http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-6095-No+pure+truth+on+Great+Zim+historian/news.aspx
Clearly Professor Sabelo Gatsheni-Ndlovu is ignorant about the subject he is talking about. How can he talk about Karanga vs Rozvi or Venda vs Kalanga as if these are separate and clearly defined entities. Talking about Karanga vs Rozvi is like talking about Coloureds in terms of Black
vs White. Can the Professor tell us who are the true ancestors of Coloureds, Whites or Blacks?
Today's Karanga have among them the descendants of the Rozvi. It is also clear that the Venda have strong and clear ethnic links to the people now called Shona. There is no doubt that they have among them large numbers of descendants of the VaRozvi. The same applies to the Kalanga and definitely to the Ndebele as well given the prevalence of the surname Moyo among the Ndebele.
About four years ago in Naboom I was served by a bank teller with the surname Chikanya. She was a Venda and had never been to Zimbabwe. While doing a project
for Tansnet in Pretoria my contact person was named Tendamudzimu Matshatshi (or is it Machachi). She was a Venda.
The Professor is guilty of the assumption that the Shona have a very narrow and easily identifiable ethnic source much like the Ndebele. The truth is that the Shona are a conglomeration of many different ethnicities with a history going back a millennia not a mere century.
During that millennia some people have moved into the region and been assimilated into the Shona culture such as the vaNjanja who are descendants of Portuguese traders. Others have moved out of the region and became assimilated into other cultures. In Malawi I met a man with the surname Shumba whose clan had been in Northern Malawi for so many generations that they didn't recall exactly where they came from but he claimed they had links to Zimbabwe.
Such movement happened frequently in Bantu history and a recent example is the Mfecane
which resulted in the scattering of various Nguni clans. The Ngoni are now in Malawi and have become Chewa speakers. The Shangaani are now in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and the Ndebele are now in South Africa and Zimbabwe very far away from Zulu territory.
The Mfecane happened at the same time as the infiltration of Africa by European settlers who had writing and record keeping skills which is why it is relatively well recorded. Other movements have not been so well recorded.
Though versions have survived through folklore, these are not accurate and detailed.
Therefore the truth is that some of the descendants of the builders of Great Zimbabwe are
to be found among the people called Shona today while some have moved and are to be found among surrounding cultures. The VaRozvi go by
the totem Moyondizvo. These people largely went by the isbongo Moyo when they were assimilated into Ndebele culture.
It is therefore quite possible that Jonathan Moyo today called a Ndebele may have the same ancestors as my great-grand-uncles the Mupfururirwas of Chivhu who are Moyondizvo and are today called Shonas, or even the Mushores found in Hurungwe who are also Moyondizvo.
The questions then becomes whether Jonathan Moyo should claim that the Ndebele built Great Zimbabwe because he is now a Ndebele or the Mupfururirwas should now claim that only the Shona built Great Zimbabwe since they are now called Shonas.
On the other hand my own clan, the vaBarwe are also now called Shonas like the Mupfururirwas, but Barwe folklore clearly states that we originated from around Sena in Mozambique and does not lay claim to
construction of Great Zimbabwe. My village or origin Punungwe village at Wazvaremhaka in Chivhu now lies next to the Mupfururirwa village, while Jonathan Moyo's village of origin in Tsholotsho is a journey
of many days away from Mupfururirwa village. He does not even natively speak the same language as the Mupfururirwa's anymore.
It is wrong to deny either the Mupfururirwa's their heritage and credit it to the Khumalos because they are now considered closer to Jonathan Moyo, or to deny Jonathan Moyo his heritage and credit it to us Punungwes because we now live next door to the Mupfururirwas.
Therefore the notion of 'contestation' of 'ownership' of the Great Zimbabwe monument among the various ethnicities now found in the region is entirely
pointless and those who are partaking in it will keep going around in circles, and have as much chance of success as a dog has of catching its
tail.
That notion is propagated by mentally colonised people who seek to write history in exclusionist terms the same way colonialists did for reasons of racism and discrimination. Colonial historians sought to exclude blacks from the Great Zimbabwe heritage for reasons of their own bigotry and racism. I therefore fail to understand why blacks would partake in the same exercise.
It is like trying to find out who are the true Romans, the Italians or the Spanish. Italians have among them people who were not Romans and Spanish have among them people who were Romans.
The descendants of the people who built Great Zimbabwe are to be found among the Shona, the Ndebele, the Venda, the Kalanga the Nambya and the many other ethnicities in the region. At the same time among those ethnicities are to be found millions of people whose ancestors had nothing to do with the construction of the monument.
Yes it is true the people who live around the monument are today called Shona and
indeed the name Zimbabwe itself comes from the Shona language. That means the monument is always going to be identified with the Shona more than anyone else. Let us not forget that even the name Shona itself is a very recent creation.
Classical Shona tradition readily recognises the ethnic diversity of the people. If one mentions the name Ncube at a Shona gathering several voices will quickly say 'ndiSoko Murehwa ivavo' clearly implying and accepting that the Ncubes who are Ndebeles are closely related to Murehwa people.
When I introduced a friend and business colleague, Steve Mpofu, to my mother a muHera of the Mhofu totem she quickly told me 'ndiSekuru vako ivavo'. (He is your uncle.) This is in line with the Shona practice of identifying close relations by totem even across tribal lines, rather than by ethnic name as most people tend to do. This is a clearly acknowledgement that blood relations, people with common ancestors
to oneself, may be found in other tribes and not only among the people of the same tribe as oneself.
In short people who say the Shona claim the Great Zimbabwe monument for themselves do not understand this aspect of Shona culture which clearly is inclusionist. The Shona acknowledge that vaRozvi built great
Zimbabwe and at the same time will readily call Jonathan Moyo a muRozvi because of his totem although ethnically he is now called a Ndebele. At the same time Shona people like myself who are not vaRozvi will never claim to be such, or claim association with the builders of Great Zimbabwe.
People like Professor Sabelo Gatsheni-Ndlovu have exclusionist outlook, that seeks to exclude certain groups first from among themselves and then from
some aspects of Bantu heritage. They may also be suffering from tribal malaise which does not like to see anything good credited to the Shona.
In short the Great Zimbabwe monument belongs to all of us in the region. After all we are all Bantu people, and the evidence is clear that the ruins were built by the Bantu. Whether those Bantu are now Ndebele, Shona, Venda, Kalanga or whatever you like to call them they are still Bantu.
Wednesday 21 September 2011
The Indian envoy should be expelled
The Indian envoy should be expelled, fulstop. His ignorance of Shona culture and traditions does not amount to the absence of such traditions.
I also wonder exactly on what facts he bases his assessment that the Shona people are quiescent and undemanding. Who fought the first Chimurenga. Which war against colonialism was fiercer than the second Chimurenga.
The envoy's regurgitating of Rhodesian misrepresentations is an insult to us the people of Zimbabwe.
Did the envoy ever bother to listen to Zimbabwean programs like ChiKristu neTsika or Madzinza eZimbabwe which was presented by the fomer minister of education Mr Chigwedere and the late Boniface Gabarinocheka Dzvova.
If the Indian envoy is so convinced that the Shona have no history and culture then can he explain to us what the Munhumutapa Empire, Rozvi Empire, Great Zimbabwe civilisation, Torwa Empire and Barwe Empires were all about?
If the envoy is ignorant of Shona culture and history he should keep quiet rather than try to pass off insults and misrepresentations as facts. Especially if these are misrepresentations by our oppressors the Rhodesians who spent generations trying to prove that a white race built Great Zimbabwe and threw away crucial archaeological evidence calling it 'the filth of Bantu habitation' when in fact it was the proof of Bantu construction of the monument.
In fact Shona is the most widely spoken native Bantu language and the seventh most widely spoken native language in Africa. Such demographics certainly are not evidence of a lack of culture.
The ambassador's confusion may be stemming from the fact that he is trying to attribute the Shona to a single ethnic source. Let him be informed that Shona culture is a very large collection of cultures united by a common history and close geography but not by a single ethnic source.
This fact is recognised by the Shona themselves who identify themselves by clans such as vaHera (giving their name to Buhera), vaNjanja, maUngwe, vaRozvi, vaBarwe, vaTsunga, vaRemba and so on. Karanga, Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika and Ndau are language dialects and not definers of ethnicity, another common misunderstanding about Shona ethnicity.
Indeed that the Shona have a diverse background is commonly acknowledged. The Shona are not the descendants of a single tribe but a collection of tribes and peoples who moved into the region over a millenia. For example vaNjanja (vazungu vemachira machena) are commonly acknowledged to be descendants of Portuguese traders and this evidenced by their clan praise name Sinyoro which is a derivative of Senor.
Other Shona clans such as vaHera are thought to be descendants of Arab and Indian traders who plied the Indian Ocean coast with their dows long before Vasco da Gama was guided to India by an Arab or Indian guide. Other clans such as the vaTsunga have folklore which openly acknowledges that they came from north of the Zambezi. Vakarova mvura netsvimbo ikazaruka.
My own clan the vaBarwe are often referred to as maSena because we are said to have come from around Sena is Mozambique. Clans such as my clan, the vaNjanja and vaHera who are relatively recent arrivals in the region have no hand and have never claimed to have any hand in the construction of Great Zimbabwe.
Other clans such as vaRozvi have a much longer history in the region and I have no reason to doubt that they had a hand in the construction of Great Zimbabwe.
What there is absolutely no doubt about is that some of the descendants of those who built Great Zimbabwe are to be found among the people called the Shona today. Due to migration and assimilation, some are certainly found in neighbouring cultures. Nobody has ever claimed, certainly not us the Shona, that all the people now called Shona are descendants of the builders of great Zimbabwe, or that those known by other names never had a hand in it.
That misconception is often carried by people who underestimate misunderstand the size of the monolith called Shona culture. We are a very large group who even differ in physical characteristics ranging from tall dark people like the vaRozvi (mostly Karanga speakers), light skinned people like vaHera, short people like vaManyika, slight people like maKorekore. Most of us Shona can easily tell another Shona's clan or origin from their appearance and the moment they speak the first few Shona words.
We are also known by surrounding African tribes for stubbornly sticking to our traditions. Indeed some say we have a reputation of being very difficult to deal with in marriages and other traditional ceremonies, if things are not done as per our clan traditions.
Certainly we are not docile. We simply do not jump to agendas set by others.
When we do choose to put up a fight you can guaranteed that it will be ferocious and accompanied by cunning and deviousness. Cecil John Rhodes is said to have referred to the Shona as 'peace-loving but cunning' people. That is about the only thing he was right about.
I also wonder exactly on what facts he bases his assessment that the Shona people are quiescent and undemanding. Who fought the first Chimurenga. Which war against colonialism was fiercer than the second Chimurenga.
The envoy's regurgitating of Rhodesian misrepresentations is an insult to us the people of Zimbabwe.
Did the envoy ever bother to listen to Zimbabwean programs like ChiKristu neTsika or Madzinza eZimbabwe which was presented by the fomer minister of education Mr Chigwedere and the late Boniface Gabarinocheka Dzvova.
If the Indian envoy is so convinced that the Shona have no history and culture then can he explain to us what the Munhumutapa Empire, Rozvi Empire, Great Zimbabwe civilisation, Torwa Empire and Barwe Empires were all about?
If the envoy is ignorant of Shona culture and history he should keep quiet rather than try to pass off insults and misrepresentations as facts. Especially if these are misrepresentations by our oppressors the Rhodesians who spent generations trying to prove that a white race built Great Zimbabwe and threw away crucial archaeological evidence calling it 'the filth of Bantu habitation' when in fact it was the proof of Bantu construction of the monument.
In fact Shona is the most widely spoken native Bantu language and the seventh most widely spoken native language in Africa. Such demographics certainly are not evidence of a lack of culture.
The ambassador's confusion may be stemming from the fact that he is trying to attribute the Shona to a single ethnic source. Let him be informed that Shona culture is a very large collection of cultures united by a common history and close geography but not by a single ethnic source.
This fact is recognised by the Shona themselves who identify themselves by clans such as vaHera (giving their name to Buhera), vaNjanja, maUngwe, vaRozvi, vaBarwe, vaTsunga, vaRemba and so on. Karanga, Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika and Ndau are language dialects and not definers of ethnicity, another common misunderstanding about Shona ethnicity.
Indeed that the Shona have a diverse background is commonly acknowledged. The Shona are not the descendants of a single tribe but a collection of tribes and peoples who moved into the region over a millenia. For example vaNjanja (vazungu vemachira machena) are commonly acknowledged to be descendants of Portuguese traders and this evidenced by their clan praise name Sinyoro which is a derivative of Senor.
Other Shona clans such as vaHera are thought to be descendants of Arab and Indian traders who plied the Indian Ocean coast with their dows long before Vasco da Gama was guided to India by an Arab or Indian guide. Other clans such as the vaTsunga have folklore which openly acknowledges that they came from north of the Zambezi. Vakarova mvura netsvimbo ikazaruka.
My own clan the vaBarwe are often referred to as maSena because we are said to have come from around Sena is Mozambique. Clans such as my clan, the vaNjanja and vaHera who are relatively recent arrivals in the region have no hand and have never claimed to have any hand in the construction of Great Zimbabwe.
Other clans such as vaRozvi have a much longer history in the region and I have no reason to doubt that they had a hand in the construction of Great Zimbabwe.
What there is absolutely no doubt about is that some of the descendants of those who built Great Zimbabwe are to be found among the people called the Shona today. Due to migration and assimilation, some are certainly found in neighbouring cultures. Nobody has ever claimed, certainly not us the Shona, that all the people now called Shona are descendants of the builders of great Zimbabwe, or that those known by other names never had a hand in it.
That misconception is often carried by people who underestimate misunderstand the size of the monolith called Shona culture. We are a very large group who even differ in physical characteristics ranging from tall dark people like the vaRozvi (mostly Karanga speakers), light skinned people like vaHera, short people like vaManyika, slight people like maKorekore. Most of us Shona can easily tell another Shona's clan or origin from their appearance and the moment they speak the first few Shona words.
We are also known by surrounding African tribes for stubbornly sticking to our traditions. Indeed some say we have a reputation of being very difficult to deal with in marriages and other traditional ceremonies, if things are not done as per our clan traditions.
Certainly we are not docile. We simply do not jump to agendas set by others.
When we do choose to put up a fight you can guaranteed that it will be ferocious and accompanied by cunning and deviousness. Cecil John Rhodes is said to have referred to the Shona as 'peace-loving but cunning' people. That is about the only thing he was right about.
Sunday 11 September 2011
US Diplomacy in the wake of Wikileaks?
Ambassador Ray Charles recently remarked that he had a writing quota of 1000 words a day. It seems US diplomats have an addiction to pens (err keyboards) and will write anything to fulfil their quotas.
They will write reports about anything and everything. The unpleasant side effect of this excessive report writing is that people who thought they were in informal meetings with US officials, have been surprised to find their names popping up in the formal US reports released by Wikileaks.
A Thai diplomat complained that an informal lunch meeting with a US official several years ago meant that his name appeared in a formal US report.
One wonders whether US diplomats should now be treated like lepers. Avoid them in case your name ends popping up where you don't want it to pop up.
Secondly I don't understand the logic of meeting people informally when they are not prepared to meet some of them formally. Take for example Zimbabwe's case. Over the years US diplomats have been meeting Zanu-PF officials informally and ended up being told a range of opinions and predictions none of which had anything to do with Zanu-PF's official positions.
Instead of ending up with valuable insider intelligence it looks like the US ended up mostly with dud information. As a result US policy in Zimbabwe can hardly be said to have been a success. They ended up backing a lame Prime Minister while Zanu-PF 'hard-liners' continued to exercise the real power.
Could this have been avoided if they had taken official positions more seriously? Could it be that the US diplomats were being deliberately misled, by the informal contacts they sought? I don't know the answers, and I doubt that anyone in the US diplomatic corps does either.
People who know Zimbabweans society inside out would have told you that the influence of the highly respected liberation war cadre was not about to wane and could definitely now be switched off overnight. Back when I was still writing blogs for the now defunct The Zimbabwe Times, I was among the first to predict that the MDC could not rule without the backing of the military.
Look at the size of Mujuru's funeral. That alone tells you that there are millions of ordinary people out there who care about what General Mujuru did for the country. That is helping get rid of the yoke of cruel racist colonialism.
Then the MDC almost totally ignored the existence of the military. Now they are trying to fashion a relationship of sorts with the military but I believe it is now too late for it to make much of a difference. If fact rather than build alliances and mutual respect, they are calling for 'security sector reform' which suggests they still don't have meaningful influence on or from the military.
The MDC strategy in Zimbabwe was not well thought out from the beginning. It was and largely still is a hodge-podge collection of opportunistic interests only united by their common abhorrence of Mugabe.
They will write reports about anything and everything. The unpleasant side effect of this excessive report writing is that people who thought they were in informal meetings with US officials, have been surprised to find their names popping up in the formal US reports released by Wikileaks.
A Thai diplomat complained that an informal lunch meeting with a US official several years ago meant that his name appeared in a formal US report.
One wonders whether US diplomats should now be treated like lepers. Avoid them in case your name ends popping up where you don't want it to pop up.
Secondly I don't understand the logic of meeting people informally when they are not prepared to meet some of them formally. Take for example Zimbabwe's case. Over the years US diplomats have been meeting Zanu-PF officials informally and ended up being told a range of opinions and predictions none of which had anything to do with Zanu-PF's official positions.
Instead of ending up with valuable insider intelligence it looks like the US ended up mostly with dud information. As a result US policy in Zimbabwe can hardly be said to have been a success. They ended up backing a lame Prime Minister while Zanu-PF 'hard-liners' continued to exercise the real power.
Could this have been avoided if they had taken official positions more seriously? Could it be that the US diplomats were being deliberately misled, by the informal contacts they sought? I don't know the answers, and I doubt that anyone in the US diplomatic corps does either.
People who know Zimbabweans society inside out would have told you that the influence of the highly respected liberation war cadre was not about to wane and could definitely now be switched off overnight. Back when I was still writing blogs for the now defunct The Zimbabwe Times, I was among the first to predict that the MDC could not rule without the backing of the military.
Look at the size of Mujuru's funeral. That alone tells you that there are millions of ordinary people out there who care about what General Mujuru did for the country. That is helping get rid of the yoke of cruel racist colonialism.
Then the MDC almost totally ignored the existence of the military. Now they are trying to fashion a relationship of sorts with the military but I believe it is now too late for it to make much of a difference. If fact rather than build alliances and mutual respect, they are calling for 'security sector reform' which suggests they still don't have meaningful influence on or from the military.
The MDC strategy in Zimbabwe was not well thought out from the beginning. It was and largely still is a hodge-podge collection of opportunistic interests only united by their common abhorrence of Mugabe.
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