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2005 RESEARCH DAY
Interim Summary of the Proceedings
by Diana Jeater
Please note that a full Report on the Research Day for members will appeare later in the BZS Review[The Research Day Programme follows this summary]
Introduction
- The BZS Research Day this year occurred at a time when Zimbabwe has a high profile in the news - higher even than during the recent parliamentary elections - because of the destruction of unregistered homes and businesses. In the past, at BZS Research Days, we have had gathered as experts to analyse and explain events. Today, however, there has been, rather, a sense of bemusement and powerlessness in the face of these actions.
- One theme which emerged during the day was that many of the problems currently facing Zimbabwe arise from changes in the wider world beyond Zimbabwe's borders: hence the appropriateness of the day's topic, 'Zimbabwe, Africa & the World'.
An outdated culture and rhetoric
- Several of the presentations suggested that Zimbabwe is struggling to find a new state narrative and a new set of principles and policies, adapted to a new international environment.
- Zimbabwe's sense of itself and its role in the world refer back to the 'honeymoon period' of the 1980s, when Zimbabwe was a very exciting player on the world stage, taking a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement and the struggle against apartheid, as well as designing new strategies to deliver education, health care and social development to a poor, rural-based population.
- As the panel on literature - and particularly Ranka Primorac's presentation - illustrated, a strong narrative strand in the popular literature within Zimbabwe involves a series of ordeals, which the hero endures in order to transform the world and make it a better environment for all. This narrative form has strong resonances with the way that Zimbabwe's role in the world is still popularly presented both within Zimbabwe itself and elsewhere within Africa.
- Hasu Patel outlined for us the principles on which Zimbabwe's foreign policy is based. These represent the aspirations and achievements of the liberation period, supporting positive non-alignment and solidarity between the poorer nations of the world. Over recent years, Mugabe has positioned himself internationally as a stalwart against neo-conservatism and neo-liberal economics. His land reform policy has been presented, and widely interpreted, as a challenge to the policies of the rich nations and a refusal, à la Venezuela, to conduct its economy according to the dictates of the World Bank. Consequently, Mugabe is widely regarded within Africa (and elsewhere) as a hero of the poor peoples of the world, standing up against the bullying of George Bush and, particularly, Tony Blair.
- However, as Stephen Chan and Jack Spence demonstrated, Mugabe's positioning of himself as the world challenger of international capital is based on an outdated rhetoric, which has not changed to meet the demands of a changing world. The current foreign policy, and the economic policies with which it is so closely linked, have created problems internally and externally. Significantly, they have become regionally destabilising, threatening the credibility of South Africa's NEPAD initiative.
- It is not only political rhetoric which has failed to adapt to changes in the wider world. As Sunanda Ray argued, there has also been a failure to transform the cultural environment to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Inflexible attitudes towards discussing sexual behaviour, and the entrenched 'cultures of entitlement' that allowed the elite to appropriate most state funding for AIDS/HIV treatments for themselves, both contributed significantly towards the spread of the disease.
Things that cannot be said/Things that must be silenced
- The failure of the state or society to speak out about the inadequacy of the responses to the AIDS crisis illustrated the issue of silencing and secrecy. Several of the presentations highlighted how much within Zimbabwean culture is not said/not done, or exists without proper public acknowledgement.
- As well as issues associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and failures to discuss the Gukuruhundi, we heard from Beacon Mbiba about how Zimbabwe was kept out of the Commission for Africa debate, both by those who wanted to exclude Zimbabwe as a pariah state and those who wanted to protect Zimbabwe from being held up as an example of poor governance. Close examination of the situation in Zimbabwe, and close involvement of the Zimbabwean state, was perceived as potentially dangerous and destabilising for the whole Commission.
- The reluctance within Zimbabwe to discuss its problems, either personally as people with HIV+ status or institutionally as a state in crisis, again seems to reflect a 1980s reticence - the studied 'cool' of 1980s pop culture - while the rest of the world has moved towards a greater readiness to admit weakness, discuss problems, and ask for help - the 'touchy feely' openness of the post-Oprah, post-Princess Diana, popular culture.
- The sense that things must be silenced because they are potentially destabilising and threatening raised questions about what is perceived as threatening to the society, and how the perceptions of threat might be transformed to better suit a changing world. The shadow of ngozi and the healing potential of sangoma have been very important in the cultural responses to the social trauma of the war. The silences within the society suggest that there are other areas of trauma which could be helpfully addressed using discourses of witchcraft and healing.
- At many points during the day, the state's refusal to acknowledge Human Rights abuses was discussed. Despite its commitment to the rights of all peoples to self-determination and independence, and its championing of the poorer nations of the world, the Zimbabwean state is less ready to defend individual human rights. The international discourses of Human Rights are linked to the neo-liberal agenda, and the conditionalities of the Commission for Africa, which, as Jack Spence explained, Zimbabwe has failed to meet, also thereby threatening the entire NEPAD project.
- A contribution from the floor pointed out that Human Rights discourses pay little attention to indigenous ways of defining unacceptable behaviour and existing concepts of transgressions that merit exclusion from normal social membership. Moreover, as another contributor from the floor pointed out, Human Rights is a highly problematic concept even within Western philosophical traditions. Discourses of witchcraft might be effectively mobilised to embed notions of Human Rights within Zimbabwean society, and would have the additional advantage of uncoupling Human Rights from the neo-liberal conditionalities against which Mugabe has positioned himself.
- What is perceived as threatening, then, needs reinvention/recreation, both to enable Zimbabwe to become more open to asking for help when it is needed, and to embed individual rights vis-à-vis the state.
Creative responses
- The panel on literature suggested that such transformations must come from, and be reflected within, popular culture. Ranka Primorac and Maurice Vambe demonstrated how popular literature genres within Zimbabwe, in both English and the vernaculars, are currently engaged in lively internal conversations about the nature of the state, and the moral imperatives facing both government and citizens.
- These internal conversations nonetheless reflect the presence of the wider world within Zimbabwe. The culture is the product of multiple influences from Europe, Africa and elsewhere across many generations. In this sense, as Maurice Vambe observed, all Zimbabwean literature is syncretic literature, even if written in the vernacular.
- However, as Primorac's presentation illustrated, popular culture has a weak sense of the virtues of personal (or national) reinvention. Even in the canonical texts, such as Tsitsi Dangaremba's Nervous Conditions, there is a reluctance to finish the story with any strong sense of personal transformation, rather than the triumph over adversity. The dominant narrative of the hero who overcomes a series of obstacles (or the nation that endures a series of zvimurenga) involves the protagonist changing the world, but without changing himself. The observation that the rhetoric and principles of foreign policy have not been transformed, despite the changing world environment, find their parallel in the literary heroes who fail to transform themselves.
- On the other hand, as Drew Shaw argued, Zimbabwe is recognised as a having a canon of substantial world literature. Significantly, the generation of award-winning writers in exile during the 1970s were the products of Zimbabwean culture in fruitful collision with elsewhere. Dambudzo Marechera's work, in particular, was manifestly not a literature of exile, but of hybridity. And it is from the Diaspora that the future writers with visions of transformation will probably emerge.
The importance of the Zimbabwe Diaspora
- The Diaspora had a high profile in all the sessions during the day. Increasingly, it seems, the topic of Zimbabwe in the World is not just about Zimbabwe's role in international relations, but also about the role of Zimbabweans in the many countries where they now reside.
- The children who benefited from the honeymoon days of the 1980s are now a generation of highly-educated, highly articulate and sophisticated young adults. It seems that the liberationist rhetoric of their childhoods, to which the state is still wedded, no longer works to expand their life opportunities, but appears rather to limit them. Consequently, increasing numbers of them find employment elsewhere.
- We heard about Zimbabweans outside Zimbabwe playing a major role as experts providing advice to the Commission for Africa, and thereby supply a Zimbabwean voice within the Commission, despite its formal exclusion from the hearings. We heard about the high (indeed, disproportionate) status of Zimbabwean writers and other cultural workers in the diaspora. We heard about the valuable, necessary contributions of Zimbabweans as empathetic health workers and campaigners on HIV in the nations where they have settled.
- Clearly, Zimbabweans in the Diaspora are developing new, hybrid identities, and embedding themselves as integral members of their new homes. There is even a Zimbabwean in the Big Brother house…
- There was a strong sense during the day that the Diaspora is where the new principles to inform a vision of Zimbabwe's role in the world will emerge, along with new ideas about culture and society.
The need for other governments to talk to Mugabe
- However, the old liberationist principles still have a way to run, and although they are personified and articulated by Mugabe, they are not dependent upon him. They are deeply embedded in the state, which, as Spence demonstrated, is neither a collapsing nor a failing state, but continues to function effectively at many levels. Moreover, as Mbiba noted, they are also deeply embedded in the modes of thought of many younger Zimbabweans, including those consulted by the Commission for Africa.
- There was general agreement among speakers and contributors from the floor that Richard Dowden's analysis in The Times on 16th May was broadly correct, and that Western governments need to talk to Mugabe.
- However, we noted that Mugabe needs, as Patel put it, to spread his country's dependency, and he may be more interested in talking to China than to the UK. Nonetheless, as Chan cogently argued, China has no interest in investing significantly in Zimbabwe, which has little to offer to China, beyond a back door to the more lucrative markets of South Africa.
- Moreover, if Western governments are to engage seriously with Mugabe's proclaimed vision of a nation of small-scale farmers, selling successfully on their own terms in the world markets, it will need more than a chat between Blair and Mugabe - it will need concerted international transformation of WTO agreements, and the involvement of the World Bank in land reform (as Sam Moyo argued to the Commission for Africa).
- Consequently, we ended the day as bemused and disturbed by recent events as we had begun. As more than one contributor pointed out: Yes, we need to talk to Mugabe - but about what?
Diana Jeater, Bristol
12th June 2005
Zimbabwe, Africa and the World
St. Antony's College, Oxford, 11 June 2005
9 - 9:30 Registration
9:30 - 11: 00 Session 1. Looking from the inside out: Zimbabwe's foreign policy: a debate
Terence Ranger (Chair)
Hasu Patel (UZ)
Stephen Chan (SOAS)11: 20 - 12: 50 Session 2: Zimbabwe and Africa
Millius Palayiwa, Christ Church (Chair)
Jack Spence (King's) Zimbabwe and South Africa
Beacon Mbiba (Commission for Africa Secretariat) Zimbabwe and the Commission for Africa
13: 00 - 14: 00 Lunch break
14: 15 - 15: 45 Session 3.: Writing from a post-colony A world literature? A round table
Elleke Boehmer , Royal Holloway (Chair)
Drew Shaw (Queen Mary Westfield)
Maurice Vambe (Unisa)
Ranka Primorac (NYU in London)16: 00 - 17: 30 Session 4. Looking from the outside in: International perspectives on law and the HIV-AIDS pandemic
Fareda Banda, SOAS (Chair)
Gugulethu Moyo (International Bar Association) Zimbabwe in the context of international law and international norms (withdrew due to family emergency)
Sunanda Ray (Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights) The HIV-Aids pandemic and the Zimbabwean diaspora in the UK17: 45 - 18: 15 Closing summary
Edgar Moyo, BZS Vice President (Chair)
Diana Jeater (University of West of England, Chair BZS)
18:30 Book Launch & Reception: Robert Muponde & Ranka Primorac (eds) Versions of Zimbabwe - New Approaches to Literature & Culture (Harare, Weaver Press)Who We Are Contact Us Events How To Join Activities
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