Tribal hang-ups must cease

Tribal hang-ups must cease

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• The double life of exiled Zimbabweans

By Norah Spie

NATHAN Shamuyarira put me out of style this week!

I spent my Sunday afternoon writing about tribalism only to reluctantly press the 'delete' key after I read the shocking comments made by Shamuyarira.

There I was, going on and on about how people should forgive and forget but how can they when such upsetting comments are still coming up in 2006? We are in 2006 right? I had to check the date in case we had somehow been drawn back in time.

Tribalism in Zimbabwe is a very sensitive topic which needs to be handled with care. I had a deja vu moment when I was researching about this all important subject. Reading about the Rozvi, the Mutapa Empire, Tshaka Zulu, Lobengula, etc reminded me that we are a nation that has come a long way.

But where do you begin with such a diverse subject? Just like racism, tribalism will always be there so long as the world continues to have people of different colour, languages, living in areas with different resources.

We cannot change history — it’s done, it’s gone. Some people choose to be angry about it everyday while others move on -- it's a free world, but please do not spoil it for some of us who would rather look ahead instead of crying over spilt milk or picking on healed sores.

I am Shona, half of my relatives are Ndebele. Until recently, they never visited Mashonaland although we made endless trips to Matabeleland. When I was a toddler I was almost killed in Filabusi. Everyone has a story to tell.

In my history class in high school, we once had the longest debate ever, it went on for weeks. The subject in question was Lobengula. Was he wrong to sign a bogus agreement that he did not understand? Would things have been different if he hadn't? We argued until the cows came home but no-one won. If your friend was on the other side then it meant no talking for those weeks of continuous debate.

For the first time, all we wanted was have another history lesson. The syllabus was put on hold- this was serious business. I had never seen such passion amongst a group of teenagers. Despite some quite strong facts and opinions, I wonder if we really knew what we were arguing about. I will be the first to put my hands up and say it is above me.

Following my article last week, on how we should stand by each other as Zimbabweans, I got a number of people saying they felt New Zimbabwe.com was promoting tribalism. I personally don’t know what informs this kind of perception, except maybe that the editor is Ndebele.

Some of us don’t see everything in black and white or in this case in Shona or Ndebele terms. It is, therefore, not an issue for me if all the writers are Ndebele or not. Remember those days when all the high density suburbs of Bulawayo were covered with SABC satellite dishes? That was not the case in Harare or Mutare. Why? It's not rocket science. The Ndebeles were fed up with ZTV producing Shona programmes one after the other.

Yes, we know that two thirds of Zimbabwe is Shona but that does not give us the right to marginalise the rest. How come more Ndebele people can speak the three languages- English, Ndebele and Shona whilst the Shona only learnt English?

This goes further even among the Shona. We have heard of the Muzenda jokes, passed them on in our emails, laughed during drinking sessions and so on. The jokes tell a more underlying story – a burning hatred for the people of Masvingo.

Take one student who comes from Masvingo to study at a university in Harare. For the entire duration of the course, that person will be singled out and made the subject of crude jokes. But if you happen to work for a boss who is from Masvingo, then you might experience some payback time as the whole place will slowly turn into Karanga land.

So who is the culprit? It's easy to criticise everything that our government has done but moving the national radio stations to Gweru was probably a smart move. Zimbabwe is so centralised that you cannot avoid dealing with Harare. If you ask someone from Mutare, I'm sure they will tell you they too suffer some kind of bullying when they interact with a Harare person. How many of us have laughed when they hear a person with a deep Manyika accent speak? It's hilarious and I can even laugh just thinking about it. But this could easily upset some people.

If it’s any consolation -- it is the same all over the world. There will always be a group of people who think they are superior. If you speak to someone who lives in New York then they look down on people who live outside the Big Apple, even worse if you are from the country.

In Britain, there are some accents from the North that even the Queen needs an interpreter. Believe it or not, some towns in Britain are known to be 'Ndebele towns’. It may be because one Ndebele person, like Peter Ndlovu, settled there first then brought in his whole clan but there is nothing wrong with that -- it is the labelling that I have a problem with. I have never heard a town that is over-flowing with Shonas being called a 'Shona town’. The question is, are the Ndebele singling themselves or is it the Shona singling them out?

On a typical weekend, you can get a call saying, 'oh there is a Ndebele party over there and there is a birthday party over here'.

Could it be that there are more people not used to living together with the other tribe and now in foreign countries we find ourselves forced to live in the same communities?

I deliberately chose not to write about what happened in the past, like saying they did this and we did this to them because at this point, it will not achieve anything. I will leave Nathan Shamuyarira and the likes of Prof. Jonathan Moyo to spar over that one.

Our problems are nothing compared to other nations like Nigeria and Sudan, but Zimbabwe is a young vibrant nation with people who pride themselves in being educated and innovative.

That could be the case but it can easily go to the dogs if we do not use common sense and compassion in dealing with each other. The media is a very powerful tool and unfortunately sometimes it is used to score personal differences but we should not be caught up in personal vendettas that do not concern us. After all we are ONE people.

Norah Spie's new weekly column appears here every Wednesday. You can e-mail her at n_spie@hotmail.com. Her new book, Parallel Lines, is available at many good bookshops and you can also order it online from AMAZON

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