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Of
Margaret Thatcher goodness and ZANU [PF] voodoo oracular politics
Rejoice
Ngwenya
April 15, 2013
The Zanu PF
narrative on Zimbabwe’s liberation history is flawed; deliberately
marinated in partisan subjectivity. Zimbabweans are accustomed to
propaganda of one Zezuru mhondoro [lion spirit] medium called Mbuya
Nehanda Nyakasikana Charwe now appropriated historically as a Zanu
PF prop, being responsible for ‘triggering’ the wars
of liberation. A glaring omission reverberates throughout this perforated
theory - the role of Ndebele King Lobengula as the bedrock of resistance.
The first ‘liberation’ war was fought between 1893 and
1894 pitting predatory Settlers and compliant Shona chiefs against
the King’s highly regimented Amajaha Warriors.
We are further told Mbuya Nehanda was executed by Rhodesian settlers
for inspiring other Zezuru mhondoro like Sekuru Kaguvi and Chaminuka.
This elevates the role that the Shona tribe played in resisting
colonialism while we should scorn Lobengula for ‘selling the
mother land’ to devious Cecil John Rhodes. The ‘evil
white man’ narrative is later bestowed onto Ian Smith and
‘five thousand white commercial farmers’ who are said
to have perpetuated colonial greed. Notice how this racist theory
strategically ignores industrialisation of the colony! ZANU-PF historians
even perpetuate the illusion that no ‘real’ Ndebele
heroes participated in the 1970’s liberation struggle by habitually
amplifying Mugabe’s role at the expense of Joshua Nkomo.
I am not a historian, but when Zanu PF despises someone and praises
another, I get suspicious. Baroness Margaret Thatcher died and Didymus
Mutasa – Robert Mugabe’s rabid vuvuzela – told
the world how this ‘nice white woman’ had been good
to Zanu PF by ‘promising to pay for land reform’. Ironically,
Joshua Nkomo’s liberation warriors dismiss Mutasa’s
hallucinations. And for good reasons: first, they question the truth
of Zanu PF’s claim that Thatcher promised to bankroll farm
plunder; second, they insist Thatcher helped Zanu PF rig the 1980
election in order to keep the pro-Soviet Union ZAPU out of power.
ZAPU historians accurately blame Thatcher of being smitten with
the so-called Mugabe aristocracy she not only ignored the Gukurahundi
genocidal exploits of his Zanu PF in Matabeleland but also rewarded
the dictator with a Knighthood.
I do not look at liberation history through Mutasa’s political
prism. This would lure me into Zanu PF’s trap of condemning
all ‘whites as land thieves and robbers’. My point however
is; even if Thatcher had promised to pay for land reform and reneged
on that promise, it took MDC popularity in 2000 to suddenly jolt
Mugabe and Zanu PF into remembering this promise. What is more amusing
is how Zanu PF, for the first time since 1980, suddenly saw the
‘real’ devil in the white man, so much so that Mugabe
and his war veterans were overwhelmed with the ‘oracular spirit’
of Mbuya Nehanda to ‘take back our land’. The methodology,
zest, anger, destruction and bloodletting were so demonic that even
those ZANU-PF sympathisers who profess to be Christians succumbed
to Nehanda’s spirit of vengeance! No wonder Rotina Mavhunga,
the ‘spirit medium’ who lied about diesel oozing from
a rock sold her illusion to Zanu PF leaders Didymus Mutasa, Kembo
Mohadi and Sydney Sekeramayi. Belief in anything oracular has damned
our country to voodoo politics.
God designated Zimbabwe a Christian country yet Mugabe and ZANU-PF
have embroiled us in an orgy of oracular politics. We allowed them
to evoke mhondoro spirits into the narrative of liberation. The
devil himself, Lucifer, has taken personal charge of our elections,
land reform and indigenisation so as to destroy the humanity in
us. Look at where we are in now, the abyss of de-industrialisation,
hatred and poverty.
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