adminLast week I discussed how individual and communal cultural restoration is not best achieved through political confrontation, politics of ethnic exclusion; creation of a new cultural hierarchy and resumption of historical injustices warranted as periodic normalities.
Never at one point should we clinch and commemorate mediocrity just because we use our surnames and not our brains to think. There is no nobility in selective amnesia which subjects the present as a misgiving of “preferred” historical narrations.
We should never overlook that any narrative is devoted to the author’s beliefs, preferences and limited worldview; as such we should approach everything with hesitancy. Certainty is the recipe of all the ignorance in this world, the passing of each day relinquishes historical narrations and traditions crafted by the angry and chromo-confined authors who over time are passive and ashamed to unlearn their misrepresentations when proven erroneous or when they are challenged to be changed.
I say this after last week’s article raised a lot of dust in the camps of my fellow comrades who call themselves Mthwakazians as if others aren’t. The self determined cultural extremists are no different from a regular Zimbabwean opposition which wants to enjoy a monologue in its political adventures. Like any opposition in Zimbabwe, they flood the opinion market with anti-Zanu-PF propaganda. All hail to alternative media, this has become the conduit of flooded opposition propaganda. The poorly-thought framing, absent political literacy, the tired “Must-go” mantra, and the perennial fights and splits in their cahoots is what the information consumer is fed with everyday. It’s unfortunate that hypocrisy is now the best description one can give for opposition yet they masquerade as tolerant democrats, we see their bipolar politics, we see you, Big brother is watching.
Anyone who does not think like Mthwakazians as the MLF and MRP call themselves is Zanu-PF. To them, like any opposition political party, questioning their politics is confirmation of State Agency. You are quickly labelled to be a “sell-out” or “paid out”. I have asked before; does one need to be paid to think in a particular way? Shouldn’t we be free to say our thoughts about your skewed political strategy without a dollar in our pockets? Who are you to create a mono-lethal right of categorising thoughts as wrong when they do not go down your oesophagus well? Why should we allow a monologue when it’s you yet you incessantly label others as dictators when they do not agree with you? So to you a monologue is democratic when it’s you bickering and dialogue is an instrument of only responding to others when it suits you best? It’s high time you stop negotiating boundaries and creating suiting political semantics. It’s clear that your application of logic is void of reflection for if it did, before you claim that dissenting voices are paid not to be opposition you will be meaning the truth in reverse, are you paid to think the way you do? Take note, ashes fly back in the face of him that throws them. Anyway; the crux of this week’s second edition.
A Seceded nation/state
Cleanly put, a seceded nation/state is a new geographical political entity which has separated itself from a union because it feels its “homogenous” culture is threatened by other dominant cultures, there are past injustices which are not dealt with by the union state and it needs to revive its cultural supremacy and be recognised as a state. Candidly, a people have a right to self determination if they feel any identity threat. They should not be denied transitional justice if they so demand, especially if they are citizens of a union lest the lesion becomes cancerous and swells across generations. They have a legitimate right to demand state’s protection of their culture, however, using proper channels and means at their disposal. Their demands should not expose other individuals to cultural stereotyping, precarious misrepresentation of problems and strategies or assumption of a “worse” victim position as if they were or are not villains at one point or another.
There is no problem with a group of people attempting to preserve their culture through identifying like minds who convene to devise strategies of promoting language use, frequent cultural activities, documenting of their history, promotion of their literature and even flood the market with it as a strategy of influencing thought processes of their own, recognising and respecting their cultural leadership. This on its own has no dent of bad in it; it begins to be wrong when we want not only to create a political party which may produce Ndebele leaders who may influence policy formulation and change to protect cultural interest of their people but want to anarchically establish themselves.
Villains to victims back to villains
In the case of Mthwakazi Republic Party and the Liberation front, a seceded nation/state does not address all you always mention. Not only will it contribute to multiple secessions by other smaller groups within as they seek self-determination if we so vote for it (which is highly unlikely considering your miscalculated political capital) but it simply will not achieve cultural restoration because of the existing cultural diffusion the region has experienced over the years. The nation/state assumes that people are bound by a homogenous culture, which is entirely not true in this case. Matabeleland is now home to a blend of cosmopolitan families, whom the secessionists argue that they fall under the Mthwakazi Nation even without their consent; that is the tragedy imposed by the political hungry, they want to be officers of a contract others did not sign, remembering how the Mthwakazi nation came to be before 1883, these were all victim groups with the Matebele being the villains. So today, the villain is now a victim who wants to resuscitate his villainess. Cultural dissolution cannot be protected by the existence of a boundary, individuals’ perception of a culture and attitudes towards it punctuate lingua-cultural loss and decay. You don’t best protect that by separating yourself from the whole assuming that the majority’s influence would not stretch into your territory.
Gukurahundi: a fast rescinding mantra
Among other reasons of seceding is how the 1982-85 civil unrest has not been adequately addressed. I do not see how a seceded nation/state will address that since it will be independent. Sometimes these people are lazy to consider their grievances thoroughly. Having seceded still leaves the victims in the position they are in. If you are ready to move on as a people if you have your own state, then you are possibly ready to move on, now how is satisfaction guaranteed if you have separated from the one you label a villain? How do you ensure healing and reconciliation when you have excluded yourselves?
And above all, how is secession reparation to the victims of the misgivings? This is the part we notice obscured interest in the politics of cultural exclusion that they want to ride on the sympathy of past unfortunate events whom they will not help in any way if they ever achieve their intentions.
It’s now getting redundant that every opposition comes to Matabeleland and tells the people how it feels sorry for Gukurahundi victims as if there are no other existing narratives that counter reasons behind that misgiving. We cannot ignore various scholarly contributions on the past and be certain of the victim narrative, its definite that a victim assumes a particular form in his writing, objectivity is exempted and we get to heed one side of the story; that is normal, that’s the reason we have to approach everything with hesitancy. One thing MRP and MLF are not noticing is that the Gukurahundi mantra is fast becoming obsolete, people are speaking about it a lot and the more opposition and the public peddles it massively, you will lose the grief momentum you were riding on. Repetition of the same thing makes it monotonous and affects the organic process of grief and healing. It’s very unfair if not inhumane to push your political mileage through the grief of non-participating people, that is the height of evil one can ever see, stop thinking that you can secede Matabeleland to seek national healing and reconciliation when you have excluded yourselves.
Rednecks are their mentors: Trumpodites
Dr Michael Hill, an American racist has for years been a staunch advocate for secession in the United States of America. His contest has always been “what is wrong with a whiter America?” This was confirmed and delivered by Donald Trump who defied constructed political euphemism by slurring black people and glorifying white America to the extent of reviving the “Berlin wall” in America.
The idea of Southern States to secede is primarily based on their perception that they are superior to every white hence their superiority should not be disturbed by liberals and democrats.
He says “ . . . if we secede from this whole USA nonsense the laws of the Southern States would better reflect the natural conservatism and Christian roots of the Southern Folk.
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