WE shall always have problems with individuals or arts groups used by our former colonisers to influence the course of events in our country.
Daniel Maposa and Savanna Trust are no exceptions.
Our former colonisers want us to think like them.
This includes their dislike of former liberation movements, their interpretation of human rights, the acceptance of whites as superior beings and abhorrence of our culture.
They have now resorted to theatre as a way of making Africans subservient to their whims.
And they have found willing quislings in the form of organisations like Savanna Trust, that enthusiastically try to fulfill their masters’ wishes through their so-called ‘protest theatre’.
Why not!
For they are backed financially by Western organisations, determined to bring down the Government of Zimbabwe, formed out of former liberation movements.
Some Western groups such as SIDA, HIVOS, Africalia, UNESCO and the British Council are notorious for this.
Ironically, these so-called champions of democracy are as guilty as sin when it comes to destabilising African governments.
Maposa’s Savanna Trust must have thought it had gone for the jugular when it rushed into the coloniser’s corner.
It targeted youth (catching them young), to get as many as possible and train them in protest theatre so that they could ‘educate people on the various political and social issues’, according to Maposa.
This included issues like democracy, human rights and gender equality.
The programme sounds noble.
But wait a minute!
We have first to understand the author of these objectives and what they are.
According to Western donors, democracy means victory for a Western sponsored party in an election in Zimbabwe.
Vote count becomes immaterial.
Human rights mean the right of the whites to keep their ridiculously large farms with blacks employed as beasts of burden.
And gender equality means promotion of homosexuality.
Indeed there are many other unpalatable practices, repugnant to our culture, which our former colonisers want to see observed.
Yet the paradox is, a black man like Maposa is prepared to go on top of Mount Nyanga to unashamedly declare he is prepared to fight for these Western defined rights through Savanna Trust.
And they do it in style.
Well organised festivals are held to feed the people with their Western approved trash.
They have the funds.
There are no Savanna performances which show how the evil illegal sanctions have had a negative effect on our economy.
To them it is nothing else but misrule.
Their protest theatre is all about how the Government is ‘ruining’ the country and definitely not about Command Agriculture and other empowerment programmes.
There is no redeeming feature in their five-minute displays, the so-called hit and run provocative road shows.
Savanna Trust seems to be a close ally of the MDC, as demonstrated by their encouragement of violence through their play, Decades of Terror, in 2007.
This seems to have been the cue that led to the MDC orgy of violence in the same year.
This is against the background that the West won’t lose any sleep if a ZANU PF Government is removed by violence.
It’s that bad.
No wonder some Western plays, which are totally anti-Zimbabwe and pro-regime change are given awards of excellence.
It is always interesting to identify the credentials of the award-giver.
This also explains why Maposa is highly regarded in Western circles because of his so-called ‘protest theatre’.
Perhaps what these lost artistes might like to refer to, is the late Cde Dick Chinx Chingaira.
His music resonates with the thinking of indigenous Zimbabweans, irrespective of political persuasion.
Is there any true Zimbabwean who does not feel proud about the defeat of the Rhodies on our road to independence?
Is there any genuine Zimbabwean who does not appreciate the redistribution of land in favour of the blacks?
Is there any sincere Zimbabwean who does not like unity?
These are the themes Cde Chinx went at length to highlight in his music.