The Zimbabwean National Question: Key Components and Unfinished Business

Abstract

Without delving deeper into the complex, perennial and mutating ‘national question’, it would be impossible to understand why transitional politics in Zimbabwe are hostage to a particular articulation of the idea of Zimbabwe. The chapter provides a detailed exposition of the Zimbabwean national question as an encapsulation of the key issues that define or underpin citizens’ struggle for an inclusive, democratic and developed Zimbabwe. Thus, the chapter grapples with the difficult definition of national interests and how these could coalesce into a common national vision. To do this, it articulates the key set of issues that Zimbabwean clandestine and uncoordinated citizens have been trying to prioritize in their past and current struggles for inclusivity, equality, prosperity, democracy and development; examines the connections, disconnections, gaps and opportunities among these sets of citizen priorities and contemporary civil society advocacy for democracy and development; identifies the constitutive parts of some ‘big ideas’ that would help civil society and citizens coalesce towards a common agenda for democracy and development; and finally provides detailed practical intervention mechanisms and strategies needed by citizens to develop a national consensus/common vision/agenda among Zimbabweans that is built around identified citizen demands, priorities, ideals and aspirations, including those being articulated in the ongoing citizen protest movements.