Opinion / Columnist
Teaching Ndebele in Zimbabwe schools will have helped Shonas
8 hrs ago | Views
There are times when you think you are spitting someone, when in fact, you are destroying yourself.
One such instance was when Robert Mugabe and his colleagues in ZANU (before it became ZANU-PF) thought they didn't need unity with ZAPU, as General Josiah Tongogara had demanded, and when they considered teaching Ndebele in regions outside Matabeleland as emasculation.
Zimbabwe has paid a huge price for those two decisions, and I will explain why.
Tongogara's idea of returning home under one party, rather than ZANU and ZAPU, would have avoided the massive bloodshed that came with Gukurahundi. Teaching Ndebele across the country wouldn't just have brought unity, it would have helped Shona speakers who are now spread all over South Africa. Ndebele wasn't just a language; it could have been a commercial tool for Shona speakers in conducting sound business in South Africa.
But because our leaders were blinded by ethnic politics and lacked vision, they plunged the country into genocide.
Today, Shona speakers struggle in Matabeleland and South Africa.
I mention Shona speakers because all the Ndebele speakers I know speak Shona out of pragmatic necessity.
Learning languages broadens the mind, each new language opens new perspectives.
In 1979, General Josiah Magama Tongogara, who led the ZANLA forces based in Mozambique, suggested that all the liberation armies return home under one banner, with the leadership to be chosen locally, as the ANC did in 1991.
Vocal voices in ZANU, led by Mugabe, opposed the idea because they thought it meant sharing positions. Mugabe, in particular, was worried about his position because he knew Tongogara didn't consider him fit to lead the country.
Tongogara was the authority in ZANU, he was feared, and for good reason, as he was ruthless.
Edison Zvobgo told me they opposed Tongogara because they didn't need ZAPU, since they had the numbers as a "Shona-based party," given that Shona speakers are the largest ethnic group.
So they returned home and contested the elections as two separate parties,-PF-ZAPU and ZANU.
The "PF" in "PF-ZAPU" stands for "Patriotic Front," which was added to ZAPU's name in 1979 as part of a merger between ZAPU and ZANU to form a united front for negotiations at Lancaster House in England.
The refusal to unite by the Shona element in ZANUPF sowed the seeds that eventually led to the genocide of the 1980s, which was only halted in 1987 by the Unity Accord, amalgamating the two parties into what we know today as ZANUPF.
This demonstrates that Mugabe and his Shona colleagues, including a few Ndebeles like Enos Nkala, were short sighted.
Had Tongogara survived, the genocide might not have occurred.
Nkala didn't like Joshua Nkomo at all, Nkomo led ZAPU and was the more senior between the two leader of the parties.
Nkala's hatred for Nkomo was personal, Nkomo had a child with Nkala's sister who he didn't marry.
The second aspect of this post is the language issue. I have always advocated for Ndebele to be taught across the country, not only because 17% of our population speaks it, but also because, as we have seen in many post-colonial states, language binds people.
Nelson Mandela, an African statesman, spoke eloquently on the importance of language and learning each other's languages when he spoke in Afrikaans.
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart," Mandela said.
Speaking each other's languages would have united us, instead of the divisions that ensued.
Secondly, the most widely spoken language in Southern Africa is Zulu, also known as isiZulu.
Zulu is the home language of about a quarter of South Africa's population, with approximately 12 million speakers, representing around 23% of the country's population.
It is also understood by more than half of South Africans.
Many Zimbabweans, unable to find opportunities at home, go to South Africa, with most of them coming from Shona speaking regions due to demographics. Unfortunately, many struggle to communicate with local communities, and not all of them are fluent in English.
Had they been taught Ndebele in school, which is a variation of isiZulu, they would have assimilated well into local communities in South Africa.
However, due to the refusal by Shona-speaking leaders in ZANUPF, who saw this as submitting to the Ndebele ethnic group, it never happened.
Those two decisions cost the country unity, which could have been achieved at a lower cost than we ended up paying through the massacre of around 20,000 people, imagined unity for that matter.
The language aspect would not only have united the nation but would have been a commercial advantage for Shona speakers.
However, due to the backwardness of our political class, their lack of international exposure, and tribalism, it never happened.
There is a financial cost to this too. Just consider how much easier it would have been to conduct business with South Africans without having to resort to broken English.
The financial benefits of having a common language, like Swahili in East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, are significant.
A common language facilitates trade and business transactions among people from different countries. Swahili has helped break down language barriers and enabled smoother communication in East Africa, leading to increased trade and economic growth.
Swahili has also fostered regional cooperation and integration, resulting in shared economic benefits. The East African Community (EAC), comprising Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan, uses Swahili as one of its official languages.
It is estimated that the economic benefits of Swahili as a common language in East Africa range from US$5 billion to US$10 billion annually.
This figure reflects increased trade, tourism, job creation, regional cooperation, and education and research benefits.
But because of tribal politics, Zimbabwe missed the opportunity to connect more closely with the biggest economy in Africa, right next door, through language integration.
By refusing to purportedly "submit" to a smaller tribe, we missed the chance to adopt a language spoken by 12 million people in South Africa and understood by 30 million South Africans.
I want to conclude on this issue by emphasising that our failure to engage in strategic thinking has led us to believe that teaching French in our schools is a form of submission to a former colonial power. Instead, it is a business decision that would expose our people to the African market of French-speaking countries, which have a combined GDP of around US$300 billion.
There are 29 French-speaking countries in Africa, with 21 of them being officially designated as Francophone countries, meaning that French is either the only official language or one of the official languages in those countries.
If I were president today, Ndebele and French would be compulsory in all schools, from primary level to O-Level.
This would be a commercial decision that would open the French-speaking African world to our people, from business professionals to truck drivers.
Nations are not built by leaders without vision, they are built by visionaries like Lee Kuan Yew, by leaders who understand that speaking multiple languages broadens the mind and makes you a better person.
How can we unite our people across the continent when they cannot even communicate with one another?
Colonialism is a fact of history that cannot be undone. Anyone who believes that learning colonial languages to navigate the world is wrong is living in the past.
Zimbabwe was colonised by Britain using people who could speak our languages.
Did it make them any less capable because they spoke Ndebele and Shona, did it dehumanise them.
Robert Moffat, a Scottish missionary who befriended the Ndebele king Mzilikazi Khumalo in the 1820s, learned to speak both Ndebele and Shona.
George Westbeech, a trader and explorer, was fluent in several African languages, including Ndebele and Shona.
Frederick Selous, a British explorer and hunter, was proficient in several African languages, including Ndebele and Shona.
Charles Helm, a missionary who lived among the Shona people, became proficient in their language. The list goes on, these men understood that you cannot do business with someone when you cannot communicate with them.
Similarly, many of our people miss out on business and professional opportunities because they cannot speak the languages that would open those doors. Let us broaden our minds and avoid being so limited in our understanding of the world.
Let us learn from the mistakes of post-colonial leaders in Zimbabwe. Making a mistake is one thing, what is important is learning from it.
We can and should do better. We, the Shona speakers, should not just speak broken Ndebele when we go begging for votes in Matabeleland.
The Ndebele already speak Shona, so let us reciprocate.
White children in Britain speak French and Mandarin, yet China is considered their adversary and they mock the French.
Yet I vividly remember when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, he flew to France and addressed their parliament in French in 1998.
American leaders like George W. Bush speak proficient Spanish, though their mother tongue is English. The English go to the Arab world after learning Arabic, and they run Dubai today.
If you understand that these are business decisions, you will discard the archaic idea that learning another language is submission.
Here is the sad thing, the people who make these decisions make sure that their own kids speak French, Arabic, Mandarin and even Portuguese.
Grace Mugabe speaks fluent Mandarin, General Chiwenga's wife speaks fluent Mandarin, and so does Collins Mnangagwa.
It is wise, and they know it. Yet the children in the ghetto are deprived of those opportunities because of empty, nonsensical political ideologies.
Have a great weekend. Ngilifisela impelaviki enhle.
One such instance was when Robert Mugabe and his colleagues in ZANU (before it became ZANU-PF) thought they didn't need unity with ZAPU, as General Josiah Tongogara had demanded, and when they considered teaching Ndebele in regions outside Matabeleland as emasculation.
Zimbabwe has paid a huge price for those two decisions, and I will explain why.
Tongogara's idea of returning home under one party, rather than ZANU and ZAPU, would have avoided the massive bloodshed that came with Gukurahundi. Teaching Ndebele across the country wouldn't just have brought unity, it would have helped Shona speakers who are now spread all over South Africa. Ndebele wasn't just a language; it could have been a commercial tool for Shona speakers in conducting sound business in South Africa.
But because our leaders were blinded by ethnic politics and lacked vision, they plunged the country into genocide.
Today, Shona speakers struggle in Matabeleland and South Africa.
I mention Shona speakers because all the Ndebele speakers I know speak Shona out of pragmatic necessity.
Learning languages broadens the mind, each new language opens new perspectives.
In 1979, General Josiah Magama Tongogara, who led the ZANLA forces based in Mozambique, suggested that all the liberation armies return home under one banner, with the leadership to be chosen locally, as the ANC did in 1991.
Vocal voices in ZANU, led by Mugabe, opposed the idea because they thought it meant sharing positions. Mugabe, in particular, was worried about his position because he knew Tongogara didn't consider him fit to lead the country.
Tongogara was the authority in ZANU, he was feared, and for good reason, as he was ruthless.
Edison Zvobgo told me they opposed Tongogara because they didn't need ZAPU, since they had the numbers as a "Shona-based party," given that Shona speakers are the largest ethnic group.
So they returned home and contested the elections as two separate parties,-PF-ZAPU and ZANU.
The "PF" in "PF-ZAPU" stands for "Patriotic Front," which was added to ZAPU's name in 1979 as part of a merger between ZAPU and ZANU to form a united front for negotiations at Lancaster House in England.
The refusal to unite by the Shona element in ZANUPF sowed the seeds that eventually led to the genocide of the 1980s, which was only halted in 1987 by the Unity Accord, amalgamating the two parties into what we know today as ZANUPF.
This demonstrates that Mugabe and his Shona colleagues, including a few Ndebeles like Enos Nkala, were short sighted.
Had Tongogara survived, the genocide might not have occurred.
Nkala didn't like Joshua Nkomo at all, Nkomo led ZAPU and was the more senior between the two leader of the parties.
Nkala's hatred for Nkomo was personal, Nkomo had a child with Nkala's sister who he didn't marry.
The second aspect of this post is the language issue. I have always advocated for Ndebele to be taught across the country, not only because 17% of our population speaks it, but also because, as we have seen in many post-colonial states, language binds people.
Nelson Mandela, an African statesman, spoke eloquently on the importance of language and learning each other's languages when he spoke in Afrikaans.
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart," Mandela said.
Speaking each other's languages would have united us, instead of the divisions that ensued.
Secondly, the most widely spoken language in Southern Africa is Zulu, also known as isiZulu.
Zulu is the home language of about a quarter of South Africa's population, with approximately 12 million speakers, representing around 23% of the country's population.
It is also understood by more than half of South Africans.
Many Zimbabweans, unable to find opportunities at home, go to South Africa, with most of them coming from Shona speaking regions due to demographics. Unfortunately, many struggle to communicate with local communities, and not all of them are fluent in English.
Had they been taught Ndebele in school, which is a variation of isiZulu, they would have assimilated well into local communities in South Africa.
However, due to the refusal by Shona-speaking leaders in ZANUPF, who saw this as submitting to the Ndebele ethnic group, it never happened.
Those two decisions cost the country unity, which could have been achieved at a lower cost than we ended up paying through the massacre of around 20,000 people, imagined unity for that matter.
The language aspect would not only have united the nation but would have been a commercial advantage for Shona speakers.
There is a financial cost to this too. Just consider how much easier it would have been to conduct business with South Africans without having to resort to broken English.
The financial benefits of having a common language, like Swahili in East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, are significant.
A common language facilitates trade and business transactions among people from different countries. Swahili has helped break down language barriers and enabled smoother communication in East Africa, leading to increased trade and economic growth.
Swahili has also fostered regional cooperation and integration, resulting in shared economic benefits. The East African Community (EAC), comprising Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan, uses Swahili as one of its official languages.
It is estimated that the economic benefits of Swahili as a common language in East Africa range from US$5 billion to US$10 billion annually.
This figure reflects increased trade, tourism, job creation, regional cooperation, and education and research benefits.
But because of tribal politics, Zimbabwe missed the opportunity to connect more closely with the biggest economy in Africa, right next door, through language integration.
By refusing to purportedly "submit" to a smaller tribe, we missed the chance to adopt a language spoken by 12 million people in South Africa and understood by 30 million South Africans.
I want to conclude on this issue by emphasising that our failure to engage in strategic thinking has led us to believe that teaching French in our schools is a form of submission to a former colonial power. Instead, it is a business decision that would expose our people to the African market of French-speaking countries, which have a combined GDP of around US$300 billion.
There are 29 French-speaking countries in Africa, with 21 of them being officially designated as Francophone countries, meaning that French is either the only official language or one of the official languages in those countries.
If I were president today, Ndebele and French would be compulsory in all schools, from primary level to O-Level.
This would be a commercial decision that would open the French-speaking African world to our people, from business professionals to truck drivers.
Nations are not built by leaders without vision, they are built by visionaries like Lee Kuan Yew, by leaders who understand that speaking multiple languages broadens the mind and makes you a better person.
How can we unite our people across the continent when they cannot even communicate with one another?
Colonialism is a fact of history that cannot be undone. Anyone who believes that learning colonial languages to navigate the world is wrong is living in the past.
Zimbabwe was colonised by Britain using people who could speak our languages.
Did it make them any less capable because they spoke Ndebele and Shona, did it dehumanise them.
Robert Moffat, a Scottish missionary who befriended the Ndebele king Mzilikazi Khumalo in the 1820s, learned to speak both Ndebele and Shona.
George Westbeech, a trader and explorer, was fluent in several African languages, including Ndebele and Shona.
Frederick Selous, a British explorer and hunter, was proficient in several African languages, including Ndebele and Shona.
Charles Helm, a missionary who lived among the Shona people, became proficient in their language. The list goes on, these men understood that you cannot do business with someone when you cannot communicate with them.
Similarly, many of our people miss out on business and professional opportunities because they cannot speak the languages that would open those doors. Let us broaden our minds and avoid being so limited in our understanding of the world.
Let us learn from the mistakes of post-colonial leaders in Zimbabwe. Making a mistake is one thing, what is important is learning from it.
We can and should do better. We, the Shona speakers, should not just speak broken Ndebele when we go begging for votes in Matabeleland.
The Ndebele already speak Shona, so let us reciprocate.
White children in Britain speak French and Mandarin, yet China is considered their adversary and they mock the French.
Yet I vividly remember when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, he flew to France and addressed their parliament in French in 1998.
American leaders like George W. Bush speak proficient Spanish, though their mother tongue is English. The English go to the Arab world after learning Arabic, and they run Dubai today.
If you understand that these are business decisions, you will discard the archaic idea that learning another language is submission.
Here is the sad thing, the people who make these decisions make sure that their own kids speak French, Arabic, Mandarin and even Portuguese.
Grace Mugabe speaks fluent Mandarin, General Chiwenga's wife speaks fluent Mandarin, and so does Collins Mnangagwa.
It is wise, and they know it. Yet the children in the ghetto are deprived of those opportunities because of empty, nonsensical political ideologies.
Have a great weekend. Ngilifisela impelaviki enhle.
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