Every relevant asset in the country must be mobilised towards redressing the Gukurahundi disaster — the public deserves to know the truth of that period; they want to know the movers and shakers. While the target of Gukurahundi were Ndebele people, humanity was the loser; Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands regions were core areas of operation for the 5^th Brigade — executors of the Gukurahundi grand plan, the centre of its design was Harare, and ordinary Shona people were the enablers through silence, ignorance and active support of the killings.

As Gukurahundi has highlighted, human beings have an extraordinary capacity for evil; they can descend to unfathomable depths, perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities that words alone cannot adequately describe. Gukurahundi must be seen for the human evil that it projects and be dealt with as a national disaster for Zimbabwe, not just Matabeleland, for a genuine discourse to take place and lasting resolution arrived at.  

We need people from Mashonaland to be honest with themselves and play their part in recreating a progressive socio-political future that will be safe for everyone. Attitude change is required; Mashonaland must move away from the tribalist perspective that does not just openly disapprove of the atrocities committed by the Shona dominated government but also shows a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

Strategic ignorance has reached its limit; while we acknowledge the role ZANU PF propaganda played to justify the atrocities and evil perpetrated in Matabeleland, we argue that today everyone has clear understanding of what Gukurahundi was not. It was not a legitimate intervention against armed dissidents; it was a crime against humanity in which unarmed civilians were brutalised in Matabeleland.

Knowing now what happened then, the average citizen must be fearful for their safety under a regime that is law unto itself and does not value human life. The fact that ZANU PF ‘got away’ with killing Ndebele people has emboldened the right-wing of the movement who are now convinced of the effective force of violence in achieving their political goals; they are convinced violence works, hence the extension and weaponisation of fear for political power across the country.

Dealing with atrocities, either witnessing them or facing their aftermath, requires moral courage, remembrance, and action. People of Matabeleland need a safe zone to grieve, commemorate, and recover, and that zone can only be created by the whole nation of Zimbabwe showing sympathy and trying to understand what happened to people in Matabeleland from their point of view.

There is an expectation for the Zimbabwean society to show respect for victims and survivors of Gukurahundi and resolve in bringing instigators to account or the government of ZANU PF will continue to dig its heels in, and Zimbabwe will remain a dangerously divided country with little to no hope for a better future for all for the next generations. By failing to acknowledge the Gukurahundi atrocities, we are preparing for the next demography-based atrocities.

Selective accountability is reason people responsible for the killing of unarmed civilians in Matabeleland for political reasons have retained their political careers. Within ZANU PF circles, the late leader, Robert Mugabe, is still viewed as a model for political civility and bravery yet under his leadership, the tribalism and bloodlust of the party imagined and actioned the beheading and dissecting of Ndebele people in the 1980s.

In the absence of restraints, tribalism and other forms of bigotry were normalised within ZANU PF; nobody took exception to the behaviour, the rest of the Mashonaland population waved off the behaviour as inconsequential, if not regurgitating the notion that it was a justified security operation. Even now, influential voices in Mashonaland simply refuse to acknowledge their own complicity — whether through silence, accommodation or tacit agreement — in the normalisation of unabashed bigotry among Shona people.

No one in Mashonaland or in real control of ZANU PF is serious about dealing with Gukurahundi, instead, the various interactions often show ZANU PF sycophants’ uninhibited conversations replete with violent fantasies and tribalist and Ndebele slurs.

To this day, those involved in Gukurahundi still have careers in Zimbabwean politics and openly reveal unabashed tribalist, anti-Ndebele and violent rhetoric. To this day, when confronted with right-wing tribalism, the right-wing “thought leaders” dismiss and characterise it as Ndebele people using the “tribal card,” or blame the Ndebele people for inciting the reaction.

Until those not directly affected by injustice are as angered by it as its victims, society will never address injustice in all its forms. We must understand that when the safety of a section of the population is threatened, we all are threatened. We need not overlook the fact that Gukurahundi was founded on tribalism; and it was the fingers of Mugabe, the leader of ZANU PF and Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, that typed out expressions of rank tribalism and Shona nationalism.