By Nick Mangwana
In Shona there is what they call a haivhiyiwi/haivhiiwe
spirit. This is a spirit of spite. It works in such a way that some people go
hunting. They catch an animal together but because as they were hunting, they
fell out. This generates bad blood between them. Because now there is bad blood
between them they would rather the meat rots than have the other person eat it.
They would rather themselves go hungry than have the other person have a piece
of it. This is the Haivhiyiwi spirit. It is a spirit borne out of spite.
In the malicious spirit of haivhiyiwi, the other person tries
to skin the animal. But their former comrade snatches the knife. They get
another one then the spiteful friend waits until he had skinned a bit of it and
then comes and throws a lot of dirty and dust on it. This generates a big fight
between the parties.
But as they are fighting they neglect the carcass of the dead
animal. Another person who wants the meat as well comes along and drags the
carcass away. Among the two friends fighting over the carcass nobody even notices
that the carcass was being dragged away. Or is it their dislike of each other
is more than their love for the meat? Because by the time they have finished
pummelling each other a neighbour who is a very poor hunter has already
salvaged what they can from the dead animal. The two of them have now lost out
on the animal which was theirs in the first place because of spite.
Spite is defined as malicious ill will driven by a desire to
hurt or deprive. Its closest cousin in Shona is called “pfini”. In Shona pfini is synonymised with the
behaviour of a snake which bites and kills a prey it doesn’t eat. There is deprivation
of life not to preserve another life but just to make sure the other part would
not have life.
Someone said that this is what is being experienced in Zanu
PF at the moment. Spite of immeasurable magnitude. Some say spitefulness is
borne out jealousy. Some say it’s borne out or past hurt. Some say it is borne
out of revenge. We don’t know where this one is emanating from.
That reminds me of Pope Francis who said is less papal
language that, “wretched are those who are vindictive and spiteful”. The problem with some spiteful people in politics,
they are masters of smear. But when you smear each other, you smear the
institution which you both belong to.
Spiteful people are not driven by any real gainful objective
but just a desire to do harm. In a group
setting like our Zanu PF spite produces inefficiencies and sometimes mutual
destruction. Spite produces shaisano (It’s not mine but I don’t want you to
have it).
A biologist in Edinburgh made a distinction between a
spiteful animal and a selfish animal. A selfish animal will do anything to
promote its own interests and nobody else’s.
A spiteful animal will deliberately harm others despite the fact that
this may harm it as well. The desire to inflict harm on the target trumps its
own desire to survive. Some equate a spiteful individual to a honey bee which
will sting despite the fact that stinging would result in its own death. We
have these people in Zanu PF. But at least a honey bee only stings when it
feels its existence is threatened. So it would rather die fighting.
Spite is an antisocial tendency to punish others even at
great personal cost. Sometimes human beings are less than chimpanzees. An experiment has shown given the right circumstances
human beings can knock food from a fellow human being even it disadvantages it.
But the same experiment has also shown that chimpanzees would not knock food
from a fellow chimpanzee if it disadvantages them. In short primates don’t have
the shaisano we are seeing in Zanu PF. Does it say the party has people with
less than primate traits? If it walks like a baboon, barks like a baboon, eats
like a baboon then it is baboon.
Spite is a sentiment which is produced by resentment. It is the opposite of prosociality because
spite is all about favouring certain actions because they can harm others. Spite
in our political context is negative relatedness. It is negative competition.
This type of behaviour is also called money burning. You see comrades, money
burning is a behaviour of deliberately setting bank notes on fire and
deliberately destroying them. It destroys the wealth of the owner but does not
benefit any party. It makes the two parties less competitive without enhancing
their position. Again, can we say there is money burning behaviour in Zanu PF in
our current bickering?
It goes without saying comrades that we are emboldening the
opposition by our actions. Their constant defeats had left them demoralised,
confused and clueless. Now they are regrouping and even our old comrades who
have gone to the dark side are beginning to think that come 2018 they stand a
good chance. Well if we continue on this roadmap to destruction, it looks more
and more a reality. If that happens we will all look back and hands on hearts
concede that it was our own haivhiyiwi mentality that destroyed the good that
is our party. For what other result would we expect, when we cut our noses to
spite our faces?
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