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Cont Mhlanga
FOR many years now, the people of Bulawayo and indeed the region of Matabeleland, have been raising concerns that the government of Zimbabwe, since independence, has been on a steady systematic mission to marginalise and kill the city and the region together with its people.
The recent census figures have confirmed the people’s concerns. Bulawayo is indeed de-populating,many of its people jobless and its citizens are so poor that they can’t even afford to marry and raise families!
The numbers tell a sad story of a city that is dying, a people that are desperate, frustrated, disillusioned and searching for hope by way of accusing the ZimStat for cooking the data. My grandfather used to say to me “mfanawami inombolo kaziqambi manga. Nxa usudinga indikimba yodaba buza uphindisise ukuthi kungaki”.
The government of Zimbabwe may choose to challenge or ignore the figures of the census as incorrect, like what some of Bulawayo’s citizens have chosen to do, but the figures confirm the story that is written on every wall and street of the city of Bulawayo for those of us that have stayed and worked here for all our lives, and have seen the best and worst of this city to this day.
It is now time for those who sit in Cabinet to tell the people of Bulawayo why it is a jobless city and where the sons and daughters of the city are disappearing to and why? Why did they get into government in 1980 and the city started to de-populate and die while other cities and the population of the country is on the increase? I am one such a Bulawayo senior citizen who wants to hear answers from any, if not all Cabinet Ministers, in particular those that have been in government since 1980.
When the current ruling party took over government in 1980, only seven percent of the population of Matabeleland was not formerly employed and today 60 percent of the people in Matabeleland are not formerly employed according to the latest census. Why this trend?
The government of Zimbabwe should urgently declare Bulawayo a national security issue and come up with urgent, creative and innovative short-term solutions and interventions to deal with the declining situation that is headed for dangerous levels that are already showing signs of threatening national peace unity and stability.
Traffic police and shopkeepers in Bulawayo and indeed the rest of Matabeleland, will agree with me that there has been, over the past 10 years, a dramatic rise of local people who now resist to be spoken to in Shona language when in Bulawayo than say some 20 years ago.
There has been an increase of negative Shona jokes that spell spite and hate of Shona-speaking people in the region than let’s say 10 years ago.
Football support hate language between Highlanders and Dynamos is another case in point where the anti-Shona venom has been finding a dramatic increase in recent years. Home music recording studios that are producing Shona hate songs are now on the increase in Bulawayo and South Africa.
All this is not just tribalism as some people may want to believe, but a sign of a quietly growing resistance against a Shona-dominated government of Zimbabwe that has continued to ignore the concerns of local Bulawayo and Matabeleland people since 1980. The people of Matabeleland see the Shona-dominated government as a government that looks only after their own. They see it as a government with a hidden agenda of disempowering the people from the region by all means possible.
The census figures now confirm to us that the three million Zimbabweans that are in South Africa and Botswana are the sons and daughters of Bulawayo and Matabeleland who have been driven out of the country by frustration, desperation and poverty. It is for this very reason that the calls of cessation, cutting Zimbabwe into two separate countries, are on the steady increase from that country and as the census confirms the situation faced by Bulawayo today, they may find support within the country sooner than later.
We all know what will follow for Zimbabwe once the people of the region driven by neglect by government, to believe and embrace cessation as the only way out to rescue themselves from marginalisation and poverty. All it takes will be a bad patch in the South African economy some day, for a short time, to push Bulawayo and Matabeleland people to a cessationist people.
Bulawayo has become a deadly national security time bomb over the years and the government is moving too slowly to defuse it in my humble opinion particularly now when President Mugabe is still around and in charge. It may be too late and a futile exercise to try and do it after he has left power.
The people of Bulawayo should not trivialise the census figures and be quick to dismiss them as incorrect as they are real to the situation on the ground and confirm the concerns of the people of Bulawayo. If census figures are meant for planning, then this is the time and right figures to start planning for a better Zimbabwean future by planning for a better future of Bulawayo by both its citizens and government.
It is not a given that if the population of a city is small, it means that it should receive less attention from the government of the day and national investment. It all depends on the prevailing condition on the ground at that time in point. The census has just shown us all that Bulawayo at this point in time requires greater and urgent attention from all concerned than any other city in the country.
Bulawayo’s problems and challenges are unique to it and are not to be dismissed as similar to other cities and provinces. Its problems and challenges are a greater national security danger to the rest of the country than any other city or province in the country.
It is time for government to focus on Bulawayo in a grand scale economically and culturally to save not only the city itself but the whole of Zimbabwe as a country. There are so many interventions and options that the government can immediately apply.
There can be no prosperity of a nation where there is division, political unrest or war. If you as a country already have more desperate and frustrated people outside your country, than inside, then you have created a conducive environment for instability for the whole country.
A million people inside Matabeleland and three million frustrated outside Matabeleland borders is not a good picture and scenario for the government of Zimbabwe. Yinkonkoni ejamileyo nje leyo, kungezake kulunge. The sooner there is action, the better for all of us as Zimbabweans if we are truly for national unity and peace. The census has sounded the warning bells!
Online Reporter