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ZIMBABWE’S TRIPLE
CRISIS: PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION, NATION-STATE FORMATION AND DEMOCRATIZATION
IN THE AGE OF NEO-LIBERAL GLOBALIZATION
“The Land is the
Economy and the Economy is the Land” [1] “This is no ordinary
plebiscite …it is…a crucial defining moment which will determine
the direction this nation will take in terms of its sovereignty.” [2] “I can’t believe
we are fighting again for the right to vote.” [3] The above quotes signify
three perspectives on what might be called the 2000-2002 Zimbabwean
election.
[4] They bring together the conjunctural ‘events’
of the ‘long election’ (which in itself contains elements
of succession crisis within the ruling party), the land invasions, and
the struggles involving ‘sovereignty’ around them. They
reflect the long term crises of transition—those of ‘primitive
accumulation,’ nation-state formation, and democratization—faced
by all ‘developing’ societies (or societies ‘becoming
capitalist,’ however unevenly and haltingly so). This merger of
transitions in the longue durée and les événements (or
structure and agency) are combined on the terrain of the ‘middle
term’ contextual arena—that of more than a decade of debilitating
structural adjustment programs, the specific modalities of a world (dis)order
emerging out of the bipolar Cold War, and the (re)emergence of political
opposition and an active civil society in Zimbabwe.
[5] Thus Zimbabwe’s state-society
complex is facing a condensation and high-lighting of three elements
of long-simmering crises and transformation in the context of a collapsed
time frame in which two crisis-ridden ‘moments’ (the middle
and the short term) are stacked on top of the structural/historical
dimension. [6] This
paper specifies the content and the form— the contour of the conjunture
and the terrain – of Zimbabwe’s ‘organic crisis.’ The structural or longue
durée elements of this triple crisis consist of: a) Primitive accumulation,
which encompasses the alteration of pre-capitalist (‘communal’
and/or feudal) agrarian relations of production to capitalist ones,
and the formation of a capitalist class. As Marx is often quoted, capitalism
emerges from its preceding modes of production with ‘blood dripping
from every pore.’ The process of primary
accumulation is by no means ‘natural’ or spontaneous: state
force and many other ‘non-market’ modalities are necessary. [7] In
the ‘third world’ it may never emerge and thus the blood usually
flows more slowly; but the emergence of ‘war-torn Africa’
suggests a permanently stalemated process of violence in some regions. [8] At
other moments, the process speeds up in a very uneven and contradictory
way – also probably with violence. The process is always quite
unique in spite of its structural base. Many of its variations can be
attributed to the historically specific ways in which a combination
of externally ‘imposed’ and internally developing capitalist
social formations ‘articulated’ with pre-existing modes of
production. One may say that primitive accumulation always has ‘twists
in its tail’ and the ideological perspectives accompanying and
contesting it will add many twists to its tale. In Zimbabwe and other
African settler-colonial societies, primitive accumulation has identifiable
and comparable characteristics—race and the agrarian question.
Capitalist agriculture has been dominated by white settlers who carried
out their process of primitive accumulation by forcibly taking ‘native’
land and denying African farmers not merely commercial opportunities,
but also a chance to become capitalist land owners. [9] b) Nation-state construction,
which involves the creation of a national ‘community’ and
territorial space accepted by other regional and international ‘sovereigns.’
This involves both the struggle to create ‘imagined communities’
out of regionally, ethnically and racially dispersed ‘communities’
and the metaphorical and real battles for state managers to maintain
relative autonomy and gain power vis à vis their near and far
neighbors and non-state— but very powerful— actors in the
global political economy. [10] The state managers involved
are intricately related to and often part of the bourgeoisie emerging
in the process of primitive accumulation. They have complicated
alliances with myriad international classes, groups, and agencies. They
often condemn their objective allies: hence the many contradictions
of ‘anti-imperialist’ rhetoric from those on the periphery
of global capitalism who, on close analysis, collude with their ostensible
enemies. Further complicating
the process, especially in Africa, is the legacy of the arbitrarily
constructed borders within which ‘national’ identities are
forged. This process obviously has ‘local’ and ‘international’
dimensions. In Zimbabwe, the near genocide in Matabeleland in the 1980s
could be seen as part of the former, while involvement in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo since 1997 (especially 1998), combined with a
renewed anti-imperialist rhetoric, brings in the latter aspects. c) Democratization,
is a process through which power and participation are gradually won
by more and more social groups, and (ideally) come to be exercised in
mutually agreeable modes of representation and conflict resolution.
As Rita Abrahamsen’s Disciplining Democracy makes clear
in the Zambian case, the currently dominant modality of ‘democracy’
is liberal, and its restrictive purchase does not come near to solving
the problems of socio-economic disparity and its own idiosyncrasies
encourage ‘thin’ forms of participation. [11] Socio-political
analysts may tend to dismiss ‘democratization’ as a ‘superstructural’
phenomenon, but this essay contends that in the universal structural-historical
sense, as well as its manifestations in the contemporary ‘third
world,’ it has as much impact on transformational processes as
primitive accumulation and nation-state formation. The historical development
of powerful working classes often has a strong relationship with ‘democracy,’
and vice versa. [12] The strongest ‘democratic’ societies
thus also have high levels of ‘social’ democracy. This form
of democracy, which combines a universalistic discourse of first-order
civil rights with separate judiciary and parliaments, has historically
provided a powerful purchase against the authoritarian emerging bourgeoisies
common to peripheral social formations undergoing the trials of primitive
accumulation and nation-state formation. [13] Democratization trajectories
often lead to violence as opposition is repressed and fights back. Opposition
forces also make counterintuitive alliances with international forces
and ideologies. One only has to think of the transformation of
working class based opposition movements, born in struggles against
the travails of structural adjustment in Africa, into political parties
espousing neo-liberal ideas. Such realities mean that the issues of
sovereignty and primitive accumulation are intricately tied up with
‘democratization,’ and that one must move on the terrain of
the middle level and ‘events’ to unravel their connections. This paper will proceed
to combine the structural elements of Zimbabwe’s crisis with its
middle and immediate levels. At an abstract level they can be represented
graphically. At the level of narrative these categories can be explicated
by expounding upon the quotations at the beginning of the paper.
The components of the
crisis are intertwined: an economic crisis is aggravated and catalyzed
by more political spheres. That is why the crisis is organic. Its integral
nature is revealed if the quotes are unraveled. PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION
AND LAND: WHAT KIND OF ECONOMIES? ‘The land is the
economy and the economy is the land’ was the main campaign slogan
for ZANU (PF) in the parliamentary elections of June 2000. It appeared
to celebrate a renewed ‘land reform’ process coincidental
with the post-February constitutional referendum invasions of between
1,000 and 1,600 large scale commercial farms (LSCFs). This was
hailed by ruling party propagandists and its supporters as the beginning
of the end of a racially skewed agrarian system.
[14] By mid-2001 ZANU (PF)
claimed to have taken over 3,500 farms on over 3.5 million acres, with
105,000 people resettled in its ‘fast-track’ land reform process
(on the other hand, the Commercial Farmers’ Union claimed only
35,000 people had been resettled).
[15] Immediately after the 2002 election more
commercial farms were invaded. Whether or not the new settlers are the
deserving poor, ‘war veterans’, or the urban unemployed temporarily
installed and subsidized by the state and the army as part of a vast
intimidation strategy, the fact that the land issue is currently resonant
among the people suggests that its historical roots need investigation. [16] The notion of primitive
accumulation at least reminds one that a society where half of the population
(i.e., over six million people) live in very poor, only partially marketized
‘communal land,’ while half of its land is ‘capitalist’
and owned by just over 4,000 people, is prone to conflict. A potential problem with
using the ‘primitive accumulation’ framework is that it could
seem to accentuate a strict dividing line between ‘capitalist’
and ‘non-capitalist’ forms of tenure, much as the more orthodox
discourse speaks of a ‘dual sector’ in agriculture and even
a stark divide between urban and rural dwellers. Thus one
too easily finds clearly demarcated chart-like representations of the
land issue in Zimbabwe, like the following, to indicate land divisions
before 2000:
In contrast, but still
remaining within the ‘dual sector’ discourse (albeit with
the ‘state’ incorporated more definitely, in a clear ideological
gesture), the Commercial Farmers’ Union’s (CFU) statistics
suggest a different picture in late 2001:
A ‘black and white’ view of
these abstractions tends to cluster the patterns into ‘capitalist’
or ‘non-capitalist.’ Closer studies, however, indicate a high
degree of differentiation and a multitude of ‘ownership’ and
control patterns in the CAs. As Blair Rutherford’s finely textured
study of farm workers reveals, many of these ‘rural proletarians’
all but own misha in the supposedly ‘communal’ areas
(and many of them are not exactly sure whether or not they paid a ‘chief,’
a kraal-head or a ZANU (PF) official for it) and many of them employ wage
laborers. To further complicate the bifurcated discourse, he found that
a significant number in his survey of CA ‘owners’ were actually
born outside Zimbabwe. [18] As Beacon Mbiba notes,
even in the minority-rule era, ‘there was (is) a 20-30 per cent
core group “owning land” (but without freehold title)’
in addition to the very small, but more famous, owners of land in the
Native Purchase Areas (the 10,000 small scale commercial farmers on
1.2 million hectares noted above). [19]
In post-1980 resettled
areas, resettlement officers are supposed to handle issues of land transfer
and even expel farmers if they do not maintain good farming practice
or other standards of ‘good behavior.’ [21] On LSCFs it should be noted that many of
the paternalistic patterns of domination and control –- but also
of ‘obligation’ in many cases – between owners and workers,
such as reduced farm-shop prices and extensive credit arrangements,
are more akin to ‘feudalism’ than to strictly defined bourgeois-worker
relations. In the post-2000 invaded
areas, there is considerable debate about ‘who owns what.’
In some cases certificates are given to people who are able to negotiate
for them with the appropriate ‘war veteran’ but in most cases
the ‘settlers’ have a most indeterminate form of tenure. [22] According to one source, some invaded farms
are divided up into sections under the control of war vets who then
bring in ‘settlers’ from their own parts of the country. The
war vet in charge of each group receives intermittent payments from
the army or the WVA headquarters, which he may or may not distribute
to his wards. On one farm, the senior war vet did not receive payment
for months. The white farmer then hired him as a security guard. [23] The existence of varieties
of land tenure by no means invalidates the concept of primitive accumulation
since this transformation is a protracted process, taking years and
involving political struggle as well as much state intervention. [24]
Perhaps Arrighi’s ‘classical’ text on Zimbabwean political
economy also signposts the same phenomenon: he chronicled the ‘semi-proletarian’
status of Africans in the Rhodesian social formation many years ago. [25] As
Mark Duffield warns us about the moyens durée, current efforts
to ‘liberalize’ the world economy are leading to ‘non-liberal’
(indeed war-dominated) modes of production in its ‘hinterlands.’ [26] Therefore, the question
to ask is whether or not current land restructuring efforts in Zimbabwe
lead to the fulfillment of the whole primitive accumulation process
in that country. That is, do they lead to an urban proletarianization
of rural dwellers as well as the commodification of agrarian social
relations? The answer is, no. For this transformation
to take place, industrialization is needed to accompany a process of
agrarian restructuring. If not, the process of capitalist differentiation
will go in one of two directions. It will either take a long process
of ‘spontaneous’ transfer of agricultural surplus product
into urban-industrial ‘sectors’, with the peasants losing
out in the struggle for agrarian accumulation to working class positions
in the cities. Alternatively, it could lead to a semi-subsistence
stalemate, and the ‘urban-rural’ gap, blurred in interminable
survival strategies, will remain more or less permanent. [27] Current debates in Zimbabwe
highlight the different interests involved in this transformation. One
‘bourgeois’ approach (aside from the white bourgeoisie!)
to the current efforts at land reform is clear enough. It calls for
the state to legalize the privatization of the new settlements as soon
as possible. The Affirmative Action Group (AAG)–-one of the original
lobby groups representing what the emergent black bourgeoisie–-has
called for the state to ‘issue title deeds to thousands of resettled
farmers to enable them to fully develop their properties, saying that
it is ‘pointless’ for the government to continue with the
‘fast-track’ reform without the “necessary documentation
to prove one’s claim to the piece of land.” [28] In response, the ‘government’
was reported as having approached financial institutions to provide
guaranteed housing loans (no mention was made about credit for farming
inputs).
[29] However, a conference
in March 2002 of the Indigenous Business Development Centre (IBDC),
a competing ‘economic empowerment’ organization, avoided AAG’s
clarity on tenure. [30]
Its vice-president, an insurance executive, said that the conference’s
theme ‘Economic Empowerment is Land’ was to create awareness
among its members about the implications of land reform for their success
or lack thereof. He criticized foreign sanctions, and linking them to
ideas of the dependençia approach, he argued that Zimbabwe’s
raw materials are being exported to Western countries only to be refined
and then imported at exorbitant prices. He therefore proposed
a total indigenization of the country. The president of the
Indigenous Commercial Farmers Union (ICFU) was more cautious in his
praise for fast track land reform, suggesting its goals should be sustainable
food production at a cost affordable to the general populace, that private
and public sectors ensure farmers produce adequate raw materials for
local industries and sufficient volumes of exportable goods. However,
he too was vague about land tenure. It took until the end of the conference
for one executive to declare that long leases should be given to the
farmers so that they could be used as security for loans from financial
institutions.
[31] Thus, even the emerging
accumulating class seems to be disconcerted by the current conjuncture.
They see problems with the present policies, but also wish to continue
their good relations with the party-state apparatus that has muddied
the waters.
[32] Meanwhile, the already entrenched party-state
bourgeoisie has ensured that in the new dispensation they will be allocated
at least ten per cent of the new lands. [33] Presenting the ‘traditional’
point of view on agrarian social relations, an appointed member of parliament,
Chief Jonathan Mangwende, said in October 2001 that the land resettlement
program was not decongesting the overpopulated rural areas because the
chiefs were not being given their due recognition in the process. He
claimed that the names of people for the resettlement program should
come from the chiefs, but this had not happened. He pointed out
that one of the clauses in the constitutional drafts, circulated by
ZANU (PF) in its late 1999 efforts, advised that chiefs should be in
charge of all resettlement. [34]
Perhaps ZANU (PF)’s pre-2002 election promises to hire new secretaries
for traditional authorities and to equip then with e-mail was enough
to re-convince them to support the ruling party. As the previous words
on the relationship between land and industrialization have suggested,
discussion of ‘primitive accumulation’ cannot end with agrarian
relations alone. It must also focus on the formation of a ‘bourgeoisie’
in its agrarian, ‘comprador,’ financial, and industrial forms.
It needs to take into account its relationship with the state and classes
of a similar ilk at the international level. One must also ask how
structural adjustment programs, that have stripped Zimbabwe’s once
healthy education system, have made fertile ground for the armed force’s
head to build a private primary school. [35] The war vets, too, must be considered as
an ‘interest group’— with hierarchical gradations and
corruption patterns potentially leading to class differentiation –
with a special relationship to the state that has turned into an avenue
for accumulation as well as purely ‘political’ power. [36] In general, it would appear that a bourgeoisie
which might have been on the road to a productive and industrially-based
accumulation in the early to mid-1980s has been turned by neo-liberal
policies and authoritarianism into one based on financial speculation,
war economies, and the plundering of historically alienated agricultural
spaces, but it will take much more investigation to determine its exact
contours. One can conclude this
section on ‘primitive accumulation’ with the following proposition.
It appears that the racial structural flaw in the process of primitive
accumulation (the longue durée), while possibly on the way to
gradual amelioration with the 1980s reforms, came to a halt with a combination
of externally imposed structural adjustment programs and donor disenchantment.
This transformed the internal ruling group, which forgot its liberation
war rhetoric, and instead dropped the alliances and ideological affinities
adopted during that struggle.
[37] This moyen durée process came to
a halt and turned into a ‘crisis of events’ when the economic
consequences of neo-liberalism (for example, debt and de-industrialization)
and the rise of strong opposition (partially created by them) led to
a faltering of ZANU (PF) leadership’s alliance with the ‘war
veterans.’ [38] This
alliance was sealed in August 1997 when the veterans’ were awarded
a lump sum of Z$50,000 and monthly pensions of Z $2,000, with promises
to resurrect land reform (twenty per cent of which would go to members
of the WVLA).
[39] The cost was in the range of Z$4.5 billion.
When added to many more
billions siphoned out of parastatal corporations in the preceding few
years, the fiscal strain led to ‘Black Friday’ in October
1997, when the Zimbabwean dollar lost seventy-five per cent of its value. [40] From
there on, event piled upon event to add chaos to the conjuncture. Over
1,400 farms were slated for acquisition but were soon delisted. The
Kabila régime was supoorted against the ‘rebels’, the Rwandans
and the Ugandans. Promises of donor money for the new land reform program
were reneged upon. What was then only an oppositional social movement
formalized into the MDC. The failure of the February
2000 constitutional referendum pushed Robert Mugabe (and perhaps a group
of mafikizolo, or ‘those who came yesterday,’ aspirants
to ZANU(PF)’s leadership) even further into alliance with the ‘war
vets’ and some peasants who were sporadically invading LSCFs. [41] But such chronicles or events fail to differentiate
their structural and historical roots. Another lens through which they
can be viewed is the way Zimbabwe’s rulers have responded to the
many challenges to their sovereignty. NATION-STATE FORMATION:
SOVEREIGNTY AND COMMUNITY LOST AND REGAINED? On the issue of state-building
and sovereignty, the ‘land is the economy’ discourse is intricately
related to the Zimbabwean ruling group’s ostensible desire to free
itself from a neo-colonial relationship to white farmers, Britain, and
‘western imperialism’ in general (while also wishing to avail
itself of its avenues to conspicuous consumption). [42] The support of regional and third world
leaders can also be garnered in this fashion. The chess-board of international
relations is a component part of ZANU (PF)’s tactics and strategies.
Thus, the rhetoric against whites in Zimbabwe and Tony Blair and his
“gang of gay gangsters” can be understood as a discursive
effort to rebuild a fading hegemonic project, using the international
backdrop. Recourse to the façade
of state sovereignty through patriotism and ‘traditional’
values is nothing new, of course, but it takes on almost hysterical
tones in an age where ‘globalization’ has changed the language
of ‘progressive alternatives’ to neo-liberalism well beyond
the boundaries that it has irrevocably altered.
[43] Those who challenge the reconstruction of
this discourse are referred to as ‘puppets’ and ‘enemies
of the people’ mobilizing armies on the borders of a re-sanctified
territory.
[44] The formation of a cohesive
nation-state is one of the historical tasks of ‘modernity’
as defined by classical political and sociological theory, and it is
not granted without violence and dastardliness. [45] The question — posed by both dependençia
and conservative theorists – is whether or not it can be constructed
in the ‘third world’. [46] Contemporary
structuralist accounts tend to say that for Africa, if the process of
nation-state formation was progressing during the sixties and seventies,
it was halted with the advent of structural adjustment policies. [47] If
Zimbabwe is an example of a failed structural adjustment project
— and even the failed efforts of global democratizers in
their NGO and state-led forms –– we may be witnessing the
revival of an authoritarian populist anti-imperialism in tandem with
a regional imperialism. This is manifested in the Zimbabwean involvement
in the DRC (itself a nation-state in an awkward process of construction)
in competition with Uganda and Rwanda. Libyan ‘support’ in
the form of oil for Zimbabwe swapped for real estate, is another example
of ‘mini-imperialisms’ in the fray. Thus we arrive at the Herald’s quote on the dawn of the election, defined as: “a crucial defining moment which will determine the direction which this nation will take in terms of its sovereignty.” These words bring the whole election down to a battle against ‘recolonization’ by ‘the west’ – especially by the former colonial power. The United Kingdom is said to be pulling the strings of its puppet, the MDC. An example of this discourse is a ZANU (PF) newspaper advertisement consisting of a cartoon portraying ‘Tsvangison’ dressed as a tea-boy serving Tony ‘Bliar’ (sic) a map of Zimbabwe in a cup. The tea-boy asks Blair, “Is this what you want to have on March 9 & 10, Baas?” Blair responds, “Yes, yes, my boy Morgan, but keep some for the EU, Australia and Canada.” Under the cartoon are the bold, upper case phrases:
Another example of a
sovereignty discourse aimed at Zimbabweans can be found in the party/state
run The People’s Voice, which started as a rural mouthpiece
for ZANU (PF) in the early 1980s. In an edition full of the president’s
portraits and wishes for a happy 78th birthday paid for by various parastatals,
a two-page article by the secretary for administration of ZANU (PF)
Harare province, runs through the anti-imperialist trope. “Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his life-long fight against British imperial
perfidy,” starts off with:
This discourse is different
from the liberation war days of Zanu News. Then, Scandinavians
and anti-apartheid solidarity groups across ‘Germanic northern
Europe’ and other western spaces gave considerable support to ZANU
(PF) keeping its rhetoric on an even keel. This 2002 version, however,
is much more ‘communitarian’ in its racial language, while
at the same time melding the individual leader with the destiny of the
nation-state. The article goes on to
praise the president for single-handedly stabilizing a “mortally
threatened” Mozambique, being “the stalwart of the anti-apartheid
struggle in South Africa until its eventual demise” (thus forgetting
the antagonism between newly independent Zimbabwe and the ANC, such
that even Thabo Mbeki was a guest of Chikurubi prison), and for “helping
preserve the sovereignty of the pivotal Democratic Republic of the Congo
and in the process thwart[ing] a misguided British attempt to encircle
Zimbabwe.” Mugabe is credited with building a modern African nation
– an “anvil upon which British imperialism has painfully knocked
its head” – “to a level that is yet to be attained by
any African country” (and this for a nation that has only three
million, the article says). It is hard to know how many Zimbabweans
were convinced by this rhetoric. Placed against a history of ‘ethnic
cleansing’ in the mid-1980s in Matabeleland, the wounds of which
are still open, it seems inadequate to the task of nation-building.
Judging by the actions
of regional states and people in the aftermath of the Abuja agreement,
it has some international and continental purchase, however – including
with the president of South Africa. [49] Strains of pan-Africanist discourse on the
Zimbabwean situation have also spread to the USA. A group of ‘concerned
Howard University students’ submitted an article to the Herald
declaring their solidarity with “the very popular Pan-Africanist
Cde Mugabe and his party” fighting “western countries who
are worried about maintaining white supremacy … giv[ing] funding
to an oppositional leader”, and calling for a massive campaign
in the USA to end the sanctions. [50] Aside from the discourse
on sovereignty and Pan-Africanism, the spending on the international
sovereignty-boosting DRC exercise has had a more substantial impact.
The Zimbabwean state, military, and financial complex has gambled heavily
and time alone will tell if the shares in the DRC’s mines will
bear much revenue. In the meantime, 10,000 to 13,000 troops demand upkeep.
While the economy bears the costs, some of the generals and their kin
who own transport and textile companies, are the immediate beneficiaries.
It may be of importance to note that the first ‘sanction’
on Zimbabwe was IMF’s refusal to continue operations when it detected
improper accounting on war expenditure. It is likely that as
the DRC war festers, the ‘warlordism’ accompanying that process
may infect Zimbabwe too. Increased militia style attacks on farms and
MDC supporters suggest this possibility. Nation-building may be confused
with exclusionary violence.
[51] As the literature on war-torn
Africa suggests, the combination of structural adjustment ravaged political
economies and authoritarian politicians is potent. Whether democratization
processes are a counter-tendency is an open question. DEMOCRATIZATION: WHAT
IS THE FIGHT FOR? On the ‘democratization’
stage, many observers see the ‘land question’ as but an election
winning ploy for ZANU (PF). Those who are implementing it, however,
operate at another level. For them, the language of land rights challenges
that of civil society and the opposition. First order rights are seen
as the preserve of the bourgeoisie, while substantive social rights,
of which land is the most basic, is made out to be the legacy of the
liberation war. If one took the ZANU
(PF) discourse seriously, the ‘long election’ was about countering
the empty western and liberal rhetoric of ‘freedom to sleep under
a bridge or in the Carleton Hotel’ with socio-economic freedom
in the form of land to the tiller and price controls for the urban consumer.
It is ironic then, that the man who in the mid-1970s challenged Mugabe
and the ZANU ‘old guard’ from the left (and for so doing was
placed in Mozambican jails for three years) was articulating the classic
language of bourgeois liberalism. “Here we are, twenty-two years
later, still fighting for the right to vote. The whole country fought
for this in the bush, and we still have not got it”. [52] Most
objective observers contend that voters were kept away from their Harare
area polling stations and others added to the rural rolls in the last
few weeks of registration, that intimidation accounted for a lot of
the absentees, and around a million Zimbabweans living outside the country
were disallowed from the polls. If these people had voted for
the MDC, the 420,000 or so votes separating the ‘winners’
from the ‘losers’ would be accounted for and the election
could indeed be seen as ‘stolen.’ But just as importantly
for Wilfred Mhanda and the other members of the Zimbabwe Liberators’
Platform, one of the key goals of the liberation war – democracy
– was still-born two decades after an ostensible victory for ‘majority
rule.’ Conservative historians
of the longue durée might contend that such goals in the ‘third
world’ are premature. As Samora Machel condemned young Marxists
for being ‘ultra-leftist, Trotskyist and infantile’, in the
1970s, so might a structuralist today caution patience on the democratic
front. After all, if Zimbabwe is barely approaching a feudal mode of
political rule –- in which problems of leadership succession have
society-wide consequences – or if an absolutist state is needed
to manage an unevenly articulated transition to modernity, is it not
too early for too much democracy? [53] Is not the Herald’s
editorial correct to note that “while our democracy is in its
infancy the people…have demonstrated maturity” – except
for the ‘spoilers’ funded by the west, who are in any case
planning a civil war if their expectations are not met. [54] Should
not ‘the west’ and its Zimbabwean civil society clones be
patient (perhaps in the meantime accepting a government of national
unity, imposed from above – and also outside – so that a form
of élite pacting could ease the transition to democracy along)? If such discourse had
any purchase at all it could be taken up by ZANU (PF), but its language
also accepts the modalities of ‘western’ democracy: it is
simply hypocritical about this in its claims that challenges to its
rule emanate from the imperialists.
[55] All sides to the debate agree that all adult
Zimbabwean citizens should have the right to choose their rulers –
the minimum condition of liberal democracy. However, there is an argument
– and it was put forth by the Zimbabwe Liberators’ Platform
as civil society groups and the MDC hammered out their approach to the
election – that by accepting participation in an election that
was flawed from the beginning (because it did not meet the SADC minimal
condition of an independent electoral commission), the MDC fated itself
to failure. It would have been better to refuse to participate in elections
that did not meet the minimal conditions of African neighbors.
Consistent with this line is the argument that the results of the 2002
presidential election should be declared null and void. New ones should
be called that will meet basic regional standards. Finding the international
support for such demands will be extremely difficult – as will
finding the stamina in civil society. Nevertheless, such expansionary
perspectives on democracy forestall efforts of élite pacting and slow
down grass-roots political participation. In the end, democratic pressure
on all aspects of the state and economy is the only way to raise incomes
which could trigger the virtuous circle of consumptive and productive
increases necessary to kick-start social formations out of the triple
impasse of primitive accumulation, nation-state formation, and further
democratization. Rather than being epiphenomenal to the
first two historical-sociological prerequisites to ‘modernity’,
democracy may be fundamental to it. CONCLUSION This paper has attempted
to analyze the current Zimbabwean crisis with a three-fold conceptual
apparatus. It contends that Zimbabwe’s ‘organic crisis’
consists of a combination of problems rooted in long-term transitions
of primitive accumulation, nation-state formation, and democratization
which have ‘erupted’ in the context of ‘middle-term’
processes and policies such as structural adjustment, the effect of
post-Cold War globalization in Africa, and the rise of opposition politics.
The ‘short-term’ conjuncture includes land invasions, violent
elections, and severe economic problems. Democratization might appear,
intuitively, to be the least important part of this troika, but if pursued
diligently and carefully may well be the key to Zimbabwe’s turn-around.
Most Zimbabweans appear to believe this proposition, but have been prevented
by force and fraud from participating in its testing. They may have
to resort to more force of their own in order to participate in this
most basic of experiments. ENDNOTES [1]
ZANU(PF) election
slogan, June 2000. In March 2002 there were variations on the theme
such as ‘People First. Our land is our prosperity,’ ‘Work
the Land, Reap Prosperity, Build the Nation,’ and ‘What Would
You Vote For? Plots to Kill … or Plots to Till. On March 9 and
10 Vote for Your Land, Vote for President R.G. Mugabe.’
[2]
‘Comment:
D-Day for Zimbabwe,’ The Herald, (Harare) March 9, 2002, p. 1.
[3]
Wilfred Mhanda,
aka Dznishe Machingura, founding member and director, Zimbabwe Liberators’
Platform, March 10, 2002. For aspects of Mhanda’s biography and
his relationship to ZANU(PF)’s history see my “Democracy,
Violence and Identity in the Zimbabwean War of National Liberation:
Reflections from the Realms of Dissent,” Canadian Journal of African
Studies, 29, 3, (December 1995), pp. 375-402; R.W. Johnson, ‘How
Mugabe Came to Power,’ London Review of Books, 22 February 2001,
pp. 26-27 and my letter in response, LRB, 23, 7 (April 5, 2001), p.
6; also ‘The Alchemy of Robert Mugabe’s Alliances,’ Africa
Insight, (Pretoria) 30, 1 (May 2000), pp. 28-32.
[4]
This long election
could be split into three phases: the first was the constitutional referendum
of February 2000, narrowly lost by ZANU(PF); the second was the June
2000 parliamentary election and the third was the March 2002 presidential
election. The last two components of the ‘long election’ –
considered by some to be a referendum on Robert Mugabe’s rule –
were narrowly won by the ruling party in the context of much intimidation,
violence, and manipulation. The 2002 election results saw over 1,609,000
votes for Mugabe and 1,230,000 for his main opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai
of the Movement for Democratic Change: The editor of the Zimbabwe Independent
estimates that almost 350,000 of Harare’s 800,000 voters were denied
voting rights, and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network says that 400,000
rural people were added to a secret voter’s roll. (Mail and Guardian,
March 15-21, 2002, pp. 2, 15). For details on the violence up to the
2002 election see the first few pages of my ‘Zimbabwe: Twists on
the Tale of Primitive Accumulation,’ in Malinda S. Smith, ed. Globalizing
Africa, Trenton: Africa World Press, forthcoming; for figures on the
2000 election see my ‘Democracy is Coming to Zimbabwe,’ Australian
Journal of Political Science, 36, 1 (March 2001), p. 163.
[5]
The use of these
categories comes from Fernand Braudel. They are used to some effect
in Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly.
London: Longmans, (1989) 1993.
[6]
The phrase ‘state-society
complex’ is a key component of Robert Cox’s theoretical apparatus.
See his Production, Power and World Order: Social Forces and the Making
of History, New York: Columbia University Press, 1987, and Problems
in World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[7]
Micheal Perelman,
The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret
History of Primitive Accumulation. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.
[8]
Claudia von
Werlhof, ‘“Globalization” and the “Permanent”
Process of “Primitive Accumulation”: The Example of the MAI,
the Multilateral Agreement on Investment,’ Journal of World Systems
Research, 6, 3 (Fall-Winter 2000), pp. 718-47, http://colorado/edu/jwsr;
Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development
and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001; William Reno, Warlord Politics
and African States, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
[9]
I have explored
these issues briefly in “Is the Land the Economy and the Economy
the Land? Primitive Accumulation in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Contemporary
African Studies, 19, 2 (July 2001), pp. 253-266 and David Moore, ‘Neoliberal
Globalisation and the Triple Crisis of “Modernisation” in
Africa: Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Africa,”
Third World Quarterly, 22, 6 (December 2001), pp. 909-930. Along with
the issues of nation-state formation and democratisation, they are inspired
by a reading of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt’s Empire, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, analysed with an African perspective
in my ‘Africa: The Black Hole at the Middle of Empire?’ Rethinking
Marxism, 13, 3/4 (Winter 2002).
[10]
Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism,
London: Verso, 1983.
[11]
Rita Abrahamsen,
Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in
Africa London: Zed Books, 2000.
[12]
Dietrich Rueschemeyer,
Elaine Stephens & John Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy,Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
[13]
Michael Mann,
“The Dark Side of Democracy: The Modern Tradition of Ethnic Cleansing,”
New Left Review, 235 (May-June 1999), pp. 18-45, for an argument suggesting
that the best defense against genocidal forms of modernization is a
combination of liberal political systems and ideologies with strong
working classes.
[14]
The ‘opposition’
private newspaper The Daily News (June 21, 2000) reported 1,631 large
scale commercial farms invaded between February and June, while the
Commercial Farmers Union (also part of the ‘opposition’ in
the eyes of the ruling party, but usually conservative in its estimates
of recently resettled land) reported 1,060 (quoted from the Financial
Gazette, June 15, 2000, in Jocelyn Alexander, ‘Settling an Unsettled
Land: “Squatters,” Veterans and the State in Zimbabwe,’
paper at seminar on ‘Rethinking Land, State and Citizenship through
the Zimbabwe Crisis,’ Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen,
September 4-5, 2001, p. 20.)
[15]
Basildon Peta,
‘New land grab to put 300,000 jobs on the line,’ Financial
Gazette, (Harare), July 5, 2001; F. Masiokwadzo, ‘35,000
people “extraneous” in land crisis,’ Zimbabwe Independent,
3 August 2001. In early 2000 there were about 4,400 LSCFs.
[16]
I use quotation
marks around the term ‘war vet’ because, as the Zimbabwe Liberators’
Platform (ZLP) and many other observers and participants repeat, many
of the members’ of the War Veterans’ Association (WVA) claims
to their status are suspect.
[17]
Forward Maisokwadzo,
‘95% commercial farms listed,’ Zimbabwe Independent, September
28, 2001. The CFU said it ‘could not quantify the number of farms
fast‑tracked, but said 900 farms have been occupied.’ However,
Maisokwadzo writes, ‘CFU leaders have recently privately said 2,700
farms have been seized under fast‑track.’
[18]
Blair Rutherford,
Working on the Margins: Black Workers, White Farmers in Postcolonial
Zimbabwe, Harare: Weaver, 2001, pp. 201-230. The issue of citizenship
should be referred to the section on ‘democracy:’ suffice
for now to mention that in 2000 Robert Mugabe stated that ‘those
without totems’ should not be considered Zimbabwean, by whom he
meant ‘foreign’ farmworkers and an undifferentiated mass of
urban residents.
[19]
Beacon Mbiba,
‘Communal Land Rights in Zimbabwe as State Sanction and Social
Control: A Narrative,’ Africa, 71, (October 2001), pp. 429-430.
[20]
Rutherford,
Working …, 2001; Michael O’Flaherty, ‘Communal Tenure
in Zimbabwe: Divergent Models of Collective Land Holding in the Communal
Areas’, Africa, 68, 4 (December 1998) pp. 537-57; Allison Goebel,
‘‘Then It’s Clear Who Owns the Trees’: Common Property
and Private Control in the Social Forest in a Zimbabwean Resettlement
Area,’ Rural Sociology, 64, 4 (December 1999), pp. 624-40.
[21]
Susie Jacobs,
‘The Effects of Land Reform on Gender Relations in Zimbabwe,’
T.A.S. Bowyer-Bower and Colin Stoneman, eds. Land Reform in Zimbabwe:
Constraints and Prospects, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000, p. 184.
[22]
For the most
inclusive account of the invasions, see J. Alexander, ‘Settling
…’ My ‘Democracy …,’ ‘Is the Land …?’
and ‘Zimbabwe: Twists …’ also deal to some extent with
the invasions. Interview, Charles Pfukwa, Harare, March 12, 2002.
Mr. Pfukwa stated that on a resettled farm near Chipinge 34 out of 100
at a meeting to discuss these issues had completed ‘the legal niceties,’
but then stated that the authority for the A1 settlements was ‘still
being formed.’
[23]
Anonymous interview,
Harare March 7, 2002.
[24]
Perelman, The
Invention …, 2000.
[25]
Giovanni Arrighi,
The Political Economy of Rhodesia, The Hague: Mouton, 1967, and chapters
in Arrighi and John S. Saul, Essays in the Political Economy of Africa,
New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
[26]
Duffield, Global
Governance …, 2001.
[27]
Jens A. Andersson,
‘Reinterpreting the Rural-Urban Connection: Migration Practices
and Socio-Cultural Dispositions of Buhera Workers in Harare,’ Africa,
71, 1 (January 2001), pp. 82-112.
[28]
Brian Raftopoulos,
‘Fighting for Control: The Indigenization Debate in Zimbabwe’,
Southern Africa Report, (Toronto) 11, 4 (December 1996).
[29]
‘Group
calls on State to Issue Title Deeds,’ The Herald, (Harare), June
19, 2001.
[30]
‘Land
Reform gets Backing: Major Conference set for Sunday,’ The Herald,
March 1, 2002, p. 6.
[31]
Caiphas Chimhete,
Mirror, (Harare), ‘Land Reform: Agriculture Revenue Set to Double,’
March 8-14, 2002, pp. B1-2. The text revealed that this doubling would
be dependent on its execution in a ‘professional manner’ and
proper inputs and financial resources.
[32]
This researcher
is not sure what proportion of the emerging bourgeoisie is aligned with
the Movement for Democratic Reform (MDC), although apparently the owners
of the Kingdom Bank are committed MDC backers.
[33]
Baffour Ankomah,
‘Righting Colonial Wrongs,’ Sunday Mail, March 10, 2002, pp.
113-14, quotes Minister of Home Affairs John Nkomo (formerly of ZAPU)
saying that ‘less than ten per cent’ of the recent land acquisitions
have gone to well-established members of the black elite. There is a
special facility in the program for ‘indigenous large scale commercial
farms’ called the Commercial Farmers’ Settlement Scheme. Recall
that in 1997 the Development Trust of Zimbabwe, headed by Joshua Nkomo,
owned 319,929 hectares – second only to the Anglo-American Corporation’s
474,200. Sam Moyo, The Land Acquisition Process in Zimbabwe (1997/8),
Harare: United Nations Development Programme Resource Centre, 1998,
pp. 30-31. Moyo also noted in 1998 that the 1997 listings exhibited
‘exclusive tendencies [and] … corrupt practices in land allocation
schemes benefiting elites in the name of black capitalist development’
(p. 35).
[34]
‘Chief
Attacks Land Reforms,’ Daily News, October 24, 2001.
[35]
R.W. Johnson,
‘Zimbabwe Inc.’ Focus (Johannesburg), 19 (2000). Also,
participant observation by author of election queues near Warren Park,
Harare, March 10, 2002.
[36]
Norma Kriger,
‘Zimbabwe’s War Veterans and the Ruling Party: Continuities
in Political Dynamics,’ Politique Africaine, 81, (March 2001),
translated as ‘Les Veterans et le Parti au Pouvoir: Une Cooperation
Conflictuelle dans la Longue Durée;’ R. Mukundu, ‘Hunzvi,
Mhlanga named in $45m Zexcom scam’, Zimbabwe Independent Online,
October 27, 2000. <www.mweb.co.zw/zimin> accessed November
1, 2000.
[37]
Lionel Cliffe,
‘The Politics of Land Reform in Zimbabwe,’ T.A.S. Bowyer-Bower
and Colin Stoneman, eds. Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Constraints and Prospects,
Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000, pp.42-3; Bill Kinsey, ‘Land Reform, Growth
and Equity: Emerging Evidence from Zimbabwe’s Resettlement Programme,’
Journal of Southern African Studies, 25, 2 (March 1999), pp. 173, 177-9;
Sam Moyo, ‘The Political Economy of Land Acquisition and Redistribution
in Zimbabwe: 1990-1999,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 26,
1 (2000); see also my ‘Zimbabwe; Twists …’
[38]
Patrick Bond
and Masinba Manyana, Zimbabwe’s Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism,
Neoloberalism and the Struggle for Social Justice, Pietermaritzburg:
University of Natal Press, 2002.
[39]
The ‘event’
which marked the agreement to pay the pensions is said by some observers
to have been a war veterans’ raid on State House, during which
the Presidential Guard failed to fire. Well before that, however, the
‘war vets’ were expressing their discontent. One observer
stated that at a ‘heroes day’ event earlier that year they
beat drums throughout Mugabe’s speech.
[40]
Peter Alexander,
‘Zimbabwean Workers, the MDC & the 2000 Election,’ Review
of African Political Economy, 85 (September 2000), p. 388. Official
conversion rates to the American dollar in September 1997 were approximately
ZWD 12.12 to 1 $US, making these figures approximately US$ 278 per month
and a lump sum of $4,165, for a total of approximately US$380 million.
However, the 75 per cent plunge decreased those values significantly.
By February 21, 2002 the official exchange rate was ZWD 53.22 to the
US dollar – but the parallel market ranged from 300 to 350.
[41]
Anonymous interview,
March 2002. J. Alexander, ‘Settling …,’ pp. 14-16.
[42]
It should be
added that the ruling class rhetoric of racism is not too deeply felt:
the Rautenbachs and Bredenkamps of the formerly Rhodesian bourgeoisie
are well-entrenched accomplices of ZANU(PF) incorporated.
[43]
See Mark T.
Berger’s ‘The Rise and Demise of National Development and
the Origins of Post-Cold War Capitalism,’ Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, 30, 2 (Spring 2001), pp. 211-234 and ‘The
Nation-State and the Challenge of Global Capitalism,’ Third World
Quarterly, 22, 6 (December 2001), pp. 889-908.
[44]
Members of
the ruling party went so far as to enlist an Israeli ‘political
consultant’ based in Montréal and an Australian journalist to frame
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) in a plot to assassinate Robert Mugabe. This has resulted
in treason charges against MDC leaders: Vincent Kahiya , ‘Menashe
a master of “dirty tricks”,’ Zimbabwe Independent, February
15, 2002; Peta Thorneycroft, ‘Tricks, lies and videotapes,’
Mail and Guardian, February 15-21, 2002, p. 11. Lest we forget that
this politics is not new, many years ago John Day entitled a book on
the rise of ZANU(PF) and company International Nationalism: The Extra-Territorial
Relations of Southern Rhodesian Nationalists, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1967.
[45]
Charles Tilly,
‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,’ Peter Evans,
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, & Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State
Back In, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
[46]
Robert Jackson,
Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
[47]
Reno, Warlord
…1998; Duffield, Global Governance …, 2001.
[48]
Chris Mutsvangwa,
Secretary for administration, ZANU PF Harare Province, ‘Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his life-long fight against British imperial
perfidy,’ The People’s Voice, 24 February – 2nd March
2002, pp. 15-16.
[49]
In September
2001 the Zimbabwean delegation to Abuja declared it would stop violence
on farms in return for British promises to resume dialogue on aid for
resettlement. SADC was supposed to monitor the situation but let the
‘campaign’ continue. See also John Battersby, ‘Angry
Mbeki Lashes Out at “White Supremacy”,’ The Sunday Independent,
March 10, 2002, p. 1.
[50]
Concerned Howard
University, US, Students, ‘Land Ruthlessly Taken from Indigenous
People: Africans Forced to Move to Areas with Poor Soil,’ Herald,
March 11 2002, p. 8. See also Gerald Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun:
The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980, Durham and
Harare: University of North Carolina Press and SAPES Trust, 2001, p.
285, for an approving commentary on the tumultuous Harlem reception
to Robert Mugabe’s October 2000 address. However, a poll conducted
by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples
of 217 people saw 65.9% agree that the 2002 Zimbabwean election was
not free and fair: www.naacp.org/polls/results.php, thus indicating
the Howard University students may not be representative of African
Americans.
[51]
ZANU(PF) Organising
Secretary and Manicaland supreme Didymus Mutasa has been quoted as saying
that Zimbabwe would be better off with only 6 million people –
‘with our own people who support the liberation struggle.’
Christina Lamb, ‘Thugs who rape in the name of Mugabe,’ Sunday
Times (Johannesburg), 1 September 2002, noted in Roger Southall, ‘Democracy
in Southern Africa: Moving Beyond a Difficult Legacy,’ forthcoming
in Review of African Political Economy. In light of many accusations
that food aid is denied to MDC supporters, and even Ndebele people,
such statements approach the status of ‘genocidal.’
[52]
In fact, the
anomaly is not so great between the 1970s and 2000 discourse: the radical
challengers to Mugabe in the middle of the liberation war had a clear
sense that the ‘national democratic revolution’ they were
fighting for should emphasise ‘democratic.’
[53]
An intriguing
article entitled ‘The Zvimba Dynasty,’ The People’s Voice,
24 February-2 March 2002, appears to confirm rumors about this village’s
– whose men surround the president’s office – claim to
the Mugabe dynasty. A photograph of Grace Mugabe – who, rumors
state, was strategically placed in the president’s office in order
to begin such a dynasty – in a large kitchen is captioned thus:
‘Behind every successful man there is a woman. First Lady Cde Grace
Mugabe gets ready to prepare a meal for her beloved husband, Cde R.G.
Mugabe.’
[54]
Comment, ‘A
Clear Message to the World,’ The Herald, March 11, 2002, p. 8.
[55]
‘MDC to
get $10,2 million UK funding, ’ Herald, October 28, 2001; Herbert
Zharare, ‘USAID Buys War Vets to De-campaign Mugabe,’ Zimbabwe
Mirror, 8-14 March 2002.
David Moore teaches Economic History and Development Studies at the University of Natal in Durban. He has published recently on Zimbabwe in Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Third World Quarterly, Arena (Australia), and Africa Insight (South Africa). His recent publications on development theory include a volume edited with G. Schmitz, Debating Development Discourse: Institutional and Popular Perspectives, (Macmillan, 1995), “Africa: The Black Hole at the Middle of Empire?” Rethinking Marxism, 13, 3/4 (Fall-Winter 2001) and “Levelling the Playing Fields and Embedding Illusions: “Post-Conflict” Discourse and Neo-liberal “Development” in War-torn Africa,’ Review of African Political Economy, 83 (March 2000). Reference Style: The following is the suggested
format for referencing this article: Moore,. David. "Zimbabwe’s
Triple Crisis: Primitive Accumulation, Nation-State Formation and
Democratisation in the Age of Neo-Liberal Globalisation." African
Studies Quarterly 7, no.2&3: [online] URL: http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v7/v7i2a2.htm
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