(HERALD) Diasporans: The Fraction we can’t name
Diasporans: The Fraction we can’t nameMY readers will enjoy this one. Sometime this week, I bump into an MDC-M figure I shall not name. We engage in a animated talk, really animated completely oblivious to the forbidding setting we found ourselves in. Expectedly, the discussion is about WikiLeaks and how it touches and impacts on princes of the Zimbabwean body-politic
We talk about those in this princely class which the leak dubbed "brilliant tacticians". We talk about those the leak dubbed scholastically too airy to count the everyday. Yes, we talk and talk about those condemned, those described as so fundamentally "flawed" in intellect and judgment to lead.
It was an even-handed discussion, one where salute went where it was due, censorious laughter delivered where it was deserved or merited. But I remained suspicious, deeply suspicious. Why did this man from MDC-M pick on me for a joint and comradely review of America’s assessment of Zimbabwe’s political human landscape?
Weakness you can mend
I did not have to wonder for too long. It soon came and oh, wasn’t hilarious? "You know what, America indicts my man for being too bookish. I buy that. Except this is a weakness Mutambara can do something about. Quickly too! He can just stop from reading American soundbites and hurray his two will firmly be on the handles of the work-a-day world, driving it even. Now, how possibly and how quickly can a person whose intellect and sense of judgment we are told is so severely "flawed" ever mend?" Frankly, I had not budgeted for that one. I got knocked out. Knocked out quickly.
Do you know Churchill?
But more was in store. The MDC-M man sought to make sure I would not stagger up and back for a second round, for any round for that matter. "Winston Churchill, remember that in history?" "Of course I do," I shot back, smarting from the clear condescension blow that had just smote me. Given my age, surely my interlocutor knew I was old enough to have been what Achebe called "a British Protected Child" whose education was fated to be colonial? And beyond the British Isle, Churchill is a "hero" of the British Empire, surely? Including in Zimbabwe. Don’t we have Churchill High here? Don’t we have Churchill’s Arms in Bulawayo, well written in sans serif too? Don’t we have other little churchills: on roads and even on some children darker than any two African nights on a rainy day well after the moon has "sat"?
Churchill’s great rebuke
"Of course I do," I mourned once more, felled yet again. "One day during the Second World War, Winston Churchill staggers into a room, dead drunk as usual. You know Churchill had a drink problem?" This time around I decided I had had it. I was ready to throw back to stop this vain block. "The way George Bush had the same? Have you read his memoirs, Decision Points," I shot back.
This one had to catch him. I hoped to transfer the plague of insufficiency by which this vain man got at me. Cleverly, he hurried past the innuendo, the sly political MDC man. "Seeing that the Prime Minister of Britain was drunk, dead drunk, one lady plucked courage and confronted him. Without wasting time, she barked a sharp rebuking order, one that reversed power relations. Temporarily at least. "Mister Prime Minister, you are drunk. Get out of the room!"
The error you cannot mend
"You know how it is with drunks and I am sure you appreciate what a drunk wielding enormous power does." I wondered whether my interlocutor was not making another go at me. I don’t drink, have never taken in alcohol. He was appealing to the unfamiliar to compound my insufficiency, I reasoned.
Another condescending assault from this bastard! "The drunk Briton, the drunk British Prime Minister, doddered forward, towards the cheeky woman who had dared him. Once satisfied that he had gained suitable distance for a maximum uptake of his piece of mind, the Prime Minister, letting out thick fumes of the substance, pauses for a dramatic while, hardly steady and upright. Then the bombshell: "My good lady, I am druuuuuunk, and I don’t deny dzat.
"But tomorroooow morning, tomorrow mooooorning, I shall wake up sober, possibly with a small, nagging headache which will vanish together with early morning dew. But as for you, darlin’, you are ugly, uuuuugly. Let’s see how you will look tomorrow."
That delivered, Churchill staggered on, to the podium and, yes, the Second World War was won by the Allies, Churchill’s Britain included. The point had been made: that far harder to contain are age-settled disabilities of mind, as opposed to petty oddities of youth. Jehova akati: "Regai vauye kwandiri nekuti umambo hwekudenga ndohwavakadai."
From the place of long grass
Throughout history Zimbabweans have been a footloose people, an itinerant people. Legend has it that we wandered downward, from a place called Guruuswa, the Place of Long Grass. You ask the elders where this place is, and the unhelpful answer you get is "ikoko kumusoro uku", which roughly translates to "somewhere up there." And the elders expect you to be satisfied and to know this place of origin, from that authoritative answer.
Often the answer is delivered absent-mindedly, with least fear of contradiction or further probing enquiry. They make matters worse for you, these elders. Depending on the physical terrain of where this conversation takes place, "up there" might very well come by way of a wizened index finger pointing southward! Geographical southward, that is. The village is the cosmos for our elders and wherever that small earth of the village tilts is "up there". And "up there" where we all came from, we children of the Great Stone.
The lesson of Rwanda
Those given to reading human past from bleached bones, or some such cadavers of human settlement, will tell you that "up there" refers to the Great Lakes, but not up enough to scale up the great rift that divides the well-watered central Africa zone the margins of its drier, arid north, indeed from the hemp of Sahel. After all, it has to be the place of Tall or Long Grass, these historians argue.
At the height of the bloody clashes in Rwanda, a gory BBC documentary carried actualities (real time voices) of victims of that tragedy, mostly Tutsis. They were recounting their trauma in their own native language. Kinyaruwanda it could be called, I am not quite sure. They spoke on the shores of a great river that flows into Lake Victoria, why-ever that Great African Lake is named so. At that time, this great river, with its amazingly crispy blue waters had become a languidly flowing, snaking portal for dismembered human parts, all leisurely carted into the vast Lake from buffeted Rwanda. It was such a faithful postal service, always ensuring even mangled skulls, severed hands, or floating thighs temporarily stuck between low boughs of riverside trees, would soon be extricated by its mighty current, for eventual delivery to larger, settled waters of Speke’s Victoria.
Shona from unlikely lips
As you listened to the harrowing tales from the lucky women escapees, you immediately picked Shona words! On this grisly day, Shona words were dropping off Tutsi lips! You immediately identified with the victims even though in terms of physiognomy, Zimbabwean Shonas are nearer Hutus, the attacking tribe. Tutsis are generally very tall, with their womenfolk most beautiful and well equipped for womanhood. Men and women alike, they have very fine, if not fragile features, all clothed by very smooth, gentle skin. You place them further up by way of classification, never to the Bantu South. So why Shona words? The great enigma of origin, migration and identity!
The great northward push
We are an immigrant nation, I have already said. Later in history, you have the "Mfecane", itself the great northward movement of people, Nguni people, because of a myriad of pressures developing from within their original settlement under Shaka, because of myriad pressures exerted from without as the invading Dutch settlement expanded outward, northward, etching a whole chapter for Africa’s most southerly tip as an Afrikaner colony. That great movement of people created new communities here and beyond, created new communities, new power formations, new cultures, new religions, new languages, new outlooks, as far up as Tanzania. It embraced Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, parts of Angola and the Congo. To this day, you cannot miss suggestive affinities which this history created.
The small story of vaRemba
I said we are a footloose people. We have travelled vast distances. Between these two defining movements so roughly outlined, stands many smaller movements, elusive movements which historians like Stanslaus Mudenge, Edward Matenga and many others, are trying to catch and tether, so we are more complete in understanding our great, moving past.
Dr Mudenge has completed a research piece on the Remba/Lemba people, vaRemba whose chidawo is "Musoni." Their totemic animal is mbeva or rat. They are my mother’s people. A very proud people, whose womenfolk are given to fiery temper. They are a circumcision people, an endogamous people, which is why they subdivide themselves into many sub-totems that can intermarry: Zungunde, Mukundwa, Batorava/Tovakare, Warerwa, Usingarimi, Hwesa, etc.etc.
This is the group which the British historian Parfittis has recently discovered, and to which he ascribes ngoma longundu, the sacred "ark" or ceremonial "drum". There is a huge debate around this small tribe which may not eat "meat" it will not have "slaughtered", a practice that suggests Moslem or Jewish affinities. To the person, this group regards Mberengwa as its spiritual epicenter, itself the same centre for the Venda people found in Matabeleland South and northern provinces of South Africa. Yearly, they trek to Mberengwa, itself their Mecca. Are they Jews? Are they Moslems? Did they originate in Sena or Yemeni? How did they end up here? Again, another great story of movement, our movement.
Those that eat nzembe…
We are a people of hot feet, a people afflicted by wandering curse. Elders say we ate nzembe, the sacred bird. It is believed that once you eat meat from that small bird, your bottoms never touch the ground, never settle; they are always up, suspended in ceaseless movement. You never settle. The great irony of our history is that invasion, conquest and occupation is what made us eventually sedentary, is what made us a people of place and therefore of firm, unchanging borders. And those who sat on us, after beating us in successive wars, were themselves invading immigrants from Europe, specifically from some little island we now call Britain.
Britain itself had been founded by a fiery group called the Barbarians, a warlike group that poured down from the upper cold lands of Europe — now Nordic — apparently in migration. They destroyed everything in their wake, until they occupied and settled over the whole of Europe. They were conquering comers, a fact often forgotten in today’s history. After this downward deluge, they created a second outward deluge, to the rest of the earth. In our case, we got them via South Africa.
Ian Douglas’ delights
[I wonder whether he doubts English property rights in Great Britain - after all, as a small band of Germanics (Jutlanders, Frisians, Angelska and Saxons) they displaced the Celts. Does this mean that the Queen doesn't really own Buckingham Palace? And when are they going to give it back? There is a difference between disenfranchisement that happened centuries ago, and that happened within our lifetimes. In Zimbabwe, people were thrown off their land as late as 1973. Not only is land theft in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Kenya recent, but the people they displaced are the majority in these countries. So if historic ownership does not matter, what does - the barrel of a gun? Does in the world of the racist Ian Smith, 'might make right'? Then following that principle, land ownership should yield to whoever is in power today. - MrK]
The late Ian Douglas Smith would always recall this story of migration and conquest with especial relish. I quote him in his after-word to "Bitter Harvest":
"Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) comrades claim, with tedious repetition, that the white people in Zimbabwe are colonialists who stole the land from the black people, the owners, and therefore the whites have no right of objection if the blacks reclaim their land. Let’s get the facts, the true position.
The original inhabitants of this country were the Bushmen, those peaceful little people with their bows and arrows which they used for obtaining food. There are Bushman paintings throughout the length and breath of the county which substantiate this. The first colonialists to immigrate into the country were the Shona-speaking people who came from the northeast. As and when they wanted more land they pushed the Bushmen westwards until they reached Betchuanaland. There they received an abrupt message from the Khamas, traditional rulers of that part of the world and forbearers of Sir Seretse Khama, and this caused them to beat a hasty retreat.
Whose land is it anyway?
"According to the record, it was some twenty years later that the next wave of colonialists immigrated: the Matabeles led by Umsilikazi came from the northern Transvaal. This was a regiment of Zulus from Natal. They had a problem with the Zulu King Shaka, and very wisely decided to go north. This caused a further retreat eastwards by the Shonas.
Approximately twenty years ensured before the next wave of colonialist immigrated, the Shangans from the Eastern Transvaal. This caused a retreat northwards by the Shonas. I do not believe that anybody would argue with me when I say that in none of the three cases to which I have referred did the immigrants pay compensation for the land which they took over. Fair enough — this has been the pattern of world history going back over thousands of years of colonialist expansion.
Cape to Cairo
"Our fourth case of colonialist immigration, again after a lapse another twenty years, was Cecil Rhodes’ Pioneer column which came from Kimberley in 1890. This was part of the Rhodes’ dream of extending British influence, raising the Union Jack from Cape to Cairo. The column took the sensible precaution of steering their course away from the western areas inhabited by the Matabele who were noted for their aggressive stance towards those trespassing on their land. There were no problems with the Shonas and Shangans, who displayed a curious interest in the new arrivals and were ready to accept the opportunities and rewards offered by the new system. A site was chosen by the column, which was free of habitation and where water was available, to raise the Union Jack and name it Salisbury after the Prime Minister of Britain."
The story of the empty land
[This is the myth of Terra Nullius, which is so popular among 'settler' population the world over. - MrK]
The book proper describes the invading white column as venturing "into uncharted country, the domain of the lion, the elephant, the buffalo, the rhinoceros — all deadly killers — the black mambas, the most deadly of all snakes, and the Matabele, with Lobengula’s Impis, the most deadly of all black warriors, guarding their frontiers against any intruders."
The rebel leader adds: "… their consciences [white column] were clear: to the west the Matabeles had recently moved in. They were a tribe of the Zulus in Natal, who had broken away after a difference of opinion with their King Shaka and migrated north… settling in this new country, which was uninhabited apart from wandering Bushmen…. Clearly it was no-man’s land, as Cecil Rhodes and the politicians back in London had confirmed, so no one could accuse them of trespassing or taking part in an invasion."
Countering Rhodesian history
Rhodesian historiography enjoyed recounting this bit and used it to justify their colonial project here. Zimbabwe had been empty, only to be occupied later by marauding tribes of Shonas and later Ndebeles who harassed each other, apart from displacing the Bushmen. They in turn were conquered and displaced by whites who ruled the country by right of conquest. For them, the matter ends there. I have always told Zimbabwean nationalists not to waste time defending their history against such a racist and divisive narrative. Apart from challenging our claim to the land, it seeks to segment and divide us by origin and time, erasing the common denominator we have as Africans and as victims of British colonialism. The point to bear in mind is that Rhodesians put premium on right defined by conquest. They secured it in 1890, then in 1893 and then in 1896-7. Let us grant them that. But then we regained it in 1980, after the Second Chimurenga. That is why we, as indigenous people, are now in charge. Full-stop. It settles the matter, does it not? It also implies whoever conquers scions of the Huns who now occupy United Kingdom, having come flaming from up North, immediately assumes a new right. Or is it not? Hitler tried it, obeying what Smith calls the great movements natural to history! Was that okay?
The story of Jozi
An itinerant people I said we are. The story of Jozi is a story of human movement, again our movement. We trekked down South, obeying the allure of Wenela and other activity areas of that country under Afrikaners. We did much more. We trekked down South for skills, principally higher education. The Nkomos, the Parirenyatwas, the Mzendas, the Mugabes, the Pswarayis, the Ian Smiths etc, etc. That is how Fort Hare, Adams College, Rhodes and other great colleges have become household names here. We continue to trek to these great institutions, both as much to dispense knowledge, as to acquire it. In place of Wenela and its stigma of low skills work force, we have scaled up the skills ladder and are found in apex sectors of that great economy, dispensing rare skills with remarkable ease and aplomb. .
Botswana, Zambia and beyond
We have moved. Yes, we did so in the context of a hard war, the war of liberation. We went to Botswana and every day I meet cadres of struggle who were based in Botswana, or who sprang "activities" from that country. Or simply retreated to it against enemy fire directed at us, we the wandering people. Many university students who fled the country to join the struggle went through Botswana. We went to Zambia, great Zambia, well before the struggle, to work in the copper mines, and after Zambia’s Independence, to fasten ourselves onto various echelons of the civil service. Or simply moved to Northern Rhodesia because we found the Huggins and Welenskys more terrible. We farmed in that country for a very long time. We traded there, established thriving businesses. The Patrick Kombais. And when we thought of raising the stakes over our demand for self-rule, apart from the North-east, the one important catchment area for early liberation war cadres was the Zimbabwe émigré community in Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. Tongo did not leave Rhodesia for the war. He joined the war from Zambia where he worked as an immigrant. Rugare Gumbo did not join the war from Rhodesia; he was studying somewhere in the West, possibly in Canada. Richard Hove was in India. Zvobgo, yes, got into politics from home, but he reconnected with the struggle in the mid-1970s from the United States of America. Sekeramayi was somewhere in Sweden, sent there by the Party, into some form of second exile, all from the rear.
The land of Mwalimu
We were in Tanzania, itself the cradle of liberation movements. Significantly, Herbert Chitepo, the co-father of the Zimbabwe armed liberation struggle, came to Zambia to lead the struggle from Tanzania where he had been serving in that country as its first director of prosecutions, after Tanzania’s Independence. Mbeya became a new home to Zimbabwean freedom fighters and our footprints are still there, albeit faint and unprotected. The entire command of our security structures today grew up in Tanzania, in Zanla, Zipra or Zipa camps. Mgagao is perhaps the most known base, itself a setting for the document that gave the history of Zimbabwe a trajectory which shaped what we are today.
The journey motif
Mozambique is another great cradle of our revolution. Again many of our footprints as we crisscrossed that country, pieces of armour on our doubly bent backs, all for freedom. That country, as Zambia, paid heavily for our sojourn there. Its land soaked our blood all the way to the border with the then Rhodesia, another name for Zimbabwe in the era of its conquest and occupation. Its people fell alongside us. Its infrastructure suffered from aerial raids from Rhodesia. We also have China, Russia, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Angola, many countries of Africa and beyond. They accepted us as we roamed the world looking for our lost freedom. The parlance then was "aka crossa", a coded reference that a relative had left for the war. Eventually, we found out lost freedom. Some wee lucky to come back; many perished and that, too, was put in coded fatalistic language: "haana kudzoka", or "akasara kuhondo". The imagery is of movement: our metaphor, our identity.
The great question
I have gone to all these lengths, scrawled all these pages, simply to react to sentiments I am picking from many of my readers in the diaspora who may feel uncomfortable, guilty even about where they are presently. I also happen to know that back home, there is furore over Zimbabweans in the diaspora: what to call them, how to see them in the context of the intervening struggles. Much worse, they have been classified and pigeonholed politically, whether by parties claiming global membership and fame, or by parties projecting fears of infiltration by enemies from abroad. Either way, diasporans are hard done by, virtually turned into stateless people.
A kite for anyone with breath
Our detractors have taken full advantage of this great misperception. They have divided us further. Those in the diaspora are Zimbabwe’s floating population which, kite-like, can be blown towards any cause. The British who authored hardships here through vindictive policies, use these to prove absence of "democracy" in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The British, the Americans use the same fact of our presence abroad to push for and justify intervention, military intervention. Does not the world see the contagion which Mugabe has triggered, they argue, stressing Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is a destabilizing polity that must be regime-changed in the name of a handy UN phrase: "responsibility to protect". Zimbabwe is affecting South Africa, Botswana, etc, etc. The empire now poses as saviour. We cannot challenge this new historiography, this renewed contemporary imperial historiography attuned to heightened human movement in a globalised world. We cannot challenge it simply because we have not ourselves situated our other fraction that inhabits foreign lands. It is as if Zimbabwe faces a situation sui generis, a new, unexampled situation in human affairs. In its affairs: past and present.
Wonderland and horror-land
We cannot describe those who have left the country. Are they a good for the country, or are they a bad? Are they lost, or have they escaped? And what do we call the Zimbabwe they have left behind? Golgotha, the place of carrion? What do we call countries they have settled in? Dreamlands? Wonderland? The miseries they face once there, the joys they grab and secure once there? We can’t even classify the music they may produce while there, the beauty they successfully parade in competitions there. Where is badness: in the men and women who have left? In the men and women who have remained behind, including the leaders in charge of our affairs? In the countries which have accepted those who have left? In the media which describes all of the above? In the great powers seeking political opportunities out of both situations? Those who have gone, can they still be patriots? Can they shoulder home chores? Should they vote? Should they not vote? IN short, are they still Zimbabweans? These are the matters we have to address, questions we have to answer and I hope I start the debate this week and next week.
Never an expatriate
A Zimbabwean across or abroad has no name by us. He/she has names given him/her by others, for us, more accurately against us. He is an exile. He is an immigrants, He is a guest worker. He is an activist. He is a victim of political violence or persecution. He is an escapee. He is a democrat. He is MDC. He is a CIO infiltrator. All these things, none of them coming from us. And begging the basic question is the Zimbabwean abroad a Zimbabwean any longer? What does the term diaspora denote? Connote? Are they home, at work or in a refugee centre? Interestingly the one word I have never heard used is "expatriate". After all how can you have a black expatriate. Some nouns do denote colour, even though they do not depict expressly any particular. Do they not?
I travel therefore I am
We behave as if all the above experience of movement – our movement – has not given us the idiom, the vocabulary for describing our expanding situations and horizons in a globalised world. We cannot even evaluate these evolving vistas: what we have left behind; where we now are and our very odyssey there. Yet we have wandered before, been founded on great odysseys, great journeys. We have wandered to seek the "fire" in the sense that the Greeks used the term. We have wandered to find the "light". We have wandered to grasp the "miracle" of making things. Or simply to explore the world world beyond: and its wonders, its troubles, its joys and delights, its pains and pangs. We have gone places. But we have also come back. Rarely empty-handed, rarely carrying nhava izere mhepo, as Mtukudzi would say. We have come back, rarely alone. We have brought wives, husbands, thereby expanding and giving new tincture to the family tree. We have come back creaking under the weight of new and novel acquisitions.
We "crossed" for our freedoms
That is how we won our Independence, our freedoms. We got out to come back, heroes. Chinx has a beautiful song where a returning freedom fighter announces his home-coming firstly through greetings to parents, and then by a symbolic delivery of a well wrapped, parcel containing a mysterious but highly treasured item he had been send to recover or retrieve. After a difficult and hazardous odyssey, he returns triumphant, cradling this much treasured find which is eventually revealed and delivered through a fast-paced, emphatic song:
Mhoroi vaBereki/
Mhoroi vabereki, vanun’una/
Madzikoma nehanzvadzi/.
Honai tadzoka/
Kwamakange makatituma kundotora/
Rusununguko zvino vana venyu tadzoka/
Takazadzwa ngerufaro ngekuti/
Chokwadi chamakatituma nacho/
Chaunza naichozve chirimurusununguko/
Rwenyu urwu (x2)"
The President’s take on the matter
Or we have come back creaking under the weight of new knowledge, new consciousness by which we have transformed ourselves, hupenyu hwevanhu vekwedu. And that has always been the refrain of President Mugabe each time he meets derisive sentiments targeting people in the diaspora. These are Zimbabweans - he repeatedly maintains - Zimbabweans who one day will bring back vital skills that will transform this country. "They can’t stay there forever," he concludes, often with irritation against whoever seeks to deride those who have wandered. After all he himself was once a diasporian. But he gets worked up instantly to hear that well qualified Zimbabweans are doing menial jobs. Or are being abused as if they have no country.
Dialogue of unequals
And recently in Libya during the EU-Africa Dialogue I am told he "hit the roof" when his Foreign Minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi reported that one of the items on the agenda related to immigration. "What is meant by that, Cde Mumbengegwi," asked the man from Zvimba. "Cde President, Europe is concerned about immigrants who use the Libyan coast to gain illegal entry into Europe," plaintively answered the ministers. "How many of Europe’s people gained entry into lands of Africa, not only illegally but through force of arms? How many do we have in our countries? Are their immigrants in our countries not discussable? Anyway, if Europe’s concern is the so-called illegal immigrants, Africa’s concern is skills flight, its skills which it is losing daily to Europe. Is that one on the agenda, Comrade Mumbengegwi? "No Sir!" "Why?" "Because this is a dialogue of the unequal, Cde President," responded the Minister, frame shaken by laughter, his cynical laughter. That got the President, I am told. "Yes, dialogue between Europe and those who have accepted they cannot be Europe’s equal, who feel inferior. A real complex! It’s terrible!"
How Africa makes Europe
As the President spat out the word "terrible", he looked away in disgust, as if looking for succour from the vast sands of Libya. A short while later, he came back, fully charged: "Even this whole nonsense about Security, whose security are we discussing?" "Africa’s security, Cde President," again responded the Minister. "What has that to do with Europe? Africa’s security issues are discussed at an appropriate forum for Africa. Don’t we have the Peace and Security Council?" "We do, Cde President, but for this conference, Africa seeks European funding for its peace and its security. In Darfur, in Somalia, in many other hot spots on the continent," replied the Minister hoping this time he had cooked an answer inozadza mukombe. "The same way that Europe needs Africa’s assistance to regain its peace. Does it not? As we speak we have children deployed in Kosovo, Europe’s Kosovo, don’t we? Units of our Police Force. They are making and keeping Europe’s peace. Europe has several trouble spots it cannot solve, hot spots all over the world that we would want to discuss in the context of world peace, surely? Or are we not part of the world?"
Turning the tables
We have allowed Europe which is busy absorbing and abusing our valued skills, to blame us, to make us feel guilty about its having them, at our national expense. They are not stolen skills, only illegal immigrants without papers. We have allowed Europe to describe us, classify us, the same Europe whose surplus population has always found room in our countries, livelihoods off our land and other resources. But far better than us, Europe has deployed a language and vocabulary that prettify all this, justify this even making it sound like a great good to all of us as hosts. It does not have rejects; it has expatriates. It does not have its unemployed; it has philanthropists and social workers operating as NGOs. It does not have its poor; it had donors. Above all, it does not have buccaneers; it has investors who most benefit us. And pimp-like we all parade ourselves on the ramp, baring our bottoms, fronting our chests coquettishly so Europe notices us, as we compete against us. We people of diamonds, of oil, platinum, uranium, gold and all! We who cannot own. We who cannot describe. Aah Africa! Ah Zimbabwe: that teapot-like country whose handle never seems too hot to be handled by those hands of iniquity. Kuchazove riiniko isu vaNyai tichitambura? But let the debate begin. Icho?
nathaniel.manheru *** zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, WIKILEAKS
posted by MrK @ 2:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home