Rethinking ‘hydro-politics’ in Bulawayo

Last week’s inaugural analysis of this series unpacked the critical themes and architecture of Prof Muchaparara Musemwa’s publication, Water, History, and Politics in Zimbabwe: Bulawayo’s Struggles with the Environment, 1894-2008. Indeed, the book is game changing as far as casting and posture of the tradition of historiography in Zimbabwe is concerned.

Water and its significance in sustaining social policy and the political-economy of a country is a critical aspect of every human experience and livelihood. As such, the study of anthropology and history cannot be relevant if it does not pay accurate and valid attention to the importance and effects of water in sustaining human livelihoods and interest — be it social, political and economic interests.

As such Musemwa’s study is critical as it is inclusive of the importance of water as a commodity which catalyses any community’s development.

What is far-reaching about this intellectual posit is the use of Makhokhoba (misspelt as Makokoba) as case-study whose place in post-colonial social-science discourses epitomises the coloniality of power which begs the need to rethink policy formulation and implementation in post-independence Africa.

As indicated last week, Makhokhoba is a space of colonially underpinned resource distribution not only in Bulawayo, but in Zimbabwe and in Africa at large. The water scarcity horrors faced by Makhokhoba are an illustrative exclamation of the overall pitfalls of “what ought to be” socialpolicy and distribution of public goods in Zimbabwe.

However, what stands out clearly from my submission, contrary to Musemwa’s central thesis is that it is narrow to tie-down the water scarcity to deliberate politically induced central Government sabotage on Mathebeleland (Matabeleland).

In fact, the rise of Mathebeleland is a making of colonialism than it is a product of Afrocentric political aspirations.

The idea of Mashonaland and Mathebeleland pronounces Zimbabwe’s national belonging along divisive premises than it is unifying as espoused in the values of the Chimurenga.

Therefore, we need to abhor the glory given to boundaries by the haters of Africa — whose interest is to keep us divided and fighting against one another as objects of tribalism than we are citizens of this country.

Therefore, even if one is to buy into Musemwa’s submission it will be worth noting that the policy deficits experienced by Makhokhoba, Bulawayo and Zimbabwe are products of imperialism.

The policy crisis in Makhokhoba (which is the case-study of Muchemwa’s book) is far suggesting of a history that Africa needs to confront truthfully with no selective sensation to detail and feeding into the interests of neo-colonial agendas guised as anti-establishment honesty.

The capturing of this history must be independent from the modern pessimistic schools of thought which are produced to polarise the African post-colonial states as; failed centres of public service and zones of governance ineptitudes.

What is of interest about Musemwa’s publication is its existence in an ecology of debates produced by traders of antiestablishment polarisation.

One of which is the Terence Ranger tradition. Ranger — the nationalist historical curator who later affronted the positives of the anti-colonial epistimology of modern Zimbabwean nationalism’s thrust in economic indigenisation and affirming the legacy of the Chimurenga and its heroes at the peak of the regime change agenda induced by the Land Reform Programme.

It was at that point when Zimbabwe’s academia relocated its attention from nationalism to Western-sponsored human rights and democracy knowledge production. This new epistemic turn was also symbolic of the country’s politicalculture transition which was characterised by a migration from celebratory nationalism to nationalist demonisation proclivities.

Just like Terence Ranger (2010) used Makhokhoba as a site of postindependence failure, Musemwa takes the same route and in the process compromises the relevance of his new point of scholarly residence in unpacking the historiography of Bulawayo.

The subject of water and its importance in sustaining human livelihood is outstandingly significant in understanding the history of resource distribution. However, limiting the current crisis in resource sharing to politics of ethnicity defeats the importance of such a good publication and its expected mandate to add value in the body of existing knowledge.

In his book, Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893-1960 Ranger (2010) makes no mistake, but glorifies the social policy structure of Makhokhoba under colonial administration. Key highlights of that book essentially emphasise on how Africans benefited from the colonial social policy.

The overvalued state of colonialism’s merits and the misrepresentation of colonial public service is only reflective of a history that suggests failure of the post-independence state. This perspective

King Lobengula disappeared).

The song laments the advent of power shifts which gave birth to today’s exalted city. The song lambasts Rhodes’ rule by conquest and his obliteration of the memory of Ndebele nationhood. This is because the coming of new cities marked the birth of cultural denigration and human displacement.

Not only did colonialism come with displacement, but it eradicated environment conservation methods used by the Ndebele ( Ukuhlonipha umhlaba). In the African world-view, the environment symbolises the creative prowess of God which deserved celebration.

As such in chapter one of the books, Musemwa (2014) argues that water was a commodity with spiritual significance to the Ndebele. As such the Ndebele had metaphysical methods of inviting the mercies of the divine world to give the earth rain.

However, urbanisation neutralised that spiritual connection which man had with his environment. Even the building of the new town was not a result of consultation with those who had a previous bond with the environment before the erection of urbanisation at the castration of Ndebele monarchial power.

The Rhodesians never considered underlying environmental factors which caused Mzilikazi to have his capital in Matlokotloko in 1840. They never make sense of Mzilikazi’s capital relocation in 1857 to Inkwenkwezi which is north of Umguza River and later his shift to Mahlahlandlela just close to the Khami River.

It was this failure of the colonial system to acknowledge and respect the environment questions of their new space of conquest. As a result, the whole process of urbanisation failed to sustain itself as far as water distribution was allowed. The Rhodesians’ key priority in “greening the city” instead of resourcefully using water aggravated the precious liquid’s crisis.

The perennial water crisis did not even curtail the colonialists’ preoccupation with the “suburbanisation” of Bulawayo while the African majority struggled to access water — as is the case to this day; Makhokhoba and other townships are not a priority in water distribution patterns.

Conclusively, it is a fact that the Bulawayo water crisis largely owes to the industrialisation burden inflicted on the environment by Rhodes’ commercial interests.

As early as 1912, the effects of the mistake of industrialising Bulawayo conceived the need for the Zambezi Water project which has failed to take off even after Bulawayo celebrated 120 years of being a city (signature of imperialism). Ideally, the Zambezi Water project was formulated as a scheme to directly harness water from the Zambezi River and linking the supplies to Gwayi-Shangani Dam — to be piped to reservoirs in Bulawayo.

However, that plan failed since the dark Rhodesian era regardless of its glorified status of good governance and innovation. Therefore, to attribute this failure to Zanu-PF and its deliberate manipulation of ethnic essentialism to repress is a misguided scholarly position.

The Bulawayo case is reflective of the coloniality of hydro-politics and not necessarily deliberate ethnic grounded victimisation of the City of Bulawayo.

Even in 2009, the issue of the Zambezi water project regained its momentum during the GNU era when Dr Siphepha Nkomo — was the then Minister of Water Resources Development and Management.

In 2012, Siphepha’s ministry rolled out a promise that the Zambezi Water Project would be completed after a period of three years following his ministry’s engagement with a Chinese engineering company. Today, it’s the second Sunday of 2017, was the promise fulfilled?

Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network — LAN. Convener of the Back to PanAfricanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com then mysteriously Lawrence”The Penpusher” Moyo, Hwange.