Nkomo diverts attention from serious national issues

Zimbabwe Times
31 May 2009
By Jakaya Goremusandu

THE debate over remarks by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo suggesting an imaginary theory to slice Zimbabwe into tiny territories is, to put it mildly, based on a puerile and careless intention to divert attention from pressing national issues that urgently require Zimbabwe to rise from its own ashes.

Nowhere in the MDC policy documents, private and public positions or even the party constitution is there a plan now or in future to dismember Zimbabwe into little pieces reflecting the supposed various ethnic demographics of the country. Over the past two centuries, Zimbabweans have developed a common blood among themselves through inter-marriages, other indelible links and complex kinships.
The MDC was born out of a vibrant civic movement, initially calling for comprehensive political and economic reform, none of which anchored itself on a secession agenda, or a separate geographical autonomy arrangement. The party mirrored a strong national sentiment for inclusion – away from the divide-and-rule tactics and the arrogance of Zanu-PF.

The subjunctive mood at the time knew no tribal or ethnic boundaries, hence the election of Gibson Sibanda, Welshman Ncube, Fletcher-Dulini Ncube, Esaph Mdlongwa, Paul Temba Nyathi, David Coltart – all Ndebeles – to the majority of top leadership positions in the party. At no time was the issue of Matabeleland a main building block of this comprehensive initiative, nor was there any need to brand the new party supporters, their views and their motivations, according to their ancestry.

It is common cause that when Mzilikazi and his warriors landed in what is today Zimbabwe, escaping the wrath of their Zulu kinsmen for whatever crimes they had committed in KwaZulu and barely 30 years before whites colonized the country, they did not bring along their women and children with them as they headed north, raiding and plundering.

They raided villages north of the Limpopo, pillaging for food and taking women hostage as sex slaves, domestic workers and wives. These women bore children and enabled the warriors to start new lives and new families. They raised offspring, needless to say, totally without any pure Zulu blood in them.
No Zimbabwean Ndebele person today can honestly claim to be totally free of the blood of the pre-1850 indigenous people they found north of the Limpopo at the time. It therefore does not make sense for anyone to push for an agenda that promotes the separation of Zimbabweans on the basis of some mischievous assumption that their ilk carries a completely separate identity: genetic, biological or otherwise.

In case Nkomo may not know, which is highly unlikely, there is, in fact, no tribe called the Shona. The word was a bastardized version of Mzilikazi’s warrior derision of the indigenous people whom they referred to as the AmaSvina, just as foreigners, especially non-Ndebeles from Zimbabwe in South Africa are unkindly called AmaKwerekwere today.

Acting on the advice of the Ndebeles, white hunters, missionaries and fortune-seekers, including Frederick Courtenay Selous – called the indigenous people Mashuna, that is, the people of Mashunaland. The word was widely then used to define the various clans whose language was made up of related dialects: the Korekore, the Zezuru, the Karanga, the Kalanga, the Ndau and the Manyika.
The key dialects of Shona are Kalanga, Karanga, Korekore, Manyika, Ndau and Zezuru. The Kalanga were cut off from the main concentration of the Shona people by the invading Ndebele. Their speech shows considerable influence from the Ndebele language, which now distinguishes Kalanga from the rest of Shona dialects. Kalanga is, for instance, the only Shona dialect to have the “l” sound; the rest of the Shona dialects have “r” only.

The word “man” is “murume” in Zezuru, Manyika and Karanga. In Kalanga it is “n’lume”, while in Ndebele they call a man “indoda”.

In November 2003 Gerald Chikozho Mazarire prepared a paper, “Who are the Ndebele and the Kalanga in Zimbabwe?” for the Konrad Adenuer Foundation’s Project on ‘Ethnicity in Zimbabwe’. He states in the paper that there is very little known about the Kalanga before the year 1800.

He says: “In conclusion the Ndebele and Kalanga are different people with entirely different origins, language and culture as has been demonstrated above. Their experiences however have of late come to be shared more often than not this has given rise to a common imagined identity of belonging among other things to Matabeleland. This imagined identity is however unique in its ability to appreciate and acknowledge differences between the two cultures.”

Zimbabweans with a good memory will recall that when Gibson Sibanda told a rally in Binga late 2005 that his breakaway MDC group had moved away from the mainstream MDC to fight for a separate state of Matabeleland, such utterances cost him and the faction, dearly. A few days later, Sibanda was confronted by, among others, Joseph Msika at Bulawayo airport and was advised to retract the statement and that he was misguided to talk about a separate Matabeleland.

Ordinary party supporters were left speechless by Sibanda’s views in Binga, for that matter, and this weakened the group’s support substantially in Matabeleland North and Bulawayo – as shown by the results of the 2008 council, parliamentary, senatorial and presidential elections in which Sibanda and almost the entire leadership of the Arthur Mutambara led MDC lost dismally. That they now stand in the forefront of Zimbabwe’s politics of national unity is testimony to the wicked machinations of former South African president, Thabo Mbeki.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Daily Mirror of November 8, 2005, quoted Sibanda – while campaigning for the controversial 2005 Senate election – as saying: “Ndebeles can only exercise sovereignty through creating their state like Lesotho, which is an independent state in South Africa and it is not politically wrong to have the state of Matabeleland in Zimbabwe.”

Although the Daily Mirror was a daily newspaper, it took the group’s official spokesman, Paul Themba-Nyathi, speaking perhaps on Sibanda’s behalf, 10 days to undertake some damage control, through the Zimbabwe Independent by merely saying: “… not only is the allegation untrue, it also appears to be a deliberate attempt by the newspaper to fan ethnic tensions in the MDC and the country as a whole”.
Back to Sipepa Nkomo.

It is true that Nkomo may be totally unaware of the founding documents and the main spirit behind the MDC as he is a recent arrival at the organization, notwithstanding his meteoric rise, even after with Welshman Ncube in October 2005 and returning to rejoin Tsvangirai early in 2006.

Tsvangirai must, therefore, be excused if he found himself completely surprised by Nkomo’s utterances in Lobengula this week. It appears they were meant to camouflage some unclear agenda to steer himself away from dealing with pressing water problems of Bulawayo, an assignment Nkomo must undertake as a matter of urgency under his Johnny-come-lately political leadership.

Nkomo has known problems of political credibility, given the corrupt activities for which he was forced to resign from the Mining Industry Pension Fund where he was chief executive in 2000. He miraculously escaped proper prosecution and possible conviction, given the abundance of published evidence that could easily have nailed him. He was still in court over the same case as recently as 2007. Nkomo’s credibility issues also arise from his dismal performance at Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, publishers of The Daily News, a newspaper which he arguably assisted then Information Minister, Prof Jonathan Moyo to destroy within months of Nkomo’s taking over as chief executive officer of the company.

Nkomo became minister by default at the last in February Minister after MDC president Tsvangirai was arm-twisted into dropping Eddie Cross from his line-up of cabinet ministers through a campaign about representation of Ndebeles orchestrated in online publications, especially The Zimbabwe Times.

In Lobengula this week Nkomo decided to speak about a matter that does not concern his constituents in order to occupy them with a mundane agenda at a time when 90 percent of those people are without work; they have no food; inadequate medical care; no school fees; and no access to their democratic rights because of Mugabe’s dictatorship – which they rightly think are priorities at the moment.

A separate state, federalism, devolution or outright secession is a warped theory which has been spontaneously rejected time and again by the people of Matabeleland and elsewhere in Zimbabwe. Older Zimbabweans will remember a party led by Chief Kayisa Ndiweni before and after independence in 1980 which put up a spirited campaign for a federal state. The party failed to obtain even a single seat in Parliament.

Bulawayo resident Paul Siwela has spent much of his adult life campaigning for a federal state in which Matabeleland could achieve what is in his mind a form of self-governing status. Siwela and his team have never won an election either, whether on the city council or for the national legislature. The people in this area dismiss him outright, with some even suggesting that he could be mentally unhinged, allegedly.

The argument for Ndebele separateness or quasi-autonomy is not only common currency among a few die-hard black tribalists in Matabeleland. White Rhodesians always had a fondness for the “manly” and “loyal” Ndebeles, who – according to eminent Zimbabwean historian Terence O Ranger – they contrast with the “treacherous” Shona.

After the 1980 election, writes Ranger in his book Voices from the Rocks, p. 253/4, some Bulawayo-based ex-Rhodesians found it intolerable that Matabeleland whites, together with the Ndebeles were to be under the rule of the “Shona” and Harare. A pertinent example is that of Bulawayo dentist Dr Frank Bertrand who in 1981 was prosecuted and convicted for pandering to some strange fantasies designed to hive-off Matabeleland from Zimbabwe by force.

Bertrand found himself embroiled in a fantastic conspiracy, which never excited the Ndebele people, when he went to Entumbane Hills to appeal to the spiritual powers of the late Princess Violet Khumalo whose powers Bertrand thought could be used to induce former Zipra fighters to a rebellion.

Violet was a direct descendant of Lobengula, being a grand-daughter of Famona, the daughter of Lobengula.

Many Zimbabwe have probably forgotten about Bertrand, but for the record, he told the court: “We had tried all the orthodox techniques. We had failed. So I tried to obtain the help of Princess Violet to obtain the state of Matabeleland.”

For his trouble Bertrand ended up in jail. Ndebeles, presumably including Sipepa Nkomo, hardly recognized or noticed his efforts.

New Zimbabwe.com, the website that exclusively carried the Nkomo proposal, quoted the water Resources Minister as saying the proposal had the backing of Tsvangirai and his mainstream MDC party.
The Lobengula MP told a constituency meeting on Monday that the MDC would be championing the proposals when the country draws up a new constitution. No other MDC official has so far independently confirmed Nkomo’s allegation.

It is arguable that Tsvangirai would be the last person to argue for separate development, given that his grandmother “MaTshuma” was an Ndebele in Buhera. Many may be unaware that two wards, together with their chiefs, in Buhera North have been a natural home for Ndebele people since the late 1940s. The story is that they were moved from Lalapanzi, north-west of Mvuma to make way for a white commercial farm. When the trucks that were taking them further south ran out of fuel near what is called Gwebo Business Centre today, they were dumped there and told to negotiate for asylum among the local villagers.

That is how they came to be permanently settled there.

Equally arguable is the fact that Tsvangirai has proved himself that he is not a tribalist. Five, out of seven, senior members of the inaugural leadership of the MDC in February 2000 had Ndebele ancestry. They were the vice president, secretary general, treasurer-general, organizing secretary and information and publicity chief. No tribal balance-sheet was used here to determine the type of leadership for the party. They were all Zimbabweans with a mandate to direct the affairs of an alternative political party, regardless of their places of family origin.

It is the same leadership, acting under secretary general Welshman Ncube, that deserted Tsvangirai in October 2005 to form a breakaway MDC party, which they later invited Arthur Mutambara to return to Zimbabwe and lead, with quite predictably disastrous consequences.

Unless the situation has changed so radically, there is no way Tsvangirai can agree with Sipepa Nkomo that the country be parceled out to various groupings. Even Tsvangirai himself, a descendant of the Ndau-Msikavanhu-Save clan, with roots along the Save River in the far south-east of Zimbabwe, could easily find himself without a territorial claim if the Nkomo plan were to become reality.

Zimbabweans have long moved away from ethnic out-bidding, score-settling and traditional tribal identities, common two centuries ago. The people cannot be seduced by the Nkomo idea – even if it may still appeal to some, today. The idea is totally unnecessary and an unmanageable proposition.
Above all, it is not the policy of the MDC, contrary to Nkomo’s claim.

“Here, we cry that we are marginalised,” Nkomo told his constituents on Monday. “The time is now to talk about regional governments.”

But, truly speaking, Nkomo did not do too badly in Harare. He landed the top job of chief executive officer of the wealthy Mining Industry Pension Fund. After he screwed that one up he miraculously landed the even more powerful post of executive chairman of ANZ. He screwed that one up as well. Meanwhile he had built a business empire of his own right in the centre of Harare. Now that he is back in Bulawayo, after he abandoned his family in the capital city, he complaints about being marginalised there.

Jonathan Moyo, hailing from the same Tsholotsho District as Nkomo, did not perform too badly in Harare either. In quick succession he spearheaded government’s constitutional amendment campaign in 1999, then took charge of Zanu-PF’s election campaign before landing the most influential job of Minister of Information.

He virtually became Mugabe Number Two. He was in charge of Zimbabwe Newspapers, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Ziana and the Community Newspapers Group. He appointed the nation’s editors and influenced the content of the main newspapers; that was apart from writing a regular and vitriolic column of his own under the pen-name Nathaniel Manheru.

Far from being marginalised in Mashonaland, Sipepa Nkomo and Moyo, in fact, marginalised many in both Mashonaland and Matabeleland. The fact that the majority of Zimbabweans have poor memories does not mean that their victims have all also forgotten.