nationalists had to do to demolish the halo and myth of invincibility built around the settler colonialist. One read real disappointment in the President.

Back to Nigel and Moxon

On the same matter, he could not understand why the fight between Nigel Chanakira and Moxon of the Meikles family over the control of Kingdom Holdings, needed to persist any day longer, given the legal and policy resources and instruments at Government’s disposal. After all, the law on indigenization of the economy required that indigenous people control 51 percent of targeted enterprises, in which case Chanakira’s quest for control could well be tackled within the arm-bit of that law and policy.

Interestingly, the President made the point looking at his Cabinet Ministers present at the funeral. They all looked away, clearly betraying cold feet at what appears to be a frightful assignment.

But not John Makumbe who warns Chanakira against accepting any support from President Mugabe. The academic wants Nigel swallowed quietly and pretends he is proffering profound advice. No one has cared to politely ask the don what happened to his little grocery shop at Marenga which today stands neither a shop nor one with any grocery. Wise words indeed. But very revealing in terms of how we blacks offer pro deo our vital thoughts to those least in need but whose attentions we coquettishly seek. Later on, the President attacked homosexuality and lesbianism.

Return of hairy men in khaki shorts

When one reads all this against the stories I have highlighted in the Zimbabwe Independent, one begins to make sense beneath the journalistic clatter. There is a methodical but furious debate and struggle for the mastery of ideas: Rhodesian versus African nationalist ones. The Zimbabwe Independent is reacting blow by blow to what President Mugabe is pushing for. That puts it on the other side of the Zanu (PF) discourse and I thought I went to some length to lay bare the ancestry of ZimInd in terms of settler politics and how these have evolved since Independence. But the coverage revealed one important fact: the white former farmers are busy changing strategy, away from using the Sadc Tribunal as a Trojan horse, back to the old campaign where they present the ousted white farmer as the best answer to African rural poverty.

Or where the whole discourse on land is wrapped up in phony images of inter-party violence. And those employed to watch tell me they have begun noticing greater sightings of the ousted hairy white farmers in shorts, at doorsteps of MDC-T ministers. We brace up for that.

Wondering Robertson

Something else. These white farmers now have a bit of challenge, don’t they? Zimbabwe is beginning to recover agriculturally, is it not? How do you push the same propaganda against better yields coming from new owners, new farmers and beneficiaries of land reforms? And these white farmers deployed their best weaponry: John Robertson wondering in a lengthy thesis how

sustainable the recovery would be. The CFU of Theron can hardly hide its angst, which is why one cannot understand why Trevor Ncube picks on such a dead cause, so late in its decay. With all these inauspicious developments around them, it is not difficult to understand settler farmers’ frustration, and their irrational push for early elections, knowing fully well their protégé, MDC-T is not ready and is sure to be bloodied. Surely the constitutional exercise, itself a dry-run for elections has clearly shown them how ill-prepared MDC-T is for an early election?

When "No" Vote would be inclusive

And the draft constitution itself, another layer of worry for them. It is coming at a time when the MDC-T itself cannot rehash the issue of revising the land clause, on the strength of which the 2000 referendum was fought. Or to push for a land audit which becomes increasingly difficult to justify in circumstances in which the reform itself is beginning to register real gains in a manner suggesting the real issue is not tenure or profile of beneficiaries, but the paucity of input support. Then comes this ruse from little-witted Chamisa, threatening to campaign for a "No" Vote. Has that man and his party ever stopped to ask a simple question: Who needs a "Yes" Vote? One thing is clear, very clear. Should the MDC-T decide to campaign for a "No" Vote, it shall find itself in a perfectly inclusive effort, with Zanu (PF) by its side, Madhuku yelping from behind. And the morning after results of this inclusive effort, Zimbabwe will wake up to the current constitution, with all its Zanu (PF) swarthes, and with its little, untidy MDC patches. Hurray! But to expect MDC-T to be exercised by commonsense is to grant them an impossible favour.

So generous a thought

Back to the President’s puzzle about us and empowerment. I notice Trevor Ncube says empowerment must be abandoned because those likely to benefit are few chefs given that Zimbabwe has no middle class which should have come from the stratum of civil servants. Coming from a man rich enough to outbid President Mbeki and the ANC on Mail and Guardian, rich enough to abandon that expensive investment for another here, this is, arguably, the most selfless argument from a man of means so given to egalitarian sentiments. But a penny for my thought: how does Zimbabwe found a middle class? By stopping empowerment, leaving settler Rhodesia whites to remain in charge and expand? I have always said a cause needs clever advocacy. This one does not have that!

Scattered black tribe

I had an opportunity to circulate among black entrepreneurs at the first climax of the Nigel Chanakira story. I was frightened at the sheer ill-will there is for one another, within this sub-group. The refrain, partly prompted by my piece on the whole saga, was: "We hope you guys will not be foolish enough to rescue Nigel." Foolish enough? That gives you one attribute of this species we call our middle class. As Nigel is being bloodied, Shingi Mutasa is busy prancing coquettishly with equally powerful and dangerous whites for whose cover he has granted them his "grandmother’s" name, Masawara, so to speak. Your kind is being bloodied; you rush headlong towards the same monster? Rushing to where you are kicked? It is a dreadful destiny. Count that as trait number two. When Kasukuwere published his empowerment regulations, not a single white man emerged from the closet to take on the minister. No! The white man simply pushed black surfaces, black mouths, to speak for him, against one of their own. I can understand if it is Ambassador Charles Ray. The country is America – white America – and he, a mere son of a slave from Africa. His claim is weak by that fact. What of us? Our country, our assets, our government, our President, our need, our cause, indeed our destiny? Why such a stance which is not even nonplussed, but actively hostile against ourselves? It is pathetic. Again, count that as trait number three.

A people of hindsight

Take the land. We took a bold decision to retake the land from whites. Back then, it looked grim and unlikely, the same way Independence did. Few takers, many opponents – African opponents who took a stance in defence of white settlers. Some still do to this day. Check the Zimbabwe Independent if you doubt it. A decade later, when it becomes clear this land reform will not be wished away and what is more, is beginning to bear fruit, you are accosted daily, across the political divide, by people wanting their own piece of land. The sun is bright now, is it not? Take that as trait number four. A people so clever by hindsight, so foolish on foresight as to act against own interests, so colonized as to defend a horrible master.

My fridge, my salary, my holiday

But all this needs a framework and on this one I seek the President’s indulgence. I know Mudhara Tondhlana, up there in Banket; will understand me only too well, We sip from the same well, left dug by Marx and Engels. But I don’t go as far as he does. Himself a war veteran – real war veteran – he is quick to remind anyone who cares in Zanu (PF) that once class issues are raised, he leaves his erstwhile comrades in Zanu (PF) behind, most of whom have been em-bourgeoisiefied. Here we go. The President need not be surprised that our so-called middle-class will not take up the class-making, class-founding empowerment programme. We have no native middle-class, as Zimbabwe Independent correctly notes, but to outrageous, anti-black conclusions. We have what Marx and his African acolytes – most notably Amilcar Cabral and Frantz Fanon – termed a native pseudo-petty bourgeois class. Let me invite Cabral on this one: "[There] is a group of persons, a large group of petty bourgeoisie, who have their pay packet at the end of the month. Their wish in fact is that the Portuguese would go away, but they are afraid, because they do not know if we can really win. ‘Cabral comes along with his followers, with his schemes, but what if we lose? We lose our refrigerators, our pay at the end of the month, our radio, our dream of going to Portugal for holidays.’ Those holidays in Portugal are so they can come back afterwards to boast about them (to brag). All this keeps them undecided, on the fence. "

Until a little humiliation

Cabral is writing about Guinea Bissau and its social class structure at the time of that country’s Independence struggle which he himself led, until his assassination in the early 1970s. He does not write off this group, but dwells quite elaborately at how difficult it is to get this sub-group to begin to believe in itself and to accept that white settlers are indeed superfluous in emerging circumstances of national independence. He makes an even more telling point for Nigel and his colleagues. Caught between a dazzle of white power and frustration by the same power, this group will only begin to join in the struggle after "a little humiliation" at the hands of whites. Such as has happened to Nigel, and is sure to happen to many black businessmen after him. It takes a mishap for this group to realize they need much more than their wits to win this very bloody war.

Corporate askaris

But Cabral goes further, and this is where the matter gets tricky. The fact of a country having a false middle class is the fact of suffering undeveloped and entrapped "productive forces" without which history is without its motive force. A managerial class, which is what the President is complaining against, implies suppressed and inhibited productive forces, to the extent that this class does not own assets, assets which define a class and assets enough to influence the course of history. It is a gate-keeping class, a service class, indeed a corporate askari class. It has to be demolished or transformed for a real class to emerge, indeed for productive forces to be freed and released. I call back Cabral:

"We can therefore conclude that national liberation exists when, and only when the national productive forces have been completely freed from all and any kind of foreign domination…. To free the process of development of the national productive forces. For this reason, in our view any national liberation movement that does not take into consideration this basis and this aim may struggle against imperialism, but will certainly not be struggling for national liberation. This means that, bearing in mind the essential characteristics of the present-day world economy, as well as the experiences already gained in the field of anti-imperialist struggle, the principal aspect of national liberation struggle is the struggle against what is conveniently called neo-colonialism. Furthermore, if we accept that national liberation demands a profound mutation in the process of development of the productive forces, we see that the phenomenon of national liberation necessarily corresponds to a revolution. The important thing is to be aware of the objective and subjective conditions in which this revolution may occur, and to know the types or type of struggle most appropriate for its accomplishment."

National liberation versus imperialism

That, for me, holds clue to the puzzle. Zanu (PF) struggled against imperialism. It is just beginning to struggle for national liberation which entails freeing the national productive forces from foreign domination. Unfortunately what Zanu (PF) terms a native middle class is merely a privileged proletariat with no vision of owning anything beyond symbols and trinkets. It defends its salaries, fridges, little houses and holiday perks. That privileged proletariat is not just in Industry and Commerce. It is also in Zanu (PF) itself by way of that part of its membership so discomfited by the discourse of real empowerment, indeed that part which is used to curtain or dress white ownership to stave off actual, meaningful empowering take-overs. I have written about this and even traced the so-called factionalism to the ambiguous relationship which sections of the party leadership have with established white interests.

Post 2000 mutations

And we must not forget that after 2000, it did not matter to imperialism which political party one came from, for one to be usable in defending white interests or the obverse, in suppressing the national productive forces. These productive forces had been liberated on land, creating frightful results for white capital. A firefight was on. For that reason, we witness lots of cross-party alliances forming at the behest of white interests, in opposition to President Mugabe and that part of Zanu (PF) he carried along with him. Of course the constant remained the MDC formations, with Mavambo embellishing this element technocratically, while much later, Dumiso Dabengwa and his Zapu gave it a liberation and tribal grounding. The whole configuration demonstrated how flexible imperialism would be in shuffling its cards. And that MDC successfully mobilized this privileged proletariat simply showed how successful imperialism had been in pre-empting the recruitment of this intermediary class by Zanu (PF), in order to develop it into a real fighter for the evolution of a genuine middle class. With time, this intermediary service class in fact recruited from within Zanu (PF) itself and was able to crystallize itself into a party or advisory, coming close to capturing state power, certainly very close to diluting the focus of the national state. That is the other name for inclusive government, is it not?

And both Fanon and Cabral emphasise that the hallmark of the native petty bourgeois class is hesitancy and ambivalence, potentially leading to about-turns. This is why the issue of the leadership of the national liberation movement becomes so critical. Leadership has to vest in cadres with sufficient consciousness to know that the best insurance against their congenital susceptibility to becoming a service class, lies in remaining true to the cause and grievances of the workers and peasants. The President’s frustration with black managers who look so askance at empowerment, and black beneficiaries of land reforms who end up sub-letting to former white farmers, thus has a context and several precedents in African history. It is the ambivalence of a service class which has not yet committed "class suicide". Meanwhile the focus has shifted intensely to the health status of the President, himself viewed as an impediment to this ambivalence which can easily turn the tide for imperialism. It is a needless speculation, but one suggesting how once beaten, imperialism turn to fate for intervention. Which is why the President has to keep bearing the beautiful ones so his legacy becomes truly inexorable.

Icho!

nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw