Opinion / Columnist
The deep sleep of the Karanga
15 Sep 2014 at 01:21hrs | Views
Nature does not allow a vacuum! If you pump out all the air from a strong metallic cylinder, the cylinder collapses to make sure that the absence of air on a strong cylinder is compensated. This is what is happening in Zimbabwe. Today's Politics hinges on Democracy and Democracy hinges on numbers. But, numbers without a strong leadership are useless which is why the Karanga in Zimbabwe constitute 60% in numbers but because of lack of leadership and knowledge, the Karanga are just a number good for Sadza and not politics.
The Karanga have the best advantage in all aspects of Democracy but the Karanga may never taste the State House in Zimbabwe. In their many advantages, the Karanga were lucky to be trained by Mzilikazi in 1830 invasion and were even double lucky that Mzilkazi merged them with the Ndebele resulting in a strong diversity which is cemented by two hundred years of intermarriages between the two.
After the Death of Christ AD900, the Karanga came to Zimbabwe from North Africa. They became a strong Nation with a dominion stretching to Mozambique and some parts of South Africa. They traded with the Portuguese and Chinese as long ago as AD1300.
Around AD1600, the Karanga developed a weakness which, like a curse, is accompanying them throughout in life today. For the past 400 years, the Karanga have failed to create a strong leader to take advantage of their numbers. When a Karanga leader is elected, since AD1600, it is the Karanga who denounce him. The Karanga choose to be led by someone else than to lead.
Nature does not permit a vacuum, since the Karanga are not capable to be led by one from within, it has always been that someone else from another culture takes over. This has been the case since 400 years ago.
By the time Mzilikazi came to Zimbabwe, the Karanga were so many in numbers but they were not taking orders from anyone. It is a cowardice excuse to tell lies and say Mzilikazi killed so many people when he came to Zimbabwe in 1830. There was no one to fight in Zimbabwe as the Karanga were just a Nation without a leader. They were a Nation without organised warriors to fight anyone. They were just unorganised villagers so harmless and peaceful and incapable to counter a warrior like Mzilikazi. Mzilikazi had no reason to kill harmless unorganised people, instead, he just walked over and took over by declaration. This writer's father's great grandfather was in Masvingo the time Mzilikazi came and none of our family was ever killed. People accepted and sought protection from Mzilikazi and were even happy that we had a strong king something we had not had for two hundred years.
The Ndebele settled in Masvingo, Shurugwi, Gweru, KweKwe, Lower Gwelo, Zhombe, Nkai and made their capital in Matebeleland. Today as I write, there are hundreds of thousands of Ndebele people living within the Karanga who can't speak a single word in Ndebele. They speak Karanga and they have done so for two hundred years. Many Karangas who think they are Karangas are actually Ndebele. And, many Ndebeles who think they are Ndebele are actually Karanga.
No known technology after 200 years of living together can now tell who is Ndebele and who is Karanga.
This, is one of the best dynamics of life which this writer did not cause but was created by Nation Builder and King Mzilikazi. It is an abomination for an ignorant Karanga to talk treacherously about a Ndebele as much as it is ignorantly treacherous for a Ndebele to denounce a Karanga. If a spear is given to a Karanga to stab a Ndebele, the ignorant Karanga could be stabbing his own brother from a 200 year old relationship. Such a probability is less likely if a Karanga was made to stab a Herero from Namibia.
The Karangas are readily willing to accept a Herero to lead them than they would accept their own. When Cecil John Rhodes came to Zimbabwe in 1891, the Karanga were quick to accept a Murungu than support Lobengula with whom they had spent sixty years and sixty years of intermarriage. In 1891, the Karanga Grand father of this writer had just married a Ndebele wife in Shamba mountain in Shurugwi. But, the curse of the Karanga, to trust a total stranger in the position of power more than one of our own gave advantage to the penetration of Cecil John Rhodes. He studied our tribal relationship with King Mzilikazi and divided us because of our weakness. Rhode's Colonialists held our hones for a century.
During the struggle for Independence from 1956, The Karanga, with the rest of Zimbabweans accepted Dr Joshua Nkomo as our leader. Dr Joshua Nkomo was a Kalanga. As I said before, no technology today or in the future can be used to undo the blood mixtures between the Karanga and the Ndebele that were mixed by marriage since 1830. The Nation called the Ndebele was composed by King Mzilkazi by mixing the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Karanga, Sotho, Tonga, Kalanga, Venda and Shangani. This was not a mixture of neighbourhood only but also of marriages. We are just one, and any one of us who thinks or talks loud about being something else that is stronger outside this union, is just a wishful thinker. Wishful thinking is ignorance and ignorance is the major source of poverty.
All Karangas who are used and paid by outsiders sing and praise outsiders while their relatives in Masvingo, Khezi and Kwekwe are pressed hard by outsider repressive Police. All outsiders have one thing in common, they study the weakness of the Karanga and exploit it. Outsiders know that since Mutota the Karanga King of the 16th Century, the karangas have never been able to orginse themselves and their many numbers are therefore nothing but many plates of Sadza.
Outsiders take a few sleeping Karangas like Muzenda, Mnangagwa, Rugare Gumbo, Zvobgo, Moyo etc and give them Sadza and rule the whole country because of Sadza acceptance of few.
Beyond the plate of Sadza, I will be lying to say I know of anything that we said we want since UDM days of 1956. Instead, the roads in Khezi where our Kalanga leader Dr Joshua Nkomo came from are, today, in a more sorry state than they were in 1956. The Industry in Chivi, Kwekwe, Gweru Bulawayo where the Karanga and Ndebele come from are the ones to close first while the Coloniser feeds himself and his own.
As per old tradition, the Karanga still can't unite with their own blood relatives to take advantage of their number and use it for political influence.
People use their surnames to feel big in dire poverty. Their surnames carry expired nostalgia which has no capacity to change politics. The Kalanga say they are not related to the Karanga. The Ndebele say they are different from all else but Ndebele is not a tribe, it is an amalgamation of diverse tribes comprising of the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Karanga, Sotho, Tonga, Kalanga, Venda and Shangani.
Ignorance and the distortedly and politically designed history education takes food from our plates and gives it to the outsiders who laugh at us once they are constipated.
By numbers and by King Mzilikazi's irreversible blood cemented diversity, the Karanga and Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Sotho, Tonga, Kalanga, Venda and Shangani in Zimbabwe make 91% of the population. We allowed hungry and outsider Politicians to feed on us and make us as poor as we are.
For a change, lets read our undistorted history and correct our mistakes and go back to what we were in 1956. Let us remember the names of people who were arrested in Gweru in 1962 who took trains from Salisbury to come and beat up people in Gweru who were supporters of a Zimbabwean initiative. We were fooled by those people to denounce our leaders. We were told who to support and by 1980, we all supported people who came from far away to divide us. Those people have become too strong and have armed themselves while we wriggle in poverty.
The teeth of the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Karanga, Sotho, Tonga, Kalanga, Venda and Shangani in Zimbabwe have become yellow due to poverty. Those far away people that we were fooled to support in 1963 have multiple farms. They lost count of how much money they have. And we smile with malnourished yellow teeth.
Now, we need a new leader from the 200 year blood union of the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, Karanga, Sotho, Tonga, Kalanga, Venda and Shangani. Anything outside this union has proven to be cruel and insensitive to be trusted to run a diverse country like Zimbabwe.
Source - Ryton Dzimiri
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