Prospects for Political Mobilization in Present-Day Zimbabwe

Prospects for Political Mobilization in Present-Day Zimbabwe

May 4th, 2016 Words by Tendai Murisa

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| Politics

Revisiting: ‘Beyond the Crises- Prospects for Transformation in Zimbabwe’
Postscript/Afterthought One 
by Dr. Tendai Murisa

Introduction

Predicting the future is one of the most unreliable sciences. It is even worse in politics. In Zimbabwe, like in many other countries, we have had the privilege of good analysis to help us make sense of what may seem chaotic; but the current configurations of power and ever changing alignments/alliances especially in the Movement for Democratic Change-T (MDC-T) and more recently, in ZANU (PF) seem to have only served to confuse even the more experience sages of our time.
There is an urgent need to embark on a comprehensive analysis of what one may call political behavior in Zimbabwe. Since 2000 the MDC as a protest/political movement has been rarefied and positioned as the ultimate savior out of ZANU (PF) despotism. However recent developments such as the recent triumph of ZANU (PF) in the July 2013 election and internal coups at Harvest house, where it seems everyone has the power to expel/suspend others from the party, have only served to dampen the mood and expectation of an MDC- led change process. Within ZANU (PF) the story remains the same, despite an election victory (rigged or otherwise) they just do not seem to have the capacity to get it- they just can’t rise beyond internal factionalism to effectively address the national question. They are so pre-occupied with the post Mugabe era (as if he will die tomorrow) instead of delivering on the promises they made to the electorate. The media also seems to be caught in this conundrum- everyday they have to spin a new yarn either about Mugabe’s deteriorating health (we have heard it before and the man is still standing) or how so and so belonging to such a faction has pulled a new move- all based on reliable sources. Which leaves us with the question- what is the future of Zimbabwean politics? Should we still remain beholden to charismatic/messianic politics based on the gifted orator or do we need to think in other terms? Is there room for a new kind of politics- that is grounded within the current socio-economic realities of Zimbabwe and also based on citizenship and class?

Background

I will start off by analyzing what may look very peripheral to Zimbabwean politics- the Zimbabwean left. Munyaradzi Gwisai, leader of the small but very vocal International Socialist Organisation (ISO) has been one of the few voices interested in the masses and in a 2014 article he made an attempt to not only bring back the working class at the centre stage as the revolutionary class but also makes a persuasive attempt at analysis rooted in political economy. One must add that ZANU (PF) has always claimed the mantle of being left whilst in reality it has vacillated from talking left and acting right to a radical populist movement. It’s elite is so contradicted and behaves as a typical bourgeoisie, well there are comprador elements but thanks to the land and agrarian reforms there has emerged within ZANU (PF) an entrenched agrarian capitalist class which is behaving and accumulating in a manner similar to the dispossessed white minority large scale farmers except of course for the dependence or abuse of the state.

On the other hand although the MDC has its roots in working class politics it embraced a very neoliberal stance both from its alliances and also some of the programs it pushed whilst in the Government of National Unity (GNU) from 2009 until 2013. In this article, without primarily focusing on party politics I raise a fundamental question for mobilization, can we speak of a progressive working class in a context of de-industrialization where trade unions are shrinking in numbers and labour relations regimes in place serve the interests of the employers? Besides the legal regimes what incentives do workers have to even engage in public protests such as strikes given the threat that hangs over many of these enterprises? What is the realistic chance that we will see animated workers’ struggles such as the ones we witnessed in the 1990s?

The Working Class

Let’s briefly revisit the historical assumptions regarding the emergence of the working class and juxtapose these assumptions with Zimbabwe’s current economic situation. Historically, according to Marx a pure working class was supposed to emerge after the total collapse of peasant agriculture through the industrial revolution and subsequent farm mechanization which would render peasant agriculture unviable. Dispossession of land and proletarianisation of the peasantry were prescribed as a quick fix. Capitalism was viewed as an inevitable historically progressive process, which provided possibilities of a type of society materially more progressive with unprecedented development of the material forces of production which would also lead to the creation of a ‘progressive’ proletariat class (Marx, 1976). Such a proletariat would be the first universal class capable of abolishing class society and the complete dismantling of capitalist ways of production and accumulation and the introduction of a class less society (Marx, 1976, Lenin, 1964[1899]. 1954).
Did we ever have such a class in Zimbabwe? To be fair at some point we were very close to boasting of a fully proletariat class given our status as the second most industrialised country after South Africa in Sub-Saharan Africa. We also had the second highest proportions of unionized workers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Others such as Gwisai (2014) argue that the unionized and disciplined working class is only supposed to be the core or nucleus of the broader working class based struggle. Moyo and Yeros (2005) prefer the term semi-proletariats when referring to the majority of the working class and they argue that these are households that straddle both the urban and rural spaces in terms of social reproduction. Even a study commissioned by the ZCTU in the 1990s tends to align with this position; in a sample of 1 500 members of trade unions in textile, metal workers, and food industry 75 percent of the respondents maintained dual homes in the urban and rural areas (Peta et al., 1991). We have to remember that the period from 1980 up until maybe 1995 was economically much better than the post 2000 period and even then we did not have a pure working class solely dependent on a wage (based on the ZCTU) – I will revisit this issue later on.

The economic collapse that began with Structural Adjustment led to massive retrenchment of workers initially within the textile industry when big employers such as Cone Textiles (Chitungwiza), David Whitehead (Kadoma) and Merlin (Bulawayo) either had to shut down or restructure. However, since 2000 company closures have become more common than new investments and according to my own guestimate the ZCTU has lost more than 60% of its members due to retrenchments and company closures. It is also important not to romanticize the consciousness and mobilization of the working class for progressive change. For instance, firstly, at the peak of workers’ struggles against ESAP only 3000 out of a possible 25 000 heeded the ZCTU’s call for a general strike which was also very short lived. Secondly, we have to remember the alliance that was established in the late 1990s between the capitalist class and working class as they converged on the need to dislodge ZANU (PF) from power. In that alliance the bosses (employers) actually facilitated/encouraged worker stay-aways by locking their premises. Does such an alliance exist today?