Seeking external validation is the surest way of feeding dependence and limiting who you are as a people. As you seek the opinion of you from others you deny yourself a valuable experience of getting to understand your trauma and the chance of dealing with it. The trauma from our colonial and Gukurahundi experiences will not disappear if it is not validated, but we can do that ourselves, then healing will begin.
Expectation and opinions of others must not affect our political decisions about today and what we need tomorrow. There are no shortcuts to progress, if we are to reach our full capacity, we must dare to be ourselves, however frightening that self may prove to be.
First, we must deal with the elephant in the room – the problem of emotional and political fatigue which sees a real reduction in participation in our own socio-political spaces which are being filled by our oppressors.
The political messaging needs to change from one telling us what is comfortable to the ear to one highlighting uncomfortable truth that challenges our core values and way of thinking. The Matabeleland politics’ language has failed us because it has confined the public to the narrow confines of the source of the problem and less on the deep source of solutions. We need a new language of radical love not radical hate.
We cannot disinvest in solutions for our future and expect better outcomes. It is fine to invest in the understanding of both the sources of our troubles and the transformation of local ideas to concrete reality that addresses the problems but let more of our resources go towards innovation.
From our experience of being victims of oppression under an intolerant ethnic Shona regime, we can testify that depending on others’ approval of our decisions is disempowering and deeply unsettling. It disrupts our cultural identity and sense of belonging. There are continual attempts to separate us from our core values and beliefs, to break them to the will of Harare. And we have the Zimbabwean regime forcibly imposing its own values and ideologies onto Matabeleland.
Retaining the privilege to become who we are is essential. We need to improve our responsiveness to fight back while effectively building our future. We identify that there is another layer and dimension to the oppression of Matabeleland, our leaders have transitioned to assimilate the Harare ways, and they have begun to oppress their own communities. This has then expanded the influence of the Harare regime and further eroded the will of Matabeleland people to fight for their own empowerment.
In short, what we have for leaders are men and women living among us, yet occupying Harare portfolios of political power and projecting the assumed authority to locals. This has created a pervasive sense of insecurity and disempowerment among local citizens as their leaders do not serve their interests but represent Harare in Matabeleland.
We do not have the luxury to be less motivated to fight; anyone who – in the middle of oppression – chooses to give up the will to fight injustice deserves all that comes their way. We may not possess the political force to change politics in Zimbabwe, but we can alter how politics is viewed and done in Matabeleland.
Changing public perception is important; politics in Matabeleland must be broken down and brought to the level of local understanding. Let us critically focus on local institutions and processes, their strengths, and weaknesses.
Talking local, we note the emigration of young men in droves from Matabeleland villages to South Africa. Loss of young men, a source of labour, has altered the economic configuration resulting in significant reduction in farming. Meanwhile, cut off from their village communities and deep in foreign land where they find themselves in competition for scarce jobs, their once secure sense of identity has been eroded as they try to fit in South African society.
Responsive systems are what Matabeleland needs right now for its recovery and to attract back young men from cities and South Africa where many are living in abject poverty, doing menial jobs.
Leaving communities out of decisions that deeply affect their way of life is not a viable economic and political approach. The locus of economic and political power must be redirected back to the communities. We need to recreate opportunities that reinvigorate decision-making at local (village) level, promote local leadership, and traditional institutions to help build back trust in local institutions and empower communities.
Zimbabwe’s political system and institutions cannot be relied upon to address Matabeleland specific problems, they have failed Matabeleland and the people of Matabeleland; the region is now a shell of its old self. There is an urgent need for Matabeleland political organisations to connect with the local population. The political objective is primarily to adapt the political product or service via localization. Localisation will help organisations to address the linguistic and cultural preferences of the target populations, as well as improve the policy fit of the organisations.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 