A new incarnation of Matabeleland’s Zapu party has emerged to fight the `Shonalisation’ of Zimbabwe, writes Mercedes Sayagues
Bulawayo is simmering. Part is fermented anger and part is soulful excitement.
The anger is rooted in the government’s neglect of Matabeleland. That western Zimbabwe is poorer is obvious, from the threadbare airport to the barefoot, ragged children in dusty homesteads. To locals, the colonial buildings that make Bulawayo charming symbolise its lack of development since independence.
Matabeleland’s infrastructure remains that built by Rhodesia. “We’ve been shouting about chronic drought for the past 15 years, but not one major dam was built here since 1980,” says alderman Colin Lumsden.
Locals believe the ruling party, Zanu-PF, pursues a policy of discrimination against the Ndebele, who make up 20% of Zimbabwe’s population of 12,5-million. Some, remembering the thousands killed when the Fifth Brigade swept across Matabeleland in a wave of destruction in the early 1980s, call it genocide.
Cont Mhlanga, Bulawayo’s popular playwright, calls it “the Shonalisation of Zimbabwe”.
The excitement that goes with the anger hinges on the revival of the old Zimbabwe African People’s Union as Zapu 2000, a challenge to Zanu-PF’s hegemony and control of the national agenda and purse.
Describing itself as a movement, not yet a fully fledged political party, it plans nonetheless to contest local elections next August, with good chances of winning some of Bulawayo’s 29 councillor seats.
In next year’s elections, it will field MPs. One might be Paul Siwela, an assertive marketing executive who ran independently in 1995 and polled 2 700 votes in Mpopoma. Zapu 2000 members are intellectuals, businessmen, the young and disenfranchised, and middle- class, middle-aged, old Zapu who never joined the ruling party.
Zapu 2000 defines itself as a broad, non- racial, non-tribal movement for the whole country, as the original Zapu was, which seeks a federation of five provinces with greater autonomy and equality.
Active in five provinces, it builds grassroots support through meetings in townships and rural areas.
“The mood has changed since Zapu 2000 was formed,” says Mhlanga. “People are hopeful, especially the young.” The young are the most disadvantaged with regard to access to jobs and education.
Bulawayo, formerly Zimbabwe’s industrial powerhouse, has steadily lost jobs and investment to Harare. Locals call the capital “Bambazonke” (grab all). After independence at least six major industries relocated to the capital, close to the decision-making and forex source.
With the little there is, Ndebele people bitterly complain about systematic discrimination.
Even a Zanu-PF stalwart like Bulawayo’s mayor Abel Siwela agrees: “There is a deliberate approach to exclude us.”
He ticks off examples: the civil service and private sector are staffed up to 80% or 90% with non-residents. Out of 15 to 20 bank managers in Bulawayo, only two are Ndebele.”It is impossible to get a bank loan if you are Ndebele,” says Abel Siwela.
He goes on. Only 15 % of the enrolment at Bulawayo’s National University of Science and Technology are locals. This is due partly to discrimination against qualified Ndebele students and partly to the poor quality of education in Matabeleland. Out of 18 secondary schools in the region, only two teach science.
Gibson Sibanda, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, says that most apprentices at the National Railways of Zimbabwe’s headquarters in Bulawayo are not locals.
Language is a sore point. Where peasants speak little or no Shona, nurses, police and customs officers don’t speak Ndebele. Two weeks ago, when the Ndebele-speaking old mother of George Mkhwanazi, a Zapu 2000 supporter, went to the clinic in Tsholotsho, the nurse could not understand her. Mkhwanazi still bristles at this.
Last year, an ad placed by the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) in the government-owned The Herald created a furore in Bulawayo. UZ turns out competent “Shona graduates”, read the ad. As protest mounted, UZ cancelled the ad, The Herald blamed it on the advertising agency and the agency blamed it on computer gremlins. But, as Mhlanga points out, that the racial blunder was not picked up at any stage of production speaks for itself.
The undercurrent of simmering boils over at soccer matches. When local team Highlanders play, Zapu 2000 banners and T-shirts, chants and slogans liven up the match. The T-shirts have the old Zapu symbol, a bull, and catchy slogans: Ulenkani, stubborn as a bull; Isilo samabandla, feared among nations; Zapu 2000 for a new order.
The mood can turn ugly. Earlier this year, a youth was killed when police teargassed and shot rioting fans.
Zapu 2000 taps this deep-seated anger. At a meeting in Impopoma township last week, about 120 poorly dressed people, mostly men, listened with intense concentration.
“Amandla!” greeted one speaker, fist in the air. The audience cheered. The speakers talked about human and civic rights, against corruption and the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, about pride in one’s own culture and the need for change. People clapped, laughed and booed. At the end, when they sang Nkosi Sikelel’iAfrica, the energy was overpowering, like in a heartfelt church service.
Vice president Joshua Nkomo is very sick. Will the 1987 Unity Accord between old Zapu and Zanu hold? Some say it should be revised because it cemented Zanu’s hegemony.
“For the love of money and for vanity, our leadership sold us out,” says Thamsanqua Magonya of the pressure group Imbovane.
Within Zanu, the race to succeed Nkomo is on. Matabeleland North governor Welshman Mahbena, a freedom fighter with an honourable past now serving a second term as governor, has little to show for Matabeleland except excuses that Bambazonke leaves crumbs. The same applies to Zapu’s old guard in government.
“They should read the barometer: they don’t represent us,” says Siwela.
The young are not accepting any more excuses. “The candle has been burning all along; the light is shining now,” says Magonya.