By Charles T.M.J. Dube

MY installment this week resonates with the Easter Holidays.
The biblical Judas Iscariot story confirms what we have always known in Bantu wisdom.
In our traditional setup, it is generally believed that for a witch to succeed in be-witching a person, he needs to befriend a close relative of the intended victim who must collaborate somewhat to give some element of legitimacy, as it is generally believed there must be some justifiable chigumbu (bitterness, rancour, acrimony or complaint) as basis for so be-witching rather than sheer jealousy or hatred.
It is among relatives or close associates that such acrimony will always be groped for.
The village witch has to provoke a quarrel with the intended victim before he can take to his art.
The payment made to Judas only gave the elders of the Jews some element of legitimacy to commit the murder they had planned on their own and this they executed on the backdrop of collaboration with a paid insider.
So much has been written about the slave trade and how ruthless the Triangular trade was, especially from slave capture to crossing the Atlantic.
The white slave traders simply brought 30 pieces of silver in the form of whisky, rum, guns as well as European clothing and boom, the trade was on, with African capturing African.
The Patriot is serialising a book by Dr Felix Muchemwa on the ‘struggle for land in Zimbabwe’, and in that, the element of the witch among us has always been featuring.
Even during the liberation struggle, as we have always stated, there were collaborators among us who made European occupation and the fight against our people earn some semblance of legitimacy.
There is a tragedy currently going on in Libya.
The same could be said about Iraq and yet in both instances, there was a minority with justifiable or unjustified points of conflict with the Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein regimes that made it possible for the NATO aliens to invade the countries.
In some instances, the witch among us has managed to obtain the reins of power such as was the case with Mobutu Sese Seko in the then Zaire and other anti-people dictatorships.
In post-independent Zimbabwe, we have had to fight poverty and underdevelopment.
It is most regrettable that the witch among us has watered down our war efforts.
Our major enemy in this war is the foreigner wanting to exploit our resources for a song.
As part of his schemes in his arsenal of weapons is the creation of a neo-colonial state in which government remains in the hands of a comprador and petit bourgeois who run the government as agents of international capital and their governments, guarding our natural resources for unfettered exploitation by the foreigners or extracting value as agents of capital for final expropriation by the latter.
Conditions must also be created for legitimate genuine grievances to arise among the general populace.
In any war, there is also psychological warfare which presupposes a war of the minds and demoralising the opponent.
What then will be the role of the witches among us, in this scenario?
They will, where they occupy positions of power, introduce favouritism and outright nepotism and/or some other ‘ism’ that will be blatant to any conscious citizen.
They will institutionalise corruption.
After all, who cares, when they and their dependents live in plenty.
They will under-invoice their exports and over-invoice their imports in order to transfer value to their foreign accounts.
They will also, in international trade, not take the interests of the nation at heart as the front soldiers, but will facilitate the expropriation of local value for 30 pieces of silver, even through schemes by which their foreign collaborators in crime take the lion’s share from their betrayals to their nation.
They will also live lives of extravagant ostentation as can only cause resentment among the disadvantaged members of society or those aspiring to be in their shoes.
Instead of creating employment with their loot, they not only invest their monies outside the country, but, locally build massive 15-or-more-bedroomed houses for families of three, with 15 cars of all the reputable models parked on the premises.
They are hedonists and will extend their wealth to concubines, now called ‘small houses’ in street lingo.
Their homes and those of their concubines are islands in a sea of poverty.
As if that were not enough, they also know how to use their wealth to manipulate the justice system through corruption and networking to the disadvantage of the underprivileged.
In politics, they form blocs, parties or factions, all of which are not motivated by the desire to serve, but the desire to position themselves to access power so as to retain or outwit those who are or are perceived as benefitting from state power for self-aggrandisement.
Thus, the quest for political power is reduced to the quest for turns to milk the cow in a game of musical chairs.
With this sort of scenario, conditions for a perpetually exploitable state are created.
What then shall we say?
We can only go back to our culture and who we are.
We have tried the ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ response before and it has failed us, like during the ‘currency burning’ era.
It is best that we walk straight and walk tall as we live in accordance with the value systems we have always had, which recognise that one gets blessed to be a blessing unto others.
What better time to think of that than now when we are reminded of the sacrifice of love at Easter, let alone the Independence anniversary which is just by the corner.
We got our independence through other people’s sacrifice of love as they took up arms for the liberation of all.
The witches among us will always be there, but the whole village cannot turn into a village of witches because some witches have killed too many of us.
We must exorcise the witches among us through being a blessing to our communities and also speaking openly about the vice that witchcraft is.
One of you has, is and will betray me, so cries the beloved country.
Let that not be you!
Enjoy your Easter holidays as you meditate on your life’s purpose for your country and not just your family.
Turn your current situation into an asset for serving your country and peoples.