With apartheid South Africa it was crystal clear. There was a transnational, cross sector, multi-class, multi-race, solidarity against the regime and for the people of South Africa. Not, however, in the case of Zimbabwe now — decidedly and distinctively not. Why is this so? People, important people, have begun to scrutinise this rhetorical question with increasing vigour. Is it, they ask, because we fail to understand what is really going on in Zimbabwe? Or is it because they — the campaigning pro-democracy groups in Zimbabwe and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) — fail to make their case and fail to adequately communicate what is going on?
The main question is especially poignant for South Africans, who benefited from the anti-apartheid movement’s energy and commitment and the economic sanctions it promoted — ultimately with significant impact on the apartheid regime.
Which largely explains the, at times bitter, sense of resentment at what the Zimbabwean campaigners regard as a lack of solidarity from South Africa. ”Fence-sitting” is the politest of the various expressions of exasperation used.
You accuse of us of running to the north, to London and Washington, for support, say the Zimbabweans, but who can blame us? When we look south, we have been met with equivocation from people we thought of as comrades and, from your presidency, obfuscation.
But this, I say, is changing rapidly. The lines of communication are improving. Importantly, a critical mass of ”principled consciousness” — the core ingredient for any display of protest solidarity — has accrued.
The South African Communist Party issued public statements after its central committee meeting a couple of months ago that carefully stated the non-negotiables of political freedom that should accompany South African diplomatic efforts in Zimbabwe. It deplored the ”torture of political opponents of the regime and gross violations of human rights”.
And last Friday, after meetings with colleagues from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the Congress of South African Trade Unions went further than it has before. Speaking at a joint press conference in Cape Town, provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich linked his federation’s call for sanctions with solidarity sanctions against the apartheid regime and added that the time for quiet diplomacy had long passed. For good measure he concluded that Robert Mugabe should now go. Finish and klaar.
Important pockets of ”middle” African National Congress are also now raising their voices inside the tripartite alliance, pricked by video evidence, for example, of politically motivated gang rapes.
A groundswell of meaningful South African solidarity is growing, with consensus about its nodal points: solidarity for the human dignity of Zimbabweans, especially those most seriously affected by the crisis — the unemployed and indigent, the working class and the peasantry. Solidarity in relation to the need to design and then protect a credible set of negotiations aimed at unlocking what is now a mutually hurting stalemate. Solidarity with Zimbabwean democratic protest. And, perhaps most crucially, solidarity beyond free and fair elections, towards the longer-term goal of a stable government. One with the institutional capacity to be able to deliver progressive policy prescriptions, armed with a new Constitution produced by a legitimate public participation process.
These are part of the why and the what elements of building solidarity. Attention will now be on adding programmatic content to the how question. More vigorous displays of solidarity are likely to follow. All of which adds up to a significantly changed climate and one that places those in power in and outside of Zimbabwe under more pressure to accept and push for change.
It seems to me that part of the motivation for these shifts has as much to do with South Africa, or Swaziland for that matter, as Zimbabwe. There is a parallel process of consciousness percolating through the minds of progressive activists and leaders around the region. There are genuine fears that the democratic space for progressive forces to resist the neo-liberal onslaught is closing, has already closed or may do so soon.
Projecting perhaps from the disappointments of their own transitions, there is acceptance of the need for a more rigorously analytical response to the Zimbabwe crisis. The conclusion is straightforward: that Zimbabwe is a classic case of a petit bourgeois class stealing the national democratic revolution at the cost of the working class.
As some are now prepared to admit, in its response the left in South Africa has been remiss, playing into Mugabe’s hands as the liberal right has leapt into the void to protest the plight of white farmers.
There are complex and therefore mitigating reasons for the delay in showing solidarity. The progressive left does not want the agenda for Africa to be set by the United States or the United Kingdom. There is regret and confusion at the rapid deterioration of the post-colonial state. There is an inadequate understanding of the political economy of Zimbabwe and of the balance of forces. Which is where the channels of communication come in.
Debunking the myriad mythology that has obscured clear analysis until now is an essential outcome of such engagement and therefore a foundation for building external solidarity. Concerns can be aired directly and responded to with equal candour. We perceive that the MDC lacks ideological coherence and strategic wit, charge the South Africans. After all, your leader came here and met Tony Leon, makes statements on President Thabo Mbeki that push the ANC into a corner and, in any case, how do we know you will be any different in government from, say, Frederick Chiluba in Zambia?
Perhaps there have been tactical blunders, respond the Zimbabweans, certainly you abandon your quiet diplomacy and bring out the megaphone when the MDC blunders. But your government goes silent when 10 people are murdered by Mugabe’s thugs and hundreds of workers are arrested as Zanu-PF oppresses dissent. South Africans show solidarity with Palestinians, they go to die as human shields in Baghdad, but not for Zimbabwe. Part sophistication and world-wily insight; part arrogance and isolationism, thus does the South African response baffle the Zimbabweans.
Call us what you like, the MDC adds, but deal with the tortures, the gang rape, the food insecurity and the fact that workers cannot access their wages to feed their families.
This is the challenge now laid down with firm clarity; a healthily robust debate prompts a collective response with an internationalist character. It is extraordinary that the conversation is only really getting going now. Better late than never, for sure. Substantial external solidarity is an ideal foil to the installation of the sort of confidence-building measures that are essential if Zanu-PF and the MDC are to enter into formal negotiations about the way forward. And thus, well-timed to concentrate the minds that matter most and thereby to help propel Zimbabwe into the transition process that its people so urgently deserve.