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Preface to a Zimbabwean political roller-coaster
John Mutambirwa
Extracted from Pambazuka News 356
March 26, 2008

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/46778

John Mutambirwa responds to Grace Kwinjeh and Patrick Bond's commentary on Zimbabwe

An unthinkable and welcome guess!

Given the kind of social, political and intellectual ferment that characterizes Zim society today, it certainly should not be considered a rude, unjust and unsporting impertinence for one to voice a few cautionary reservations about the gushingly generous laudations usually heaped on the current Zim government's early successes in ushering in a rapid amelioration of education and health. While these approbations are, indubitably, well merited, what cannot be easily comprehended is a hypothetical re-imagining of history which would attempt to gauge what a Sithole, or a Nkomo, or even a Muzorewa, administration would have achieved in the same areas. That a real-time social re-creation of such a development(s) is impossible, yet imaginable, is one of the tantalizing humours of human history. My immediate and ill-educated guess is that, success in these areas, given any of the cited possibilities, would not have been significantly different.

Of economy of cents

Good commentary on the economic hiccups concerning the future of Zim. Couldn't agree more. I am very much in agreement re commentary on plan for economic transformation that is embraced by the opposition. It does not seem to differ much from that which RGM, and desparate (if well fed) company, have practised to date -- i.e neoliberalism -- with the exception that the one in evidence to date seems to be a particularly insiduous strain of fascist capitalism which requires a close relationship between the state and economic elites -- the state elite being mostly composed of top dogs in the ruling party, of course -- some of them being men and women of significant economic substance.

That is one of the reasons I find certain well-measured bellyaches regarding the Zim situation (which cavils, unfortunately, verge towards thoughtful casuistry) by business friendly gadflies alarmingly misleading. It would appear that they have never asked themselves how an administration, seemingly committed to a more-or-less egalitarian socio-economic ethos, would have so easily (providing, of course, that the recipients of such munificence played political ball) allowed a chosen few facile ownership of a variety of business concerns in Zim, be it in tourism or mining or whatsoever. This certainly appears to be a weird way for the government to express its egalitarian, socialist ethos!! I shall not comment on the glaring, obtaining, lopsided wealth and income distribution that currently characterizes the same exemplar of socialist management!! Bless your soul, John Saul!

This is the kind of intellectual malaise I find afflicting even indigenous critics of the status quo, who mindlessly refer to RGM's regime as socialist. Pity that the same chorus is then repeated by respected, if equally indolent and irrelevant, international commentators. A government that is neoliberal to the core is then presented as a bunch of wooly-headed impractical idealists of the socialist school.

A slight and sleight digression

Perhaps a modest digression on this socialist theme is here necessary. I confess that I am tempted to discuss this theme with passionate garrulity, but will have to - given the beckoning and sobering realization that I might be both unwisely worrying the reader's finite patience and also that I am loath to display my spotty comprehension of such a comprehensive theme to a glowering public - limit my comments to a few timidly expressed points.

The continued reference - as socialist - (in the name of unreflective mutilation of meaning!) to the sort of economic management, on display in both contemporary Zim and China, is so mindboggling as to drive one to a madhouse. In the abidingly erratic view of this author, what would seem to be the obtaining administrative pattern in the economic realm of the latter is a robustly authoritarian dirigisme (which is hardly in comportment with the socialist trends - equally despotic - of its immediate past), and in the former (as in most economically battered developing countries), a markedly diffident version (fearfully and sporadically manifested) of the same dirigisme - a not-too-surprising scheme of things, in light of the apprehensive and furtive glances over their shoulders that the policy makers, of such a country as Zim, steal at the headmasterly ferrule of Mr Bretton Woods.

The immediately preceding comment might provoke a pained and censorious brouhaha from those who would be quick to counter that recent events, indicative of counterproductive administrative meddlesomeness (price controls being one of them), are unambiguous pointers to Zim's embrace of the dirigisme of the robust variety. I cannot accede to this criticism, for current manifestations of official meddlesomeness are little more than desperate actions resorted to to ameliorate an irremediably wretched situation. A very instructive instance of the emotively deflating observation, "too little too late". The telling damage was done long ago during the heady days of maddening flirtation with the enticing magic of the Washington Consensus, whose sudden termination left Zim officialdom with a broken heart and a diminished will to live. Besides, one might as well mention in passing the schizophrenic policy clashes, within the administration, that occasionally manifest themselves in contradictory approaches to formulation and implentation of policy between Prime Minister Gono's office and the Presidency.

One wonders when the next batch of extremely worn out Zim dollars will be dispatched to the punctilious Bretton Woods debtors! Which again makes me wonder what the MDC's thoughts on the debt overhang are. Will the MDC threaten a well planned delinquency - a la Argentina - or will it let fall a loud diplomatic blare re debt cancellation? My person has run out of tea leaves (perhaps, a reflection of the prevalent, obtaining, dire economic straits!) to consult with regard this particular.

The same errant train of thought effectively afflicts the same social critics in their approach to such headline-grabbing themes as "Nationalization" and "Indigenization" and the intellectually lazy tendency (so liberally exhibited by the same critical horde) towards treating them as semantically and practically interchangeable. The former (given that democratic discourse and practice are its defining hallmarks) can be properly referred to as a move towards effecting a more equalitarian social dispensation at best, or, in somewhat more diluted form, a move towards smoothing the jagged edges of a remotely socially sympathetic capitalism - both outcomes being discretionarily engineered by the government then ruling. The latter has, all too often, exhibited itself as none other than the much discredited classical nationalism informed by the philosophy of displacing a colonial with an indigenous elite.

And Morgan the Pilate

"And what is truth?", asked the jesting and intellectually overwhelmed ruler of Judea. One gets the far from easy sentiment that Morgan Tsvangirai is in like intellectual and spiritual torment when one considers his answers to questions on the economy when he was recently interviewed by SWradioAfrica on this particular.

To begin with, it is rather difficult to get a good read on Morgan's comments regarding developmental assistance (be it gratis or in the form of manageable loans). Depending on the language in which such assistance is robed, it can be, and has probatively been so in many instances, developmentally malign. It is rather difficult to imagine that a prostrate economy, such as Zim's, still has a sufficient reservoir of bargaining energy (usually a confident companion of an advanced degree of economic autonomy) to emerge as mutual winner in negotiative gives-and-takes regarding this particular. Nor is it easy to imagine that, in the interests of prudent self preservation and careful navigation of all possible priorities, Morgan and company have cast a thoughtfully tentative glance at Latin America. My uninformed guess is that little cerebration has been expended in this direction. It can only be fitfully guessed how much Latin American Chavistas would like to establish a beachead for their brand of social governance in Africa and also what the warmth of receptivity of oppositional policy wonks to such a diplomatic overture would be.

The same commanding uncertainty accompanies Morgan's view on subsidies. Morgan emphatically pointed out that no such discretionary assistance would be forthcoming to local companies and individuals who can afford it. These are brave fighting words in the teeth of the global opening up of the economy and the ubiquitous presence of South African influence in many facets of the Zim economy. It also seems to pay scant regard to the companion deindustrialization of the opening up of the economy experienced in the immediate past -- not locally beneficial arrangements these, in terms of wealth creation and concomitant increase of employment opportunities. Nor does it consider how to counter South African competition in both local and regional (perhaps, effectively lost and now irretrievable) markets without arranging for some form of enabling subsidies to local producers. And, by the way, these problems will manifest their enduring qualities even in a Zim minus RGM or ZANU!

It would appear that a robust discretionary meddling with the economy will have to be a fact of life (especially for an economy so wretchedly stooped and bent as Zim's) for a very long time to come. It would also appear, as Patrick Bond has so persuasively pointed out elsewhere, that some oppositional policy wonks have never learnt anything from the discretionary economic management of the Smith regime in Rhodesia and the apartheid one in South Africa, both of which manifested a goodly amount of prudence and foresight in establishing a nationally comforting measure of economic autonomy, and in creating very effective speed bumps to reign in footloose, speed demons of the international fast lane.

By the way, it might be necessary to mention reassuringly on this head, that discretionary policy, in so far as it is carefully thought out and also informed by a profoundly democratic impulse (in contradistinction to the blunderbuss approach that Zimmers have become all too familiar with) cannot but work for the greater social weal.

Nor have they listened to the nostalgic worries of the majority of ordinary Russians today, who could poignantly tell them that (were the wheel of history capable of opportune reversal) they most certainly would welcome a vigorous glasnost -- always needed for an invigorating blast of democratic fresh air - but would be extremely and peevishly wary of a perestroika whose draught plans were laid out by crafty Bretton Woods architects.(1) (see comment at the end in regard this theme)

I find the comments on the Diaspora interesting. I have always wondered why, even in elections past, with such a significant portion of the electorate having moved further afield, the numerical total of voters on the voters roll has remained constant. The MDC, however, still soldiers on with masochistic fortitude even given these seemingly insoluble brain teasers. Verily, a veritable cornucopia of masochistic valour is needed to conduct oppositional politics in Zim today! Resoundingly persuasive reasons for participation in such elections will always be conjured up. Such is the nature of being always put in a politically reactive mode! I do, however, know that had RGM found himself in a like position, he would have been the first one to combat it with extra-parliamentary vigorousness. What! With all the copious wisdom of the degrees of wisdom under his belt to draw from!

As much as my bilious temperament has been so unsurprisingly provoked that I should like to comment without cease for a few years more, there appears to be still a scintilla of embattled patience, which has not been crowded out by the riot of emotions in my house of personality, in a remote nook of my mind sagely prompting me to cease and desist here. If you cannot read anything further than the next fullstop, it might have just succeeded in doing that.

But, hang on, there is still that insistent footnote to deal with below!

(1) In the same reflectively compassionate vein as that of the Russians, many a plaintive observer would probably point out that:

(ii) In regard to the hallowed gospel of the errantly functional market society, contemporary highest wisdom would claim that: while it indicated unquestionably meritorious patriotic stewardship, on the part of the US government, to intervene in the market to keep abreast of, and even emulate, sub-systemic patterns of Soviet administration that were responsible for military, and near military, excellence (the MIGS, the AK 47s and the sputniks, among others), it would have been unforgivable folly (of purgatorial authorship!) to emulate subsystems that were responsible for keeping the general Russian populace well housed, well educated and sanitarily provided.

It can be profitably, if secretively, conjectured that the former variety of emulation, besides being patriotically noble (a sentiment in which the broad population is emotively elevated) is also incidentally and mundanely lucrative to those in the aerospace and military industry -- a species of payoff not so broadly generous to, or even remotely experienced by, the underlying population.

(iii) The current bailing out (to the tune of half a trillion dollars US) of a few financial houses in the US also springs to mind. Though it must be pointed out that the current malaise -- malignly repercussing globally and also the cause of a recession in the U.S. -- extends beyond the oft-mentioned mortgage chicanery and includes the agile accounting footwork manifested by many swagger companies that keeps a lot of extra-budgetary transactions off their official ledgers. Great tribute to the free market is this!!

(iii) Perhaps it would be overkill, on my censorious part, to make passing mention of the infinite amount of riders in international agreements which allow the US and European administrations to subsidize unilaterally and liberally their industries at the very same time that "developing" countries experience severely incapacitating deindustrializing throes. Not quite surprising, since these riders happen to be the brainchildren of lawyerly verbal flair and Daedalian logic with which both the US and Europe are more than adequately blest. Mentally uncomplicated, starry-eyed yokels, such as this author, cannot but help reciting (in regard to the immediately preceding) Oliver Goldsmiths lines on disarmingly impressionable rustics:

"While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics rang'd round;"

*John Mutambirwa is has worked with a local chapter of the National Urban League in New Jersey, was an Economics Justice editor for AfricaFiles and is involved in internet advocacy

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