Staff ReporterMzilikazi was a gallant Nation builder who blessed Zimbabwe with a diverse heritage of leadership. When he arrived in Zimbabwe in 1830, he fought and conquered the Karanga people and made peace with them to create a stable Zimbabwe. Mzilikazi assimilated most Karangas into his Ndebele Nation and ruled a neat country that became the envy of the British later in 1888.
Before the coming of Mzilikazi in Zimbabwe, the Shona tribes who inhibited Zimbabwe were disorganised, leaderless, poor and always fighting each other. There was no proper Shona leader or any organised Shona warriors when Mzilikazi arrived. He then built a country from scratch, giving our country, the status of a Nation led by a properly institutional King.
When Cecil John Rhodes came to Zimbabwe in 1888, he found a strong, concisely led counnty and Zimbabwe was written on British Maps as “The Country of Lobengula”.
When Mzilikazi came to Zimbabwe back in 1830, the people who benefited the most were the Karangas, although after bloodshed. The Karangas learnt a new culture boosting diversity. Intermarriages took place with Karangas marrying into Ndebele and the Ndebele settling in places like Masvingo, Gweru, Shurugwi etc.
When the British conquered Lobengula and both the Ndebele and Shona becoming slaves for fifty years, by 1956, Joshua Nkomo, a Ndebele leader, organised Zimbabweans to prosecute a liberation struggle.
The Karanga and Ndebele had lived together for a century by 1956. No one had any recollection of the Ndebele invasion of 1830 and the Karanga and Ndebele had become one people.
The only problem which no one knew would be a REAL problem at all were the interrelations with far Shona tribes who had not experienced the sweetness of the Ndebele in their areas. These were the Zezuru and Korekore.
These tribes viewed Ndebeles with a 100 year old grudge from 1830 invasion. The Karanga, who had become fully synthesized into semi-Ndebele, did not have that tribal grudge at all. Rhodesian African National Congress of 1957 was comprised of the National Diversity which Mzilikazi had created in 1830. The Karanga, Ndebele, Shona, Venda, Tonga, Zezuru, Korekore, were all the quintessential fabric that comprised of united Black Zimbabweans seeking peace.
Joshua Nkomo led his people in an organised way which exhibited genetically inherited leadership traits from King Mzilikazi himself. You need to remember that King Mzilikazi had left his genealogical Zulu family in Zululand. To King Mzilikazi’s thinking, a Karanga with a surname of Zhira, was more of a brother than his own Zulu cousins who were a thousand miles away in Zululand. If a lion was to devour him, Mzilikazi would rely on a close Karanga brother to protect him. With that situation at hand, Mzilikazi taught Zimbabweans that we need each other more than we would value implicit labels like tribe.
By the time Joshua Nkomo was born in 1917, Black unity was the only conduit of survival under a greedy Colonial regime. There was no appetite of calling Michel Mawema a Karanga or Joshua Nkomo a Kalanga in 1957. The only thing was “us oppressed Blacks”
When Mnangagwa was deployed by Zapu in Egypt, he was influenced by Shona tribes who had never interacted with the Ndebele before. By then, these Zezuru tribes were fighting among themselves in Mozambique running a tribal party called Zanu PF. In 1963, Ermerson Mnangagwa didn’t know these tribes. He was a Karanga from Shabanie with Ndebele relatives. He knew more about Ndebele values than Zezuru ones.
They influenced him to leave Zipra training in Egypt and join Zanu, a tribal party. In 1976, Zanu were busy killing each other for being Manyika, Karanga, Zezuru, Ndau or Shangani. Zapu did not have that thinking. Zapu was fighting for the people of Zimbabwe as a unitary entity.
Little Mnangagwa unwittingly left Zapu and created a narrative that he was treated tribally. In Zanu, Mozambique 1976, where one would expect that Mnangagwa would not meet tribalism, people like Thomas Nhari were hanged for being Karanga. Tekere was beaten for being Manyika. Sithole lost the Presidency of his own tribal party for being a Ndau. Mugabe was awarded Presidency for being Zezuru. Gumbo was imprisoned in a pit for being Karanga.
Mnangagwa was dull enough to fail to see that he had immersed himself into a pond of tribal matrix. He enjoyed the perfumed armpits of the Zezuru in Zanu as they used him as a worthless token to fool all Karangas to believe that they are ruling Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa and Muzenda were favoured by the Zezuru for being passive Karangas malleable enough to be used for any dirty work. They even changed their Karanga accent into Zezuru. Zezuru was their new English which made them feel more civilised than fellow Karangas in Gutu. Where Zaka Karangas say “Musangano”, civilised Mnangagwa would say “Musa’ngano”. It made him feel special to speak Zezuru accent in Masvingo.
Mnangagwa would stick to Zezuru hegemony at any cost as long as he smelt their perfumed armpits. Zvobgo refused to be tossed around, but not Mnangagwa and Muzenda. They were passive like S.K Moyo and Phelekezela Mphoko.
Today after thirty-seven years of Indipendance, Gweru, Shurugwi and Masvingo are as poor as Bulawayo and Gwanda. All these towns were predominantly King Lobengula’s kraals. The only provinces who gained from the liberation of Zimbabwe are those where the Karanga and Ndebele do not live. This is because the Zezuru leadership did not like Midlands and Matebeleland from as long ago as 1963. However, they used these Provinces by dangling a tokens like Mnangagwa.
We have written so many articles to try and make Mnangagwa see why he is a useless token used to fool and oppress our people. Today, all Judges, CIO, Army and Police Commanders, economic drivers, and culture makers are Zezuru.
The Karangas are mere constabulary Police used to silence the Ndebele in Bulawayo and force people to attend Zanu rallies in Masvingo. Vanongo vuchira, vechiZezuru vachingotonga, nekutonga, nekutonga nekudzinga mazizi asina nyanga.
The Karanga make 60% of Zimbabwean population and the Zezuru only 7%. Mnagagwa has been shown the way out of Zanu like Tekere, Nkala, Mujuru, Gumbo and Mutasa. There is nothing he will do. There is nothing he has ever contributed to improve the lives of people in Chivi.
In his letter to Mugabe during Gukurahundi, Joshua Nkomo wrote “…even the people of Murehwa will one day feel the pain of the tribal bayonet which the Ndebeles are facing today”. That letter was written in 1983 while Mnangagwa was Chief Gukurahundi to please a Zezuru dynasty. Today, those prophetic words from Joshua Nkomo explicitly describe sacked Emerson Mnangagwa.
Tribalism is the ambarella of Zanu PF and Mnangagwa left his Zapu training in Egypt 1963 which was going to make him a better Nationalist, and became a Zanu lantern of tribalism. Real tribalism has devoured all his dreams. Grace Mugabe openly called it Zezuru unconquerable and I wonder if my fellow Karanga’s will now consider going back to Zapu where Mnangagwa led us from in 1963?
