LAST week we looked at how language can be manipulated as a regime change agent by the country’s detractors.
In this part we look at how these detractors are using the Ndebele and Shona who are literally one people by spawning hate speech through the formation of tribal groupings purporting to be advancing the interests of a certain tribe when in fact they are being used to push an imperialistic agenda.
As noted by some scholars the issues at hand that are mainly trying to destabilise the ‘one’ people are why non-Ndebele speaking teachers are deployed to teach Ndebele speaking children, why is there no compensation of victims of the political disturbances in Matabeleland in the 1980s.
It is a fact that the whiteman has Matabeleland, especially Bulawayo at heart, the colonial relics, street names, graves, plaques, buildings and above all Rhodes’ grave atop our Mwari shrine in Matopos are testimony to his undying ‘love’ for this part of our country, and for these reasons has become an entry point for regime change advocates.
Today, the Ndebele speaking people form about 20 percent of the population of Zimbabwe. The Shona speaking people make up the remainder.
Besides constituting the dominant ‘ethnie,’ the Shona groups are more indigenous to Zimbabwe than the Ndebele, who arrived in the area in 1839.
The name Zimbabwe is derived from Shona (Karanga) history.
Feelings of exclusion and marginalisation among the Ndebele have been fuelled and manipulated by forces that want to distabilise the country.
However, it is important to note that the initial version of nationalism of the period 1957-1962 was inclusive of both Ndebele and Shona.
Basing historical analysis on ethnic-based societies, clubs and unions formed in Bulawayo, such as the Sons of Mashonaland Cultural Society, the Kalanga Cultural Society and the Matabele Patriotic Society; in this case ethnicity and nationalism positively supported each other in the period 1950-1963.
It was during this period that ethnic associations produced nationalist leaders and while ethnicity provided the required pre-colonial heroes and monuments, the name ‘Zimbabwe’ was adopted by nationalist liberation movements for their post-colonial nation.
Leading nationalist political formations such as the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC), the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) used ethnicity positively to mobilise the masses.
The ethnic cultural symbols used to this purpose included the traditional leopard skins worn by pre-colonial Shona and Ndebele chiefs and the Nguni hats worn by Ndebele chiefs, which early nationalist leaders like Nkomo, James Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Jaison Moyo and Leopold Takawira used to wear when addressing mass rallies.
The ‘grand’ nationalist split of 1963 that saw the birth of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) as a splinter party from ZAPU initiated the negative mobilisation of ethnicity that characterised the whole of the liberation struggle period and beyond.
This evolution of nationalist politics in an ethnically bifurcated form had devastating implications for identities and nation-building within the post-colonial state.
Up to now, the issue of the Ndebele identity in Zimbabwe remains a potential source of national tension.
In 2005, the late Vice-President of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Gibson Sibanda, was quoted by the Daily Mirror arguing that there was a need to re-build the Ndebele state along the lines of the single-tribe nations of Lesotho and Swaziland.
“Ndebeles can only exercise sovereignty through creating their state like Lesotho, which is an independent state in South Africa, and it is not politically wrong to have the State of Matabeleland in Zimbabwe,” he said.
The interesting point is Sibanda was not even Ndebele but Kalanga, a sub-grouping of the Shona.
Moderate Ndebele politicians inside the country have also clamoured for a federal state within which Matabeleland would run its own political and economic affairs.
All these sentiments indicate the challenges of nation building in post-colonial Zimbabwe that need to be carefully put into context because they have been highjacked by regime change advocates who are sponsoring tribal groupings that are out to destabilise the country.
It is also historically interesting that people who are now being used to advance this regime change agenda are former Shona captives who enjoyed being Ndebele to the extent of voluntarily translating their totems from Shona to Sindebele.
Examples of the Shumbas who changed to Sibanda, Nyangas who changed to Nkomo, Gumbos who changed to Msipa, Shiris who changed to Nyoni, Dzivas who changed to Siziba, Shokos who changed to Ncube and the Moyos to Nhliziyo, are many.
Today the Ndebele suffer from the perception and the reality of their past.
That they were once a powerful, independent nation created out of migration, wars, courage, resilience, and sacrifice has lost significance.
According to policy and political analyst, Dr Qubani Moyo, “It makes no sense to continue imagining of the existence of a fictional state called Mthwakazi to which the Ndebele people should live alone in perceived prosperity.”
The problems affecting the region which are well documented and have been said over and over again cannot be solved by escapism of a demand for cessation as advocated by the country’s Western detractors.
The late academic cabinet minister and historian, Dr Stan Mudenge wrote that: “Present day Zimbabwe, therefore, is not merely a geographical expression created by imperialism during the 19th century.
“It is a reality that has existed for centuries, with a language, a culture and a ‘world view’ of its own, representing the inner core of the Shona historical experience. “Today’s Zimbabwe is, for these reasons, therefore, a successor state. “Zimbabweans have both materially and culturally, much to build and not little to build on.”