It’s disingenuous to label Matabeleland localism calls isolationist

For our empowerment and sustained development, we cannot be mere consumers of good governance, we must be participants; we must be co-creators of the institutions that govern us. In Matabeleland, we believe in and will continue to promote localism as the best form of governance. This is not craven political opportunism or tribal isolationism, but we believe decentralising and devolving governance powers serves the best interest of everyone.

The people of Matabeleland have had almost 45 years of consistently bad centralised government in Zimbabwe, it is time things were done differently. To us, localism is not just good governance, it is self-defence. It is patriotism. We believe through localism we are better able to project our interests into our institutions, innovate local solutions, preserve our dignity and culture; promote sustainable development and build valuable and lasting long-term relationships based on equality with neighbouring communities.

We must emphasise that we view localism as part of, not separate from, national governance with local leadership given the mandate over local issues while central government takes an oversight role in achieving national objectives. Central government ensures accountability of local leadership, takes control over infrastructure development and human rights legislation, signing up to international agreements/ institutions, building and maintaining mutually beneficial international relationships.

Localism is the belief that political, social, and economic order should be structured, as much as possible, on a local, communal level; it is the idea that there is no one set of solutions to diverse national problems and that locals know best what works for them.

Administrative centralisation under so-called expert control has proven incapable and ineffective in addressing needs of our diverse regions and communities. This is because while experts may be imbued with greater theoretical understanding of institutions of governance, they cannot replace local knowledge, wisdom, and lived experience of local dynamics.

We believe instead of an expert-biased control of government approach, a competent localist approach would allow regional authorities to address their own problems in their own way. This may reduce wastage in government.

We argue that the centralised Zimbabwean government system has led to an undue concentration of power in the ethnic Shona population group. And, it has been the most reliable driver of isolationism and/ or separationism in the country because it persistently ignores interests of minority population groups.

Uncomfortable truths must be told and heard; the government system in Zimbabwe is not a meritocracy, but a systemic tribal institution; it is a bulwark of ethnic Shona machinations and is in real terms a true reflection of the ethnic Shona creed, culture, norms and values and the desires of the military and the political elite; the system lacks the necessary capacity to build national consensus and resilience.

Good governance must be an expectation not an exception; it cannot be imported or imposed from outside; it is the work of internal desire and the will to transform ideals to concrete reality. To change Zimbabwe, mindsets need to change in Mashonaland.

The average ethnic Shona person must start objectively looking into his personal circumstances, ask the right questions and define his needs in his own way, not as part of a social group. What would be clear to him is that his social identity does not necessarily protect him from the impact of poverty; that the restrictions and suffering imposed on him by his very poverty are no different from those experienced by any other person from any other population group in the country.

When people start seeing themselves as people first before the socially assigned identities which are then politicised by the wealthy and political elite to justify injustices against certain population groups, they will start to work together for the common good. The safety of the average person is not based on his proximity to the wealthy from his ethnic group but by forming strong alliances with all who identify with his circumstances – regardless of social background – to push their survival and development agenda and push back on the divide and rule script of the political elite.

The average citizen must neither be deceived by the wealthy and political elite nor comforted nor find a sense of personal safety from the mere fact power is in the hands of leaders from his ethnic background even when that is not translating to real improvement in his personal circumstances.

Our promotion of localism is based on a broader desire for building a culture of transparency, inclusion, and ethical governance. Based on our Zimbabwean experience of centralised governance, we believe centralised government systems built mainly on rules, not principle, fail to capture the complexity of the complex local dynamics; it is too detached from local communities and certain population groups and is thus more likely to neglect local interests in pursuit for bigger, global interests that often have little to no local value.