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Notes on 32 years of Zimbabwe's independence
Committee of the Peoples Charter (CPC)
April 12, 2012

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Brief Preface

Please see below, the first three essays written by Zimbabweans in aide of seeking to reflect on the nature and meaning of 32nd commemorations of our national independence in Zimbabwe. The three essays cover three topics, national historical consciousness, reflections of young Zimbabweans on the meaning of independence and tracing the fading democratic value of leadership in Zimbabwe. The essays vary in length and are essentially individual reflections of Zimbabweans. The electronic publication of these essays has been facilitated by the Zimbabwe Committee of the Peoples Charter.There are at least two more essays expected to be published before 18 April 2012, in the anticipation that they will allow for increased public debate on the meaning of our national independence.

Our National Historical Consciousness and our Future

Takura Zhangazha

Introduction

Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean society, like all other countries that exist in the world, cannot claim a clear and unambiguous disjuncture with its history. The creation of the modern day polity that has come to define the territory between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers has been a process laden with various but continuous historical interactions. These overlaps of history have included conquest, colonialism, commerce, Christianity, African nationalism, revolutionary war, the Cold War and the broad pursuit of democracy. All of these occurred without clear distinction and have been invariably interwoven.

It is essentially 'African nationalism', 'revolutionary war' and 'democracy' that were intended to be victorious on 18 April 1980, the day and year on which the Zimbabwean flag was raised. With the benefit of hindsight and on the basis of various historical analysis, it has come to be known that these three paramount values were not going to be completely acquired and therefore had to be negotiated.

The end result was the compromise and ceasefire document that is historically referred to as the Lancaster House Constitution which was agreed to in December 1979. It is the nature and extent of the compromise that informed the politics of a ten year post independence period which assists in analyzing the birth pangs of the Zimbabwean state. It is a 'compromise' that has been referred to as having been influenced by the Frontline States which were insisting that the liberation war had to end and therefore the liberation movements had no choice but to agree or lose regional and continental support. In other instances, explanations of the 'compromise' agreement relate to issues to do with the fear by the incoming nationalist leadership of a massive skills exodus as well as disinvestment by Rhodesian and international capital in our newly independent state.

All of these reasons however point to the direct or complicit participation of our nationalist leaders in the decision making processes of that time. Some more than others, but all with a specific complicity that may have been historically necessary, but cannot be whitewashed. In other words, the leadership of the liberation movements, the post independence successive governments and our contemporary inclusive government are to a greater extent the ones who have been responsible for the state of affairs in the country since 1980, the role of external factors not withstanding.

It is therefore imperative to point out at the beginning of this essay that the primary challenge of the leadership of that time and of present day remains that of not fully coming to terms with their role, complicit or direct, in the construction of our national independence project. Because of this fundamental challenge that the nationalist and in part contemporary leadership have faced in understanding the full import of the struggle that they undertook to liberate Zimbabwe, as well as the inability of the post nationalist leadership to grasp the significance of the historical occurrences of the past as linked to present day and future Zimbabwe, it is also important to outline the general characteristics of our country at 32 years of independence outside of their narrow and partisan politicized frameworks.

This essentially entails a grasping of the historical and contemporary realities that Zimbabwe faced and continues to face within the context of an increasingly unfocused national political leadership that is acting both in the interests of narrow political persuasions and ideologies that are exploitatively linked to an emergent east-west collaborative global capitalism.

It is by doing so that we become conscious of the historical challenges that lie before the generality of all Zimbabweans inclusive of those that are in contemporary leadership. Our solutions to our particular socio-political and economic challenges therefore reside in our ability to conscientiously apply ourselves to particular, historical and well thought out as well negotiated frameworks of engaging the challenges that we face in the present and their full import for the future.

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