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The editor ordered that I defer to a reader who wanted to exercise her right of reply over an instalment I had made two weeks before. I found the order from the editor just, fair and professional, and thus had no difficulties in complying with it. But the consequence was that I courted your ire, dear reader. You would have none of it, and you said so loudly. You even threatened to demand a refund, worse still, never to buy Saturday Herald ever again. Kwete kani, no matter how long a snake maybe, it never bites its own tail! Bepa nderenyu iri!
The lizard that must visit
This column was never meant to be a monologue, which is why reader reactions must be captured and to the extent possible, get published in the spirit of debate and fairness. After all, a robust column courts an equally robust response, the same way a man who carries an ant-infested log in the home must expect a visit from the lizard. In one formal forum, I argued that in essence, columns managed under pen-names or pseudonyms are traditionally a form of debating license. They are meant to push the vista of debate a little yonder, well beyond the ken of the expected, but without being hamstrung or trammelled by strictures of propriety, prejudice or protocol. The one foible we have as humans is that of debating the man, the woman, never the issue. Columns are journalism’s own ways of ensuring a no-holds-barred debate, ensuring a grappling with, and a full focus on, issues, free from limiting taboos, totems and patents. That way boundaries are crossed, fiery fiords tamed, taboos tested and profaned, all to create an environment more expressive, more permissive to testing and the circulation of ideas.
A little hidebound
Like any society, Zimbabwe is a bit hidebound in certain areas deemed sensitive, too sensitive for the probing mind, let alone the talking tongue. My late grandmother, upon the broaching of such sacred matters, would be on her legs, would look away from the mouth daring this unheard-of abomination before screaming “aah aah, aah”, in utter disbelief and disgust, face intoning with tortuous creases. Subjects like murmuring that mukadzi wasabhuku ane chikomba! If you stumbled on such a horrid find, however true, you never spoke; you even dreaded telling yourself, just in case your bosom might throb too loudly, and you are overheard by an unnoticed passerby.
Mukadzi chaiye!
One such taboo subject matter is the issue of the so-called Matabeleland and claims of its underdevelopment, relative to the rest of the country. While I just fell short of expressly accusing certain elements in leadership — and they are drawn from all political parties — for fuelling negative and potentially destructive sentiments on this one matter, I copiously implied it, which is probably why this matter has attracted such a robust response. I am happy I have been vindicated. The reaction published last week came from Honourable Misihairabwi-Mushonga, herself no small player in the politics of MDC-M, and those of the country. She is a full minister of the inclusive Government and she runs an important portfolio. She seems set to occupy an even higher post in the MDC-M, if vibes reaching me are anything to go by. In her response, she spoke her heart out and I am humbled by her praise of me, albeit one couched in patriarchal parlance I know her to detest. Above all, I am humbled by her honesty, reflecting in the sheer force of her counter-argument. How to return that compliment she gave me, is my quandary. Ndoti murume chaiye here kana kuti mukadzi chaiye? Help me!
A Ndebele of Karanga parentage
That this matter has been festering comes clearly through the Minister’s submission. That it prickles most in the leadership is confirmed by that submission. I happen to know she is not alone, not just in MDC-M, but in all political parties, which is why this taboo subject has to be broken. But she was the courageous one, and used her pen to strain that courage. The odds against her were stupendous, some of them pre-ordained and intrinsic to her nature. She can’t help being a daughter of a “muKaranga”, can she, whatever that pseudo-identity appellation means to her? True, she could have helped not being married to a muZezuru, but didn’t, again whatever that appellation means to her. Yet she took up the “Ndebele cause”, “cause yamadzisekuru”, again whatever that means to her. Her invidiousness becomes immediately obvious: she has to wage an argument against a larger fraction of her own being; she pushes an argument of the heart, against an argument for her parentage, further complicated by her marriage decision. She feels a Ndebele, only of a Karanga parentage.
Feeling forward, falling forward
Therein lies my point: one can feel anything, in spite of oneself, which is why I argue that one might as well feel forward, fall forward — not backward — to borrow Bishop Manhanga’s favourite saying. There is nothing intrinsically Ndebele or Shona, Karanga or Venda. It is only a feeling, a social construct often contradicted by one’s biological predicates. Feeling forward is to recognize new, progressive forms of social and political foci, forms and dynamics that are really shaping our reality as a neo-colony. Foci that are really shaping our political communities as political parties. Tribe and region are not such. Elections are about numbers. How then does one propose a marker and boundary that brackets out the numbers any political party seeks to capture power? Can MDC-M win on the basis of a “Ndebele” vote, whatever it is, if for once we assume there are people who vote because they are Ndebeles and do vote for a Ndebele party? Is it not instructive that in the business market, tribes and regions melt as all and sundry greedily rush headlong for this totem-less, tribe-less and above-colour thing called money?
Fallacy of comparisons
The point to stress is that Minister Misihairabwi-Mushonga is a perfect sample and answer for settling this senseless and potentially divisive argument. Her whole person brings out the argument’s nonsensical scope, which is why she is fatally mistaken to push for the opposite. Beyond her person, she stammers on social facts, or so she thinks. She juxtaposes Mpilo and Parirenyatwa General Hospitals, all to show that by comparison, Mpilo and with it, the people of Matabeleland, are hard done by. Curiously, she never compares Mpilo to general hospitals in Gweru, Mutare, Masvingo, etc, etc, which are a drab in comparison, when pitted against both Parirenyatwa and Mpilo. What should one extrapolate from such comparisons? Do these other hospitals have a right to be as aggrieved against Parirenyatwa as does Mpilo, aggrieved against Mpilo as Mpilo herself is against Parirenyatwa? Interestingly all these hospitals were built by Rhodesians. What is the story?
The day Mugabe and Msika clashed
The Minister cannot understand — outside reasons of tribe and region — why the heroes debate has had to be fought over the corpse of Gibson Sibanda, and not any of the other dead, who could not make it to the Acre. An anecdote will suffice. One unhappy Monday, somewhere in this country. I had the distinct misfortune of seating with the leadership, in a fairly exclusive meeting. Dambaza Chikerema, himself a muZezuru according to the minister’s typology, had just died and somehow, the issue of his likely status was broached. President Mugabe was the first to tender his view on the matter, which was decidedly against national recognition of the late departed. Late Vice President Msika disagreed, initially respectfully, later vehemently. But President Mugabe would have none of it and the temperature in the room rose, rose steadily to begin with, before rapidly leaping to furnace degrees. And with it, the once charming complexion of their eyes which gave up for a redder-than-tongs colour of belligerence. The two men squared up, shouting, with each moment of the altercation taking them higher, to a worse, hoarser domain. Soon, titles were dispensed with; then honorific prefixes were the next to go, until it all became “Robert” versus “Joseph”, unadorned.
Rude intellectuals, courageous ignoramuses
We all sat up, not quite sure whether and how to step in, to end this great irruption, this great breach in the national leadership inexorably taking a turn for the worse, worst even. “President”, charged VP Msika, “do you recall that all you intellectuals deserted the struggle when things really got tough — Nkomo included- and it was only me, Nyandoro, Chikerema, Nyagumbo and Tekere who bore the burden of the whole struggle? Mese makatiza muchizviti maintellectuals — vanaStanlake Samkange, vana Enoch Dumbutshena — and you would call us…, to mean ignoramuses, uneducated people driven more by brawn than by brains. You distanced yourselves and people like Chikerema stood firm. You intellectuals!” I cannot recall the actual pejorative word VP Msika used, by which the more courageous, more confrontational, yet less educated part within the nationalist ranks, was known. So angry was VP Msika that he lost his time sequence, forgetting this was about the time President Mugabe was out of the country, still to join the NDP of 1960, after a stint in Ghana. To him that did not matter and Mugabe was part of the continuing arrogance of intellectuals, still undermining of the courageous but “uneducated” fringe within the nationalist ranks.
Sacrifice, consistency, persistency…
The President shot back: “Precisely Joseph, the more reason Chikerema did not have to betray that same revolution towards which he had made such enormous sacrifices. Did he have to join hands with Ian Smith? Throwing bombs at us – in Mozambique, in Zambia – and celebrating about it? And becoming unrepentant about it right up to the end? You know very well, Joseph, that we all agreed in the Party to the principle of “consistency and persistence” as so key to our definition of national hero. You want Chikerema to sleep alongside macomrades avakabhomba? Tigoti tiri kuitei? Dambaza is my cousin and I will go to bury him kwaZvimba. Not kuHeroes Acre. Apo kwete! Inzvimbo yevakarwa hondo – those who sacrificed for the independence of this country, without faltering. Kana zvichizochinjwa nekuti varwi verusununguko vapera, ahh, ndezvimwewo izvo. Tirivapenyu kwete.” VP Msika relented, clearly unconvinced, still simmering at this effrontery of a longtime comrade, and all of us in that meeting were most grateful that the altercation had ended. Obviously Minister Misihairabwi-Mushonga would have never known about this since it was never published. The debate has been on for a long time, with positions taken a lot more complex than bears out the Matabeleland-Mashonaland dichotomy. Chikerema is not a Sibanda. He was the President’s cousin, the same way that the late Reward Marufu was his brother-in-law.
The beautiful girls from western Zimbabwe
Let me humour the Minister a little. In the early eighties, at the University of Zimbabwe, a raging debate, founded on similar premises. But unlike the present one, that one was full of comic relief and for that, our lot then was happier, so full of laughter, unlike the present generation. If the Minister’s counterpart — Honourable Welshman Ncube — is sincere and can remember the eighties, he will confirm what I am about to narrate. Generally, the western part of our country yielded better girls: more beautiful, more rotund, fairer skinned, than came from the rest of the country. They became the acme of womanhood, the dream of every beauty-seeing and chasing man. In them, brains met beauty, and conquering them became a worthwhile pursuit and enterprise. “Catching” them brought real, lasting fame and we all worked hard for that fabulous eventuality. But they were a hard lot to “catch”, however deep you trawled. They seemed to exist beneath the sea-bed! I have a sneaking feeling that with time, they began to know their worth, and chose to compound it a thousand-fold by flirting and playing hard to get. To our great detriment, we Shona tribesmen!
These “Shona” guys
In the parlance from the western part of the country, we were Shona guys, or worse. You know what word should insert here which is used to deride those from elsewhere other than the western part! How we became “shona” in love, or in any of its more discreet offices, no one ever quite said. But we lumbered on, that heavy millstone hanging about us, weighing us down, well beneath, and in full face of unrequited love. If you were brainy, that relieved your gloom, somewhat, and you prayed hard that the lecturer would give the class a hard proposition, so girls — hopefully at least a “Ndebele” one amongst them — would come to your room, consulting on the assignment. Breakthroughs were very few, and quite far in between, largely gracing and attending sons of eminent businessmen who could afford the means and flourish. For once loved, you had to be eternally grateful, which is why you had to be well resourced. But that was not the real challenge. Nor was it the Ndebele language, with all the ductility expected of one’s tongue.
An unromantic tribe of fricatives
The real challenge was non-acceptance by the male part of the “Ndebele” clan, instinctively wont to defending the perimeters of their women folk with such ferocity as daunted even the most eager. For much more than selfish, amorous reasons, they could not understand why their “girls” would be so foolish and so faulty as to oblige the hand of a “muShona”. Why Simangaliso, Why? How could you? How do you fall in love with people who say: “Ravhu”, instead of “Love”? How can a language without “L”, itself the first letter of “love”, yield a loving people? “I ravhu you”, is that what you fancy Ntombazana? Such an unromantic lot who cannot even produce real cattle for bride price? Only those “goats” from Mashonaland they call “hard Mashonas”? And looking at the Shona language, indeed this was true. A language so full of rough fricatives that jar on the tongue which must pronounce love! Looking at Mashona cattle, indeed they were small by comparison, tiny in fact to pass for decent currency for bride price! Soon, we realized the only defence open to us was laughter and we would laugh about it, Shonas and Ndebeles alike, all in very good, hearty measure. Of course I never succeeded in winning any such western daughter, much as the heart was pleadingly willing, repeatedly professing “I ravhu you” to so many, but all in vain. And yet a number of my colleagues were successful, and have been happily married ever since. That includes my uncle Mbire who, way back, married a distant cousin of the late Reverend Banana, the Honourable Minister’s own uncle. That girl from Plumtree is still alive, widowed, quite old, wheelchair-bound and happily residing in my village which is predominantly Shona. Mbuya maJoice we call her so affectionately. So much for this whole debate.
Wailing Biti
Last week Minister Tendai Biti suggested President Mugabe gave him a directive to prepare for elections in next year’s budget. He proceeded to indicate he had to set aside US$200 million, a figure he says suffices for the plebiscite, a figure he laments this economy, with its well-publicised anemia, ill affords. He sounded distraught, loudly wailing that precious resources which industry and commerce so sorely need, would, perforce, be foregone by way of this huge election budget. He wailed again in some forum this Tuesday.
MDC-T line of the day
Not to be outdone, the Prime Minister, in his capacity as leader of a faction of the MDC formation, suggested he and the President had agreed on parameters of the next election, against the backdrop of prevailing peace. He claimed they had agreed elections would be held next year, against an undertaking that the loser would not contest the result. It sounded like a self-chastisement, knowing as we do who is in the habit of contesting results, either through frivolous court action or boycotts. The Prime Minister’s statements from South Africa this week appear to show his formation has decided on elections-next-year as its line of the day. And of course the smaller formation of the MDC, that of Mutambara, is rattled to its entrails, kusvika kuhura utete, the small intestines! MDC-M knows that such an election, held “now”, would simply bury it.
MDC-T propaganda poll
But we also saw, in a clear build-up to this “great” line, the release of phony opinion poll results, reportedly culled from a survey commissioned by Alpha Media Holdings, Trevor Ncube’s struggling publishing house, for MDC-T. And you could not lose the sequence. On the day of founding of Rhodesia — 11 September — the MDC-T commemorated its 11th anniversary in Gokwe. Two days later — and fortuitously — AMH opinion pollster releases a result so sweet to MDC-T which had an anniversary the weekend before. Before the anniversary itself, AMH — again fortuitously — had organized a breakfast meeting at which Biti claims the presidential directive on elections. The interlarding of press and politics is so clear to invite any argument. It is called orchestration and given the response from many Zimbabweans, including the business community, it is clear we are still not able to read the shallow drama of politics. You create knots, create a tangle, only to selflessly unravel it, to great relief. Such is
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Biti: Cutting the bough of one’s perch
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politics’ own sense of complication and heightening suspense, themselves features of traditional drama. And both optimize and maximize attention, don’t they, itself the chief goal for an anniversary. A good many are scared, but not all. Let us lay the hard, bare facts for you.
The directive that was never given, never needed
No directive was issued as none was needed. And when it is needed — and it shall some day — it shall be given to the responsible minister who definitely is not Minister Biti. Read the Constitution. You do not need to get lost. The steps for calling for an election, or preparing for one, are so clearly laid out that none need be confused. When Minister Biti sought the President’s audience, all in the name of the budget, clearly he had something on his mind, something linked to the anniversary which his formation was about to hold. It had nothing to do with the President, himself the leader of Zanu (PF), a rival party. Or the budget, itself a Government document. But Biti sought to use the budget and the President — conscript both into the anniversary script of his party. In that meeting he was solicitous, very solicitous. He still is, as late as this Tuesday, not as a minister of Government, but as a functionary of a party, which is why he can’t be spared by this column.
Different forums, same party, same interlocutors
The whole charade at the breakfast meeting with business people had little to do with business. It was all politics, political drama with him as the only protagonist, pitted against his solicitations. The eye was on the anniversary which unfolded against the backdrop of a deep schism. Hence Biti’s histrionics, all calculated towards making an impression at that anniversary. Histrionics which Tsvangirai – his supposed boss — sought to bedim through a rival business meeting held a mere day later, organized by his staff. Can someone explain to me why a Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance — better still a president of a small party and his secretary general – could not share one platform of an event whose interlocutors are the same, from the smallest to the biggest? Open your eyes Zimbabwe and see the small, poor game in town.
Flying the kite
Biti came with false budget papers, themselves a pretext for picking the President’s brains on a partisan political matter. The President — an old dog that has seen all tricks — decided a day of little play with a naughty puppy. Poor Biti got a mechanical answer, steeped in the law about which he claims competence. What does the GPA say, asked the President, in an apparent answer? This is what set the minister and his party agog, what got the President to shape the faction’s agenda. Enjoy it. Later Biti sought to try again by broaching the matter yet again, elsewhere, and again he fell flat on his face, meeting with stolid indifference. But hey, it’s been a boon for Zanu (PF). Once thrust into panic mode, the formation has gone into overdrive, laying bare most of its weaponry. It is called flying the kite.
Don’t want, can’t want
If truth be told, MDC-T does not want an early election, cannot want it. It is at its most disorganized, its most fractious. The election jingo is an attempt to rally its scattered troops, giving them some little focus. Its negotiation team – and Biti is a member – long told both Zanu (PF) and MDC-M that they do not want an early election, earlier than 2013, adding given who their foreign customers are, they would rely and depend heavily on Zanu (PF) and MDC-M to block elections. Meanwhile their local customers would not want early elections, preferring to give time for the tender “shoots” of the economy to grow and strengthen. They have to be placated. Against this bind, the responsibility for wanting or not wanting to have elections can never come from MDC-T, or be owned by it. MDC-T can only blame the other parties, preferably Zanu (PF), for wanting or not wanting elections. As things stand, Zanu (PF) is expected to deny or confirm the so-called directive, and either way, it gives MDC-T a face, albeit without saving it, power without corresponding responsibility.
So many odds, so little ends
MDC is a divided party, badly divided to a point of splitting up. That is one odd. It is not an organic party and Copac activities have done so well to expose its lack of organizational depth. That is another odd. It is a party on the wane, precipitously so, which is why it fled to Gokwe it deems a more hospitable temporary shelter. The unwritten story behind the fatal accident which claimed three lives is the fact of bussing supporters from outside Gokwe, all to make an impression. The four and half thousand who attended is just about the party’s national shrinkage mathematically. And Trevor’s MDC survey confirms this. “Many” people interviewed, if any interviews were sampled at all, declined to say who they would vote for, something the formation is worrying about. Yet another odd. MDC-T has courted new opponents, and is likely to lose the western Zimbabwe vote which shall be shared between Zanu (PF), itself, Zapu and MDC-M. This will have a marked impact on the final outturn. Yet, yet another odd.
Damp squib at Gokwe
Judging by messages on which the formation sought to sell itself in Gokwe, clearly, it is struggling for credible claims. So wont to seek votes on how bad and misgoverning Zanu (PF) “is”, the party finds itself in Government and what is worse, giving a frightening glimpse of what it would do if let closer to the till. Lots of thieving going on. And all this is before one even considers what Zanu (PF) and other parties will do to enhance their electability. A party with a strategy and a message can never yield a leader who goes all the way to South Africa for a British Economist organized seminar to tell his frantic British investor audiences that indigenization will proceed on “willing-seller-willing-buyer” premises. Such a British concept? Such a discredited concept? From a party claiming to have dug a hole and spat out its misdeeds, spat out the British evil spirit that sits it? My goodness! How harder can one cut the bough one sits on?