MANHERU: When he advances uMthwakazi's restoration

When even Manheru himself can no longer stop advancing uMthwakazi's restorationist agenda, then it's game on Mthwakazi!

In introducing uMthwakazi as a new and unfolding political force of our time – not a benign, apolitical and apologetic social reference it had been to that stage - uMTHWAKAZI, the political movement that spearheaded that new call, made two simple but politically prognostic claims.

First, it screamed: ISIFOHLILE!

Secondly, it quoted the following words attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win".

For those who don't know, uMTHWAKAZI morphed into MPC years later.

UMthwakazi's weeping admirers
From behind fortified walls of sand uMthwakazi's political tormenters, ignored uMthwakazi. But later, and soon enough, the same Nathaniel Manheru, on behalf of his Gukurahundist masters and Shonaists, through a series of wuthering articles, sneered and poured scorn on Mthwakazi. He was soon joined by an ignoble army of Shonaists and an assortment of Gukurahundists masquerading as the commentariat or forumites, who co-attacked uMthwakazi and put to ridicule and pillory the Ndebele Kings and Queens who founded and defenced the very Ndebele State they today rule as the 're-named' Zimbabwe (defending it against the colonialists and the very same Shona now laying a prior claim to it). The name 'Zimbabwe' is by the way, about the seventh 'renaming' of the Ndebele State now presently ruled as Zimbabwe.

Today – yesterday to be precise – we saw Nathan Manheru launch the third of the four phases of revolution mentioned by Ghandi above: the fight against Mthwakazi. In case you missed it, let's leave Manheru to say it: "For the first time after so many peaceful years, there is a real threat to national unity and national cohesion." He has already immediately before that identified uMthwakazi politics and what he calls 'Gukurahundi politics' as the threats to that 'national unity', by marrying uMthwakazi and Gukurahundi politics (artificially, as I will show below), to 'succession' and stating: "Succession will thus lead to secession."

Under guise of talking about internal struggles in Zanu-PF, Manheru then makes the swingeing lunge for Mthwakazi: "I am not sure that this state of conflict inside the Party is non-antagonistic anymore. It might require something a lot stronger than moral suasion. What that is, I cannot say." In all that hatcheting monologue, for 'Party', read or substitute 'Mthwakazi'.

So, there you have it Mthwakazi, the fight against uMthwakazi is on. Or at least Manheru is egging, inciting it. Well, in that case, and we welcome it, we are headed for the fourth and last phase of revolution elaborated by Ghandi, Mthwakazi. To our victory, where we will win, we are headed. Whether they liked it or not, disguised it or not, admitted it or not, their actions (and I mean Gukurahundists and Shonaists) were always going to follow this pattern and end, ultimately, in the assured position of uMthwakazi's victory.  

The claim, 'isifohlile', was no idle clarion call; it was a political call to Mthwakazi to arms. As uMTHWAKAZI also aptly quoted Victor Hugo at the time: "No one can stop an idea whose time has come". The very notion that Zimbabwe's Gukurahundists and Shonaists could stop such an idea is sad denialism which can only wreak disaster for them. UMthwakazi has fought and will continue to fight the battle of ideas, and on that, uMthwakazi is now unstoppable.

When even reification is impossible for a wordsmith like Manheru

Reification – the attempt to create a reality by words - you have seen Manheru try to do it in his yesterday article: calling uMthwakazi politics 'secessionist'. No! It won't work Mr Manheru, it's not working.

The fact that you avoid uMthwakazi's own language and seek to impose your own, exposes your own Gukurahundist and Shonaist agenda, the one I detail below.

Try as you Mr Manheru and your bevy of Gukurahundists and Shonaists might to detract, it won't change the fact that uMthwakazi's agenda is restorationist, and not secessionist. And how could uMthwakazi ever secede from itself anyway – when present-day Zimbabwe is the Ndebele State, just in another name?

Manheru's poor deception: Team Lacoste bearing itself bare
Here is the poor deception Manheru tried to weave yesterday. Manheru is basically saying Gukurahundi and Mthwakazi equals succession and therefore secession. Remember that about Gukurahundi? Zapu equals Ndebele (Mthwakazi), therefore 'dissident'! This is what Manheru is trying to do.

Manheru has attempted to remove the traditional antagonism between Mthwakazi politics and Zanu-PF's politics of succession (that uMthwakazi rejects Mthwakazians inside Zanu-PF) for one simple reason and one simple reason alone. He is trying to say – inside Zanu-PF – Mthwakazi politics has invaded, making Mthwakazians in there, and Mthwakazians out of Zanu-PF, one. In other words, and to put it bluntly as it is, the Ndebele inside and outside Zanu-PF have coalesced INSIDE Zanu-PF to take over Zanu-PF post-Mugabe. So, what is his real point?

For those who haven't seen it, it is all about tribalizing the Zanu-PF 'succession' issue and setting up uMthwakazi inside Zanu-PF and outside it – as a people – as objects and targets for attack by a Gukurahundist state bent on re-inventing present-day Zimbabwe as a Shona and Gukurahundist state post-Mugabe. All this gobbledygook about such total unmixables as Mthwakazi, Gukurahundi (as if uMthwakazi claims it as a badge of honour) and 'successionists', is a poor disguise for something even more sinister. Let's unpack it.

Everybody will know that Nathan Manheru – aka George Charamba – is a fanatical Lacoste. This article – this part of his yesterday's article anyway – is a thinly veiled attack on G-40 in general, but on Professor Jonathan Moyo, in particular, given Jonathan Moyo's now well-known skirmishes with VP Mnangagwa, that well-known Gukurahundist and Gukurahundaire, over his (Mnangagwa's) undisguised succession ambitions outside and election process (Mnangagwa is unelectable anywhere). Manheru's poor diversion is to side-swap Mugabe and make Mugabe unleash his also well-known tribal venom against a 'tribe' – uMthwakazi - inside and outside Zanu-PF at the soon forthcoming Zanu-PF conference in Nyanda (Masvingo). Instead of him (Manheru) and Mnangagwa and their acolytes wearing Gukurahundi as a necklace of shame he has sought to have Jonathan Moyo wear it as a badge of honour, for his and his friends' opportunistic agenda at the conference (ie, Manheru). So goes the poorly disguised stratagem according to Lacoste, Jonathan Moyo and the Ndebele (uMthwakazi) – coalesced as successionists - once they succeed Mugabe will run away with the Zimbabwe state and 'secede'. Hence Manheru's claim above that: "Succession will thus lead to secession." Political stratagems have seldom come this poor and comical. This one is and baffles! What a load of waffunery!

Happenstance or conjunctival?
Is it a happenstance or there is something conjunctival about Nathaniel Manheru's article yesterday and the 'video' which appeared a few days earlier by this idiotic and heavily-accented character who videoed himself attacking uMthwakazi (http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-videos-sc-news-byo-e1S1VCPGP4k.html)?

But I don't want us to lose sight of the critical point being made by the video in the context of Mthwakazi, and stated above. We are seeing – in this video and Manherus' article of yesterday - the beginnings and escalation of attack on Mthwakazi by Gukurahundists and Shonaists – the very people who authored Gukurahundi and sowed disintegration. Rather than cause uMthwakazi concern, these things should embolden uMthwakazi as an assurance that the fight is on. When every Shonaist and Gukurahundist Tom, Dick and Harry is able and bold enough to stand up attack uMthwakazi with a pre-assured immunity and sense of assumed superiority over uMthwakazi – such as this video and Manheru - as uMthwakazi you must know that the game has all but been won.

We have come of age Mthwakazi, bantwana beNkosi

The road to here has not been easy, but get here we have Mthwakazi.

When MTHWAKAZI set out in early 2000, they stated that their aim was three-fold. First, to make the word 'Mthwakazi' – at that time regarded and seen by many Mthwakazians as treason – into a word used by and available freely to Mthwakazi. Secondly, it said it wanted to transform the word 'Mthwakazi' from a benign and politically dead word into a political word of political force that would drive and fuel uMthwakazi politics as a politics antagonistic to and repudiating Zimbabwe's Gukurahindist and Shonaist rule over uMthwakazi. And thirdly, uMTHWAKAZI said it wanted to take uMthwakazi politics from a fringe underground voice of feeble protest politics and NGO-concealed non-brand, into a mainstream political brand spoken and pronounced by uMthwakazi and uMthwakazi's political foes alike, foes who in the not too distant past would have spit in derision and disgust at the mere mention of that word. Here we are today, heavy accents and poisonous writings reluctantly wringing a political discourse out of Mthwakazi in place of excoriating sleights of the recent past.

This is not the time to be angry or be distracted by things of this nature, Mthwakazi, but time to be emboldened by them. For we are into another phase of Mthwakazi's politics in preparation for the next, and final, stage. It's time to keep the eyes on the ball; on the prize.

Let's rise to the challenge collectively, cooperatively and collaboratively!

No one will ever be able now  to fold back or scoop back into the bag this new breath of political fresh air now enveloping uMthwakazi we call uMthwakazi's restored freedom. Of that, you can be assured! For, kade yafohla!