Zimbabwe Dared to Be Free, Then the Military Arrived

Zimbabwe Dared to Be Free, Then
the Military Arrived
In the late afternoon of the 21st November 2017, Zimbabweans went ecstatic on
the streets. The celebrations went global and stretched from the green lawns of
the imposing Rainbow Towers in central Harare, through the dusty streets of
urban ghettos and snaked through several capitals of the world. Robert Gabriel
                                    rd
Mugabe, three months shy of his 93 birthday, had handed in his resignation to
the Speaker of Parliament in a joint session of the House of Assembly and the
Senate. Outside the joint seating that was considering an impeachment motion,
citizens draped in the Zimbabwe flag danced, played drums and whistled. Cars
blasted their horns and one longtime activist, Vimbai Musvaburi, shed tears in an
interview with the BBC, saying, “It felt like a prison had been opened”. The 37-
year rule of one of Africa’s authoritarian leaders was folded into history with
military tanks, soldiers and army vehicles stationed across the country. It was no
mean feat.

  What has emerged since that “military-assisted transition” is a Zimbabwe that
  is now policed by the military. Democratic-constitutional institutions have been
  subverted and the rule of law has been shredded. The dominant political class
  has become a network of very powerful military elites, or what can be referred
  to as military-nationalists.

In the early 1980s, when he was Prime Minister, Mugabe had attempted to build a
socialist one-party state. In the late 1980s, he brutalised the opposition and
swallowed it through the Unity Agreement of 1989. Zimbabwe become a de jure
one-party state. In the 1990s, the labour movement protested against increasing
levels of taxation. When civil society mobilised for constitutional reform, Mugabe
simply subverted the process. In the 2000s, the major opposition, the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), was subjected to heinous brutality, with Mugabe
boasting that “we have degrees in violence”. The elections were brazenly rigged
and this culminated in the Government of National Unity (GNU) from 2008 till
2013. In that fateful month of November 2017, the “Ides of March” finally
knocked on the Blue Mansion of the ageing president and the system finally burst

open and turned its brutal fangs on its “Godfather”.

Exit Robert Gabriel Mugabe, enter the military-nationalists
What has emerged since that “military-assisted transition” is a Zimbabwe that is
now policed by the military. Democratic-constitutional institutions have been
subverted and the rule of law has been shredded. The dominant political class has
become a network of very powerful military elites, or what can be referred to as
military-nationalists. This class is composed mainly of men (and a few women)
who constituted the military ranks of the national liberation movement in the
1960s and 70s. When they took over power in November 2017, they quickly
dispatched out-of-state structures, the “old guard nationalists” who did not have
any military training.

In post-colonial independent Zimbabwe, the military-nationalists operated behind
the political throne under a shadowy state-security structure called the Joint
Operation Command (JOC) comprising the military, intelligence services, police
and the prison services. In the 2000s, especially since the violent election of 2008,
the military assumed a much more political role. This came to a head when they
marched onto the streets and forced Mugabe out. With the threads of state power
in their hands, the military-nationalists have become the final arbiters of political
and electoral contests. In that matrix of state and national political power, the
general election of 2018 was just a fig leaf over a very patent fact – the new
sheriff in Harare is a military junta with swanky imported suits.

New rhetoric and old Mugabe-like tactics
The new president has fanned out his strategies, jumping onto Facebook and
Twitter, giving more interviews and also paying lobbyists in Washington DC to do
the regime’s bidding. After his first inauguration, President Emmerson
Mnangagwa wrote in the New York Times, that:

   I am working toward building a new Zimbabwe: a country with a thriving and
   open economy, jobs for its youth, opportunities for investors, and democracy
   and equal rights for all… There are voices both at home and abroad who have
   sought to convince the world that nothing has changed in Zimbabwe. I refute
   those unfair and unfounded claims and commit that we are bringing about a
   new era of transparency, openness and commitment to the rule of law.

Many months later, in another opinion article in The Guardian, Mnangagwa
stated that “the role of opposition leader is critical to democracy’s function” and
that “the incoming administration will be weaker if not held to the checks and
balances that parliament provides”.

  In the face of a severe socio-economic crisis, Zimbabwe’s political rulers have
  resorted to Mugabe-like tactics, blaming “enemies” in the West and accusing
  the opposition of being “saboteurs”. That crisis boiled over in the second week
  of January 2019 as citizen anger over a 150 per cent fuel price increase led to a
  national shutdown called by the labour movement.

However, as Zimbabwe’s political economy continues its downward descent, the
narrative has shifted back to the Mugabe years type of blame-shifting and
brinkmanship. The “new rulers” have been very quick to jump into a worldwide
public relations exercise that has come at a heavy price to the truth and to the
public purse. The propaganda has also been Pan-African in its reach; the
government has dispatched envoys to the African Union (AU), the Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC), and strategic countries like Kenya, South Africa
and Botswana, arguing that Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has been as a result of
sanctions, especially those imposed by the US.

Read Series: Zimbabwe

In the face of a severe socio-economic crisis, Zimbabwe’s political rulers have
resorted to Mugabe-like tactics, blaming “enemies” in the West and accusing the
opposition of being “saboteurs”. That crisis boiled over in the second week of
January 2019 as citizen anger over a 150 per cent fuel price increase led to a
national shutdown called by the labour movement. Street barricades went up in
urban areas, police had running battles with young people, wide-scale looting
took place, and economic activity came to a standstill. The government response

was a nationwide ruthless military crackdown. The army was accused of rape,
opposition activists were abducted and rights groups, such as Amnesty
International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), recorded 17 deaths from
gunshot wounds. The Internet was shut down and, in a leaked document, the
government blamed “hostile intelligence services”, “regime change agents”, and
“unfriendly civil society organisations”. The ruling class has simply re-dusted the
old script of seeing local and international enemies all around.

The president boasted at a political rally in the local language, Shona, saying,
“tirikuvazvambura” and “vari kuzvamburika”, meaning “we are beating them up
brutally” and they “cannot resist that brutality”. Not less than five opposition
Members of Parliament (MPs) have been arraigned before the courts for
“subversion”, “inciting violence” and “treason”. To sum up the type of military-
state/party machinery that the ruling strata is building, we have to turn to that
theoretician and practitioner of the African revolution, Frantz Fanon, in his
seminal book, The Wretched of The Earth, where he put it more succinctly:

   There exists inside the new regime, however, an inequality in the acquisition
   of wealth and in monopolization. Some have a double source of income and
   demonstrate that they are specialized in opportunism. Privileges multiply and
   corruption triumphs, while morality declines. Today the vultures are too
   numerous and too voracious in proportion to the lean spoils of the national
   wealth. (1963:171).

Taken together then, this deliberate rhetoric of a “new dispensation”, “open for
democracy”, “second republic”, on the one hand, and a deliberate crackdown on
the opposition, restricting the democratic space and subverting the institutions
established by the Constitution of 2013, on the other, are designed to keep the
military-nationalists in charge of the party and the state machinery, and by
implication, to maintain their hold on Zimbabwe’s national treasury and natural
resources.

  The Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube, admitted that the budget
  suffered as a result of runaway expenditure and mismanagement. The minister
  did not disclose that the excessive borrowing has been a blank cheque to fund
  the decadent lifestyles of those in political office.

Zimbabwe’s melting political economy: The ambers
underneath
To get a sense of how Zimbabwe has fallen from glory, one has to look at the
historic Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and per capita figures over time compared
to Kenya. At the end of 1970s, Kenya’s GDP was estimated at US$2.9 billion, with
a population of about 14 million and Zimbabwe’s’ GDP was US$3.5 billion with a
population of 7 million. Fast forward to 2017 and Kenya’s GDP now stands at
almost US$75billion and Zimbabwe’s GDP stands at a mere US$17billion. In
Harare, one can contrast sewage flowing openly in the ghettos and the sprawling
green lawns and well-paved streets in North Harare, which is full of Beverley
Hills-type mansions. Over the past 40 years, Zimbabwe’s export industries have
been decimated, infrastructure has decayed, agricultural production has
collapsed and there have not been any major capital projects to revive the
economy. State-owned companies, in railways, transport like airlines, agriculture,
mining and the list goes on, have been systematically looted. The political
economy collapse has resulted in mass emigration of both skilled and unskilled
labour and a severe social crisis of poverty

The Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube, admitted that the budget
suffered as a result of runaway expenditure and mismanagement. The minister
did not disclose that the excessive borrowing has been a blank cheque to fund the
decadent lifestyles of those in political office. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) dished out loans in excess of US$1.2 billion to elite-linked companies, and
state-owned companies raked billions in debt and all this has been transferred to
the Treasury. Calls for a national debt audit were rejected. The public financial
management system is deliberately in shambles, the public tendering system
directly feeds into the pockets of the political elites and the Public Service
Commission (PSC) has been used to employ thousands of “youth officers” who are
effectively a notorious party militia known as “green bombers”. Foreign and
domestic debt has gone out of control; 90 per cent of expenditure is on salaries
and allowances for government workers. Foreign currency reserves have dried
and Zimbabwe cannot access credit lines from international financial institutions.
The new minister has proposed selling off state enterprises that formed the
bedrock of Zimbabwe’s pre-independence industrial base, and it is highly likely
that these public assets will be doled out cheaply to feed a crony capitalist class
linked to political power. In a word, Zimbabwe’s political economy collapse is self-

inflicted.

Austerity for citizens and a Thatcherite largesse for the
elites
 The Minister of Finance, in the latest budget statement, proposed what he called
“Austerity for Prosperity”. He argued that Zimbabwe “needs pain” before the
economy becomes productive, just like a patient who needs surgery. The Treasury
chief has introduced a 2 per cent tax, has increased fuel prices by almost 150 per
cent, is trying to liberalise the foreign currency market, has introduced a local
“virtual” currency called RTGS dollars, has hiked custom excise duty and has
demanded that all car imports be paid for in foreign currency. The dramatic effect
has been to feed inflation upwards, erode income for workers, and scare away
investors. The prices of basic commodities have spiraled out of control and all
major trade unions have already engaged in some strike action or are in the
process of organising one. Here are the words of the Treasury chief:

    The only way to a stronger economy is to restructure, rebuild and reform. This
    plan involves some painful measures to get our national budget under control.
    These measures will be felt by all of us, but are unavoidable if we want to get
    our economy back on track. These measures are those of a doctor performing
    a life-saving operation. They cause pain, but the pain is the only thing that will
    lead to a recovery. As Margret Thatcher once said, “Yes, the medicine is
    harsh, but the patient requires it in order to live. (Speech by Professor Mthuli
    Ncube)

The 2 per cent tax has been bringing in over $100 million a month. Stretched to a
year, that is a whopping $1.2billion extracted from financial transactions with no
relationship to the productive capacity of the economy. The political economy
meltdown has been compounded by a drought that has led the United Nations to
issue a special food appeal:

    Nearly 5.3 million people in Zimbabwe are estimated to be in urgent need of
    humanitarian assistance and protection during the 2018/2019 lean season
    (October – April) and beyond. …In addition, 1.5 million people in urban areas,
    including major towns and secondary cities, are estimated to be facing severe
    food insecurity, while people in multiple locations across the country are faced
    with acute shortages of essential medicines. (UN Office for the Coordination

of Humanitarian Affairs, February, 2019)

This is against loud sloganeering statements that Zimbabwe’s “command
agriculture” system run by a former air marshall has been a success. The Minister
of Finance had to admit that Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform programme resulted
in land becoming a “dead asset” and this is despite the government setting up a
National Land Commission that has remained largely moribund as a matter of
design because the military-nationalists continue parceling to each other, for free,
the country’s most productive land.

  We need to understand the character of the political economy emerging in the
  post-Mugabe era in order to grasp how the state machinery is being fashioned.
  Firstly, the military-nationalists are now in charge of the ruling party
  machinery. There is a preponderance of retired army personnel in the running
  of the party, including the electoral campaign of July 2018, which was run by
  the retired Major-General Engelbert Rugeje.

Crony capitalism, the military class and state
authoritarianism
We need to understand the character of the political economy emerging in the
post-Mugabe era in order to grasp how the state machinery is being fashioned.
Firstly, the military-nationalists are now in charge of the ruling party machinery.
There is a preponderance of retired army personnel in the running of the party,
including the electoral campaign of July 2018, which was run by the retired
Major-General Engelbert Rugeje.

Secondly, the cabinet is dominated by ex-military generals who executed the coup
of November 2017, including the Vice-President (General Chiwenga), the Minister
of Agriculture (Air Marshall Perence Shiri), and the Minister of Foreign Affairs
(General Sibusiso Moyo). The president announced the retirement of four
generals who played a critical role in the coup but they were immediately
deployed to diplomatic postings.

Thirdly, the military elites have been deployed to the criminal justice system,
including no less than 100 “special prosecutors”, which the Supreme Court
declared as unconstitutional.

Fourthly, the military elites have also become discreet silent partners in
enterprises that do business with the state. They have entered into agreements
with foreign corporates and have access to mining concessions, thus effectively
becoming a state-backed surrogate business class of the buccaneer type.

The business interests of the military class stretch back to the civil war in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a UN investigation unearthed the
plundering of natural resources. In the report, “The Expert Panel Reports on the
Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the
Democratic Republic of Congo”, the findings of the investigation were presented.
This report was presented to the UN Security Council. Here is an excerpt:

   The key strategist for the Zimbabwean branch of the elite network is the
   Speaker of the Parliament and former National Security Minister, Emmerson
   Dambudzo Mnangagwa. Mr Mnangagwa has won strong support from senior
   military and intelligence officers for an aggressive policy in the Democratic
   Republic of the Congo…Other prominent Zimbabwean members of the
   network include Brigadier General Sibusiso Busi Moyo, who is Director
   General of COSLEG. Brigadier Moyo advised both Tremalt and Oryx Natural
   Resources, which represented covert Zimbabwean military financial interests
   in negotiations with State mining companies of the Democratic Republic of the
   Congo. Air Commodore Mike Tichafa Karakadzai is Deputy Secretary of
   COSLEG, directing policy and procurement. He played a key role in arranging
   the Tremalt cobalt and copper deal. Colonel Simpson Sikhulile Nyathi is
   Director of defence policy for COSLEG. The Minister of Defence and former
   Security Minister, Sidney Sekeramayi, coordinates with the military
   leadership and is a shareholder in COSLEG. (United Nations, S/2002/1146)

Having learnt these tactics and with the war in the DRC cooling off, the same
military network turned its eyes to Zimbabwe’s economy. The military, police,
intelligence and political players muscled into lucrative farming land, rich
diamond fields and gold concessions. (Chinese companies often have military
representatives on their boards.) Jabusile Shumba summed up how Zimbabwe’s
military class has spread its tentacles in the country’s political economy in his
book, Zimbabwe’s Predatory State: Party, Military and Business (UKZN Press,
2018).

The business interests of this predatory class are highly speculative and very non-

industrial, meaning that the structure of the post-colonial economy has continued
to rely on raw exports (like tobacco) and on exploiting natural resources (like
minerals). Effectively, there is no skill development or technological transfer.

Secondly, this form of crony-capitalism is ecologically destructive. In Zimbabwe
there have been heated debates as Chinese mining companies have been eying
vast swathes of land, including nature reserves. In some cases, they use
ecologically-destructive mining methods and zero land rehabilitation after mining
is done.

  Fourthly, by deliberately prioritising military-linked business interests
  (especially in mining, agriculture and hotels), a new form of an unaccountable
  “shadow state” is emerging, with access to state and private resources.

Thirdly, Chinese state-related corporates are entering into agreements that are
loading the public with huge debt, especially in energy and other infrastructure
projects. The loan collateral, interest payment and conditions are always
shrouded in secrecy and the return on investment is dubious, if not extortionist.
And as a matter of common practice, these deals are not open to public scrutiny
and accountability.

Fourthly, by deliberately prioritising military-linked business interests (especially
in mining, agriculture and hotels), a new form of an unaccountable “shadow
state” is emerging, with access to state and private resources.

Constitutionalism and the Pan-African liberation promise
Looked at broadly, Zimbabwe’s recurring crisis can be viewed as the collapse of
the Pan-African project of national liberation. At the core of that crisis is the non-
fulfilment of Africa’s very agonising de-colonisation project in which state power
and its institutions were supposed to be fashioned to serve the goal of social and
economic emancipation and not the accumulation projects of a limited elite.

Military-nationalists in Zimbabwe, authoritarian leaders and politico-dynasties (in
Kenya, for example) are making peaceful electoral political change almost
impossible. This is dangerous because Africa’s population is growing younger and
their exclusion from the political economy is breeding an explosive concoction of
youthful disenchantment. The rise of Julius Malema in South Africa, Bobby Wine

in Uganda and the popularity of Nelson Chamisa in Zimbabwe point to this
disconnect between those with political and economic power, who are usually
older, and the younger citizens who feel excluded, almost like non-citizens.

The Kenyan political analyst Nanjala Nyabola has brilliantly exposed this
disconnect in a book called Digital Democracy: Analogue Politics: How the
Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya. Her analysis can be generally
extended to the rest of Africa, including Zimbabwe. We Africans need to be
brutally honest with ourselves. As the de-colonisation leader Amilcar Cabral said,
“Claim no easy victories and tell no lies.” In the wake of the military crackdown,
Fadzai Mahere, a young advocate, activist and political contestant summed it up
well:

   The wounds afflicting injured survivors may one day heal. But our politics will
   remain toxic as long as the military is at the centre of it. Any dialogue about
   the future must involve concerted, concrete plans to demilitarize Zimbabwean
   politics. Only then can the promise of a new Zimbabwe truly blossom. (The
   Guardian, 26.01.2019).

The post-colonial trajectory of coercion, corruption and a development impasse
can only begin to be settled, not only through the implementation of the
Constitution of 2013 and respect for democratic institutions, but most importantly
through a genuine process of national peace-building and de-polarising of state-
social relations. This means a return to the Pan-African liberation project of
transformation based on building political economies that place people at the
centre and disciplines state power when it becomes recalcitrant and captured by
a few.

Oliver Mtukudzi: The Art of
Protest
‘As far as Africa is concerned, music cannot be for enjoyment. It has to be for
revolution.’’

– Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

On Wednesday January 23 2018, as Zimbabwean and one of Africa’s most
celebrated musicians Oliver Mtukudzi took his final bow in Harare aged 66, the
floodgates of debate opened. Who was this cultural colossus? What about his
politics cast against the turbulent reality of Zimbabwe? There is global consensus
that Mtukudzi was a musical giant, but away from the music, nuanced
conversations were happening. Was Mtukudzi modeled in the image of Franco
Luambo Makiadi, who towed Mobutu Sese Seko’s line to stay in favour and keep
producing music, or was he a Fela Kuti, a no-holds-barred bold anti-establishment
figure?

There is little evidence to suggest that Mtukudzi was explicitly either a Franco or
Fela replica – at least politically speaking. His loyal fans insist that he was simply
Tuku, a man who handled his music and politics with a delicate balance as to
allow himself the license to keep singing and touring, while avoiding the tempting
trap of complicity by siding with the oppressors. One needs to revisit a little
history to understand the obsession with situating a certain generation and
caliber of African artists –a classification Mtukudzi belonged – within the
prevailing political circumstances in their home countries.

During the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, musicians such as Hugh
Masekela and Miriam Makeba, alongside writers and poets such as Keorapetse
Kgositsile and Dennis Brutus, deployed their celebrity status to shape events both
at home and abroad, thereby succeeding in drawing global attention to the plight
of a segregated and oppressed Black population. Makeba, using the personal-is-
political strategy, insisted that her music was not political, hastening to add –
possibly as a caveat – that she only sang about truth. To her listeners across the
world, what Makeba called truth was equated to her broadcasting the malevolent
experiences suffered by Black South Africans, in effect deploying music to
camouflage her anti-apartheid campaign. Makeba did not need to announce her
politics from rooftops, because she was living her politics out loud for everyone to
see and hear.

  As far as Africa is concerned, music cannot be for enjoyment. It has to be for
  revolution

When Hugh Masekela, arrived in exile in the United States, he was still confused

about what genre of music to pursue. He was mimicking a lot of American jazz
before Miles Davis urged him to stick to the Southern Africa sound he had been
experimenting with and take his time before digging his heels in politically. He
benefitted from the counsel of African American musical greats such Harry
Belafonte, who persuaded Masekela against returning to South Africa to bury his
mother. Belafonte feared that the young Masekela had not built the influence
needed to restrain the apartheid regime from arresting and imprisoning him. In
time, Masekela slowly built the requisite stature, joining the likes of Makeba in
using music to tell their country’s story. Like Makeba, Masekela was not overtly
political outside his music, but his compositions did not hide his position.

On his part, the poet Dennis Brutus – like his Nigerian counterpart Christopher
Okigbo – went all out. Brutus put his poetry aside for a moment and successfully
campaigned for the banning of South Africa from the 1964 Olympic Games in
Tokyo, Japan. By the time the announcement of the ban was made, Brutus, who
had returned home to South Africa, was already serving jail time in Robben Island
– locked up in a prison cell next to that of Nelson Mandela – for his activities
against the apartheid regime. On leaving jail, Brutus fled South Africa, banned
from writing and publishing in the country.

Okigbo seemingly faced with limited choices took up arms to fight alongside his
Igbo kin during the Biafra war, an act which resulted in the poet’s death in
combat. Okigbo’s passing deeply affected his contemporary Chinua Achebe who
eulogized him through his ‘Dirge for Okigbo’ resulting in Achebe leaving Nigeria
and assuming the role of Biafra’s ambassador at large. Earlier, before the fighting
had taken root, the poet and playwright Wole Soyinka appointed himself mediator
between the two warring sides secretly meeting Chukwuemeka Odumegwu
Ojukwu, leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra. This act saw Soyinka
imprisoned for two years by the country’s military dictatorship. Closer home, in
1970s repressive Kenya, Ngugi wa Thiongo was detained following the staging of
his play ‘Ngaahika Ndeeda’ – Gikuyu for ‘I Will Marry When I Want’ – after the
state considered Ngugi’s actions seditious.

Like Makeba and Masekela, Mtukudzi fought a battle of memory. He may not
have had a political-heavy discography but he took up the battle identity that
ensured that his people would not forget themselves, in the process ensuring
Africa and the world did not forget his people.

By consciously keeping away from overt political commentary in Zimbabwe,
Mtukudzi in a way chose to look beyond Zimbabwe much as he was looking right
into his country’s eyes, his life mission being to make the rest of the world see,
feel, touch, smell and taste the best of Zimbabwe’s culture and artistry. To some,
this was enough. To others, Tuku’s apolitical nature was akin to neutrality,
construed as complicity.

***

On the first Friday night after the passing of Mtukudzi, I made a midnight dash to
Sippers, the Nairobi Rhumba hideaway, looking to find out who Mtukudzi was and
what he represented in the eyes of my interlocutors. Following his long career
that stretched decades of performances across Africa and the West, the man
known as one of Zimbabwe’s finest exports – according to his daughter Selmour –
built a global following.

‘‘He put Zimbabwe on the map,’’ said Selmour, who is also a musician of note.
‘‘He’s the biggest export from Zimbabwe, and all artists look up to him, to get to
his level and surpass it. He set the gold standard.’’

In Kenya, Mtukudzi’s huge following first originated from his popular hit Todii –
which is all that a sizeable chunk of his fans knew about the man and his music.
Mtukudzi also made frequent appearances in the Nairobi concert circuit, earning
himself a more discerning followership that went beyond Todii. Much as the song
is popular with revelers across Africa and beyond, Todii was born out of one of
Mtukudzi’s saddest life experiences. In 1996, four members of Black Spirit,
Mtukudzi’s band – including his younger brother Robert Mtukudzi, with whom he
started his musical journey – got infected with HIV/AIDS. All the four succumbed
to the disease, dying within a two-month window of each other’s death.

‘‘I wrote Todii to address the HIV/AIDS stigma,’’ Mtukudzi told an interviewer in
2015. ‘‘It was a song meant to help start a difficult conversation, which many
people didn’t know how to go about.’’

It is safe to say that Mtukudzi was one of a group of African musicians – alongside
the likes of Masekela – who were adopted by Kenyans as one of their own, invited
back time and again for representing something which was at once soothing and
liberating, always reminding their audiences that Africa was still one. Musically,
Kenya has struggled to produce artistic personas of such stature, much as it has

had an abundance of gifted musicians –such as the late Ayub Ogada – some of
whom have even collaborated musically with these African greats. For various
reasons, Kenya’s cultural glue doesn’t hold tight enough. Benga, for instance, a
Kenyan sound which was exported across Africa and beyond during the 1970s,
still struggles to pass for the quintessential Kenyan musical experience partly
because it is reduced to the ‘ethnic’ categorization, while artists from other
African countries who sing in their languages are embraced as transcendent
cultural icons. To cure this void, Kenya has found itself perpetually looking
outside, to the likes of Mtukudzi.

‘‘My impression of Mtukudzi was heavily influenced by the white neo-liberal view
of him,’’ said Oketch, a Kenyan professor of philosophy who spent years living and
studying in the West. ‘‘Every summer, for as long as I remember, Mtukudzi was
invited to Chicago, where he sometimes performed alongside his countryman
Thomas Mapfumo. To the white crowd, he was this big deal African performer.
That was my earliest introduction to the man – an African revered by the concert
going Western crowd.’’

For some critics, Mtukudzi fits the criteria of the African export to the West –
which in some quarters translates to being a sellout. Nonetheless, Mtukudzi did
not limit his performances to Western capitals. Tuku possibly performed across
Africa and in Zimbabwe in particular as much as he did away from home, building
a solid homegrown fanbase.

Mtukudzi and Mapfumo were one time bandmates in their youthful years, playing
for the Wagon Wheel band. Much as they were both influential in the later periods
of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, Mapfumo almost always rocked the political
boat post-independence in 1980, with Mtukudzi taking the middle ground, both
within and outside of his music. As a result of their different approaches to
Zimbabwean politics, Mapfumo was exiled in the early 1990s, while Mtukudzi
stayed put, giving Zimbabweans something to hold onto musically in times of
serious political tribulations. Mtukudzi christened his music Tuku, drawn from his
nickname, while Mapfumo dubbed his sound Chimurenga, continuing to be
heavily associated with the liberation movement by the same name. Chimurenga,
according to Ntone Edjabe – the Cameroonian DJ, journalist and founder of the
Cape Town based Pan-African gazette, the Chimurenga Chronic – means ‘‘in the
spirit of Murenga’’, who was a highly revered Shona liberation hero.

For some critics, Mtukudzi fits the criteria of the African export to the West –
  which in some quarters translates to being a sellout. Nonetheless, Mtukudzi did
  not limit his performances to Western capitals. Tuku possibly performed across
  Africa and in Zimbabwe in particular as much as he did away from home,
  building a solid homegrown fanbase.

‘‘He was a Shona who was loved by the Ndebele,’’ said Irene who is a Kenyan
consultant with a multinational who has worked in a number of African countries.
‘‘I was once told of how when my friend’s sister arrived in Zimbabwe from an
overseas trip, she came across one of the largest crowds she had ever seen in
Harare. On asking what the occasion was she was informed it was an Oliver
Mtukudzi concert. That is how much the man was loved in his motherland.’’

In many African countries, political competition gets highly divisive, setting
communities against each other. Zimbabwe was no exception. Gukurahundi – a
Shona term loosely translated to mean ‘‘the early rain that washes away the chaff
before the spring rains’’ – was a series of massacres carried out against the
Ndebele population by the Zimbabwean army under Robert Mugabe between
1983 and 1987. It was believed to have emanated from the rivalry between the
two dominant political parties, ZANU led by Mugabe, a Shona, and ZAPU, led by
Mugabe’s fellow liberation stalwart Joshua Nkomo, a Ndebele. The killings were
intended to quell a supposed impending rebellion against the Mugabe state,
resulting in thousands of deaths. This has remained one of the darkest patches in
Zimbabwe’s history – just like Biafra for Nigeria. Therefore, the acknowledgment
that Mtukudzi, a Shona, was celebrated in Ndebele land despite the painful
historical fissures goes a long way in signifying the power of Tuku.

‘‘I credit Mtukudzi with maintaining Zimbabwe’s cultural momentum,’’ Irene said,
‘‘something which a number of African countries lost post-independence. In that
way, he became an invaluable national asset, a symbol of resilience, and a Pan-
African treasure. If there is one thing we have continuously been reminded of as
Africans, it is that you lose momentum, you lose the struggle. By singing about
love, life, loss, Mtukudzi reminded us of what being Zimbabwean and living the
Zimbabwean and African experience felt like, reinforcing the idea of art as the
natural adhesive that holds societies together.’’

Mtukudzi gave Zimbabwe what Fela gave to Nigeria – artistic endurance. Tuku

was not Zimbabwe’s Fela, because Zimbabwe might not have needed a Fela with
the presence of a robust liberation movement that solidly rallied around a beloved
Robert Mugabe, before the man turned rogue. On the other hand, Nigeria had a
series of coup d’etats after independence, resulting in successive military
dictatorships that Fela felt obliged to keep resisting. The Fela comparison
therefore only went as far as Mtukudzi’s artistic staying power, that he was
perpetually present, towering in the lives of Zimbabweans from the time of the
liberation struggle onwards – metaphorically holding the country’s hand through
the good, the bad and the ugly.

‘‘Why do we sing, why is there art?’’ Mtukudzi posed during the 2015 interview,
grappling with the question of the role of art and artists, explaining his life’s
work. ‘‘Art is to give life and hope to the people. Art is for healing broken hearts.
Like in Zimbabwe, you don’t sing a song when you have nothing to say.’’

  Mtukudzi gave Zimbabwe what Fela gave to Nigeria – artistic endurance. Tuku
  was not Zimbabwe’s Fela, because Zimbabwe might not have needed a Fela
  with the presence of a robust liberation movement that solidly rallied around a
  beloved Robert Mugabe, before the man turned rogue.

***

In Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire – the home of Rhumba – standing up to the
strongman, whether an artist or politician, was like buying one’s one-way ticket to
prison, or at worse, writing one’s obituary. It therefore took the likes of Papa
Wemba – whose cultural contribution is not fully appreciated by many outside the
Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) – to use their artistic influence to
start cracking Mobutu’s edifice, covertly. As Mobutu enforced his Zaireanization
program, asking the Congolese to denounce Western influence – including fashion
and names – Papa Wemba led a quiet rebellion by reimagining fashion, starting a
sartorial elegance movement which did not fall within Mobutu’s categorization of
Western clothing, but equally didn’t fit into African fashion as imagined by the
President.

This created sufficient middle ground occupied by those who wished to defy
Mobutu and his politics covertly, without necessarily going to the streets to battle
against military tanks. Fashion therefore became a weapon, a place of solace, an
assertion of personal and collective defiance, a reclamation of self-dignity. This

gave way to the rise of the La Sape (Société des Ambianceurs et des
Personnesd’Élégance, translated as the ‘‘Society of Atmosphere-setters and
Elegant People’’) to which Papa Wemba became the unofficial leader, influenced
by fashion trends in Milan and Paris – directly challenging Mobutu’s anti-
European sentiment, and by extension challenging his politics. It was the perfect
illustration of soft power.

Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe – like Mobutu’s Zaire – morphed into a cesspool
which ordinarily results in artists being pressured to use their art for something
bigger. Mtukudzi therefore found himself under the spotlight, seeing that his
contemporary Thomas Mapfumo who some insist is the closest Zimbabwe has
gotten to having a Fela, both musically and politically had long drawn the line on
the sand and declared all-out war on Mugabe, just as he did with the colonialists
before that. Yet Mtukudzi refused to get directly drawn into the politics of the
day, by all indications pulling a Papa Wemba-like soft power move – picking to
fight on the cultural frontline – because sometimes one has to pick their battles.
There are those who will condemn Tuku for his apolitical stance, just as there are
those who will understand where the man was coming from, because sometimes,
under such strenuous circumstances, there is only so much one can do.

On that cultural frontline, there was one significant battle that Mtukudzi
successfully waged in seeking to preserve the essence of Zimbabwean music. The
genesis of Mtukudzi’s pushback, as documented in ‘‘Shades of Benga’’ – a seminal
work on Kenyan music history by Tabu Osusa’s Ketebul Music – started with the
appointment of the Kenyan music producer Oluoch Kanindo as the regional
representative for the international music label EMI Records. Kanindo became so
instrumental in EMI’s Africa operations to a point of earning the privilege of jet
setting across the continent, to seal recording and distribution deals.

Thanks to Kanindo’s infiltration of the African market through his Sungura and
Kanindo record labels, both of which exploited the EMI music distribution
networks – the Kenyan sound, Benga, became popular in East and Southern
Africa, going as far as being one of the more popular sounds among Zimbabwean
freedom fighters. Benga started influencing Zimbabwean music especially in the
late 1970s when Kanindo was in his musical prime as a producer. It was off the
back of this musical invasion that Mtukudzi made a conscious decision to
pushback against it, seeking to preserve the Shona and Ndebele traditional
sounds, leading to the birth of Tuku. The influence of Benga was so strong that

there are proponents who hold that much as he worked overtime to become a
Zimbabwean purist, Mtukudzi borrowed elements of his music from Benga. This
monumental pushback illustrates Tuku’s sense of eternal cultural patriotism.

***

Oliver Mtukudzi was born in September 1952 in Highfield, a Harare township
with historic significance as one of the founding hotspots of Zimbabwe’s
independence movement. As if predestined to be a musician, Mtukudzi’s parents
had met during a choir competition, passing down the music bug to their eldest
son, Oliver and his younger brother Robert, who became bandmates in
Mtukudzi’s Black Spirits. In the early 1970s, the two brothers started
experimenting with music and landed in trouble for sneaking out of the house to
play at a local beer parlor. It was here that Mtukudzi got a rare opportunity to
have his first encounter with an electric guitar, getting in trouble with his
parents, who were against their two sons’ pursuit of a career in music.

‘‘I played the guitar so well,’’ Mtukudzi recalled, ‘‘such that the following day,
those at the beer parlor reported to my father how talented I was. It was the one
time my father hit me, for sneaking out of the house and spending time at the
beer parlor in pursuit of music.’’

As fate would have it, the self-taught guitarist who began experimenting, looking
for his own unique sound that had observers saying he didn’t play the guitar right
– would land his big break while sitting right in front of his family home in
Highlife. Brighton Matebere, at the time a leading journalist with the Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation, had a love interest on Mtukudzi’s street, and regularly
ran into the young Mtukudzi practicing with his guitar outside his family house
whenever he came around to visit his girlfriend. Matebere was impressed by
Mtukudzi’s skills and invited him to perform during his radio show. It was his
impressive performance during the radio interview that resulted in Mtukudzi
getting his first recording deal in 1975, never to look back again. Later, in 1977,
he joined Wagon Wheel band, alongside Thomas Mapfumo.

‘‘When I left school I did not get a job for at least three years,’’ Mtukudzi revisited
the birth of his politics, from where he learnt to hide in his music. ‘‘Blacks were
not allowed to apply for jobs, but the colonialists didn’t think of art as a weapon
that could be used against them. So they allowed us to sing. It was therefore up to

the artist to help the nation heal and grow. We used idioms and proverbs,
knowing that Shona speakers would decipher the coded messages we were
passing across without being explicitly political.’’

67 albums later, Mtukudzi still spoke as if he was in search of what to call a
career, telling Forbes Africa in 2016, ‘‘I am yet to decide on a career to take on,
because this is not a career for me. I am just doing me.’’

As debate rages on about Mtukudzi’s legacy, Mtukudzi made things easier by
summing it all up himself in 2015.

‘‘Pakare Paye is my legacy,’’ he said, ‘‘the legacy I am leaving behind for
youngsters to get somewhere where they can showcase what they do best. My
generation and I didn’t have similar opportunities.’’

The Pakare Paye Arts Center, meaning ‘that place’, is an expansive piece of real
estate which Mtukudzi transformed from a rundown junkyard into a state of the
art facility with recording studios and performance spaces. The center is located
in Norton, about 45 kms from Harare. Pakare Paye has become a space for
artistic apprentices seeking a soft landing in a country where the government
gives little regard to the arts. Yet Pakare Paye remains a reminder of one of
Mtukudzi’s saddest memories, since he originally built it intending for his only
son and bandmate, Sam – who died from a 2010 road accident on his way from
the airport – to ran it. Following his son’s passing, Mtukudzi took a two year
hiatus from recording music, returning with Sarawoga, meaning ‘‘left alone’’.

‘‘Sam was more of a friend than a son to me,’’ Mtukudzi reminisced. ‘‘He was
somebody who challenged me, not as a son but as a friend. It made me feel closer
to him. He was so talented to a point where I couldn’t believe how much he could
do musically, because he hadn’t had a very long music career.’’

For now, the family musical baton rests with Selmour, Mtukudzi’s daughter.

‘‘Some come and say oh, your children are following in your footsteps,’’ Mtukudzi
said, as if diffusing pressure off his children who had taken after him. ‘‘That’s not
true. I made my own steps, and my children make their own steps. God doesn’t
duplicate talent. So they can’t be me. They have to be themselves.’’

Mtukudzi seems to have made peace with himself – as a father, husband, artist

and Zimbabwean – having done what he thought he needed to do as a
Zimbabwean cultural vanguard. Yet more was expected of him by those who felt
he should have done something, said something, regarding Robert Mugabe’s
Zimbabwe. Mtukudzi chose to play cultural politics – and succeeded in
safeguarding Zimbabwe’s interests on that front both at home and on the global
stage – but the political jury is still out on whether that was enough or whether
those who demanded more from the man were justified.

In an interview with Kenyan actor and playwright John Sibi-Okumu, journalist and
DJ Ntone Edjabe of the Chimurenga Chronic explained, responding to a question
on the role of culture in raising public consciousness to tackle societal challenges,
‘‘Imagining culture as a tool, as something that can be used for anything but itself
as an act of living and an articulation of that life is always dangerous, whether for
positive or other reasons,’’ Ntone admitted that indeed art and culture affects
society, but putting a weight of expectations on culture becomes inhibitive. ‘‘…but
yes, aspects of culture, music, literature, film… the production of culture, can
bring people together. We’ve seen this historically.’’

If art can be left alone for its own sake, should artists, who become influential
cultural figures in society, be left alone, or is that an oxymoron? On his part,
novelist Chinua Achebe had no internal contradictions on what art is, and what
function art plays in society and about the place of art and artists in politics.

  Imagining culture as a tool, as something that can be used for anything but
  itself as an act of living and an articulation of that life is always dangerous,
  whether for positive or other reasons

‘‘Those who tell you ‘Do not put too much politics in your art’ are not being
honest,’’ Achebe said during a rare conversation with his African American
contemporary James Baldwin. ‘‘If you look very carefully, you will see that they
are the same people who are quite happy with the situation as it is. And what they
are saying is not don’t introduce politics. What they are saying is don’t upset the
system. They are just as political as any of us. It is only that they are on the other
side.’’

The jury is still out on Tuku’s politics, but no one will deny that he was master of
his craft.

RiP – Oliver TUKU Mtukudzi

OLD FACES, NEW MASKS:
Zimbabwe one year after the
‘coup’
I was cooped up in my Houston apartment in the United States on 15 November
2017 when Twitter chittered with the news that a coup was currently being
carried out in my homeland, Zimbabwe. It was a searing night, deathly silent here

in Houston, where it was still the evening of November 14. In Zimbabwe, an
apricot-tinged sky was greeting Zimbabwe Military Major General SB Moyo’s
early-morning announcement on national television that the army had taken over
the country in order to return it to “normalcy”.

But even his assurances of order felt precarious. It was as though something
terrible, as is the nature of coups, could still happen, such as a horrific breakout
of civil war that would persist for years, catapulting us into a nightmare from
which we would not be able to wake up. I remember doubling over, as though
someone had punched me.

And then, surreal images of ordinary people like myself taking to the streets
alongside menacing army tanks to march against Robert Mugabe flooded social
media. I remember refreshing and re-refreshing my feed, squinting at the screen,
trying not to disbelieve my eyes. Was this the same army? This army I had grown
up fearing, which I’d seen destroying people’s homes and beating street vendors
during Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Clean Out the Rubbish) in 2005? The
army being broadcast all over the world wasn’t brutalising the marching
populace. No…it was…protecting —protecting? —people just like me as they
marched against Robert Mugabe.

The importance of this moment cannot be overemphasised. Even as we were
jumping from the frying pan into the fire, it was hard not to participate in the joy
of being able to march freely against Robert Mugabe. It was sublime. In our
Zimbabwean universe, ruthlessly built up and curated for us by Zanu PF, this —
marching against Mugabe with the army’s assistance and protection — wasn’t
something that could happen. And yet, it was happening! It was just too delicious
not to enjoy! It opened up the spirit and the imagination to endless possibilities
for Zimbabwe’s future. Seeing people like me daring to hug the soldiers, laughing
with them and posing for selfies alongside those sinister army tanks felt, even if
momentarily, like a sweet taste of freedom, the kind of Zimbabwe we could one
day have…

  The importance of this moment cannot be overemphasised. Even as we were
  jumping from the frying pan into the fire, it was hard not to participate in the
  joy of being able to march freely against Robert Mugabe.

I remember looking around my apartment in Houston, dazed, and asking myself,

“What am I doing here?” I should have been home. I should have been part of the
crowds running on those Bulawayo streets, holding the Zimbabwe flag high above
their heads, letting it spread and flutter in the wind in all its resplendent colours,
billowing like a Super(wo)man cape. I cried all alone in my apartment, with no
family to celebrate with me. I called to check on loved ones at home, only to be
filled with envy at their gurgling, joyous laughter pealing in my ear across the
many miles that separated us. I winced at not being home with them during this
time. Briefly, I toyed with the prospect of dropping everything and catching a
flight home.

But I quickly abandoned this idea. There was still a sense of precarity in the air,
as though anything could still yet happen during this moment that felt like a
refraction of many different realities and expectations simplified and repackaged
into one – that of the army and the people as One.

Watching people marching alongside the army, I felt an unshakeable sense of dis-
ease. In the background of this euphoria, behind the powerful visuals telling a
story of a “new dawn” for Zimbabwe, were unsettling optics. As the festivities
were going on, there was the ruthless purging of “criminals” around
Mugabe—this done, ironically, by those from this same dispensation and who, in
other differently-staged circumstances could well be considered “criminals”
themselves. In darker events, away from the glamorous camera optics, abductions
and beatings were being carried out by these same crop of soldiers seen
genuflecting with ordinary people on the streets of Zimbabwe.

I released my pent-up energy on social media, joining others in energetic Twitter
debates filled with a dreadful sense of foreboding. “Did we know what we
marched for today?” I asked. I was mostly on Ndebele Twitter, where, inevitably,
debates and questions about the Gukurahundi Genocide—Zimbabwe’s original
sin—sprang up, with an army of faceless trolls doing their fair share of work to
sow confusion and misinformation in what was rapidly become a “virtual
Gukurahundi storm”.

Many people were angry that this landmark march and its optics were being
questioned. Understandably, it felt as though their joy was being questioned, and
possibly shamed. Vicious arguments broke out on Twitter, with problematic
divisions that became amplified to the extreme in polarising debates on social
media —between, for instance, those Zimbabweans who were actually at home on

the ground marching, and those like myself who were “tweeting the revolution”
from the comfort of their diasporic enclaves.

Perhaps this was the wrong moment to ask questions about the march. The
people were dreaming. The joy on those faces, our faces! Caught by the flash of a
camera, animated and gorgeous shiny cheeks plump with mirth. Where had you
ever heard such collective laughter? Where would you ever hear it again?

     Many people were angry that this landmark march and its optics were being
     questioned. Understandably, it felt as though their joy was being questioned,
     and possibly shamed. Vicious arguments broke out on Twitter, with problematic
     divisions that became amplified to the extreme in polarising debates on social
     media…

**

Franz Fanon talks about moments such as these in The Wretched of the Earth,
where it seems as though the people and the country’s post-independence leaders
are One. The country’s post-independence leaders promise the people that change
is coming, working up the people into a frenzy of excitement. At the same time,
these leaders leverage this excitement with the international community, saying,
“Look, the people are excited, they are nervous, only we can calm them, work
with us.” This opens up, in our contemporary moment, the way for neoliberal
politics to take root—“Zimbabwe is Open for Business” has been the new
President Mnangwagwa’s mantra.

Sometimes, the people take this call to change seriously and to begin to act to
realise it, to enact their urgent desire for change. The celebrations on the streets
in November 2017, with army and citizens hand in hand, was one such instance of
this euphoria. The optics were powerful. I felt them. I was taken by them. And yet,
the fissures of this moment began to show early on. In December 2017, soldiers,
the heroes and heroines of only a few weeks before, were seen patrolling the
streets of Zimbabwe assaulting citizens.

These fissures became even more apparent leading up to, during and after the
contested July 2018 elections. The people were ready to enact their various ideas
of change that they had marched for in November 2017. Some of these collective
demands included electoral reforms and transparent elections. There was

electricity in the air during this time, a heady dreaming. I was in London during
the 2018 elections, where I found a great community of youthful, engaged
Zimbabweans like myself. We met regularly and discussed what was going on at
home, sharing our fears, hopes and dreams. It was an exhilarating time. Twitter,
once again, fostered a much-needed sense of community with the people at home.

If there had been confusion before as to the optics of the November 2017 march,
things were certainly clearer now. On 1 August 2018, protesters went out onto
the streets of Harare to march against an increasingly suspect and vague
electoral process. In an unprecedented move, armed soldiers from the Zimbabwe
military were unleashed onto the streets to fire live ammunition against the
unarmed protesters. Army and citizen, who had, just seven months before, held
hands in song and dance, were now, once again, embroiled in the violent relations
of state abuse.

Read series on Zimbabwe

In the mind-frying euphoria of that landmark moment in our country in November
2017, we had mistaken things, laughing with the soldiers, kissing their cheeks,
crowning them our heroes. They were not there to serve us, the citizenry. No, it
was us, the citizenry, who were there, just like those youthful, handsome soldiers
of ours, to serve the army commanders, some of whom, like Vice President
Chiwenga, aka General Bae, now parade the halls of government. It was us who
had provided assistance—and not us who had been assisted—in the November
2017 “coup-lite” to legitimise the intra-party politricks of Zanu PF. Once again,
we were just a footnote in our own history.

George Orwell writes about authoritarianism’s perversion of history in his essay
“The Prevention of Literature”. At stake, he writes, is not just a matter of
freedom. “The controversy over freedom of speech and of the press is at bottom a
controversy of the desirability, or otherwise, of telling lies…From the totalitarian
point of view, history is something to be created rather than
learned…Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past.”

The blatant rewriting of history about events as fresh as the August 2018
shootings is a case in point. Even in the face of video footage, Zimbabwe’s army