Quest for true individual freedom is a people’s right that people of Matabeleland must unashamedly pursue. A fight for black people of the last generation against the colonial regime was against the deprivation of liberty and freedoms to black people as a policy; in similar fashion, we will take responsibility for a cause that we strongly believe in; freedom and liberty as a goal is a legitimate call for the people of Matabeleland who in the four decades of postcolonial politics in Zimbabwe have been stripped of their dignity and stripped of their liberty; Zimbabwe of ZANU PF has overseen a gradual deterioration of Matabeleland freedoms, norms and values.
The status quo is not healthy for the region and beyond; change must come, and that must be the responsibility of the people of Matabeleland. There are pros and cons to every action, but overall, these are far lesser than long-term risks of comfortable inaction. If we do not confront injustice today, it would be a bad habit that the next generation will struggle to shake off.
We shall not start our political re-evaluation and rebuilding exercise on the platform that somebody owes us something. Nobody gains their rights and takes control of their destiny by abdicating their responsibilities, and that includes not only taking ownership of solutions but first fully acknowledging mistakes committed over time.
Generational judgement errors were made; the previous generation of Matabeleland politicians subscribed to the notion of a unitary state of Zimbabwe and invested in that ideal; but, we must hasten to say Chief Khayisa Ndiweni and others believed in an independent Matabeleland as they had reservations over the effectiveness of an independent state of a unified Matabeleland and Mashonaland. Chief Khayisa recognised the reality and problem of tribalism. Unfortunately, he and the like-minded were in the minority and an inconvenience in the sea of wisdom that was the mainstream revolutionary narrative of the time, a collective pool of opinion that perceived racism and not tribalism as the only major problem, their caution was ignored.
Despite ZANU’s open tribalist intentions, Nkomo did not protect Matabeleland interests as he nursed a long-held goal of a united Zimbabwe state led by the majority. While Nkomo’s definition of majority was the black population interest, to Mugabe and ZANU interest was power, and ethnic Shona population groups were vital to that.
The current generation of politicians have their set of mistakes and the greatest one has been a culture of arrogant ignorance. Academic education as a political weapon fractures the community. Evidently, political activism that emerged from institutions of higher education has failed to capture the vital nerve of the community because while it attempts to use public experience as the base, it does not adequately reflect that well enough to elicit their engagement. We need to unpick the cause of the socio-political disconnect between the old and young generations that has had a negative impact on the political scene of Matabeleland.
What we observe is that local political parties formed by educated elites with little regard for local elders’ knowledge and wisdom have proved to be transient organisations unable to sustain pressure let alone pierce a hole through mainstream political narrative. Views may be strong, and many may be receptive to them, but convincing people of a project requires more than good views, it requires steely presence and that you make them feel they are integral to the project. The younger generation has failed in that regard.
Instead, whenever young scholarly Matabeleland people have rightfully identified issues worth of addressing in the region, they have done little local consultative work to establish the local wave of opinion and from a myriad of opposing views, draw their policies that reflect the target population.
Of equal concern is the culture of projected anger, hostility, and ill-discipline in the groups as indicated in their communication networks. Communication networks have turned into hubs of verbal hostility, vulgarity, and appropriation of every situation in the region for politicisation.
It would appear communication departments are not regarded as critical infrastructure and the value of communication culture is of little consequence. Reality, however, is that communication is a critical political tool; how you express your organisation’s stance on issues can be even more important than the issues themselves. Therefore, it is vital communication departments are professionally maintained so speech content can be rightly attributed to the organisation or individual opinion thus, verified with party leadership and/ or appropriate disciplinary measures taken in cases of breach of protocol.
Chaos has become a permanent feature in local mainly underfunded political organisations who remain structurally weak and struggling to recruit and/ or retain local membership. A foreign base in the absence of a strong locally based office is a cocktail for disaster. Politics changes by the second, you want your office to be able to give timely and reliable responses to local issues of interest.
You cannot maintain a political organisation with weak institutions, and you cannot depend on misappropriation of emotive issues to sustain public support. The public expects long-term solutions to the Gukurahundi genocide not for the politicisation of that barbarism.
We cannot build a new Matabeleland world to transfer all the political limits of the old Zimbabwe world – intolerance, politicisation of identity, hostility, lack of transparency and elitism. Face the fact that politics founded on blame culture is hardly good enough for anyone. The reconstruction of the Matabeleland local political system and institutions requires that we take full responsibility for what we stand for. Locals must be co-creators of the political system to own and protect it.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 