MDC secretary general Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga on Sunday made a sensational call when she advised women to refuse their men sex until they bring a receipt to prove they have registered to vote in the next elections.
Addressing nearly 450 party supporters packed in Magwegwe Hall on Sunday afternoon Misihairabwi-Mushonga said it was disappointing that registered voters in Bulawayo were few and even fewer people turned up to vote in the last election.
“In Harare there are 700 000 registered voters and in the last elections 350 000 voted, which means a 50% voter turnout. I blame the poor voter turnout in Bulawayo on us women. We should do something.
“I think I know what can work. There is no painful punishment for men than refusing them sex. As soon as you hear that the registration process for voters has opened, make sure that you deny your man sex until he brings a receipt that shows that he has registered as a voter.
“Again, on the day of the elections, make sure that there is no sex for a man who does not show you a blue mark on their fingers which shows that they have voted,” she said.
Recently top female politicians have focused on women in an effort to force change in politics and the country’s governance.
In August this year, Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe said she will campaign for a No vote among women if the new constitution does not recognize the 50/50 gender parity.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga said women should understand that it is, “not a laughing matter”.
“Let us not laugh about this because men hardly see any problems in the house. They come home drunk. It is us who suffer with children,” she said.
The party’s youth secretary general Discent Bajila also said it is important to register and to vote as talk alone will not change anything.
“We can gather here and lie to each other, but if we are not registered to vote, we will be just lying to each other. This is especially important for the youth,” he said.
Ends.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Zimbabwe far from a transition, still in a crisis – Human Rights Activists
A Zimbabwean human rights activist based in South Africa has said the country is not yet in a transitional stage but was still mired in a crisis.
Speaking at a public lecture organised as part of the Ideas Festival at a hotel in Bulawayo Lloyd Kuveya, a former magistrate and now legal practitioner with the Southern African Litigation Centre, said what was happening in the country was the designing of frameworks to allow for the beginning of the transition.
“Zimbabwe is not a country in transition but a country in crisis. Many people have said we have a transitional government, but what we are doing is to design frameworks to allow for the beginning of the transition.
“We still don’t have a constitution but are relying on a patched up document that does not accord all languages equality nor does it recognizes all regions similarly. There is a lot of uncertainty as to when we are going to have elections.
“We are not yet in transition. Transition is when the country has started on a new page. In the current scenario, you can’t even talk about the security sector reform without getting a backlash from the state. If you are in a transition you won’t set up an organ for national healing but an independent body that will open up to the participation of everybody including the civil society,” he said.
Kuveya said minority rights have, since independence, been trampled upon in Zimbabwe and still continue to be violated.
He cited the San people in Matabeleland North, the Tonga people in Matabeleland North, the Marange people in Manicaland, the Ndebele people in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands, white people, gays and prisoners as the minority people who have been violated by the state.
Abel Chikomo, executive director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, concurred with Kuveya that Zimbabwe was still in a crisis.
“We are a country in crisis. In our country we tend to confuse the security of the state and the security of certain individuals or a certain party,” he said.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in August said Zimbabwe was teetering on the brink of a major political crisis and warned that the country would slide into a scenario reminiscent of Ivory Coast if service chiefs failed to recognise any election winner other than President Robert Mugabe.
“The people of Zimbabwe are once again on the frontline in the war for freedom and rights and the fledgling democracy that was to grow following the signing of the new transitional government in 2009 is under threat. The struggle unfolding in Zimbabwe is one that pits good over evil, right against wrong and freedom against tyranny,” he said.
Speaking at a public lecture organised as part of the Ideas Festival at a hotel in Bulawayo Lloyd Kuveya, a former magistrate and now legal practitioner with the Southern African Litigation Centre, said what was happening in the country was the designing of frameworks to allow for the beginning of the transition.
“Zimbabwe is not a country in transition but a country in crisis. Many people have said we have a transitional government, but what we are doing is to design frameworks to allow for the beginning of the transition.
“We still don’t have a constitution but are relying on a patched up document that does not accord all languages equality nor does it recognizes all regions similarly. There is a lot of uncertainty as to when we are going to have elections.
“We are not yet in transition. Transition is when the country has started on a new page. In the current scenario, you can’t even talk about the security sector reform without getting a backlash from the state. If you are in a transition you won’t set up an organ for national healing but an independent body that will open up to the participation of everybody including the civil society,” he said.
Kuveya said minority rights have, since independence, been trampled upon in Zimbabwe and still continue to be violated.
He cited the San people in Matabeleland North, the Tonga people in Matabeleland North, the Marange people in Manicaland, the Ndebele people in Matabeleland and parts of Midlands, white people, gays and prisoners as the minority people who have been violated by the state.
Abel Chikomo, executive director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, concurred with Kuveya that Zimbabwe was still in a crisis.
“We are a country in crisis. In our country we tend to confuse the security of the state and the security of certain individuals or a certain party,” he said.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in August said Zimbabwe was teetering on the brink of a major political crisis and warned that the country would slide into a scenario reminiscent of Ivory Coast if service chiefs failed to recognise any election winner other than President Robert Mugabe.
“The people of Zimbabwe are once again on the frontline in the war for freedom and rights and the fledgling democracy that was to grow following the signing of the new transitional government in 2009 is under threat. The struggle unfolding in Zimbabwe is one that pits good over evil, right against wrong and freedom against tyranny,” he said.
“There would be no transitional justice without prosecutions and reparations”
Bulawayo - Two leading regional human rights activists have said Zimbabwe is day dreaming of transitional justice if there are no prosecutions of perpetrators of human rights violations and reparations for the victims.
Addressing over 500 people at the Ideas Festival public lecture at a local hotel Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist, John Ngaii Gikonyo, said, as they had learnt over years in Kenya, there can never be transitional justice (TJ) outside prosecutions and reparations.
“The primary objective of TJ is to end a culture of impunity because impunity is the fertilizer of genocide. You must confront the past, you must audit the state and you must rid the country of the ghost of the past,” he said.
In the aftermath of the December 2007 elections violence broke out in Kenya between the supporters of rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga killing 1 200 and displacing 6 000.
After the disputed December 30 results, protests degenerated into widespread violence as decades of economic frustration and ethnic rivalry spiraled out of control.
The United Nations (UN) warned that a repeat of the problems could occur after next year’s presidential election unless institutions are strengthened and the perpetrators of the 2007 violence are punished.
On 15 December 2010, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, requested the ICC to issue summonses ordering six prominent Kenyan citizens that included senior officials of the three arms of the police and members of the government - to appear before it to face justice for grave human rights violations in the post-election period.
Gikonyo said it was important that certain individuals be prosecuted so that neighbours could trust each other again.
“Unless there is prosecution of certain individuals, there will always be a feeling that this was committed by such and such a tribe,” he said.
Lloyd Kuveya, a former magistrate and now legal practitioner with the Southern African Litigation Centre, said the African Union (AU) was developing a mechanism for transitional justice in African countries.
“Sadly, Zimbabwe is not involved because of the squabbling in the inclusive government. The UN is waiting on the wings to help with transitional justice where there will be reparations and truth will be dealt with. If the country (Zimbabwe) does not confront issues of atrocities from the early 1980s to today, it will not be surprising if the international community intervenes,” he said.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamsa, however, on Monday last week, defended the country’s human rights record at the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review in Geneva.
“Zimbabwe is a member of the international community and remains committed to its obligations on human rights. We adopted among others laws on the protection of children and orphans, laws against family violence and laws that ensure the rights of NGOs working in our country," he said.
Addressing over 500 people at the Ideas Festival public lecture at a local hotel Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist, John Ngaii Gikonyo, said, as they had learnt over years in Kenya, there can never be transitional justice (TJ) outside prosecutions and reparations.
“The primary objective of TJ is to end a culture of impunity because impunity is the fertilizer of genocide. You must confront the past, you must audit the state and you must rid the country of the ghost of the past,” he said.
In the aftermath of the December 2007 elections violence broke out in Kenya between the supporters of rivals Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga killing 1 200 and displacing 6 000.
After the disputed December 30 results, protests degenerated into widespread violence as decades of economic frustration and ethnic rivalry spiraled out of control.
The United Nations (UN) warned that a repeat of the problems could occur after next year’s presidential election unless institutions are strengthened and the perpetrators of the 2007 violence are punished.
On 15 December 2010, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, requested the ICC to issue summonses ordering six prominent Kenyan citizens that included senior officials of the three arms of the police and members of the government - to appear before it to face justice for grave human rights violations in the post-election period.
Gikonyo said it was important that certain individuals be prosecuted so that neighbours could trust each other again.
“Unless there is prosecution of certain individuals, there will always be a feeling that this was committed by such and such a tribe,” he said.
Lloyd Kuveya, a former magistrate and now legal practitioner with the Southern African Litigation Centre, said the African Union (AU) was developing a mechanism for transitional justice in African countries.
“Sadly, Zimbabwe is not involved because of the squabbling in the inclusive government. The UN is waiting on the wings to help with transitional justice where there will be reparations and truth will be dealt with. If the country (Zimbabwe) does not confront issues of atrocities from the early 1980s to today, it will not be surprising if the international community intervenes,” he said.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamsa, however, on Monday last week, defended the country’s human rights record at the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review in Geneva.
“Zimbabwe is a member of the international community and remains committed to its obligations on human rights. We adopted among others laws on the protection of children and orphans, laws against family violence and laws that ensure the rights of NGOs working in our country," he said.
National Healing Must be Tied to the New Constitution and a New Government
Zimbabwe should tie the national healing programme to the constitutional rewriting process and hope for a new government after the next plebiscite so that it can succeed, a member of the civic society has said.
Addressing participants at the Ideas Festival organized by Bulawayo Agenda last weekend, Matabeleland Constitutional reform Agenda (Macra) leader, Effie Ncube, said national healing must be legislated for it
to succeed.
“The first thing that we should do is to ensure that we strengthen the constitutional process and then the national healing programme should be a central part of it.
“We need a legislative framework that defines and composes the national healing body so that we also know who they are reporting to. It has to be a credible body with credible individuals in it. It has
to be a multi-stakeholder body. We also have to devolve its operations so that it does not have to remain in Harare. It has to be found in Bulawayo, Plumtree, Mutare, Victoria falls and other places. If we have police stations in every 10 kilometers, we can have this body as well,” he said.
Ncube said the top leadership in the country has to be challenged to speak out on national healing.
“I have never heard of a national address or any leader addressing the nation on national healing. I am yet to hear an address aimed at healing the nation. We want the president and the prime minister to
pronounce clearly where they stand on national healing,” he said.
The co-minister in the organ of national healing, reconciliation and integration (ONHRI), Moses Mzila Ndlovu, said President Mugabe will address the nation at a function to be held in Bulawayo before the end of the year.
“We will have belated World Peace Day celebrations here in Bulawayo and the people of Bulawayo should come in their numbers and hear President Mugabe speak on these issues,” he said.
Ncube said the current government was, “better than the pre-2008 government but it is not clean enough for this process”.
“For this process to succeed we will need a new government,” he said.
Addressing participants at the Ideas Festival organized by Bulawayo Agenda last weekend, Matabeleland Constitutional reform Agenda (Macra) leader, Effie Ncube, said national healing must be legislated for it
to succeed.
“The first thing that we should do is to ensure that we strengthen the constitutional process and then the national healing programme should be a central part of it.
“We need a legislative framework that defines and composes the national healing body so that we also know who they are reporting to. It has to be a credible body with credible individuals in it. It has
to be a multi-stakeholder body. We also have to devolve its operations so that it does not have to remain in Harare. It has to be found in Bulawayo, Plumtree, Mutare, Victoria falls and other places. If we have police stations in every 10 kilometers, we can have this body as well,” he said.
Ncube said the top leadership in the country has to be challenged to speak out on national healing.
“I have never heard of a national address or any leader addressing the nation on national healing. I am yet to hear an address aimed at healing the nation. We want the president and the prime minister to
pronounce clearly where they stand on national healing,” he said.
The co-minister in the organ of national healing, reconciliation and integration (ONHRI), Moses Mzila Ndlovu, said President Mugabe will address the nation at a function to be held in Bulawayo before the end of the year.
“We will have belated World Peace Day celebrations here in Bulawayo and the people of Bulawayo should come in their numbers and hear President Mugabe speak on these issues,” he said.
Ncube said the current government was, “better than the pre-2008 government but it is not clean enough for this process”.
“For this process to succeed we will need a new government,” he said.
National healing must be tied to the new constitution and a new government y Khanyile Mlotshwa
Zimbabwe should tie the national healing programme to the constitutional rewriting process and hope for a new government after the next plebiscite so that it can succeed, a member of the civic society has said.
Addressing participants at the Ideas Festival organized by Bulawayo Agenda last weekend, Matabeleland Constitutional reform Agenda (Macra) leader, Effie Ncube, said national healing must be legislated for it
to succeed.
“The first thing that we should do is to ensure that we strengthen the constitutional process and then the national healing programme should be a central part of it.
“We need a legislative framework that defines and composes the national healing body so that we also know who they are reporting to. It has to be a credible body with credible individuals in it. It has
to be a multi-stakeholder body. We also have to devolve its operations so that it does not have to remain in Harare. It has to be found in Bulawayo, Plumtree, Mutare, Victoria falls and other places. If we have police stations in every 10 kilometers, we can have this body as well,” he said.
Ncube said the top leadership in the country has to be challenged to speak out on national healing.
“I have never heard of a national address or any leader addressing the nation on national healing. I am yet to hear an address aimed at healing the nation. We want the president and the prime minister to
pronounce clearly where they stand on national healing,” he said.
The co-minister in the organ of national healing, reconciliation and integration (ONHRI), Moses Mzila Ndlovu, said President Mugabe will address the nation at a function to be held in Bulawayo before the end of the year.
“We will have belated World Peace Day celebrations here in Bulawayo and the people of Bulawayo should come in their numbers and hear President Mugabe speak on these issues,” he said.
Ncube said the current government was, “better than the pre-2008 government but it is not clean enough for this process”.
“For this process to succeed we will need a new government,” he said.
Addressing participants at the Ideas Festival organized by Bulawayo Agenda last weekend, Matabeleland Constitutional reform Agenda (Macra) leader, Effie Ncube, said national healing must be legislated for it
to succeed.
“The first thing that we should do is to ensure that we strengthen the constitutional process and then the national healing programme should be a central part of it.
“We need a legislative framework that defines and composes the national healing body so that we also know who they are reporting to. It has to be a credible body with credible individuals in it. It has
to be a multi-stakeholder body. We also have to devolve its operations so that it does not have to remain in Harare. It has to be found in Bulawayo, Plumtree, Mutare, Victoria falls and other places. If we have police stations in every 10 kilometers, we can have this body as well,” he said.
Ncube said the top leadership in the country has to be challenged to speak out on national healing.
“I have never heard of a national address or any leader addressing the nation on national healing. I am yet to hear an address aimed at healing the nation. We want the president and the prime minister to
pronounce clearly where they stand on national healing,” he said.
The co-minister in the organ of national healing, reconciliation and integration (ONHRI), Moses Mzila Ndlovu, said President Mugabe will address the nation at a function to be held in Bulawayo before the end of the year.
“We will have belated World Peace Day celebrations here in Bulawayo and the people of Bulawayo should come in their numbers and hear President Mugabe speak on these issues,” he said.
Ncube said the current government was, “better than the pre-2008 government but it is not clean enough for this process”.
“For this process to succeed we will need a new government,” he said.
Friday, July 1, 2011
What do we do with the Joshua Nkomo’s legacy?
For the generation that lived through the liberation struggle the late nationalist Joshua Nkomo had a demi-god status as they only fell short of worshipping the soil he walked on.
However the generation, mostly born after 22 December 1987, which has lived through the vast emptiness of Zimbabwean nationalism and the marginalisation of Matabeleland, is an angry generation that treats Nkomo with ambivalence.
The exciting, underground writer mostly confined to the medium of the internet, Dinuzulu Macaphulana in September 2010 spoke for an entire generation when he noted that, “the tragedy or else the comedy – depending on where the observer stands – of Joshua Nkomo’s political leadership and historical legacy lies squarely on the criminal falsehood of the title ‘Father Zimbabwe’”.
“In fact, dear reader, there is a stubborn possibility that future generations of Joshua Nkomo’s followers will view him, not as the colossal hero whose name we commemorate and whose life we celebrate today, but a cowardly traitor,” he wrote.
Twelve years after the death of Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo, as Zimbabwe pretends to reflect on the great life of the man fondly called uSekaThandi; his legacy is in a crisis.
The young people’s estimation of him is more of sympathy than genuine appreciation, and for the older generation, it is betrayal; pure and simple as his dreams are rotting in storehouses and white hospital walls - yet his name is always dusted from the archives for political expediency.
Nkomo himself saw a glimpse of this betrayal on the eve of Independence Day in April 1980 an on page 215 of his autobiography, The Story of My Life, he puts it well.
“Behind the saluting base, were the benches for junior ministers, the party officials and the supporting cast. At the back of those rows, in the dark by the radio commentator’s box, where the television cameras could not see us and our supporters in the crowd could not single us out for their applause, places were reserved for maFuyana and myself.
“In the stadiums of Zimbabwe I had so often stood up to address the crowds, and found the words to express what they wished to say but had not yet articulated. Now I was hidden away like something to be scared of. My wife could scarcely restrain her tears at this symbolic humiliation,” he wrote.
The symbolic humiliation was to lay the ground for the symbolic annihilation that has followed his death.
Gaye Tuchman, who did research on the representation of women in the media noted that the absence of representation, or underrepresentation, of some group of people is a means of maintaining social inequality, and divided the concept of symbolic annihilation into three aspects: omission, trivialisation and condemnation.
Right from that night of independence Nkomo suffered all aspects of annihilation, and with the skillful manipulation of social levers, Zanu PF succeeded in ensuring that he is there yet not there.
In the days of Gukurahundi he was demonized as the head of, “a cobra in the house,” and “the father of the dissidents”. Today he is celebrated as the peace loving architect of unity, and not the man who suffered insults and threats to his life with the Ndebele people during Gukurahundi. It is the silence on that aspect of his history, on his long letter in exile to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe that has succeeded in turning the young people of Matabeleland against a great man who tried in vain to fight so that they could also be regarded as legitimate citizens of Zimbabwe.
Launched last year, and campaigning on a secessionist pedestal, the Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MLF) has become the epitome of the disillusionment and anger of Matabeleland youth about Zimbabwean nationalism.
MLF secretary for legal affairs Sabelo Ngwenya notes that Joshua Nkomo, “remains a subject of controversy within our movement”.
“Although the general view is that he was a true Zimbabwean nationalist who was betrayed by Shona supremacists, most people tend to sympathise with him on the grounds that he tried to be a Zimbabwean but was failed by the Zanu system.
“Personally speaking, Nkomo's failure to create a rainbow nation out of Zimbabwe is one of the reasons why we should revert to our status as a sovereign state of Mthwakazi,” he said.
American community organizer and writer Saul Alinsky notes that: “Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.”
For Ngwenya, the frustration and feeling of defeat, symbolized in the name of the beautiful Karigamombe building, is enough reason to rethink, if not entirely depart, from the footsteps of Nkomo.
However Zapu spokesperson Methuseli Moyo believes that something must be done to ensure that Nkomo’s legacy is preserved for the young generation.
“Nkomo’s legacy needs to be preserved. He was a pioneer fighter in the armed phase of the liberation struggle. The people of Matabeleland need to know and appreciate that Nkomo saved our life by joining Zanu PF in the so called Unity Accord.
“The youths who were fortunate enough not to be molested by Gukurahundi should know that we would all have been killed. Nothing and no one could have stopped Zanu then. It (Zanu) was taking advantage of the Cold war and South Africa was yet to be independent. The West viewed Nkomo as an ultra communist and Zanu’s operation was legitimate to them.
“The relief that I had when Gukurahundi ended, I have never experienced that relief. To me and other Comrades in Zapu, he (Nkomo) was a hero. What we do now is all up to us. Nkomo always had a way out of a situation,” he said.
Zanu PF central committee member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said it is not true to say his former colleagues are a letdown.
“When Ekusileni Hospital was built I was the deputy chairman of the board and sold my property in Harare to raise collateral for the fund that built the hospital. What is remaining is to equip the hospital. It (hospital) is there as a landmark in his honour.
“Let us use the commemoration of his death to open debate and get ideas on what we should do to preserve his legacy. His ideas should be remembered. We have the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) which was his idea. We have the land issue. All people should be empowered, not only one part of the country, including the people of Matabeleland should be empowered,” he said.
The family of the great man admits that things could have gone wrong in the country, but their father’s legacy must be preserved for young people.
Thandiwe Ibrahim- Nkomo, Joshua Nkomo’s first born child, maintains that her father never neglected the region even after signing the Unity Accord with Zanu PF in 1987.
“The values that we were given by the old man are important. There should be a strong leadership in the region that should be ready to admit whenever something has gone bad in the region. Nkomo may have been in a Unity Accord with Zanu PF but there was never a day when he looked aside when the region had problems. Problems must be pointed out and recognised and be solved.
“There may have been instances where people felt mistreated but that can be solved,” she said. She said the nation could have been slow in embracing her father’s legacy but the family was happy with what has been done so far.
“As a family, we are happy to see that this legacy is being carried forward because our father did a lot for this country, he sacrificed a lot. Like everything else in this country it has taken time for the country to understand and embrace this legacy. However this legacy should not be left in the hands of those who fought alongside him but it must be given to young people as well.
“We would be happier if his legacy can be explained to young people so that they understand. Young people should be told why he led that war (liberation war) and why it was important to fight for freedom,” she said.
Sibangilizwe, the late nationalist’s son, believes that it is high time the people of Matabeleland owned the Nkomo legacy.
“You should take your person and own him yourselves,” he told a crowd gathered to commemorate his father’s death at Stanley Square in Makokoba, Bulawayo on 2 July.
However the generation, mostly born after 22 December 1987, which has lived through the vast emptiness of Zimbabwean nationalism and the marginalisation of Matabeleland, is an angry generation that treats Nkomo with ambivalence.
The exciting, underground writer mostly confined to the medium of the internet, Dinuzulu Macaphulana in September 2010 spoke for an entire generation when he noted that, “the tragedy or else the comedy – depending on where the observer stands – of Joshua Nkomo’s political leadership and historical legacy lies squarely on the criminal falsehood of the title ‘Father Zimbabwe’”.
“In fact, dear reader, there is a stubborn possibility that future generations of Joshua Nkomo’s followers will view him, not as the colossal hero whose name we commemorate and whose life we celebrate today, but a cowardly traitor,” he wrote.
Twelve years after the death of Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo, as Zimbabwe pretends to reflect on the great life of the man fondly called uSekaThandi; his legacy is in a crisis.
The young people’s estimation of him is more of sympathy than genuine appreciation, and for the older generation, it is betrayal; pure and simple as his dreams are rotting in storehouses and white hospital walls - yet his name is always dusted from the archives for political expediency.
Nkomo himself saw a glimpse of this betrayal on the eve of Independence Day in April 1980 an on page 215 of his autobiography, The Story of My Life, he puts it well.
“Behind the saluting base, were the benches for junior ministers, the party officials and the supporting cast. At the back of those rows, in the dark by the radio commentator’s box, where the television cameras could not see us and our supporters in the crowd could not single us out for their applause, places were reserved for maFuyana and myself.
“In the stadiums of Zimbabwe I had so often stood up to address the crowds, and found the words to express what they wished to say but had not yet articulated. Now I was hidden away like something to be scared of. My wife could scarcely restrain her tears at this symbolic humiliation,” he wrote.
The symbolic humiliation was to lay the ground for the symbolic annihilation that has followed his death.
Gaye Tuchman, who did research on the representation of women in the media noted that the absence of representation, or underrepresentation, of some group of people is a means of maintaining social inequality, and divided the concept of symbolic annihilation into three aspects: omission, trivialisation and condemnation.
Right from that night of independence Nkomo suffered all aspects of annihilation, and with the skillful manipulation of social levers, Zanu PF succeeded in ensuring that he is there yet not there.
In the days of Gukurahundi he was demonized as the head of, “a cobra in the house,” and “the father of the dissidents”. Today he is celebrated as the peace loving architect of unity, and not the man who suffered insults and threats to his life with the Ndebele people during Gukurahundi. It is the silence on that aspect of his history, on his long letter in exile to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe that has succeeded in turning the young people of Matabeleland against a great man who tried in vain to fight so that they could also be regarded as legitimate citizens of Zimbabwe.
Launched last year, and campaigning on a secessionist pedestal, the Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MLF) has become the epitome of the disillusionment and anger of Matabeleland youth about Zimbabwean nationalism.
MLF secretary for legal affairs Sabelo Ngwenya notes that Joshua Nkomo, “remains a subject of controversy within our movement”.
“Although the general view is that he was a true Zimbabwean nationalist who was betrayed by Shona supremacists, most people tend to sympathise with him on the grounds that he tried to be a Zimbabwean but was failed by the Zanu system.
“Personally speaking, Nkomo's failure to create a rainbow nation out of Zimbabwe is one of the reasons why we should revert to our status as a sovereign state of Mthwakazi,” he said.
American community organizer and writer Saul Alinsky notes that: “Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.”
For Ngwenya, the frustration and feeling of defeat, symbolized in the name of the beautiful Karigamombe building, is enough reason to rethink, if not entirely depart, from the footsteps of Nkomo.
However Zapu spokesperson Methuseli Moyo believes that something must be done to ensure that Nkomo’s legacy is preserved for the young generation.
“Nkomo’s legacy needs to be preserved. He was a pioneer fighter in the armed phase of the liberation struggle. The people of Matabeleland need to know and appreciate that Nkomo saved our life by joining Zanu PF in the so called Unity Accord.
“The youths who were fortunate enough not to be molested by Gukurahundi should know that we would all have been killed. Nothing and no one could have stopped Zanu then. It (Zanu) was taking advantage of the Cold war and South Africa was yet to be independent. The West viewed Nkomo as an ultra communist and Zanu’s operation was legitimate to them.
“The relief that I had when Gukurahundi ended, I have never experienced that relief. To me and other Comrades in Zapu, he (Nkomo) was a hero. What we do now is all up to us. Nkomo always had a way out of a situation,” he said.
Zanu PF central committee member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said it is not true to say his former colleagues are a letdown.
“When Ekusileni Hospital was built I was the deputy chairman of the board and sold my property in Harare to raise collateral for the fund that built the hospital. What is remaining is to equip the hospital. It (hospital) is there as a landmark in his honour.
“Let us use the commemoration of his death to open debate and get ideas on what we should do to preserve his legacy. His ideas should be remembered. We have the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) which was his idea. We have the land issue. All people should be empowered, not only one part of the country, including the people of Matabeleland should be empowered,” he said.
The family of the great man admits that things could have gone wrong in the country, but their father’s legacy must be preserved for young people.
Thandiwe Ibrahim- Nkomo, Joshua Nkomo’s first born child, maintains that her father never neglected the region even after signing the Unity Accord with Zanu PF in 1987.
“The values that we were given by the old man are important. There should be a strong leadership in the region that should be ready to admit whenever something has gone bad in the region. Nkomo may have been in a Unity Accord with Zanu PF but there was never a day when he looked aside when the region had problems. Problems must be pointed out and recognised and be solved.
“There may have been instances where people felt mistreated but that can be solved,” she said. She said the nation could have been slow in embracing her father’s legacy but the family was happy with what has been done so far.
“As a family, we are happy to see that this legacy is being carried forward because our father did a lot for this country, he sacrificed a lot. Like everything else in this country it has taken time for the country to understand and embrace this legacy. However this legacy should not be left in the hands of those who fought alongside him but it must be given to young people as well.
“We would be happier if his legacy can be explained to young people so that they understand. Young people should be told why he led that war (liberation war) and why it was important to fight for freedom,” she said.
Sibangilizwe, the late nationalist’s son, believes that it is high time the people of Matabeleland owned the Nkomo legacy.
“You should take your person and own him yourselves,” he told a crowd gathered to commemorate his father’s death at Stanley Square in Makokoba, Bulawayo on 2 July.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
