Gukurahundi survivors must tell their own story their way

Violent behaviour by the Zimbabwean government against the civilian population has become normalised, but that should never be the case. Survivors of the state-sanctioned Gukurahundi genocide in Matabeleland are not making unreasonable demands when calling for state accountability on Gukurahundi atrocities, they want their experience recognised and validated. For progressive social cohesion to exist in Zimbabwe, people of Mashonaland must change their mindset and see the Gukurahundi for the genocide it was. They must look at it with open eyes, not minimise its impact, and not historize it. It is unconscionable to tell the people of Matabeleland to ‘move on’.

Gukurahundi is Matabeleland’s deep wound experience; it is our story to tell, and it is our privilege to grieve at our own pace and to ‘move on’ in our own terms. We refuse to be advised by perpetrators of the genocide how to deal with it. Those who cannot put themselves in our place and try and reimagine – the best they can – our experience and pain but choose to unfairly scrutinise how we grieve have no place advising us on how to handle the trauma of abuse.

There is a foundational problem with the modern Zimbabwe politics and society – tribalizing difference that activates tribalism is the single most significant challenge in the country’s socio-political space and engagement and the reason ethnic Shona people lack compassion for the victims of Gukurahundi atrocities in Matabeleland.

Insanity is when people choose to be loyal to their tribe over humanity and become disconnected from reality, get consumed by delusions of their own importance and paranoia over anyone different from them. When a population’s ideological stance is seeing the main source of societal ills as the result of a definable group, not policy, the systemic and institutional abuse of that group is the natural next step. People of Mashonaland must understand that they will be judged in years to come by how they responded to the genocide on their watch.

Expecting people of Mashonaland to do more to address the political injustices is fair seeing their advantage of numbers and that systemic tribalism extends, to them, real power to influence political momentum in the country. If we look deeply into the Gukurahundi atrocities, we see tribalized thinking – prejudices, fears and ignorance. We need to uproot tribal thinking from the hearts of men and women.

Care must be taken within the Mashonaland socio-political sphere not to be complicit in state abuses of power and to raise moral standards on how citizens of all skin tones, all languages and cultures, all political ideological sympathies, and all religions are protected and treated by the law. Ignoring crime for no other reason than that you are not a victim of it today does not make it less so, neither does it give you security assurances for tomorrow.

Here is the reality to ponder: falsification and exploitation of criminal activity by a few armed criminals was used to justify a pre-planned tribal purge. The image of the presence, in Matabeleland, of dissidents threatening security in Zimbabwe has been used to justify Gukurahundi and the brutality inflicted in Matabeleland by the State, the killings of local people. There are literally millions of human beings whose lives have been affected by ZANU under the guise of a non-existent dissident threat.

ZANU knew selling a fictitious Ndebele emblazoned dissident security threat to the nation (Shona) in its gullible Mashonaland constituency was going to help it purchase valuable moral justification to brutalise non-Shona citizens in Matabeleland, and it did.

It is unconscionable for ethnic Shona people to tell us that Gukurahundi is in the past, and ‘it’s time to move on’. Where are we moving from and where to? In Matabeleland, Gukurahundi is not history, it is the present and active, its impact is felt every day by everyone in the region whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.

Minimisation of and indifference to Gukurahundi is not a solution but planting seeds for future genocide. Addressing Gukurahundi genocide requires honesty by the perpetrators and genuine understanding of its impact from the survivors.

People of Matabeleland must be helped to regain control of their lives after the Gukurahundi genocide and to speak out about their victimisation; listening with compassion goes a long way in building public trust. Understanding the impact of trauma on the survivors will inform how to build and gain the trust of survivors and give them confidence in the process.

We identify three important factors that would affect survivors’ satisfaction, validation of their experiences, and reconstruction of their lives: acknowledgement, respect, and information.

People of Matabeleland have known suffering, known struggle, known loss yet they have still found their way out of the depths. Their Gukurahundi experiences must be validated. To deal with the Gukurahundi trauma effectively, we must engage processes that include survivors and facilitate honest conversation between survivors and perpetrators on the way forward. We must remove from society tribalism, the one factor that continues to prepare many men and women to hate by planting seeds of violence, anger, and fear.