By Nick Mangwana
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| ZANU PF UK Chairman; Cde Nick Mangwana |
A necromancer is a sorcerer that communicates with the dead.
The last couple of weeks saw a lot of people opposed to President Mugabe turn into
necromancers. They suddenly started to communicate with the departed luminaries
of the Zimbabwean nation. They knew what George (Tjilundika) Silundika (MHSRP)
wanted. They became experts on the
wishes of Chibwechitedza Dr Nkomo (MHSRIP). They started representing the
wishes of JZ Moyo (MHRSIP) and John Landa Nkomo (MHSRIP).
You see comrades,
after mentioning the names of the dearly departed and revered there is MHSRIP, meaning
that May His Soul Rest in Peace. Surely
those self-appointed necromancers who have a morbid obsession with the macabre
should let our heroes rest in peace. As
far as political morality or lack of it is concerned, the obsession with the
macabre has been taken to a different level by those that propose that the
graves of heroes should be desecrated because President Mugabe said something
about our Kalanga compatriots that is now deliberately quoted out of context.
In 1978 General Josiah Magama Tongogara was interviewed by a
reporter of the Zimbabwe news. Among many other things he was asked about his
personal views on the leadership under whom he worked. He said a lot of unflattering things about
Ndabaningi Sithole and also had no kind word about Abel Muzorewa. He spared his
greatest admiration for Chairman Chitepo and President Mugabe. This is what he said, “The late Hebert Chitepo
cannot be compared to Sithole. Although he had grown up at a mission school and
became one of the leading intellectuals of Zimbabwe, he quickly adapted to the
needs and demands of the revolution. He mixed freely with the people and
listened to their grievances. During his 9 years of leadership of Zanu he
became a father of the party. More importantly he understood and internalised
the process of the revolution. Robert Mugabe, the present leader of Zanu is a
self-confident and principled man. He cannot be moved from the principles he
holds, or from collective decisions of his organisation. His practice is firmly
set against tribalism and regionalism; he judges issues on their merits, not on
colour, tribe or region of the person that has brought them up. Zanu is blessed
to have such a leader"
There you are reader. In the words of the illustrious
General; As if he knew that the time will come when he would have to defend his
leader beyond the grave. The President is not a tribalist or regionalist. Of all the things the General could have
talked about the dwelled on the issue of tribalism and regionalism. So whoever
chooses to project President Mugabe as a tribalist or regionalist is also
accusing General Tongo of dishonesty or naivety. When words of icons are preserved they become
oracles when they pass on. This is why there is a lot of support to the
pressure for the President to write or at least record his memoirs for
posterity. He needs to speak from beyond the grave. Not some future distortions
from people with narrow political agendas as is happening.
Now the words of the General Tongogara do not need a
necromancer to bring us back. They are a matter of public record. Let us go
back to those that believe that the desecration of the memory and the person of
the late Father Zimbabwe is a political weapon to be used. The word desecration was used here because
the moral reprehensible suggestion does just that; desecrate the memory and
honour the late Vice President so deserves because he so earned it. The word "desecration is defined as is the "act
of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful,
contemptuous, or destructive treatment of that which is held to be sacred or
holy by a group or individual.”
Now just the idea of taking the interred remains of this
revered individual from the sacred place of national entombment to some village
elsewhere is trying to turn a national leader into a village politician. Dr
Nkomo lived and had a house in Highfields, a predominantly Shona Township. He
viewed that as part of Zimbabwe and felt he belonged there as much as he
belonged in Kezi or Bulilima. Allowing some Bronco drunk political malcontents
to make lurid and gruesome suggestions for their own political expedience and
creation of sensationalism is just profanatory.
The debate of whether Dr Nkomo was Kalanga or not is not one
for this piece. The point is did
President Mugabe avoid appointing any person to his inner circle
(cabinet/politburo) because they were Kalanga? The answer is a resounding no.
Because the mark of bigotry is active discrimination and marginalisation. On social media a famous professor with
Kalanga pedigree has been busy fighting this type of ignorance. George Silundika was a Kalanga and that did
not stop President Mugabe from appointing him to his very first cabinet. On his
untimely death he was buried at the Heroes Acre as a Zimbabwean Hero. It didn't
matter whether he was Kalanga or not. It just matters now because those that
are obsessed with the grisly are suggesting desecrating his memory. At the time
of George Silundika who was affectionately known as TG (Tarcisius George) by
those that were close to him, there was a debate of whether he should be buried
at his home village in Gala in fulfilment of Kalanga customary practice. This
was not a political position. It was about tradition. It was the very same Dr
Nkomo whose name people are making a political football today that intervened
and explained to the good elders that it was because of the work that Cde
Silundika did for his country that earned him the status of a hero. That it is
a fitting honour for him to be buried alongside his comrades who included the
previously quoted General Tongogara and JZ Moyo.
The Heroes Acre is
called the National Shrine for a reason.
A shrine is a place to be hallowed, venerated and a place of pilgrimage.
It is a reliquary where the remains of those in whose honour we have named our
streets are interred. Taking them to a small village away from their comrades
is being impertinent to them. If people have unhealthy fascination or even a
gory fetish for human tissue they should just say so and spare the rest of us from
the squeamish imagination of their fantasies.
JZ Moyo is another Kalanga hero who was very much involved in
the unification Zimbabweans through his advocacy for unity between ZIPRA and
ZANLA. He was one of the people who helped set up the PF in Zanu PF. Please
don't defile his memory. To turn the
memory of such an individual who worked tirelessly for the whole country into a
tribal hero is not only crass; it is disrespectful to him, his family and the
rest of the people of Zimbabwe. These
heroes were real people with actual families who continue to grieve and miss
them. Beyond that enigmatic and iconic stature were real human beings. After
they were buried everyone else went home and proceeded on with their day today
lives. But there are families that had lost not only a father, a bread winner,
a counsellor and a guiding beacon. Those are the people every sensationalist should
think about before making pallid suggestions of exhuming human remains for
their own political capital.
President Mugabe has no beef with his people the Kalanga. He
knows they are educated and extremely sharp people. He has one of their own who is a professor
for that matter working as the face and voice of his government. He took another and made him the face and
voice of his party. How many people of Bukalanga heritage deputised him at both
party and State levels? What more evidence can anyone honestly want? People can
spin a speech and take convenient excerpts from them to achieve their own mischievous
ends. But that is not easy with actions. So those that want to judge the
President's position on these issues should look closely at how deaf he has
been to people's dialects and pedigree over the years including now rather than
deliberately and callously interpreted
distortions.
The people of Bukalanga should not let themselves be abused
by political malcontents and misfits. They have a celebrated heroic heritage
for their distinguished contribution to the Nation Building of this country. In
any case the term Zimbabwe sounds more Tjikalanga than Shona itself. If the
reader disputes this then you are called upon to prove who actually named this
country thus. The grim call to exhume the remains of heroes is a macabre notion
from an equally ghoulish lunatic fringe. And this fringe should know the bounds
to its freakishness. Not everything can
be used for political capital. It's common human decency to respect the dead.
Even in a war situation soldiers even bury some of the enemies that they kill
and put RIP at the head-side. A respect
for the remains of human beings distinguished human beings from their primates’
cousins.
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