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Benny Tsododo Correspondent
No one can dispute the laudable fact that Zimbabwe has morphed into a melting pot of several tribes, races and nationalities.
It has become a heterogeneous place where people with differing ethnic backgrounds have palpably gelled and productively subsist in peace and unity.
In Zimbabwe, you can find people of Indian origin successfully running family businesses that have been passed from one generation to another. You can find successful Nigerian businesspeople cheerfully trading a medley of electronic, clothing and other merchandise in downtown Harare or Bulawayo.
It is a place where the Chinese miners can be found exploring the country’s bowels for precious minerals. In the same vein, albeit despicable, reports of some Rwandese refugees at Tongogara Refugee Camp in Chipinge seeking authority to practice Satanism completes the gleeful picture of a free, accommodative and all-inclusive Zimbabwe.
Also found in the same mix are peace-loving, enterprising and united indigenous Zimbabweans. These are the Manyika, Ndau, Karanga, amaNdebele, abeSuthu, Shengwe, Venda, Nambya, Zezurus and many other tribes. These are the people who collectively waged a liberation struggle to free Zimbabwe from colonial bondage and have evidently been living in unity and peace for the past 33 years. With such a variegated and yet collective populace, it is sheer folly and seditious for anyone to call for the division of the country along tribal lines. On this note, a political party formed to purportedly push for the separation of Matabeleland and Midlands provinces was launched last week.
The Mthwakazi Liberation Party (MLP) led by a certain Mqondisi Moyo was formed to spearhead the separation of the south western parts of the country to form the so-called Mthwakazi Republic of Zimbabwe. True to the divisive nature of secessionists, Moyo made frivolous and unsubstantiated claims that people from the south-western parts of Zimbabwe were excluded by Government’s education, economic, and agricultural policies. He also claimed that they were excluded from employment opportunities.
Moyo also made a slew of provocative and irresponsible statements intended to stir tribal sentiments and open up ethnical clashes. Moyo spuriously claimed that he was spurred to form MLP because Zimbabwe was now a “failed state”.
Moyo unashamedly and provocatively claimed that, “Just as it was when King Mzilikazi (Khumalo) arrived in this land around 1821, now 33 years after independence from British rule, Zimbabwe is at a position where it has become a failed state.” What a shameful and cheap political shot! It is patently clear that Moyo deliberately wanted to ignite a conflagration of tribal debate on whether Zimbabwe was truly a failed state on the arrival of King Mzilikazi in 1821. He vainly wanted Zimbabweans to inadvertently take tribal positions and contest the integrity of his disgraceful assertion, with the undignified hope to incite tribal clashes. Unfortunately for him, Zimbabweans are a peaceful and united people who naturally cannot be drawn into mediaeval discussions of ethnicity.
Moreover, anyone who had travelled the length and breadth of Zimbabwe would find vexatious Moyo’s claim that Government is neglecting and segregating people in the south western regions. Anyone who has been to all corners of Zimbabwe would vouch that there is proportional distribution of development in Zimbabwe.
Go to any district whether in Matabeleland, Manicaland, Mashonaland or Midlands and you are certain to find a district hospital, Government complex housing government departments, banks, judicial courts, police stations, supermarkets, post office, bus termini and other infrastructure expected of a service centre. This is a fact. The distribution of schools and clinics in all remote areas is of course not satisfactory. Children from all regions are sometimes forced to walk long distances to access schools. The same applies for clinics. Despite all the district centres being connected by tarred roads, the state of roads becomes gravelled and bumpy as you move further away from these centres whether in Katakura in Rushinga, Ngaone in Chipinge, Jabatshaba in Lupane or Shanyawukwe in Gwanda. The level of development in all these places is uniform and equally eroded by the economic ills spawned by sanctions. Claims of disproportional employment opportunities are false. Government has tried its level best to evenly absorb people from all provinces. People from Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces have risen to higher echelons in Government and the private sector as Vice-Presidents, Ministers, Attorney Generals, Service Chiefs, Judges, Ambassadors, captains of industry, Speakers of the National Assembly and legislators.
It is therefore baffling why people like Mqondisi Moyo would like to launch their despicable political outfits on false premises hinged on propagating naked lies that Government is neglecting the people of Matabeleland and Midlands.
This is not the first time that such disgraceful lies are used in attempt to propel political ambitions of ideologically vacuous parties.
Precedents of such a barren approach to politics were set by the MDC-T, MDC-N and Dabengwa’s Zapu who forlornly wanted to make inroads into Matabeleland and Midlands by claiming the regions are “marginalised”.
All clueless politicians from Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and Dumiso Dabengwa regurgitated the ‘marginalisation’ mantra in a bid to cover up for their congenital failure to proffer viable political alternatives to ZANU PF’s people-centred policies.
Ncube went to an extent of trying to interchange the ‘marginalisation’ cliché with ‘devolution’. Not the type of devolution espoused by the new Constitution but a secessionist type of devolution designed to divide the country along tribal lines. All calls for secessionism or ‘devolution’ are a blatant mockery to the Unity Accord signed between the revered nationalists, President Robert Mugabe and the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo on December 22, 1987. Clearly, the proponents of tribal division cannot appreciate the palliative import of the Unity Accord. They are oblivious of the potential insurrectionary consequences of pushing for separate tribal states.
However, lessons abound on the inherent folly of trying to whip up ethnic emotions for political mileage. The gory 1994 ethnic genocide in Rwanda could serve as a regrettable yet didactic tragedy that must remind secessionists about the tragic and criminal dangers of promoting ethnic politics. At the same time, the gruesome 2007 — 2008 ethnic clashes in Kenya should be a constant reminder of the inefficacy of the oblique attempts to stoke tribal sentiments for political mileage.
After all, history has irrefutably shown that Zimbabweans have roundly snubbed and rejected secessionist political parties or political parties trying to push tribal agendas. Before the MRP, other secessionist organisations such as Matabeleland Liberation Organisation (MLO) led by Paul Siwela, Patriotic Union of Matabeleland fronted by Wilson Bacinyane and the Matabeleland Liberation Front (MLF) led by Zimbabweans exiled in South Africa tried to exert their crooked tribal influence but dismally failed to gain traction among the electorate.
Similarly, other political parties that wantonly pursued tribal politics in Matabeleland such as the MDC led by Welshman Ncube, ZAPU and the MDC-T were humiliated. Some of them even failed to garner a seat in a region they consider their stronghold.
The MDC emerged mortified from the 2013 elections without a single seat in Matabeleland or in any other province. This is despite the fact that it had openly and boisterously positioned itself as a Matabeleland region party. Instead, Zanu-PF, bouyed by its nationalistic appeal, managed to register significant inroads into Matabeleland and even bagged all the legislative seats in Matabeleland South province.
This was a clear and unadulterated message to the bigoted secessionists and their tribal parties. People want unity, development and peace. They frown at divisive politics and are not interested in parcelling out the country.
Secessionism is antipathetic to the incremental world consensus to erase artificial borders and create a global village that does not discriminate people on the basis of race, tribe or religion. To tear yourself from your country and the global community is backward and divisive. Secessionism and tribal politics fuel wars and internal stability.
Online Reporter