Opinion / Columnist
A return to humanity: Reflections on the Principles of Justice
1 hr ago |
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Yes Marcus Garvey, Rise Up and tell them….. only fools partake in other people's struggles!
It is imperative for you to know that in life you may be having different struggles. Yours right now is way deeper. It is an ontological struggle - a struggle for your Humanity, against a system that has kept you outside the State from 1980 to this day.
You are not what they say you are. You are NOT a Citizen but a Subject! You are not a Zimbabwean but a Victim of Zimbabwe.
YOURS is a struggle for having control of your Destiny, theirs is just a fight with their parents, across two political divides and ends, to elevate themselves in the same system that makes you weak and poor. The same system that has kept you as Subjects and Slaves.
Even when they call you to join them in their fight with their parents over the proposed amendments to their constitution that has undergirded the State that has violently oppressed you, they do so with a very heightened sense of entitlement; believing that they have a very high ontological density than you. It is that very heightened superiority complex that has caused them to sing, "….zvinhu zvose ndezva Mbuya Nehanda…" (meaning everything else, including the people, belongs to Mbuya Nehanda).
At the dawn of independence, that period of false starts and bad birthmarks, their parents labelled Joshua Nkomo, ZAPU and the entire ZiPRA as "….Sahwira Wedu muhondo", (our helpers in the liberation struggle) before they turned to label them as "…dissidents."
The narrative has always been the same; you are just helpers in every epoch, and dissidents when it is convenient!
Now is the time for you to challenge that narrative.
Imagine narratives that clearly define you as 'matter out of place' - undesirables at best, in a country of your Forefathers!
These narratives have for a very long time time implied and confirmed that from 1980 to this day you are only existing outside the margins of the State. You are not citizens. You are just Subjects.
Decline that Call to Action by those who have kept you as Subjects and Slaves. Call for a New Discourse and Dispensation - a Discourse of Equality, Equal Opportunities for ALL, Equal Ownership and Access to resources. Call for a Return to the course of Humanity - the very founding Ethos of the Liberation Struggle - the African National Project.
Remember, we too want to dream!
In the words of Marianne Williamson (1992), in her book, 'A Return to Love', she reminds us of the revolutionary obligation we all have as God's children to return to the basics of our humanity by 'unthinking' oppression and all its structures of feeling; real or imagined.
Williamson trenchantly puts it that, '….Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
So let us fight and Dream for a new ethos whose avowal is that, Afrika genuinely belongs to All! Let us fight for our humanity and our Citizenship but not these piecemeal struggles against a some amendments to a Constitution that has never served us.
Remember in 1987 they mutilated the 1979 Lancaster House Constitution at a time when you and me were hiding in the bushes and caves of Matebeleland running away from them during Gukurahundi. Today they are fighting - surely there is no honour among thieves!
Refuse to be drawn to their sibling fight! Ours is a Just Cause for Humanity and Citizenship.
Amandlaaaaaaa……Power to the People!
Happy Valentine's Day to you All My Brothers and Sisters…..I Love You All!
---------------------Professional Sigabade is a British based Academic from Matebeleland.
It is imperative for you to know that in life you may be having different struggles. Yours right now is way deeper. It is an ontological struggle - a struggle for your Humanity, against a system that has kept you outside the State from 1980 to this day.
You are not what they say you are. You are NOT a Citizen but a Subject! You are not a Zimbabwean but a Victim of Zimbabwe.
YOURS is a struggle for having control of your Destiny, theirs is just a fight with their parents, across two political divides and ends, to elevate themselves in the same system that makes you weak and poor. The same system that has kept you as Subjects and Slaves.
Even when they call you to join them in their fight with their parents over the proposed amendments to their constitution that has undergirded the State that has violently oppressed you, they do so with a very heightened sense of entitlement; believing that they have a very high ontological density than you. It is that very heightened superiority complex that has caused them to sing, "….zvinhu zvose ndezva Mbuya Nehanda…" (meaning everything else, including the people, belongs to Mbuya Nehanda).
At the dawn of independence, that period of false starts and bad birthmarks, their parents labelled Joshua Nkomo, ZAPU and the entire ZiPRA as "….Sahwira Wedu muhondo", (our helpers in the liberation struggle) before they turned to label them as "…dissidents."
The narrative has always been the same; you are just helpers in every epoch, and dissidents when it is convenient!
Now is the time for you to challenge that narrative.
Imagine narratives that clearly define you as 'matter out of place' - undesirables at best, in a country of your Forefathers!
These narratives have for a very long time time implied and confirmed that from 1980 to this day you are only existing outside the margins of the State. You are not citizens. You are just Subjects.
Remember, we too want to dream!
In the words of Marianne Williamson (1992), in her book, 'A Return to Love', she reminds us of the revolutionary obligation we all have as God's children to return to the basics of our humanity by 'unthinking' oppression and all its structures of feeling; real or imagined.
Williamson trenchantly puts it that, '….Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
So let us fight and Dream for a new ethos whose avowal is that, Afrika genuinely belongs to All! Let us fight for our humanity and our Citizenship but not these piecemeal struggles against a some amendments to a Constitution that has never served us.
Remember in 1987 they mutilated the 1979 Lancaster House Constitution at a time when you and me were hiding in the bushes and caves of Matebeleland running away from them during Gukurahundi. Today they are fighting - surely there is no honour among thieves!
Refuse to be drawn to their sibling fight! Ours is a Just Cause for Humanity and Citizenship.
Amandlaaaaaaa……Power to the People!
Happy Valentine's Day to you All My Brothers and Sisters…..I Love You All!
---------------------Professional Sigabade is a British based Academic from Matebeleland.
Source - Professor Brilliant Sigabade Mhlanga.
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