Balkanisation of Matabeleland

By The Standard and Newsday | Oct. 14, 2014

WHEN Binga Rural District Council announced the banning of teaching of Ndebele language in its schools the move was welcome and condemned alike.

Government spokespersons said time was not ripe for the move while proponents of the move said it was long overdue, whether the government liked it or not. There are merits and demerits on both sides of the argument.

What was left unsaid, however, was the possibility that Binga’s move marked the beginning of balkanisation of Matabeleland by language which must be condemned because it would take away from the people their natural audacity to hope for the better because balkanisation is the ally of sectarianism which must be condemned.

The question must be asked therefore whether there are forces at work to balkanise Matabeleland by language to identify those of its people who, it is perceived, do not belong.

This process can only lead to hatred among ethnics in the region. It would therefore be an act and height of folly to attempt to divide the people in this fashion. Obert-Mpofu-etched Such a move has the potential of turning our neighbours into our opponents and, in the event of any future political violence in the region, will justify United Nations intervention to bring peace.

Binga’s move therefore smacks of the time-honoured art to divide and rule. If the people of Binga are backward (and there are many observers who will testify to that fact), they can hardly be blamed on the teaching of Ndebele in the district.

If they do not know this already, then they must be told that they can blame it all and squarely on both the white colonial government and the Zanu PF government of Zimbabwe.

When Binga dropped the bombshell of the ban, many observers expected Bulilima and Mangwe to follow suit. But that honour was snatched away from the district by the announcement that the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Pollytech is to launch the teaching of four local languages in the region including Kalanga.

Keep Reading

There is no discernible evidence that tribes in other regions of the country are about to follow Binga’s lead.

Why is the teaching of indigenous languages in this balkanising fashion desirable in Matabeleland and not elsewhere in the country if the move is not a political design to divide and rule?

The move by the institution provokes another nasty question: Is the guiding principle and charter of this national institution a mere impulse to degrade itself to the level of a purely regional centre by promoting the teaching of local indigenous languages of a region when teacher training colleges should be doing just that?

One cannot avoid the conclusion that the motive behind the adoption of this policy by the institution is political in design and therefore divisive in intent and should be condemned.

Not many people will be fooled by the pretence that cultural development is the motive behind the move. Why has it taken Binga 34 years to ban Ndebele in their schools?

Earlier in the year Transport minister Obert Mpofu (pictured) was rudely told by another Member of Parliament to “speak in Shona” when he responded to questions on the resurfacing of the Hell Run, the Harare-Masvingo Highway on which so many lives have been lost.

Unriled by the call, Mpofu replied (to his credit) in his own tongue. It provoked another hilarious exchange in a house in which many honoured members earn their daily bread by dozing off instead of contributing to matters of national import.

This episode exposed another jig-saw puzzle in the battle of languages that has heightened since the memorable landslide election win by the ruling Zanu PF over a year ago.

The most recent salvo in the battle was fired by Nelson Chamisa in the House of Assembly the other day and fellow Karanga Emmerson Mnangagwa took up the cudgels and fired back.

This provoked more mirthful drama in a house that is famous for near-fist fights across the political divide.

This kept even the old guard in the house wide awake. The only member who showed little interest in the dramatic Karanga shenanigans matching Chamisa against Mnangagwa was one “born-free” MP from Manicaland who, with his chin resting on the palm of his hand, seemed to be contemplating something outside the house.

This left many observers wondering whether this generation of the people’s representatives has any sense of humour! How could the young MP listlessly ignore the sweet drama unfolding between a purporting democrat and a practising revolutionary!

Chamisa, it seemed, was unhappy about the use of a language as a political instrument. Mnangagwa disagreed and said something that sounded uncomplimentary about Chamisa’s generation.

If I understood the meaning and point of Chamisa’s argument well, is it the feeling among tribes outside Matabeleland that their languages should not continue playing second fiddle to Shona?

If indeed I misunderstood the point he was trying to make, why is it the government has not moved to promote the teaching of chiHera in Buhera or Ndau in parts of Chipinge, for an example?

This would remove the real suspicion that the government is balakanising tribes in Matabeleland by language to divide the people of this region. I am not putting an unsavoury spin on Binga’s move.

I am constrained by the lack of evidence that the move by Binga was not initiated by a political hand to win the support of the people of that district.

It goes without saying that the Ndebele language currently taught in Binga schools becomes a scapegoat in a hidden political game to hoodwink the people.

People of the region stand in need of assurance by the government that there is no move under way to divide and rule the people of Matabeleland using their cultural differences.

Zanu PF is the only political party that stands to gain in any fallout between the proponents of Tonga in Binga schools and those who refuse to see the move as anything but a design to make Ndebele the scapegoat for the backwardness in the district.

Zimbabwe is plagued by hard choices to change the sectarian course its leaders chose in 1963. This course threw overboard the policy of African nationalism that had popularly been pursued by nationalists during the previous 10 years of the liberation struggle.

African nationalism was the only historical phenomenon that popularly united the people of Zimbabwe without resorting to instruments of coercion. Sectarianism, on the other hand, is a policy that has already led to violence in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands.

If the country’s leaders do not regret that episode in the country’s short history, the pursuit of sectarianism will precipitate a repeat of that bloody patch of our post-independence history.

The only way to avoid a repeat of violence is for the ruling party to radically change course, by stepping back from the brink to which sectarianism must inevitably lead the country.

(Just in case Jonathan Moyo is watching and thinks I am proposing regime change, let me hasten to say I am not. Regime change will come, not through a political party but through a revolution in its own season. It cannot be proposed or initiated through the prowess of a mere political party. Because revolution is not a patented monopoly of one political party . . . It is a spontaneous reaction of the people when they can bear oppression no more. Regime change as a slogan therefore should be shunted to obscurity of all clichés. Only fools therefore attempt to initiate or organise revolution.)

During the murky past of the colonial era the Department of Native Affairs decided to reduce the multiplicity of local languages and dialects by introducing what they called standard Shona for those regions of the east and south-east, with Ndebele chosen for the west and south-west.

Standard Shona is nothing, but chiZezuru in another name. Ndebele however is not standard Nguni as some fly by night historians have suggested in their adulterated history of the language and its people.

The move by the Department of Native Affairs had a devastating effect on the development and teaching of other local dialects in this region. Standard Shona was not dropped at independence in 1980. And Ndebele also remained the language for those areas of the country for which it was designated.

This rationalisation of course became an over-simplification of complex problems inherent in the development of a language. You need books, for instance, to cope with the multiplicity of dialects.

Some of the problems can be fixed by adopting a national – as opposed to sectarian- approach to the problem.

But if you decided to introduce Tonga in Binga and left chiHera, Korekore or Ndau in the standard Shona basket, your motives become suspect.

Perhaps the only notable change in the fabric of national life today is that the country no longer implores God to save the queen of our oppressors! But how far can you go on coercing a people to sing a national anthem of their oppression?

The time-honoured art of divide and rule, however, remains in place and in many respects is being intensified by the application of a policy that divides the people by their ethnic diversity.

An interesting phenomenon is the general backwardness of the people of Matabeleland. This is true despite the fact that, 33 years before the Pioneer Column established a British Protectorate in Mashonaland on September 12 1890, Inyati Boys’ School was established to teach industrial subjects including road construction and mining.

Hope Fountain Mission and Empandeni Mission followed for girls.

And yet these three schools have not provided a catalyst to move the people out of the woods of backwardness. The schools themselves have not moved with time and their intended beneficiaries have remained mired in backwardness.

Can the Privy Council’s Matabeleland Order that gave this region its name in 1894 and ushered in the rule by conquest be blamed for the people’s lack of advancement? Yes, and no, is the answer.

The rule by conquest was anchored on the system of segregation and the schools that had been established to promote advancement were allowed to decline and become ruins instead.

But the authority of the British colonial government and the Privy Council’s instrument of rule by conquest (should have) ended with independence in 1980.

I am wandering away from Binga’s point and effect.

The other dialects within the standard Shona sphere of influence took a crushing blow and were reduced to the local level mode of expression, with minimal adulteration. The Dutch mission station of Morgenster Mission, for instance, was a leader in the promotion of Karanga as a local medium of learning and record.

The Department of Native Affairs ordered the mission to cease publication of Karanga textbooks. In the west/south-west sphere Ndebele was chosen as the local language of record and communication among the locals.

This left 11 or so other local dialects out of the school curriculum.

Binga’s move, however, is not necessarily sinister. It becomes so if there is a political underhand move to heighten ethnic differences. There is therefore a looming expectation that local culture will increasingly dictate moves to overthrow the (colonial) old order to assert their right to cultural purity.

There is nothing really wrong with that possible development as long as an embracing national outlook is the guiding principle to national aspirations with all the people treated equally.

Zimbabwe cannot afford to continue with the policy of segregation within itself.