2. Substitutionalism: The President as the epitomy of nationhood
Zanuism operates on the basis of substitutionalism, that is, the simplistic premise that the Party is the embodiment of the Nation or rather that the party is superior to government. It makes the people and the party synonymous. The party in turn becomes synonymous with government.
10 This is how Zanuists achieved the conflation of State and party. But the party itself remains a hostage of its Central Committee, which in turn is a servant of the Politburo. The primacy of Patronage within liberation movement politics reduces the politburo into a handmaid of the State President. In post-independence Zimbabwe the term People has,
in real terms, always meant the president and his cronies and what they think and want the people to think. The terms Zimbabwe, Zimbabwean interests, sovereignty, values etc,
describe what the president thinks, feels and believes and not necessarily the popular sentiment of the masses. Free politics and dissent are anathema to the survival of Zanuism.
11
Substitutionalism can only work through an absolute control of information and therefore knowledge, which is power, self-agency and capacity.
12 In its most absurd form, substitutionalism seeks to vest in the president's hirelings a monopoly to tell lies, malign and exercise force. It functions either through crude force or fraud, whereby the State either withholds, withdraws or threatens one's privileges, interests and basis of livelihood. This explains why sections of the intelligentsia become morally mortgaged to the political elite, either through inducement or undue influence. The result is a choir of intellectuals parroting the leaders' infallibility and some constructed patriotism.
Ultimately substitutionalism produces a crisis of both leadership and follower-ship. The crisis of leadership results in the celebration of mediocrity at the expense of ability. This in turn triggers off a crisis of follower-ship as a troop of political clowns fall over each other trying to please the leader for their personal gain. National interests are kept at the periphery of this selfish game of intrigue and deception. The crisis of leadership in Zimbabwe has been and continues to be the most productive industry for bad governance and corruption. Whereas the crisis of follower-ship has been productive of two corresponding vices, namely inaction and impasse of perception. Substitutionalism undermines the moral fabric of society, kills initiative and gives birth to social, economic and political conflict.
The absolute power of the leader in the substitutionalist system marginalizes the role of institutions and the constitution. Without institutions and regard for the constitution, there can be no transparent, accountable or democratic governance. This is the curse of post-independence Zimbabwe, an era that started off promising heavenly hope but has eventuated in abysmal darkness at midday. What follows is a description of the various events and processes that illustrate the nature of the national crisis.
Footnotes:
- I extracted this analysis from a collection of Robert Gabriel Mugabe's addresses to the Zanu PF central Committee in Mozambique between the years 1977 to 1979 produced by Mambo Press, 1985.
- This is why it is imperative to investigate the critical role played by social movements in averting one-party rule in Zimbabwe both before and after 1990. Such a study might help shed light on why the state has been most brutal in its response to protests by workers, students and civic groups. The activities of these social movements seem to be closely linked to the emergence of stronger opposition political formations in the late 1990s.
- The success of social movements in Zimbabwe has been their ability to create spaces that are "subversive" of substitutionalism. Resultantly, they have been able to produce alternative information and therefore knowledge, power and related capacity to engage in either resistance or self-liberation.
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