My first reaction to the review and critique of the book is that I am extremely thrilled and grateful for observations provoked by the book. Jerry Zondo’s review of the book greatly strengthens the views raised in it more than it detracts from the thrust of the book. Dr Samukele Hadebe’s critique, while applying the standard “kiss and bite” balance, has some elating remarks about the book.
BY JONATHAN MAPHENDUKA
While observing the absence of reference to historical work on Mthwakazi and other processes, Hadebe pays the book the greatest compliment: “. . . this book scores a first in many ways than one”. He continues: “This work is perhaps the first of its kind to reveal unambiguously that the Matabele nation has suffered two genocides in a century and the British hand is visible on both occasions. The book presents the strongest advocacy so far for the right to self-determination of Mthwakazi people.”
Another feature of the book for which Hadebe is full of praise is the choice of its title “which aptly sums up cruelty that characterised the subjugation of the vanquished Ndebele people”. On positive remarks about the book, Hadebe ends by saying it can only provoke focus on the so-called ‘Matabeleland Question’ about which there are more whispers than outspoken debate.
Are these perennial whispers unlikely to lead to something even more tragic than the two genocides that have preceded the timing of the book, observers may question.
On the negative side Hadebe accuses the author, among other things, of being simplistic, failing to substantiate his claims and recognise historical “fact” from which the author should have drawn to bolster the potential power of the book. I must in passing observe that this negates and contradicts all the marvelous remarks he has recorded for the book. I am a man of little education and perhaps this so-called simplistic trait comes from the fact I can hardly claim to be in the league of Hadebe’s. But the lack of that level of education, particularly in the field of history, cannot take away from me the ability to observe the injustices to which the people of Mthwakazi have been subjected to in a short 100 years.
I will deal at greater length with this and other uncomplimentary remarks later in this narrative. But I must be quick in admitting that the book was not intended to be a historical blueprint or textbook, nor do I claim to be a historian. But I must add that even those remarks on the negative side do strengthen the focus of the book in a strongly discernible manner.
One of my expectations is that the book should draw the attention of the government of Zimbabwe, particularly since one of the first people to acquire the book in circumstances that one can only describe as fatal, is an official of the government of Zimbabwe responsible for information. In a chance meeting in a public place during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair 2015 week, I was holding a copy of the book which he quickly appropriated.
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Because the book proposes secession or whatever one may choose to call it, it has not been welcomed openly in Bulawayo. No one wants to be associated with distribution of a book that broaches a subject so emotive and far removed from government thinking and expectations. And so its limited distribution so far has been a kind of “cloak and dagger” exercise directly to friends and acquaintances. So the aura of fear that the government may ban the book, arrest the writer and charge him with treason or worse, remains a source of worry. But that has to be dispelled because the book emphasises self-determination which all people of the world uphold, (see break-ups in Russia, Checkoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Morocco, etc).
It has been my hope since that meeting with the official in a full public house where we were seen hugging and back-patting like long-lost brothers; he would post a critique of the book on the internet. That would greatly help me to anticipate the government’s mood on the book. The “Big Brother is Watching You” fear naturally remains with me, especially after his failure to return my call as promised when I finally got through his mobile after his return from Russia on Tuesday where he had accompanied President Robert Mugabe. This has heightened the aura of fear and left me wondering whether this should be taken as an indication that government may have decided to ignore the existence of the book or move surreptitiously against the author.
Let us return to Hadebe’s critique. He asserts that the issue of dismissing colonial adventures while at the same time drawing upon colonially-designed boundaries is contradictory. Contradictory to what?
I must say it is only contradictory to the mind of those whose design is to ignore and oppose boundaries that Hadebe says were declared sacrosanct by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The ruling elite in Zimbabwe cannot be credited with having had a hand in the drawing of boundaries around the land in which they are rulers. Only Mthwakazi can claim that credit. The Jameson Line was recognised by the Berlin Treaty of 1885 and duly ratified in Paris in 1886. If it is true that the OAU advised members that colonially-designed boundaries should be sacrosanct, why not the Jameson Line?
Hadebe accuses the writer of selectivity in justifying the case for self-determination. The same could be said about the OAU and its successor. What was the extent of the ruling elite’s sphere of influence before they handed Mashonaland to the British to become her second protectorate in Southern Africa in 1890? Would Hadebe perhaps like to explain the hegemony that was prepared by the commission of genocide against the people of Mthwakazi?
The answer to the question why the writer has chosen now to push for self-determination can be answered by referring to South Sudan, Eritrea and Barfor. It is tyranny and other stubborn factors arrayed against the subjugated under the rule by conquest that often militates against the timing of a call for self-determination. But the timing must come sooner or later. The audacity of the conquered to call for change should be recognised, encouraged rather than knocked or swept under the carpet.
As for the kingdom’s relations with neighbours, I must be the first to admit they were not always, in every case, cordial. But even Hadebe will agree that the Grobbellar Treaty pursued peace with the Transvaal, and so was the John Moffat Treaty that established friendship with Bechuanaland. The Zambazi River as a boundary between Mthwakazi and Barotseland was cordially established and maintained to this day, with Zimbabwe rejecting only the Jameson Line.
There can be no argument about the social organisation of the Ndebele people. The tiny minority of AbeZansi indeed practised tribalism against the so-called Abetshabi or AmaHole. Thanks to King Mzilikazi Khumalo, this in due course became a thing of past through the king’s policy of isizwe kaselukwe (let the nation be knit together), a stratagem that rejected tribalism. This gave rise to the name Selukwe, often wrongly pronounced as Selukhwe. Under the Republic of Mthwakazi there would be kings and queens, but the royalty will not be limited to the Nguni kingdom.
This perhaps explains why Mthwakazi is not pursuing the Nguni kingdom as a system of future governance. But this does not detract from the fact that the Nguni royal family did send a delegation led by Prince Nyamande to London in 1918 to petition the Privy Council to restore its kingdom. The Privy Council dismissed the petition and prepared the ground to annex Mthwakazi and grant self-government to Southern Rhodesia.
Even those people who have no sympathy with Mthwakazi must admit that the annexation handed to the people of Mashonaland a land to which they had no legitimate claim over by any standards or record. The British has retained in its statutes the Rule by Conquest Act and, amazingly, the Patriotic Front leaders did not question Britain’s motive when negotiating the 1979 Constitution, giving Zimbabwe’s future rulers a golden opportunity to commit genocide when it suited them with of course the active support of their co-operating partners, the British. Is Hadebe saying this was a mere accident of history?
Hadebe accuses the writer of “creativity with onomastics” and singles out for mention the matriarch Queen MuThwa who is described as a mere myth. I must assure Hadebe that there is enough known about her to justify the name Mthwakazi. If he is ignorant of the fact that there was no such thing as Matabeleland in Mthwakazi before 1894, he can hardly give himself licence to suggest that the book exists because of the writer’s creativity. What about the writer’s belief in Mthwakazi’s cause?
Hadebe finds the writer’s reference to Zezurisation (a term coined by the late Edson Zvobgo) of the governance as unfounded and repugnant, perhaps to him as well as to other opponents of nationalism whose failure spawned the breakaway from Zapu to form Zanu in 1963. In all my writings about the death of African nationalism in Zimbabwe, I have always referred to this episode as a grouping of what I have persistently called an Axis of Tribalism embracing three ethnically related tribes dominated by the Zezuru. The language we know as Standard Shona is nothing but Zezuru by another name.
The support the Zezuru people give Zanu PF which is indeed dominated by them is not repugnant to them. Why is reference to Zezurisation repugnant to Hadebe who, whether he likes or not, is indeed a victim of the ruling elite’s machinations against the people of Mthwakazi? Why is a new capital being planned for Mount Hampden on the edge of Zvimba district if not to accentuate the Zezuru power in the government? If the country needs another capital and has money to develop it, why not consider locating it elsewhere in the country, like Great Zimbabwe, for instance? Hadebe’s assertions cannot be articulated without risking the pitfall of bias.
The prominent Ndebele people who are “club members of the ruling elite” are in my view powerless collaborators in a system of governance that is designed for their oppression. In fact, they are a bunch of self-seekers who know where their bread is buttered. Indeed the people of Mthwakazi are victims of segregation and domination as a tribe and for anyone to suggest that they “cherish nomenclature that views people in narrow ethnic lenses” is a gross distortion of reality. What people, one may ask? Their oppressors perhaps! I remain unpersuaded that the so-called prominent Ndebele are not driven to become collaborators by anything other than self-interest.
The land reform continues to be used to occupy Matabeleland while preserving the rest of the country for members of the Axis of Tribalism. In Mthwakazi chiefs have been put in the cold storage while civil servants and security arms of the government have ensured people uplifted from other regions get Ndebele land. I believe this is a height of short-sidedness.
Last but not least, let me deal with the suggestion that I am among those who are not grateful for what late Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo did for this country. There is no more ardent admirer of the man than I, and his kindness to me and the respect he accorded me – a man outside political activism – will be remembered for the rest of my life.
In Page 54 of the book I question Nkomo’s judgment in accepting 20 seats for Matabeleland which was equal to what the white community got for l0 years, while he did not last two years in the government in which his party was included for 18 months at the behest of Lord Soames. The curtailment of Zapu’s term in the government marked the beginning of Gukurahundi operations in Matabeleland. Perhaps the most glaring lack of good judgment on the part of the Zapu leader came when he signed the Unity Accord in 1987 which gave Mugabe the leadership of the “new” party (un-negotiated) still named Zanu PF.
This was at a time when Nkomo still enjoyed the undivided support of the people of Matabeleland and the Midlands. Zanu PF, in its 1979 Grand Plan document, called the unity accord a political suicide for Nkomo, and perhaps the ultimate betrayal of the people of this region he sought to protect without any guarantees. After Nkomo died in 1999 they joined the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai, confounding Zanu PF and its hobby horse that the people of Matabeleland are tribalists. Petrified with fear that they would be painted with the brush of tribalism, they have since left the MDC for Zanu PF. Most of them abhor the party’s philosophy, but are too fearful to challenge it or defect from it. It is clear that his actions in the Unity Accord were determined by fear of being reduced to the status of a provincial leader. But he need not have worried because his power was in the hands of his people and his honour would have remained un-bruised by insults at the hands of Zanu PF leaders.
There is no suggestion in the book that Nkomo should have returned from London to pursue another Katanga or Biafra in Zimbabwe as Hadebe would have his readers believe. And of course Katanga and Biafra were mere provinces of their respective countries and their adventures cannot be used to draw comparison with Mthwakazi.
Email: jkmaphenduka @ gmail. Com Cell 263772 332 404.
