Zimbabwe's triple crisis: Primitive accumulation, nation-state formation and democratization in the age of neo-liberal globalization

African Studies Quarterly

Volumn 7, Issue 2-3, 2003, Pages

  Moore, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU NATAL   (South Africa)

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EID: 3342920018     PISSN: 10932658     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (74)

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;
4. 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;
5. also 'The Alchemy of Robert Mugabe's Alliances,' Africa Insight, (Pretoria) 30, 1 (May 2000), pp. 28-32.
6. 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).
7. 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;
8. for figures on the 2000 election see my 'Democracy is Coming to Zimbabwe,' Australian Journal of Political Science, 36, 1 (March 2001), p. 163.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Micheal Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.
12. 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;
13. Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001;
14. William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
15. 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
16. 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.
17. 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).
18. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1983.
19. Rita Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa London: Zed Books, 2000.
20. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Elaine Stephens & John Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
21. 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.
22. 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.)
23. Basildon Peta, 'New land grab to put 300,000 jobs on the line,' Financial Gazette, (Harare), July 5, 2001;
24. F. Masiokwadzo, '35,000 people "extraneous" in land crisis,' Zimbabwe Independent, 3 August 2001. In early 2000 there were about 4,400 LSCFs.
25. 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.
26. 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.'
27. 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.
28. Beacon Mbiba, 'Communal Land Rights in Zimbabwe as State Sanction and Social Control: A Narrative,' Africa, 71, (October 2001), pp. 429-430.
29. Rutherford B. Working..., 2001;
30. 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;
31. 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.
32. 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.
33. 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.'
34. Anonymous interview, Harare March 7, 2002.
35. Perelman, The Invention..., 2000.
36. Giovanni Arrighi, The Political Economy of Rhodesia, The Hague: Mouton, 1967, and chapters in Arrighi and
37. John S. Saul, Essays in the Political Economy of Africa, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973.
38. Duffield, Global Governance..., 2001.
39. 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.
40. Brian Raftopoulos, 'Fighting for Control: The Indigenization Debate in Zimbabwe', Southern Africa Report, (Toronto) 11, 4 (December 1996).
41. 'Group calls on State to Issue Title Deeds,' The Herald, (Harare), June 19, 2001.
42. 'Land Reform gets Backing: Major Conference set for Sunday,' The Herald, March 1, 2002, p. 6.
43. 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.
44. 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.
45. 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).
46. 'Chief Attacks Land Reforms,' Daily News, October 24, 2001.
47. R.W. Johnson, 'Zimbabwe Inc.' Focus (Johannesburg), 19 (2000). Also, participant observation by author of election queues near Warren Park, Harare, March 10, 2002.
48. 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;'
49. R. Mukundu, 'Hunzvi, Mhlanga named in $45m Zexcom scam', Zimbabwe Independent Online, October 27, 2000. < www.mweb.co.zw/zimin> accessed November 1, 2000.
50. 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;
51. 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;
52. 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...'
53. Patrick Bond and Masinba Manyana, Zimbabwe's Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism, Neoloberalism and the Struggle for Social Justice, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2002.
54. 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.
55. 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.
56. Anonymous interview, March 2002. J. Alexander, 'Settling...,' pp. 14-16.
57. 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.
58. 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.
59. 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;
60. 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.
61. 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.
62. Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
63. Reno, W. Warlord... 1998;
64. Duffield, M. Global Governance..., 2001.
65. 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.
66. 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.
67. 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.
68. 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.
69. 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.'
70. 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.'
71. 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.'
72. Comment, 'A Clear Message to the World,' The Herald, March 11, 2002, p. 8.
73. 'MDC to get $10,2 million UK funding,' Herald, October 28, 2001;
74. Herbert Zharare, 'USAID Buys War Vets to De-campaign Mugabe,' Zimbabwe Mirror, 8-14 March 2002.