Why I will not mourn Chinx - Concerned citizen

A Concerned citizen Taurai Njabulo Chirandu has exposed why he would not mourn the death of a war veteran chimurenga musician Dickson Chinx Chingaira.

In a document posted by Mthwakazi Republic Party leader Mqondisi Moyo, Chirandu said, "Why i will not cry for Chinx: by Taurai Njabulo Chirandu Njekete I think I have come to terms with the fact that it is human nature to forgive but I find it a bit irresponsible to forget. Forgetting is serious dereliction of duty. At times I do understand that more often than not people do not necessarily forget, instead four things suffice: 1. Self-induced amnesia as a form of closure 2. Outright naivety 3. Just ignorance 4. They speak from a position and therefore re-member things I want to talk about the singer Chinx. And I will speak from a position."

He said but his is not a position of forgetting but that of remembering not remembering.

"That said, as a human being who seeks to live well with fellow human beings and nature, I wish him a speedy recovery. I will begin with a quote from Turino on Zimbabwe and its music and nationalism: "music nationalism is the conscious use of..music in the service of a political nationalist movement, be it in the initial nation-building stage, during the militant movement of manouvre or after the moment of arrival to build and buttress a particular relationship between the population and the state," he said.

"Speaking from my position, Matebeleland, post 1980 nationalist music was a celebration of my demise and that of my people. Three key musicians stand out in buttressing the creation of a nation that excluded if not exterminated a people through music that promoted 'othering' and tribalism. These are Elijah Mdazikatire, Thomas Mapfumo and Cde Chinx. 1. Elijah Madzikatire, who was very close to the ZANLA cadres brazenly wrote the song 'Gukurahundi'(available on youtube) in 1980 before people even knew about what was about to hit Matebeleland in 1983. 2.Thomas Mapfumo in his song Gwindigwindi was not to be left out in declaring the people of Matebeleland as a sort of vermin only fit to be hunted down and exterminated."

The concerned citizen said that was also in 1981. He literally rallied 'ZANU' to save the Shona from the Ndebele uprising referring to something that one would have called a figment of his imagination because there was no uprising.

"But in 1983 the 5th brigade was unleashed. I guess he knew something we did not know. Cde Chinx with his 1975 song 'Makaruza imi' added to the dehumanisation of the population that was already a butt for all kind of spite. Yes, the song was a 1974/75 song originally meant for guerillas during the struggle, but it was always revised to fit two other epochs, the Genocide era and the MDC-T times. Music permeates all walks of life and plays a key but underrated role of shaping public opinion," he said.

"Chinx played his role of being a conduit for the post 1980 segregatory,supremacist approach that defined Zimbabwean nationalism as shona. His song 'Makaruza Imi' and 'Mai WaDikhondo' became the key two songs that the 5th brigade forced its victims to sing in all night pungwes where the unfortunate candidate for burning or mass graves were chosen. Why does Cde Chinx touch a nerve? The two songs are the only Shona words that my late grandmother could put together fluently in a sentence, having relocated from South Africa in 1971 with my grandfather. I could go on and on."

He said  'Makaruza imi' is a song that was also to humiliate Joshua Nkomo, such that he had to explain in a 1985 interview that no one had lost, in actual fact everyone had won, because majority is what the liberation parties had fought for.

"He had to explain that majority as a whole, as a group, for an idea and not majority as an ethnic group. What I may want to ask comrade Chinx at this point are two questions: 1. Is he aware of the damage he caused or his contribution to the lost opportunity of a great Zimbabwe or his contribution to a stillborn country," he said.

"His divisive songs, were they inspired by his own perspective, by his funders and who were they? Or he was just a victim of the times like all of us. Chinx, he is a legend to many, but a stink to some like me. His legacy has even been inherited by younger generations, one Mau Mau a hip hop artist of the 1990s comes to mind when he went all out with the assignation of moral turpitude and subhumaness to the apparently unwanted Matebele 'dissidents' singing "we will wipe out them out" in his 'native' shona, he is a Sebata by the way Shingirayi."