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Don't blame it all on Mugabe
By
Simba
Phiri
I READ with growing sadness the sentiments aired by some learned compatriots
of mine on the crisis in Zimbabwe, and solutions to it.
I initially resisted the urge to write but I have succumbed.
Zimbabwe's historical past influences people in their opinions, but surely, that divides the nation. Or does it?
All you need to ask is: are we one people? One nation? What values do we give to our children?
It is with these questions in mind that I seek to respond to the article Mugabe's Prosecution and Punishment (read article ), authored by Admore Tshuma and published by this website on November 8.
The purpose of this article is to point and remind the reader that nationhood cannot be achieved by echoing tribal sentiments but working as a people and as a nation to achieve harmony. Gone are the days when we needed tribal marks for identification. What we need now is a nation of one people and one Zimbabwe.
Tshuma’s article has been interesting but in a sad sense. The premise of that article is that “The unprecedented economic meltdown coupled with gross violation of human rights in Zimbabwe merits the prosecution and punishment of Robert Mugabe” .
Life in Zimbabwe is now very tough and I can only empathise with my compatriots at home and abroad. What I seek to dissent on is the idea that so and so caused the economic meltdown and the issue of tribal rhetoric in the arguments. Some of the statements are mere claims based on hearsay, and are not accurate.
The government in Zimbabwe was criticised for introducing free education in the early 1980s and they were told people should pay for hospitals instead of giving free medication and treatment. The argument given was that of sustainability of the services and where the government was to get money to pay for the services. People from poor backgrounds managed to study up to university level as a result. Up to this day, Zimbabwe has one of the highest literacy rates among third world countries.
In countries like the United Kingdom, Lord Rees-Mogg advocates for educating only the top 5% of the population but what happens to the rest? Maybe the UK has a very visible class structure that will sustain that school of thought but not for Zimbabwe. I get the sense that some international organisations always want to stay ahead hence their opposition to the quest for knowledge by the poor child. Mugabe was against the deeply-divided class system. So I feel it is not fair to criticize everything that Mugabe has done.
If there was a global village why is it then that the English FA is lobbying on FIFA to ban national teams from holding training camps in Zimbabwe prior to the coming football World Cup tournament to be held in South Africa? Is it not about freedom of choice, freedom of association and liberty?
Foreign nations should not interfere and try to influence the relationship between Zimbabwe and other nations. It feels like there is some agenda to make and portray everything done by leaders who refuse to take orders from the West as bad. The West says there should be free trade yet there are organisations like World Trade Organisation, G7, EU that are basically cartels who feel violated when countries like China increase trade with third world countries.
Tshuma also mixes up his facts by suggesting that Mugabe wanted to establish a one-party state after the unification of Zanu and Zapu. If the Ndebele were a hindrance to a one party state in the late 80s, why then did Mugabe seek to unite the parties?
In fact, extermination is too strong a word to refer to the developments in Matabeleland. If Mugabe was trying to “exterminate” the Ndebele's using “genocide”, then the international community, mainly Britain, are guilty of complicity as they actively supported the government in what they were doing.
The point that Tshuma misses completely is that Mugabe more than likely distrusted Zapu leaders after the so-called “arms caches” were found in Matabeleland just after independence. Compounded with the events at Entumbane, any reasonable leader would have acted in the interests of the state. It seems implausible that Canaan Banana (President) and Enos Nkala (Minister of Defence and at one time Home Affairs), both notable Ndebele individuals, would not lift a finger but actively participated in a “genocide” against their own tribe. It does not add up.
I have never traveled to countries like South Africa, where there are different tribes, but they seem to be working together as South Africans for the better of the nation.
The historical facts of Zimbabwe show that the Ndebele and the Shona have never been united as a people and as a nation. When the white people arrived in Zimbabwe in the 1880s, the Ndebele people were raiding on the Shona's, burning homesteads, looting from the granaries, taking away their cattle and their beautiful women. Some Shona viewed the white man as the messiah who would deter the Ndebele's from raiding the Shona's.
In the first Chimurenga in the 1890s, the two tribes were fighting for the same cause -- to drive out the white man. But they were doing it separately. Both tribes were defeated and the white man ruled Zimbabwe without any problems till the 1950s. When the second Chimurenga started in 1972, it was being fought with bases along tribal lines meaning that Zipra forces were aligned to Matabeleland and Zanla forces to Mashonaland.
After independence, some people from Matabeleland clearly showed that they identified with the Zulus and other tribes in South Africa. Many people from Matabeleland claim to be South Africans when they are outside the boarders of Zimbabwe. This is reasonable considering the shared roots and language.
It's good to identify with a powerful tribe like the Zulus, but it has the effect of not giving the Ndebele nation the opportunity to work hand in hand with the Shona nation as one people of Zimbabwe, one nation. I am not suggesting that the Ndebele are less patriotic but most Ndebele consider Zulus as brothers and sisters and the Shona's as “the others”. Surely, geographically, that is not good for Zimbabwe as people from Bulawayo and surrounding areas would rather go to Jozi than go to Harare to look for a job. Is it because the South Africans make them feel welcome or the Shona's are just hostile? I am still trying to find out.
I am not Shona and neither am I Ndebele. I grew up suffering the labels like “Achimwene”, “muBwidi” etc but I have noted that some people from Mashonaland feel aggrieved because they were being raided by the Ndebele's and all their fat cattle and beautiful women being taken away.
I feel, therefore, that to blame all these feelings on Mugabe is unfair. I have also noted some successful inter-marriages between the Shona's and the Ndebele's as well. I have friends from both tribes and I speak both languages. I think Zimbabwe is divided due to mistrust that stems from historical times. The duty is on noble Zimbabweans to leave tribal sentiments and work progressively for the development of the country.
At the present moment, Zimbabwe is divided along tribal lines. It's also very clear politically and economically. I firmly believe if the will was there, the Zambezi Water Project would have materialised.
Sadly, Tshuma's arguments are tainted by tribal sentiments. Surely, do you really blame Mugabe for a Shona person who works in Bulawayo but is not keen to learn Ndebele?
Tshuma stooped really low when he wrote: “Mabhena said Mugabe blames Ndebele's for his miserable, fatherless childhood”.
Who said his childhood was miserable? I read the book “Robert Mugabe” in the late 80s and I don’t remember it mentioning anything about an unhappy childhood, and neither does it mention about his father going to live with another woman, let alone a woman from Bulawayo. Mugabe’s home boys from Zvimba cast doubt to these claims. Or maybe Tshuma is implying that a fatherless child has a miserable upbringing?
Why do Zimbabweans need Blair and the international community to push Mugabe out and be brought to account? It sad and it is a shame that Tshuma would invite foreigners to decide the fate of his country of birth.
One weakness about democracy is that it can also breed tyranny. More than ten constitutional amendments were made since 1980. The nature of the Zimbabwean politics is such that it's very easy for the ruling party to change or amend the constitution, and that has nothing about Mugabe being Shona.
To answer the questions I posed in my opening paragraph, I would like to point out that Zimbabweans need to teach their children to see other children as children and not as Shona or Ndebele children. We need to see each other as men, women and children and not muShona, muNdebele or maShona or maNdebele. We should learn and even teach our children to desist from using tribe as the main defining characteristic.
My parents are from the Tumbuka tribe in Northern Malawi but I was born and bred in Zimbabwe. I am proud to be Zimbabwean. My children know they are Zimbabweans. I don’t preach to them the gospel of them being different from the Shona or from the Ndebele. We should be one people and one nation.
Sadly even at UZ, people were campaigning for SRC positions using tribal statements and people were voting along tribal lines as well. I guess there are people who are saying to their children we are hungry because this Shona is ruining the economy. The child will notice and remember the distinguishing feature (Shona).
If we get a Ndebele president, the Shona will say “this Ndebele man has done this and that to the economy”. That is a road to disaster. Even when the MDC split, the Welshman Ncube faction realised the tribal factor that tends to shape the politics of Zimbabwe and quickly co-opted a Shona man to lead the party in the form of Prof Mutambara. Prof Ncube could have led the party, Gibson Sibanda could have led the party. Or is it an acknowledgement by the faction that a Ndebele leader could not sell his policies to the large Shona group?
Such is the politics of Zimbabwe and that has to be weeded out. As long as people continue to see each other along the Shona-Ndebele divide or mubwidi, we will always be divided as a nation, divided as a people forever.
Let me conclude my urging all forward think compatriots to shed off the tribal skin and wear the coat of a proud Zimbabwean people and nation. Lets not criticise a leader because he is allegedly Shona or Ndebele. Let's criticise bad government policies and leave out the tribal element that only serves to divide our lovely nation.
Phiri writes from the UK. He can be contacted at: phirisimba@yahoo.com
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