Zimbabwe's ruins do not translate to Mthwakazi Castles: Time to organize Mthwakazi!

Let me start by capturing the immediate political context, events of this week.
Within just under a week, we have seen three apparently unrelated attacks on Mthwakazi. First, we have had an excited Shonaist - apparently from the blue - deciding to incite a de-humanization program against uMthwakazi via a sponsored video. Secondly, we have Nathaniel Manheru - aka George Charamba assailing the pogrom against uMthwakazi - Gukurahundi - as 'so-called' (Herald). For Manheru, this is more of the same. And thirdly, we have just seen 'war veteran' Douglas Mahiya attack Jonathan Moyo, as did Nathaniel Manheru in his weekend column, in Newsday today (Newsday). All these things are happening in the opening week of Zanu-PF's conference, a conference that essentially will determine who succeeds Mr Mugabe if he expires by natural or other means. Are all these happenings coincidental?

Is the anti-Mthwakazi video terrorist a lone wolf? As for Nathaniel Manheru - aka George Charamba - he speaks official policy from the highest office of the Zimbabwe State, we need not read anything into his writings except acknowledge the official positions on issues such as Gukurahundi and Mthwakazi that come out through the agency of his disguised self. And Mahiya, he is said to be a 'war veteran'. His attacks on Mthwakazi are disguised as an attack on Jonathan Moyo. But who does not know that Emmerson Mnangagwa (and other Shonaists) are wanted persons at the United Nations over the diamond looting in the DRC - and possibly inside Zimbabwe - a known fact that is connected to the assassination of the late minister of Mines, Moven Mahachi. So how come Douglas Mahiya is able to jump the corruption and lootery of Messrs Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwa, Perence Shiris and others and leap to Jonathan Moyo - an alleged recent corruptionist -  and dangle him as exemplar of corruption that Mahiya and the so-called war vets hate so much today?

And this is my point this brief context. In less than a week you have three levels of the Gukurahundist and Shonaist state at work against uMthwakazi: the incited ordinary Shonas (video), the official endorsement of that popular incitement (Manheru's column article), and, finally, the military or paramilitary wing of Gukurahundist and Shonaist Zimbabwe (Mahiya and co). The idea is to incite anti-Mthwakazi and anti-Ndebele feelings inside the Succession Chamber being held out as a Zanu-PF conference so that, inside that Chamber, it's no longer an issue just about succession but an issue about which 'tribe' must be excluded from succeeding at any cost. And we all know which.

Notice too that, at no point since 18 April 1980, have you heard any Mthwakazian incite any Mthwakazians against the Shonaist and Gukurahundist Zimbabwe State from official and semi-official positions. So where do these Shonaists and their accomplices get the nerve? It's simple. They are all just driving the official anti-Mthwakazi policy of the Shonaist Zimbabwe State by means apparently 'deniable' and un-attributable, but perversely effective in its anti-Mthwakazi result.

Notice this too. The Shonaist and Gukurahundist Zimbabwe State is conspicuous by its silence over the Intarahamwe-type anti-Mthwakazi video. And The Herald - Nathaniel Manheru - aka George Charamba's main channel of his daily dosages of anti-Mthwakazi poison - is also loudly silent, this stance, after roasting Highlanders FC over the coals for what could have been dismissed as football banter a few months ago. This one - this Intarahamwe video - is directly and openly political and inciting. Does any Mthwakazian seriously believe it's a mistake on the part of the Shonaist Zimbabwe State and The Herald to be silent; an oversight? When all the Gukurahundist State can offer is a  rehearsed silence over an incident of incitement of one tribe (Shona is a tribe) against another people (Mthwakazi has never been a tribe), then you know what that means Mthwakazi!

Which brings me back to my topic.
That any Mthwakazian should be excited about the raucous brouhaha inside Zanu-PF successionism is unfortunate. A Shonaist and Gukurahundist chamber - despite the posturings of the likes of Jonathan Moyo and others - will only, and can only, reproduce and Shonaist and Gukurahundist outcome. And it makes no difference to the outcome the identity of the persons swinging the Shonaist and Gukurahundist apparatus of State as a weapon against uMthwakazi after that conference. It is this warped notion that within an anti-Mthwakazi system you can have a particular oppressor (individual) who is a better evil than the other (individual), when the system as a whole is designed to function as anti-Mthwakazi for eternity. Even if Zanu-PF collapsed in Masvingo at this conference today, and the MDC-T and ZPF they will still run present-day Zimbabwe as a Shonaist and Gukurahundist State it is, and in terms of which they all have long and always configured themselves. So, what uMthwakazi do?

Let us keep it simple.
There are two things. One, the one uMthwakazi must do. And the other, the one uMthwakazi must now stop. Starting with the second, the dangerous one inducing a sense of miasmic folly within Mthwakazi.

That problem is Mthwakazi's present activism.  For far too long uMthwakazi has mistaken uMthwakazi activism - vocal activism - as organized Mthwakazi politics itself. Activism is not organized politics, necessarily. A working definition of activisms would be 'the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change.' As a definition, it's fine, beyond that, activism has to be more. Don't get me wrong, activism has its place and time, but only if it is purposed and calibrated. Once it's presumed to assume a political character, as some form of self-acting morph - as is now the case with Mthwakazi - then there is a problem. Once that has become the case, activism has become dangerous to any revolution or cause, at three principal levels.

First, it becomes haphazard, directionless, splintered, personality-cult crippled, and a form of ignorable background noise (largely happening in relation to Mthwakazi activism). Second, it becomes an incubator for State security apparatus agents and informers. Neither of these two is worse or less than the other in its negative impact on a revolution or cause. Sufficiently infiltrated, and then allowed to reach a certain threshold level manipulated by State agents, activism can then easily be undone by a variety of methods, which include 'imploding' the activism, or arresting targeted persons. We learn today that MRP president has been arrested, for example (http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-101212.html). There is however no suggestion that activist Mthwakazi groups are infiltrated, though it is reasonable to believe they are. Third, in the grand scheme of things, activism is microscopically localized and confined. It is therefore very easy to deal with.

The other big problem with activism are its psychological dimensions which reflect on the growing and assumed 'ownership' of the cause or revolution by activists themselves. Activists become privileged 'specialists' with privileged positions over and above others. In this sense, activism shares this problem even with a political organization - if a political organization doesn't put appropriate safeguards. "Revolution, said Raoul Vaneigem, is made everyday despite, and in opposition to, the specialists of revolution." The danger for activism to lose it totally is therefore real, not imagined. That mental disconnect between activism and the rest of Mthwakazi can make the difference between something that has social and political mileage and something that is only of irritation value to the Shonaist regime. UMthwakazi's cause shouldn't be so reducible.

You will notice I haven't referred to 'political' activism. I have skipped the adjective 'political' altogether, because I don't know what that would be in the context of Mthwakazi and present-day Zimbabwe and its Shonaist politics. Is chasing away a head teacher or waving a Mthwakazi banner activism? Maybe! I don't know. I believe, though, activism in a political sense must involve the possibility of a large number of political locales taking up similar causes on their own without direct prompt from activists at the 'centre', or locales taking up similar actions on their own as inspired by the actions of the 'centre'. Usually because activism (in this context) lacks the political glue, it relies on subjective enthusiasm and passion - very short-term drivers by nature - and fizzles out quickly or never takes off at all outside the 'centre'. The 'centre' is forced to make expensive trips itself, virtually self-destructing activism in the process.

And now to what uMthwakazi must do.
UMthwakazi now needs to politically organize, to move the struggle from enthusiastic, passionate, and often angry (understandable) activism, to political organization. This does not mean there are presently no Mthwakazi groups that lay claim to this political status; claims can always be made and are made. Political organizing is about founding an umbrella Mthwakazi political organization that comes from Mthwakazi herself, that is grounded (doesn't mean should be inside Mthwakazi) and has political and institutional pedigree, where no single individual or group of individuals can claim 'ownership' of it. In other words, there is a need for Mthwakazi now to move away from the political evangelism of the past that spawned a variety of Mthwakazi groups that have ridden on the crest of the activism of today and recent past, not Mthwakazi political pedigree.

Political organizing has certain unavoidable attributes. It is not in a hurry - a hurry to shout. It is deliberate and measured. It reaches out. It is selfless. It seeks the best people for the right roles. It debates passionately - even angrily - but ultimately arrives at decisions that are in the best interests of the organization and uMthwakazi as a whole. It makes things simple without inviting simple-mindedness. It seeks knowledge and knowledgeability. It understands processes and procedures with which and within which it has to work. It defines itself in terms of itself, not against others - the Shona, for example.

It understands and knows that uMthwakazi's cause is, ultimately, about or against misgovernance and misrule, and not elements or symptoms of them. It understands that good governance and proper rule for Mthwakazi and Mthwakazians are what uMthwakazi's cause is all about, nothing more, nothing less. That these two things are sufficiently politically causable to warrant a separate, independent and sovereign State of Mthwakazi - the restored United Kingdom of Matebeleland!

Political organizing understands that being deliberate and measured doesn't mean being lethargic, but that urgency is incorporated within a political framework of political discipline and self-control; the ability to emerge the other end of challenge and adversity with uMthwakazi's cause intact, unblemished and unsoiled. Activism tends to despise deliberateness, for it is driven by the emotions of the time and the enthusiasm of the moment. Political cover eliminates these disastrous human traits in the context of political causes.
Political organization invites Mthwakazians to bring the skill of the brain over the agitations of the heart. Such is the mental and psychological transformation uMthwakazi needs to make now to advance her restorationist cause.

Political organizing knows and understands that while Zimbabwe still misrules uMthwakazi as a Gukurahundists and Shonaist state, such misrule will continue regardless of whether uMthwakazi likes it or not, until uMthwakazi has gotten herself to a place the Zimbabwe State can no longer rule over uMthwakazi ever. Political organizing enables uMthwakazi to stomach this reality and to work with and against it soberly, determinedly, and programmatcally. Anger, passion and enthusiasm are of little value in the context of the overall long-term project of national liberation and national recovery, such as Mthwakazi's. UMthwakazi restoration is a project for political marathon runners and not political sprinters.

Political organizing understands that - as this generation or as this group - there is so, so much more we can do and achieve now by organizing uMthwakazi differently, politically, as we consolidate and advance from where we have gotten and must move on from, to another stage.
Political organizing understands that Shonaist Zimbabwe's detractors will laugh, taunt, insult, ridicule, claim powers or prowesses they simply don't have; that they will threaten acts they would never carry out, scare-monger, sweet-talk, pamper and make all other deceptive manoeuvres, all designed to stem a revolutionary Mthwakazi that can neither be stopped nor reconciled to a past she is leaving forever.

Political organizing understands that political cover is required for any Mthwakazi activity, however small or big, however isolated integrated, when such cover provides both the political protection and political driver for the group - uMthwakazi - as a whole.

Political organizing must make Mthwakazians understand that the Zimbabwe's ruins - and they presently are - do not translate into political castles for Mthwakazi. And that uMthwakazi has no role or interest in Shonaist Zimbabwe's current succession politics. UMthwakazi's sole interest should be - and is - in Mthwakazi's restorationist agenda!