GUKURAHUNDI again!
Another day, same old story and yet another public relations disaster by the opposition and their excitable media is how best we will describe the furore over the venue of this year’s 21st February Movement celebrations.
There is palpable anger from the opposition and their handlers over why President Robert Mugabe is going to Hazel Site in Matopos National Park to celebrate his birthday.
Suddenly Cecil John Rhodes, whose remains are interred at the sacred Matopo Hills is forgotten, allowed to lie there peacefully when his mischief caused so much suffering to Zimbabweans!
Suddenly Rhodes is a ‘hero’ who must be allowed to continue disturbing the spirits of our land.
Suddenly the Gukurahundi issue is invoked once again by the usual mischief-makers.
These are the people who are hell-bent on rewriting our story.
People who seek to hijack our narrative; to erase our history and replace it with another one – an alien story of hatred and repugnance.
Not the story of the people.
Not the story of Zimbabwe.
Not the story of the present nor the future.
Yet we have our own story; a story replete with narratives of our people, history and future.
This is our story.
It should define our history as a country and as a people.
It should shape the destiny of our nation, our aspirations.
It should be our story, one about the exploits of our freedom fighters.
Still, detractors dangle the Gukurahundi story.
Yet Gukurahundi has been spoken about by President Robert Mugabe and many others.
But not with these people, our enemies.
Gukurahundi is their story; they shove it down the throats of the Ndebele people.
They believe it should remain a sore thumb in the minds of those from the southern and western parts of the country.
We believe it should be told within the context of the truth.
The people of Matabeleland must remain in perpetual anger, so goes the anti-21st February Movement celebrations story.
They must be antagonised till something gives.
Some things never change.
And we ask: What anger?
Whose anger?
Such is the hatred of ZANU PF and its leader in Zimbabwean politics that some regions must be declared no-go areas for the country’s leadership.
The leadership was duly elected by the people, including those from Matabeleland.
That is an attack on the conscience of those who elected this leadership that is now being barred from going to Matopos by certain sections of the media.
And how do you bring people together when you are not allowed to meet them?
How do you develop the nation when you are not allowed to be on the ground assessing problems confronting the people?
In all this, there is supposed to be one victor, Rhodes.
We can never ignore Rhodes in everything that happens in this country.
We can never stop highlighting that Rhodes defiled Njelele when he chose to be buried there together with his homosexual companion Leander Starr Jameson.
We know the anger over the Hazel Site celebrations is a fresh attempt by whites to drive a wedge between the Shonas and Ndebeles.
We will for the umpteenth time explain Gukurahundi.
This was a response to politically-motivated disturbances that occurred in the western parts of the country between 1980 and 1987.
Yet that response is replete with misconceptions and myths that have been used by the opposition and whites who accuse President Mugabe of committing what they say is ‘genocide’.
There is a general misconception that dissident activities were confined to Matabeleland, leaving an ‘estimated’ 20 000 people dead.
That is not true.
In December 2011, The Patriot exclusively published a special supplement containing all the incidents by dissidents from the files of the ZRP.
The 21st February Movement celebrations must exorcise the ghost of Rhodes instead of stirring up this malice.