By Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza
'What makes us succumb to inferiority complexes?' is a question permanently lingering in our dissipating consciousness - collective consciousness that is - but because of a plethora of complex and deeply embedded structural reasons, the greater majority of civil society [the masses] conveniently opt to elude confronting such a difficult, tough, and unsettling question. A question that is in itself the dreadful embodiment of crushing existential crises in our rapaciously selfish individual capacities. At each turn, we find it insurmountable to muster the requisite will for the purposes of forging an emancipatory, progressive, and solidaristic collective consciousness. Yet, time and again, we ask the inner-self, and we ask one another, 'why do we find ourselves at the bottom?' - literally in the abyss - when we fully know the untamed and infinite potential we possess to scale new heights. We ask ourselves why we cannot extricate the self and the collective from this cesspool of crude dehumanization; our seemingly perennial degraded kind of existence. A vicious cycle. We yearn for holistic, participatory emancipation: a decent and kind existence, genuine self-determination and agency, independence, collective success, unity, empathy, compassion, honesty; pristine environments and sanitation, healthcare, education, land, housing, water, food security, reliably safe and affordable public transportation systems, robust transport and telecoms infrastructure, power, internet connectivity, sporting excellence, etc. and etc. In everything we partake in life, both at the micro and macro levels of civil society - your usual base, superstructure, hegemony, bourgeoisie, proletariat, et al. - we remain dragged by debilitating inferiority complexes; in their variegated strands of course. We cower at the might of other races - after all, such seemingly overwhelming power does not exist; for it is only resident in our minds - and their enviable yet unattainable private capital and attendant material riches. Capital stolen from us for that matter. We do not believe in ourselves; we have to believe in ourselves. In us. More intricate, nuanced, and contextual historical analyses predicated on stuff such as dialectics (damn the antagonisms!) pertaining to this demand a book or something like that. Which is not our aim here. For now, let us believe in us. In humanity. In nature. Therein lies the resurrection. Call this political literature? - ah, whatever; the message is salient and devoid of misleading labels! The demise; the bane of the collective. And the delicate optimism; togetherness.
ps: some eccentric short essays. What other option except to revel in eccentricity…the third position, sort of...simply, a collection of essays...
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