ON Monday November 2 2015 the Daily News, a foreign-owned newspaper in Zimbabwe, led with the following headline on its front page: ‘Moyo, Mahoso in G40 dust-up’ (must read ‘bust-up’).
What annoyed most patriots in our country was not the above highly misleading headline, but the following absolute nonsense below.
“Jonathan Moyo (Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education) savaged the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) Tafataona Mahoso over an opinion piece that the latter penned on Friday in a ‘shadowy and little regarded weekly rag’ called The Patriot.”
Is this a sick joke or what?
How on earth can The Patriot be ‘shadowy’ and ‘little regarded’ compared to the Daily News known to peddle fictitious news day-in-day-out.
For starters The Patriot cannot be ‘shadowy’ when they are a wholly-owned Zimbabwean paper whose parents are well known.
What about the Daily News?
Whose child is it?
Whose interests does it serve?
Yes, the Daily News is the shoeshine boy of the imperialists.
This is why to the contrary, it is the Daily News that is little regarded compared to The Patriot. While The Patriot specialises in writing well researched stories that enrich the knowledge of Zimbabweans, the Daily News writes stories to tarnish Zimbabweans while mystifying the work of imperialists as being divine.
The question then arises: Where did they learn this tradition of lying about issues that promote colonial and imperialist interests?
They got this from non-other than one of the chief architects of founding colonial Rhodesia, Frederick Courtney Selous.
Below we highlight some of the lies Selous made, all in the cause of colonisation, a tactic which has since been adopted by the Daily News today as it furthers Western interests in Zimbabwe.
The British and the Portuguese clashed over Zimbabwe in the early days of colonialism with the British claiming the country to be within their sphere of influence while the Portuguese had in fact drawn a map showing Zimbabwe as their colonial possession.
And into the mix jumped Selous with his bag of lies about the situation on the ground in our country then, which were aimed at persuading the British to colonise the country.
He gave the impression that the British were all over the show in Zimbabwe while the Portuguese were nowhere to be seen.
“No Portuguese subject either in ancient or modern times has added one iota to our knowledge of this region (Zimbabwe),” said Selous.
“But it is a fact that will admit of no dispute that during the last 25 years, English hunters and travellers have explored every nook and corner of Mashonaland (Zimbabwe).
“They have chopped wagon roads through the forests and made practicable fords across all the large rivers.”
And Selous then goes on to make a very wild false claim.
“They (English) have established the most friendly relations with the natives by whom the advent of the hunters’ wagons is anxiously looked forward to and expected every year,” he said.
“Many Englishmen indeed have spent years of their lives in the Mashona country, while a few have left their bones there.
“The association of England with this portion of South Africa (read Southern Africa) are most intimate.
“Through the work done by her sons, England has better claim to administer that country (Zimbabwe) than any other European nation.
“Englishmen hold the esteem of the natives and the implicit trust that the Mashona now have in honour, truth and justice of the white man is the outcome of their dealings with Englishmen.”
The Shona, however, never trusted British colonialists.
But you have all the lies meant to lure the British to Zimbabwe then.
There was never a large number of Englishmen in Zimbabwe at that time to be described as ‘many’.
They never came up to 10 at a time nor was there a number of Englishmen who were buried in Zimbabwe.
To the contrary, the Portuguese had established schools, churches and military posts in Zimbabwe for over a century.
And at the time when Selous was telling the above lies one Colonel d’ Andriada had moved up and down the country with his army.
The Portuguese had more foot-print in Zimbabwe than the English.
Sadly Selous’ lies succeeded in persuading the British to enter the country and colonise it.
But the British clashed again with the Portuguese in the east of the country over Chief Mutasa.
Here Selous puts his ideas into Chief Mutasa’s mouth so that people would think the chief loved the British more than the Portuguese.
“When asked about the Portuguese, Mutasa said, the Portuguese held an assegai at his heart and when pressed for an explanation of this statement Mutasa said that he was terrorised and compelled to do what one of the Portuguese leaders, one Baron Rezende required of him by the threat that if he gave any trouble Gouveia, the Captain Mor of Gorongoza, would be called in to invade the country with a large armed force.
“And so at the chiefs urgent request one policeman and a native interpreter were left with him in preparation of putting up a bigger police post.”
Here you have heaps of lies being told by Selous, all meant to cover up the fact that the Rhodesians were in fact bringing Mutasa under their colonial rule and warding off the Portuguese while pretending that they were protecting him.
Selous then resorts to traditional British chicanery of painting their opponents as blood-thirsty beasts.
Listen to his description of Antonio De Souza, a Portuguese leader.
“Manuel Antonio de Souza (he gave the Rhodies a good run for their money that man) is regarded by the natives with much the same feelings of mingled terror and detestation as two centuries ago rankled in the breasts of the pious pleasantry of the Western Lowlands of Scotland against their powerful and unscrupulous oppressor John Graham of Claverhouse.
“The natives who are powerless to resist are groaning under the present oppression and would welcome with open arms the influx of British settlers and miners.”
Does this not sound very familiar to the demonisation by the Daily News of leaders of ZANU PF and the party itself along the lines used by Selous?
Is it not true that like their hero Selous, the Daily News is advocating the influx of foreigners and former Rhodies to come into Zimbabwe to take back the land?
The other fiction created by Selous had to do with the so-called treaties.
Fictitious statements said to have emanated from chiefs saying they favoured British protection were always made by Selous.
One day he went to Chief Mutoko to craft a fraudulent treaty and here are the lies.
“He (Mutoko) listened very attentively to all that was said,” said Selous.
“He made some intelligent comments referring to the fear he entertained of being attacked by the Portuguese.
“He said messengers from Mutasa had lately informed him of all that the British South Africa Company (BSAC) had done in Manica and finally said that he was very glad for the opportunity of concluding a treaty with the British, that his country was theirs and that the Englishmen might go where they liked to look for gold.”
Lies, lies, lies!
Mutoko for example, did not know who the BSAC was.
How on earth would a chief give his land to strangers?
So every time you see fiction as news in the Daily News, always remember that, that paper learnt the craft of publishing falsehoods to push colonial and imperialist agendas from its forefather Selous.