Shona speaking teacher locked up in a Ndebele lessons classroom: A linguistic genocide

The politics, language, ethnic and culture problems began soon after the independence of Zimbabwe leading to the Gukurahundi atrocities in the 1980s in Matabeleland precipitated mainly by the ideologies of a one party state by ZANU PF party and because of an intrinsic tribal hatred of the Ndebele people. Ndebele speakers are frequently made to feel excluded in the social and economic spheres, libelled as uneducated and tribalists by ZANU PF adversaries.

The deployment of Shona speaking teachers who cannot speak a single word in Ndebele in primary schools in Matabeleland where the dominant language is Ndebele has provoked questions of an act of cultural and Ndebele language genocide imposed on Ndebele people without their consent. Note that primary school teachers teach all subjects. This script is not an argument against Shona speaking teachers as long as they have the required skills to teach the Ndebele language. The matter is to do with Shona speaking teachers who do not have the requisite skills, the level of competence and proficiency in speaking, reading, writing, spelling, understanding and the training in the Ndebele language. A suitable teacher regardless of origin and language background should be one who knows the Ndebele language, one who identifies with the Ndebele language, one who is identified by the children with the Ndebele language, one who knows the cultural usage of the Ndebele language, and one who knows the semantics and intonation of the Ndebele language. Anything short of these essential and desirable attributes, the prospective teacher cannot be suitable for the job unless it is a deliberate act of invasion of the Ndebele language.

Shona teachers with no aptitude for Ndebele language are posted to work at Ndebele dominated schools to teach at primary schools targeting small children whose language is still forming by providing them with a teacher who will not speak to them in their Ndebele language. The mother tongue is the central media of teaching instruction more importantly at the children's years of learning. The consequence of using Shona(foreign language) as the medium of instruction in the expense of the mother tongue for Ndebele speaking children at primary schools hampers not only their academic achievement and cognitive growth, but also their self-perception, self-esteem, emotional security and their ability to participate meaningfully in the learning process due to the language barrier. ZANU PF has introduced the Shona curriculum at Ndebele dominated secondary schools including some primary schools but has not introduced the Ndebele curriculum in any primary and secondary schools in Mashonaland.

The destruction of Ndebele language can be traced to the 'ZANU PF 1979 grand plan' which is a document that provides strategies for social, culture, language and ethnic colonization and eradication of the Ndebele people. Linguistic genocide is being used to systematically eradicate the Ndebele language for ZANU PF to assert authority of its Shona language and an attempt to forcibly integrate Zimbabwe ethnic minority groups into one language' Shona' which one may call an attempt to create a "linguistic unity". The Turkish government under the pretext and cover of the world war one systematically targeted the minority groups largely the Armenians and destroyed 1.5 million innocent people in a misguided attempt to unify the Turkish people by creating one language The success of that madness was the violation and destruction of human life just like what Mugabe did with his Gukurahundi onslaught on Ndebele people killing more than 20 000 of them in a vain attempt to eradicate Ndebeles so that in the end there is only Shona people left in Zimbabwe. Following the killings Mugabe by his own admission announced to the nation that he killed Ndebele people because he had gone mad. It is unthinkable for one to kill innocent people at this magnitude and never feel anything unless such persons have a predisposition of psychopathic traits (morally deprived, no sense of ethics, guilt or the rights of others, and fascinated by the pain inflicted on others, fixated on strong emotions of control over others but somehow cowardly inside) Mugabe never changed or sought to get treatment of the madness he claimed he had acquired but has continued with his stunts of onslaught on Zimbabweans that have now affected everyone's life in a big way by destroying the economy.

ZANU PF planned to put an end to the population, language and culture of Ndebele people by the application of cultural imperialism, language invasion, social and economic marginalisation calculated to bring about its physical destruction and extinction by imposing measures intended to prevent births within and between the Ndebele people by making Ndebele women easily accessible to Shona men to create a new cultural identity.

This was done by increasing the population of Shona speaking people in Matabeleland. How often do you see Ndebele people clapping and shaking hands with bereaved families in funeral gatherings these days? Traditional Ndebeles do not have the practice of shaking and clapping hands when expressing their condolences to bereaved families. Shona speaking public officials have been put in position of influence and public offices where Ndebele people will have no choice but learn to speak Shona as those officials will not speak back to them in Ndebele. This arrangement is easily noticeable in the police camps throughout Matabeleland, passport offices, birth and death registration offices, courts and tourism industry within Matabeleland. One can compare this to the stolen generation of the Aborigines after the invasion of that country by the British convicts. They killed all babies at birth, castrated Aborigine men and sterilised women in an attempt to destroy the population of the Aborigines, their language and their culture. ZANU PF has created conditions for Ndebele man and women to become economic migrants by shutting down industries in Matabeleland forcing them to go to South Africa in search for a better life and later the highly educated Grace Mugabe accusing them  of being  sexual predators whose only pre-occupation is polygamy and making babies. The grand strategy advocates for business opportunities and employment for Shona men in the region of Matabeleland so that Shona men enjoy economic supremacy over Ndebele men and are readily available to Ndebele women due their economic advantage to create new babies with Shona totems. It does not matter whether these Shona men marry these women or not. The core idea is to create a new generation of Shona related human species in Matabeleland.

The stretches of huge farm lands, industry and commercial ventures, wild life concessions, tourism and mining prospectors in Matabeleland are now largely owned by people from Mashonaland employing people from Mashonaland to do menial jobs in the expense of local people in Matabeleland. This is a strategy designed to crowd out the people of Matabeleland by replacing them with Shona speaking people.

Look at the wrong Ndebele spellings on billboards, marketing adverts and official documents such as marriage certificates, birth certificates and passports. An attempt by Ndebele parliamentarians to debate in Ndebele in parliament is treated with contempt by fellow Shona parliamentarians who by virtue of their status should understand better and recognize language diversity in Zimbabwe but they choose to shoot down their colleagues insisting they speak in either Shona or English. The ZANU PF grand plan is a blue print based on the model of cultural imperialism in this case targeting Ndebele culture and language. The model was adopted from the ideology of colonization of Africa where African languages were considered inferior by the colonizers and were largely ignored in official business transactions. Ndebele is gradually suffering the same fate in Zimbabwe.

The ZANU PF goal is that everyone in Matabeleland should eventually speak Shona. More 'Ndebele people now appear more willing to speak in Shona than their Shona counterparts' willingness to speak in Ndebele. The death of the Ndebele language is imminent as there are signs of its deterioration. The Ndebele heritage, culture, values and language is suffering a sustained attack and it will soon breakdown. Once the Ndebele people lose their language they will lose the meaning of life. Ndebele is the pinnacle of the tribal tradition of Ndebele people and if its assimilation crushes their identity then the Ndebele people will crush too.

The ideology of thinking that having one national language resolves prospects of wars and divisions in the country is a delusion. Lwafa ulimi lwamaNdebele.