“WHEN news broke out that sex workers were exhibiting at the just-ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), many felt that the fair had been turned into a joke, while others felt it was a sign that indeed Zimbabwe was open for business,” said the Southern Eye of May 2 2018.
Bulawayo residents, however, protested this showcasing of moral decadence.
The former Deputy Mayor of Bulawayo, Amen Mpofu, among others, decried the event as a sign that we have lost ubuntu/hunhu.
He also pointed out this was inimical to the girl-child and all children in general.
The innocence and purity of children gets compromised when they are exposed to such things displayed as ‘normal’ before their eyes.
How do children feel when they get to a stand where prostitutes are exhibiting?
Something gets too deeply disturbed inside them; they hurt so much.
Where were ‘children’s rights’ groups that make so much noise accusing Zimbabwe of not knowing how to look after children?
Why did they let this go through since they claim to be such faithful ‘watchdogs’ for children’s rights?
Why is it the ordinary Zimbabweans complained about this travesty and not those who have given themselves high moral ground.
It is not non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who have made Zimbabwe.
We built it ourselves over centuries and now all of a sudden, we do not know how to look after our children!
When children were brutally murdered during the liberation struggle, it was the most barbaric and cruel thing to happen to anyone.
When we came home, who came with us to the villages to console the mothers and compensate the families?
Which of the so-called child rights groups assisted us?
Is it not true that ‘none but ourselves can set us free’ and that ‘we are our own liberators’ as always!
Despite pontificating from high chairs about children’s rights, NGOs still turned a blind eye to the exhibition by prostitutes at a fair attended by children.
It wouldn’t be surprising that since prostitutes managed to display at the 2018 ZITF, gays and lesbians will also display at the ZITF 2019. In fact, if media reports are anything to go by, the infamous group has already hinted at doing so.
The agenda of prostitutes and gays and lesbians is not endemic to Zimbabwe; it does not originate from among our people.
The funds that sustain these groups are not ours; they are foreign.
Among blacks there are things that are not acceptable because they are against hunhu/ubuntu.
When we reject and fight against everything that destroys hunhu hwedu, that would desecrate our soul, we preserve and build our strength as a people.
Prostitution is one such that would desecrate our sanctity as a people.
It is anathema, an abomination and those who practise it are social deviants.
In Zimbabwe, children are taught to hate prostitution from the earliest ages.
They are taught that prostitution is an abomination.
Those who chastise us for hating prostitution and homosexuality and treating them as the abominations they are, are echoing their master’s voice from the West who know that as long as we retain our values, our culture, they cannot subjugate us.
This is the same method they employed in robbing us of our land.
They attacked our religion, culture and whole way of life because they knew this was the bedrock of our strength.
It was our link with Musikavanhu.
This ploy did not work.
Zimbabweans still remained entrenched with Musikavanhu. They sought Musikavanhu’s advice about the catastrophe that had befallen them and His response was to drive out the white menace at all costs.
Ultimately, He directed the war to get rid of the marauding robbers.
His chief medium, Nehanda Nyakasikana commanded an effective guerilla war against the marauding robbers from across the seas.
It is not only the war commanded by Mbuya Nehanda which was guided by Musikavanhu, but also the subsequent Second Chimurenga (1963-1979).
This was also a spiritual war guided by our spiritual values.
One such cardinal was not to commit adultery in the war of liberation.
In addition, liberation fighters had to respect basic human values in their conduct of the war with respect to the people of Zimbabwe as well as the British armed robbers.
The Second Chimurenga was a principled war which was both moral and ethical.
Our war of liberation was unequivocal in its condemnation of prostitution.
As well, the culture we have inherited from our ancestors, which they cultivated over the centuries, rejects prostitution outright.
To be labelled a prostitute among us is to be cast to the lowest level.
Prostitutes, whether male or female, are not family or marriage material.
In the same vein, our cultural heritage does not countenance homosexuality.
It is evil that is too deep for us to talk about.
Some scholars allege Gonzalo da Silveira was killed by the Mwenemutapa because he was homosexual and spelt doom for the people.
He had to be eliminated.
Therefore if our people condemned and shunned prostitution and homosexuality over the centuries and we also condemned and shunned these during the liberation struggle, what would justify embracing the same in our Zimbabwe which we liberated so expensively?
What seems to be lost to some people is that when we fought the liberation war, we had a vision of the kind of society we wanted to build.
You do not sacrifice your life for something you do not clearly envisage.
You do not sacrifice your life so that others can institute the very vices you fought to dislodge.
People did not sacrifice their lives so that prostitution could flourish in a free Zimbabwe.
They did not die so that vices rejected by Musikavanhu would become the norm in a free Zimbabwe.
They did not die so that a free Zimbabwe would embrace homosexuality.
A society which indulges in prostitution and homosexuality opens for itself a can of worms and it sinks into degeneration as this sepsis seeps through its fabric.
We consciously reject prostitution and homosexuality and we are aware of those virulent Western-sponsored NGOs and other organisations paid by their masters in the West to corrode and destroy our society.
A society overtaken by prostitution is doomed and prostitution reduces the human to an object of consumption at the crassest level.
As Zimbabweans, let’s always remember who we are.
Prostitution and homosexuality are taboos.
One wonders who in fact authorised prostitutes to exhibit at the ZITF?