Success comes from the inside out. It shall take an intensive re-education programme to transform Mthwakazi; we will need to be once again comfortable with difference as did successive Kings of Mthwakazi, Mzilikazi and Lobengula. We will need to sever ties with the Zimbabwean politics of patronage – a vindictive system which has given birth to a soulless political framework that motivates individuals to participate in barbaric acts to support their ideological identification.
Political instability across Africa happens for all the same reasons. Crooked political systems and institutions. These are distorted systems and institutions curiously built on emotion than reason, where tribe and not the mind is used to think; these systems and institutions substitute the racist abuser by the tribal abuser; they are elitist by nature hence the hands, knees and backs of ordinary men and women form the bottom steps of the ladder from which political bosses scale up to a life of opulence.
Division of people according to their biological features and social background is the most prominent feature of the broken systems – it is the worst type because it is fundamentally wrong all of the time. We need to think about that as we look into building a political, economic and socially viable Mthwakazi.
Our resilience is drawn from the experience of a callous Zimbabwean political system, a system that exhibits an inexcusable lack of awareness and insensitivity to the hurt its discriminatory policies are causing Matabeleland. We have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of the unfortunate people deliberately targeted, unfavoured and governed by a paranoid leadership that targets them for abuse due to who they are.
We share not in the views of ZANU PF-led Zimbabwean systems because of their close association with tribal segregation; we will not recreate that form of governance; it is not our desire that any human being is subjected to abuse for their identity.
We have nothing in common with a politics whose formulation is staving off reality to embrace utopia and lacks the physical resources nor organisational bandwidth to engage with and properly respond to the diverse needs of a diverse society. The unjust institutional tribalism will be replaced by a just system and institutions as we continue efforts to empower all communities and to combat the rise in poverty and tribal supremacist perceptions that threaten instability in our society.
We are tired of a system that optimises tribal numerical advantage to take hostage of numerically vulnerable communities. Rather than capitulate to the Zimbabwean extortion and blackmail, we must continue to pursue a revolutionary change in Mthwakazi. Let Mthwakazi launch its form of “devolution revolution”, an effort to transfer the administration of many public programs and services from the central government to the provincial governments.
Let it be made clear that our purpose is the transformation not only of the structure of leadership but of the whole polity. We want a drastic change not only limited to political life but one that also transforms the social order, the moral basis, and the values of the whole society.
Mthwakazi will continue to confront tribalism from our past and in our present; we will commit to holding everyone from the highest offices to our own families accountable for tribally hurtful words and deeds and call tribalism what it is, wrong. We will equally confront all forms of discrimination – gender, sex, racial, religious, age, etc.
It would be hypocrisy to embrace systems that elevate tribes, skin colour and religion above human ability. First, to protect legitimate human rights, we must disable routes that enable access to positions of authority to groups and individuals who are intolerant of communities and opinions other than theirs. Providing such characters with positions of authority and a sense of Mthwakazi identification makes a mockery of our norms and values and undermines our democratic efforts.
A successful political system will be one built by selfless socio-political leaders whose only focus will be building institutions of lasting value; leaders committed to talent and a culture of excellence. This will be accomplished by the identification, retention, and development of great people. We are a society that values human rights and respects diversity; our goal must be the protection of humanity from intended and/ or unintended abuse of power by the leadership.
It must never be easy for the ZANU PF regime to stomp on Mthwakazi. Shona privilege must stop. We must be rid of a flawed centralised government system that allows for the abuse of the rights of minority ethnic groups in favour of a rarely deserving majority. That cannot be rendered justice; we now demand an advancement of grants to local government authorities and for local authorities to spend the money as they see fit.
Any truly Mthwakazi political framework will fully acknowledge diversity and show appreciation of the importance of meeting needs specific to particular communities. No community should be more than an arm’s length away from decisions affecting it. This inevitably points us to at least devolved powers, if not a fully-fledged federal government system.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 