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Crisis of ideology haunting Zanu PF
Itai Masotsha Zimunya
July 05, 2005

The multi faceted crisis that besets Zimbabwe has been explained in many terms. The ruling Zanu PF party attributes poverty and hunger to international sanctions and drought whilst the civil society attribute this partly to the chaotic land reform exercise. Other scholars and economists link this socio-economic collapse to Zanu PFs policy incongruences and its disrespect for the rule of law. In an historical context, the crisis in Zimbabwe can best be matched with an acute deficiency of ideology by the ruling Zanu PF party.

After the first decade of scientific socialism, the government dived into the dark pool of capitalist structural adjustment programmes. Having excelled in the provision of social services like education, health and housing provision in the first decade of power, the Zanu PF government would have done best by maintaining a people centered policy system. The abrupt change from a humanist to a cost recovery economic system was the era of reversing the gains of the liberation struggle. In this context, evils such as "Operation Murambatsvina" and nationalization non-Zanu PF business empires are manifestations of years of ideological bankruptcy.

Present day Zimbabwe is under siege from militarism. Like father Zimbabwe noted in 1985, that " the people of Zimbabwe are defenseless and live in fear, not of enemies but of their own government". In its history of ruling after 1980, the party has resorted to a dangerous system of pseudo nationalism, violence and chauvinism. The Matabele massacre of the 1980s, the violent retribution to student activism since the early
90s, the land reform exercise and the current anti-MDC campaigns confirm this assertion of Zanu PF's belief in violence.

Mugabe explains his power more because of his history of the liberation struggle than being a people's choice through elections. Thus after independence, the Zanu PF elite converted themselves into the bourgeoisie class, and this explains the ideology currently reigning supreme in Zanu PF. This explains why land, allowances and Chiefs salaries are rewarding war veterans and chiefs, the merchants of Mugabe's power.

Social pessimism and disbelief in dialogue has engulfed Zanu PF, and contributes to it resorting to war to solve any problem whether within Zanu PF or with external entities. The callousness and evil plans of evicting millions of poor workers is a clear example that Zanu PF has long forgotten that the liberation struggle was fought by these very poor. The black government in Zimbabwe has adopted vary apartheid and racist slogans, sidelining Black people in favour of the Chinese. The delicate trick here is the dilemma that racism is the oppression of a few by the majority or only occurs between blacks and whites.

The Zimbabwean economy is suffering from asset stripping and primitive accumulation of capital by the ruling elite. The land grabbing exercise by Zanu PF chefs and the so-called war veterans is part of the accumulation project. The taking of corporation's accused of expropriating foreign currency is part of this capital project. Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor is an accomplice in this project. His call for the extermination of corruption is sterile as he searches west whilst the real looters surround him.

The peasants were used as ponies in the land reform exercise. They were asked to occupy peripheral lands and warned not to construct permanent structures whilst the elite were commandeering government trucks into fertile green lands. In the urban areas, workers face the most savage form of exploitation when the authorities make a monetary statement that freezes (without consultation) wages on the background of an above 120% inflation rate and acute shortages of basic commodities. Fraud, plunder and propaganda make the day for the ruling Zanu PF elite.

Professor Jonathan Moyo, despite being a political mercenary, best describes Zanu PF's bankruptcy of ideology when he says- they just make slogans and declare them policies. "Operation Murambatsvina" is one such slogan that was converted into policy overnight at the Police General Head Quarters. Before the March 2005 elections Morgan Tsvangirai (the leader of the MDC) once described the numerous and haphazard constructions in the farms with a remarkable simile: "settlements sprouting like mushroom". He was taken to town by the state media accused of cursing the descendants of Mbuya Nehanda and Mzilikazi.

In agreement with Marx's theory of primitive accumulation of capital, Gideon Gono, the untrained economist prescribed the destruction of flea markets and informal business merchants in the towns and cities of Zimbabwe with many shallow aims.

Firstly, he argues that flea market traders waste foreign currency by buying non-essentials from South Africa, Zambia and Botswana. Therefore closing them will lower the demand of forex in Zimbabwe and scuttle the parallel market. This has a tendency to lower the inflationary pressure and divert most forex in informal hands to the productive sector.

Operation Murambatsvina is a well-calculated political project. The agrarian revolution can not be a success without labour. It has emerged that there is a critical shortage of labour on the farms to an extend that all agrarian targets remain a mirage until the issue is addressed. The plot therefore, is that displacing people from the urban areas and banning urban agriculture will force people to work as farm workers in the commercial farms. It is a shame for Zimbabwe that, 25 years into independence, the government which ought to have been working for the people, chooses to implement a 16th century and failed plan to force people into their labour traps. Operation Murambatsvina likens, according to Marx, the 16th century bloody laws of France, Britain and Holland, which targeted at vagabond peasants who were driven into capitalist factories and habituated to wage slavery by the threat of flogging and hanging.

The answer to this madness is simple and just. The current political leadership must go and pave way for new beginnings. It has to be a calculated people's reclaim of their independence from opportunists that want to build empires on the blood of sons and daughters of Zimbabwe. The colonial constitution has to be archived whilst a new people written constitution, one that separate powers between the executive, the legislature and parliament comes to effect. The f leadership code has to be built around sound corporate governance systems. All prospective members of senior government positions must declare their worth before assuming duty so that the current white-collar crime is checked. It will not, however, be sustainable not to revisit the injustices of the current government on the people of Zimbabwe on the political and economic fronts. Another Zimbabwe is possible and nothing is constant but change.

*Itai Masotsha Zimunya Human rights activist and former student leader. Currently with the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. Contact email: Itaizim@yahoo.com

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