Chronicle Editor
Michael Mhlanga
In September 2016 Highlanders won against Dynamos after 10 years, the Bosso celebration in Bulawayo was befitting in sports sense, yet in elemental sense, to some, it was an ethnic conquest of a group represented by DeMbare.
The whole idea of soccer as entertainment and business was eliminated as historical allusions; even of Mzilikazi’s conquest were chronicled up to the Sunday derby.
It is the colonial construction of identities that has limited Zimbabwe’s explicit definition of belonging and being. When we dirge identity crisis proffered by race superiority, sexual orientation, colourism and cultural assimilation, we always forget the new hierarchy, the worst enemy of all, ethnic contest disguised as cultural conservatism. Professor Sabelo Gatsheni-Ndlovu once asked: “Do Zimbabweans exist?” the answer is grim to come by today in a society that tribalises even the trivial of all façades like soccer. Until contact with Dr Lyton Ncube’s works I did not realise how much ethnicity has a bearing on decisions of supporting soccer teams until I read through his works. The appropriation of Highlanders and Dynamos being Ndebele and Shona teams has transcended to levels of political belonging of each tribe.
Zimbabweans should know that the greatest friend of African nationalism is race-consciousness; yet the greatest enemy of African nationhood is misconstrued ethnic-consciousness. Modern African nationalism was born and prospered under the stimulation of racial solidarity and shared blackness. On the other hand, the struggle for viable modern nations within Africa is considerably hampered by acute ethnic cleavages, often separating tribes.
All our efforts of political consciousness after a conquest of coloniality become futile because we create new wars of tribal superiority borrowed from historical tales. I do not deny that primitive settlement was based on conquest ability hence kinship was paramount in political structures, but we have long moved from that phase, perhaps we need to re-visit the truth; history should be revised, in any case it’s a human invention.
By virtue of groups identifying themselves separate from others based on linguistic variances, cultural background, kuDotito, koMadabe, koSiphepha routes and historiography, merit is immediately substituted and mediocrity in place of excellence presides. This is the blight that has hit Africa and Zimbabwe has not been spared.
The politics of “isms” has plundered the potential of politics as a transformative tool in economic development of the black Zimbabwean. Our plight as Zimbabweans has risen to be of who is Ndebele or Shona and who should get what because they are either of the two ethnic groups. Society has ignored that it’s creating a new eliminative hierarchy of equally important groups which do not subscribe to Shona or Ndebele. If contribution to national development in public office occupation is reduced to a contest of Ndebele versus Shona, we simply have ridiculed a market space of endangered ethnic groups. Our deliberate pluralism of Ndebele to encompass Tonga, Venda, Kalanga, Sotho and other Nguni languages without their consent, and while they are attempting to self-determine is also emerging to be disincentivising the national participation and contributions of these important groups that have capable thinkers who should have a chance in the leadership race.
Traditionally, we have believed that the highest positions in society should be awarded to those who are best qualified. The Koran teaches that “A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in his dominion another man better qualified for it, sins against God and against the State”. Rewarding excellence both seems just to the individuals in the competition and makes for efficiency. Note that one of the most successful acts of racial integration, the Brooklyn Dodger’s recruitment of Jackie Robinson in the late 40s, was done in just this way, according to merit.
If Jackie Robinson had been brought into the major league as a mediocre player or had batted 200 he would have been scorned and sent back to the minors where he belonged.
As I always argue in my social conversations, merit is not an absolute value, but there are strong prima facie reasons for awarding positions on its basis, and it should enjoy a weighty presumption in our social practices. Public institutions should not be known for asking for your surname first before they attend to you, if we so find our spaces being denoted as so, we surely have a big problem, in the process of calibrating development in Zimbabwe we should not only think of decolonising the spaces, we need detribalisation of the space as well.
In emphasising the need to move away from the conception of ethnicity as static and primordial, Terrence Ranger argues that the importance of showing that tribal identity is not inevitable, unchanging, given, but a product of human creativity that can be re-invented and refined to become again open, constructive and flexible, subordinate to other loyalties and associations. Being Ndebele is a creation of coloniality, identifying someone as Shona is exclusive of other important groups therefore we need to identify ourselves as Zimbabweans, not primitive beings that bank on barbaric politics of conquest and plunder.
It was necessary at that time; it does not have space today. If 2020 is to bring a difference, Zimbabweans should start working on making decisions based on potential to contribute to the improvement of livelihoods, not ethnic congruence. When the esteemed Professor Sabelo Gatsheni-Ndlovu asks . . . Do Zimbabweans exist? Let us not be left with no answer, decisions should be made by Zimbabweans, not “families” or kinsmen.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter