By Nondumiso Sibanda

THIS week I am rounding off the whole issue on marriages and hopefully all things being equal, a surprise interview next week.
I have just come to note the key differences that are there between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and our very own Government.
You see a stranger cannot come into someone’s home and then try to take over that home and make it their own home and start enjoying the responsibilities and benefits that come with being such. That is the current dispensation we find ourselves in as communities and as a nation.
There is a reason why NGOs were given that name.
They are not government organisations and are only supposed to programme in as far as they are complementing Government and not competing with it.
Government’s role on the other hand is very much in plain sight.
It is meant to be responsive to the needs of the people, to listen to the people as we all know that the government are the people.
I have noticed with great disgust how NGOs are now invading communities and wanting to set up structures and run what I can call a ‘coup de tat’ parallel government so to say.
They want to build new structures that go to the communities rather than work with already existing structures.
That is very sad also because the communities end up being the ones who are used to run against their own government that they would have voted for.
I am sure that some of you must be wondering how all this links to the issue of marriage that we have been dealing with.
The answer is very simple and quite detailed though.
While the Government has been responding to the needs of the people in terms of setting up marriage laws and working towards protecting its citizens, the NGOs through the donor funding they get have been doing their best to dilute this mission and try to come up with some parallel structures and basically try to call out our Government as useless.
This to me sounds all too familiar because that is exactly what the colonialists did.
They came in and said everything we were doing was barbaric and they decided to put in so-called civilised structures whose effects and confusion we are still feeling today.
Let me give a very good example that the Registrar General’s (RG’s) office has been fighting for.
That is the recognition of the role of traditional leaders particularly chiefs and their officers when it comes to marriage.
One of the greatest enemies that NGOs have are our traditional leaders.
They do not like the influence that they have on their communities and would love very much to have them removed.
However, for the sake of diplomacy they call them for meetings with an objective of changing their ‘backward’ thinking.
To this I salute the RG’s office for vehemently stating that traditional leaders are needed and that they should be trained together with their officers so that they solemnise marriages.
For NGOs this is a blow to the head since they know that this further strengthens the ties that a community has with their traditional leader.
You see, family is one of the major and greatest institutions that we as Africans pride ourselves for.
We are a united front when we work together as families.
This is a major threat to NGOs and hence they have been working tirelessly to destroy the family structure.
Who has ever seen a country which has a law that does not protect children when it comes to inheritance?
It is only in Zimbabwe where the smell of colonialists’ agenda through the work of NGOs is becoming rampant.
We cannot continue having such a scenario and to this end we need Government, the real government to step in and take control of this situation that is spiralling out of control.
The NGOs in order to please their Master the west, are confusing our people.
Marriage used to be a very simple affair but now with each passing day it is being disintegrated and made into more of complex charade and people are suffering.
The end result is that we are going to be a cultureless and valueless people who will just care for no one, but themselves.
That is the individualistic nature of the Western people.
This pop culture is permeating marriages through these so-called programmes being done by NGOs.
As Africans and as Zimbabweans we believe in ubuntu which is working together and the right to self determination as a people and not an individual.
I believe that lobola in itself should be recognised as being enough of a requirement for marriage for those who believe in it.
Why should we complicate a very simple affair?
As for the sake of keeping track, such a marriage then can be written down as being in existence only and not a further requirement of the signing of papers etcetera.
That is hogwash.
Let us join hands and fight for our culture and our identity which makes us Zimbabweans and not Americans.