Giant promises were made by the liberation movement and for all the sacrifices made by freedom fighters for peace, prosperity and inclusion, we have been short on delivery in the independent Zimbabwe. The reality is that postcolonial Zimbabwe has yet to meet the goals of the liberation movement or justify the sacrifices of young men and women who put their lives in line to fight minority White rule. Zimbabwe has disproportionately failed the average citizen, marginalised minority communities and caused a rupture within the Black society.

Justice or the absence of it was reason for fighting White minority rule yet immediately after attaining independence, the Zimbabwean government set on a path that weaponised population mass, politicised tribe, race and culture with larger groups expecting compliance from minorities; difference was turned into a source of conflict. The division pivoting agenda caused a rupture of the nation when diversity was transformed into a vulnerability to be exploited.

Independent Zimbabwe under ZANU PF has entrenched tribalism as a core political strategy; it has concentrated power on the few within certain tribes, reduced the average citizen to intolerable levels of submission and poverty while disproportionately benefitting the elite. State institutions acquiesce to elite ethnic Shona dictates.  

Early years of ‘independence’ saw a militarised unit (the 5^th Brigade) being set upon a politically noncompliant, pre-dominantly non-Shona, ethnically diverse Matabeleland to conduct a ‘clean sweep’ in an operation codenamed Gukurahundi. Perceived enemies of the State who happened to be Black, non-Shona unarmed citizens were raped, tortured, and murdered. The militarised Unit operated outside legal security law enforcement authority but under the direct control of the Head of State (Robert Mugabe) and his allies; it, literally, had no limits, no constraints to the lengths of brutality it could inflict on the average person of Matabeleland.

Gukurahundi was intentional, not an accident; when Mugabe later called it ‘a moment of madness’ that was in satisfaction of achieving his central goal – instilling fear in Matabeleland – not regret; the Gukurahundi intervention was the moment when the dream of a rules-based independent state ruptured, the country’s dreams were revised backwards to the notion that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

As fear of the Mugabe regime took root and the Shona dominance asserted across the country, a tendency developed among Ndebele people to go along to get along, accommodate just about every Harare dictate to avoid trouble, and hope that compliance will buy them safety. The physical bodily violations of Matabeleland people’s integrity may have stopped but in the absence of freedom of expression, there is no safety.

Reality as lived in Zimbabwe is such that the declared independence is an illusion for the average person; the independence comes not from its truth, but from the public’s willingness to behave as if it were true; arguably, its fragility comes from the same reserve – the willingness of the public to unmask the lie of its existence. The Zimbabwean public and people of Matabeleland as a constituency have nothing to lose but their chains; they must point out the gaps between independence rhetoric and its reality in the region and fight to reassert their rights as a people.

Creating a Shona hegemony instead of a plurality was the objective, and this objective remains a stain in the conscience of postcolonial Zimbabwe. Tribal toxicity forms the base of mainstream politics, tribalism has ruptured postcolonial Zimbabwe pitting Black people against each other to sustain a Black elite.

A principled and pragmatic pathway is required to enhance multiculturalism and freedom in Zimbabwe. Independence must mean independence for all communities in all spheres of life; it must mean the facilitation of equal access to opportunities to influence decisions on essential issues of local, national and international interest. The bargain that includes Shona hegemony does not work and never has.

Use of population mass as leverage to coerce minority population groups into submission, it must be recognised, is not the way forward but a pathway to oblivion. Respect, equity and inclusion empower society while marginalisation of communities, no matter how small they may be thought of by those in power, weakens all of society. Social, economic and political relations in the country must recognise that interests diverge because of specific regional needs hence all interaction must be guided by accommodation not coercion, reciprocity not hierarchy.

Change will be realised in Zimbabwe only when people stop using tribe as leverage for accessing opportunity or denying same to others, when tribe no longer infers loyalty to political systems and decisions stop being tribally biased. Deliberate de-Shonalisation of the country’s institutions is a legitimate and necessary intervention to breakdown currently compromised power structures that lack checks and balances because tribe and power not behaviour determines acceptability or tolerability of action.