Dismissing our vendor economy is 'selling-out'

'The streets are our employers' : Dismissing our vendor economy is 'selling-out' and failure to nurture economic nationalism.

The ultimatum by the state ordering vendors to leave 'undesignated' spaces in urban centres is not in touch with the tough economic realities experienced by ones at the base of the pyramid. These informal industrious centres of our masses are an innovative mechanism of escaping poverty because naturally poverty dehumanises people. Indeed poverty belittles people, this is why many of our people have opted to share the streets with the speeding motorists. Zimbabweans are suffering and ideally the state which is the father of its citizenry (regardless of ideological diversity) has failed to take up its fatherly mandate to at least ensure decent public welfare for its citizens.

The poor architecture of our craft-literacy dismisses all the regime rhetoric, though am sure confronting such tough realities is usually treated as 'selling-out' by establishment cultists who see treachery in honest confessions of state failure as far as consolidating the idea of the liberation is concerned which on its own was the foundation of real selling-out.  Such compatriots need to remember that the political elites are the first sell-outs and their treachery dates back to the days of the liberation struggle. Hence Masipula Sithole (1979) referred to this challenge as the "Struggle within a struggle."

This is not surprising that 35 years after independence the state is still stuck in Rhodesia and calling spaces of poverty escapism in search of better livelihood 'undesignated.' Indeed they are undesignated according to urban laws inherited from the colonial regime and not the contemporary economic realities. Therefore is this not a worse form of selling-out? This is pure oppression of Zimbabwe's poor and jilted citizens whose income earned from the so-called informal and undesignated enterprises does not coincide with the unwanted excesses of the wealth of those in power.    The challenges of our time have been narrowly linked to the land reform and sometimes the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) of the 90s.

This has limited the appreciation of our struggle to a contemporary epoch which we confuse with the larger historical bearings of the protracted economic 'national' crisis.   Expelling such dissatisfaction is a reality which epitomizes the banked anger of the people of Zimbabwe whom since independence have endured the sadistic feeling of marginalisation from the nation economically. Issues of economic nationhood do not necessarily represent capitalist economic empowerment. It also entails a uniform access to public goods and general human basics and this has remained a fantasy for the people of Zimbabwe especially after the beginning of the millennium until today. The state's failure to provide the basic commodities of human survival for its general populace reflects failure in terms of achieving 'economic nationalism.' By the way, this is a betrayal of the founding values of Pan-Africanism we have claimed religious admiration for as enshrined in the didactic Kwame Nkrumah creed "Seek yea first economic independence."

This failed 'economic nationalism' is the reason why the government entered into the radical fast-track land reform following the betrayal of the founding values of the 'political nation.' By political nation I am referring to the political notions of the liberation struggle values of the imagined inclusive character of 'Becoming Zimbabwe' (Raftopolous and Mlambo 2009) which led to social-contact  that was political leading to the fall of Rhodesia through the gun-barrels of the sons and daughters of the soil (Abantwana bomhlabathi / Vana vebvu). In one accord they fought the Union-Jack and replaced it the new national flag. This view is supported by a submission posited by Dr Samukele Hadebe during last year's edition of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference  as he argued "… that 'African liberation' was about capturing State power." Political nationalism ignored the economic side of nationalism. Today reflects a recurrent of the "pitfalls of national consciousness" predicted by Fanon in the 60s. Ibbo Mandaza (1987) warned us about the inevitability of a "Political Economy in Transition."

Therefore, the responsible authorities should have seen it coming that one day the population would grow. Logically, population growth over the years should have signaled the state to provide more public resources to cub potential congestion on the available resources especially the urban centres. There was need for long-term infrastructural development soon after independence ahead of the congestion that urban centres are now bearing.  Apologists of the government (urban-councils included) on the decision to decongest the streets through expulsion of the vendors have a flawed case to justify their position. Most of them complain that it is now difficult to walk in the pavements and ignore the fact that there are no functional industries to employ these people.

Secondly, Grace Mugabe instructed regulatory bodies not to prosecute vendors during her nationwide rallies prior to the 6th annual Zanu-PF Congress held last year. Ideally this may be rebutted on the grounds that Grace Mugabe's word was not final nor was it a warrant to the vendors to continue their operations deemed as illegal because she had and still has no legal capacity to reshape urban by-laws. However, this highlights how the law has been concentrated in the hands of those in power and not public institutions. Thus Grace Mugabe took it upon herself to nullify urban by-laws to buy political support to find her way up the Zanu-PF hierarchy. Months after her entry into the political centre of Zanu-PF the army gives a seven days ultimatum to leave the streets.

Surprisingly there has been no reaction from the First family concerned the matter after Grace Mugabe cushioned the vendors' continued operations illegal as they were. This shows how playing around with the lives of the people has become a main feature of Zimbabwe's political culture. Recently, the Minister of Finance Patrick Chinamsa announced that the government would not award civil servants their annual bonuses. Weeks later President Mugabe denounced Chinamasa's public announcement concerning the bonuses. Therefore this time concerned Zimbabweans are standing in solidarity with the vendors not waiting to hear that this was another mistake, but willing to negotiate with the relevant authorities for something better to be done for the vendors. The streets are the mainstay of many households. Where will the vendors go to if they are evicted from the streets that have provided them with employment?

This substantiates an unsystematic way of governance we are experiencing as a country. As such top Zanu-PF officials and first family members can give irrational public announcements which are inconsiderately turned to policies if not being used as means of misdirecting existing policies and nullifying legal conducts not to mention downplaying public expectations of good governance. This form of politicking has now served as a Zanu-PF strategy to manipulate the masses into authenticating selfish political interests of the party's members.  This illustrates the schizophrenic traits of our nationhood and suggests a worst form of selling-out. The call to evict vendors comes at a time the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZIMASSET) has failed to meet its two million employment target ahead of the policy's lapse.

This might be indicating the state's fears that soon it would be more clear that the ZIMASSET was a mere campaign scheme. As such this imperative call for the streets to be cleared by the army is nothing, but a strategy to dismiss the failure of ZIMASSET becoming highly visible. This might be Zanu-PF hiding the truth from its international critics in regards to the policy's failure in dealing with pertinent issues of employment creation and infrastructural development. When Stephen Sackur from the British Broadcasting interviewed Jonathan Moyo recently he pointed out that Zimbabwe has turned into a vendor economy. This suggests a new twist on the British demonisation of Zimbabwe which now focuses on the aftermath of the land reform and the country previous election fate ahead of the 2018 elections.

This calls for civic groups to come together and ensure that we do not have a second version of Operation Murambatsvina which led to severe human displacement in the early millennium. Likewise, the government should consider the potential humanitarian crisis that might emerge if the army is used to evict vendors from the streets which have since become the centre of human livelihood and escape from poverty for the urban masses. History has proved that all military action towards the masses is usually brutal and is not friendly as we may want to imagine. Any military action leads to one form of violence or another and in this case this it will be unavoidable. This is about life and death on the side of the masses, hence the state must be courageous enough to accept its failures and provide economic freedom for all.

Zimbabwe's economic indigenisation plans would be meaningless if they do not cascade to the base of the pyramid in the quest for genuine economic nationalism. This calls all for Zimbabwe to be state-led in singing a new Rambai makashinga (continue to be strong) which will celebrate genuine economic benefit for all even the able-bodied people  who sell airtime in our street corners to that they give a significant contribution to our economic nationalism. By significant contribution, I don't mean to denigrate the people who sell airtime, but I am implying that we need to move away from being a retailing and spending nation.

Instead we need to advance towards being a manufacturing economy. Zanu-PF must take responsibility of being the architect of the chaos the urban councils are now pointing out after being silenced by Grace Mugabe's Meet the people campaigns last year ahead of the sixth Zanu-PF Congress. This is a result of the party's failed futuristic policy projections since1980, it was inevitable that the population would grow and congestion would follow. It is the party's economic indigenisation vote-buying mechanisms that have influenced a plethora of unsystematic entrepreneurial models in Zimbabwe. Therefore any action to be taken must address the real problem of a paralytic economy and that needs urgent attention.

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Richard Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network-LAN. Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com.