A stalwart in the struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence
A stalwart in the struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence
HE sits defiantly in a wheelchair. In the background sweet melodies are wafting through the air. This is the backdrop to our short light hearted conversation. It is on 6 April 2017.
The occasion is the opening of the Mpilo Central Hospital radiotherapy facility which is being launched by the Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa. The man in a wheelchair is Naison Khutshwekhaya Ndlovu and the sweet melodies are traceable to the Mpilo Hospital nurses in their lily white uniforms.
I bend my torso to align it with face. “Pathisa, where is my photograph?” he inquires. About two years ago I was asked to pen a short biography of the man as part of his 85th birthday celebrations which were scheduled to take place at his Luveve house. I used the photograph for the cover of the booklet that I wrote and published following several interviews conducted at his home. The photograph remained at my home long after publication of his abridged biography.
Little did I know I was meeting the man for the last time. This obituary is written in honour of a man who sacrificed immensely towards the attainment of Zimbabwe’s independence. NK, as he was affectionately known to his colleagues, was born on 22 October 1930 in Gwatemba. Originally the area was a native reserve under Chief Msindazi Dlodlo of Emakhandeni. Following the implementation of the 1931 Land Apportionment Act (LAA) the area was alienated by the colonial regime to create farms for whites. The area then came under the jurisdiction of the Insiza District.
One component of the LAA was the creation of native purchase areas to serve as buffer zones between native reserves and white commercial farms. NK was born to Khutshwekhaya Ndlovu and his wife Ndayeni Dube in the Bezha area, not far from Kumbudzi in today’s Umzingwane District. Bezha and surrounding areas were under the control of the Brethren In Christ Church (BICC) which had been established at Matopo Mission in 1898.
Khutshwekhaya converted to the BICC faith and that saw him being deployed to Emakhandeni where the BICC had a strong presence. With the appropriation of land at Emakhandeni the area where NK was born later became, in 1936, a Native Purchase Area (NPA). Evictions from Emakhandeni 1946 in Kathiawar, Gujarat in India. At the age of two he arrived with his parents in the Kampala part of Uganda which has remained his home. His family is one of the Indian families that were expelled by Idi Amin from Uganda in 1972.
Being “from here but not of here” is the postcontiental description that Mamdani gives to himself as an intellectual who has been a citizen of America, the United Kingdom, India, Tanzania and South Africa.
It is no accident that Mamdani rejects the idea of Area Studies and even African Studies as nonsensical. It is his belief that knowing and knowledge does not have geographic and epistemic boundaries, where Zimbabwe gets to be known only by Zimbabweans and South Africa by South Africans, for Mamdani the entire world is out there to be studied and understood from anywhere by anyone with the capability, for instance ideology cannot be ID-eology as some narrow South African scholars imagine. Mahmood Mamdani has installed himself as an African scholar of the world with a planetary and postcontinental intellectual and political sensibility.
In his study and publications on the Rwanda Genocide, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Darfur Genocide in Sudan, Mamdani has been able to study these political events and processes as world events not simple African historical episodes, such worldiness is an intellectual and political attitude that comes from a postcontinental philosophical sensibility, a deep and wide understanding of the world. For that reason, nativists, racists, tribalists, some nationalists and xenophobes have not suffered Mahmood Mamdani gladly.
At the University of Cape Town from 1996 to 1999 he developed what became called “the Mamdani Affair” when he as a Professor of African studies designed a course that made the study of slavery and colonialism compulsory, well ahead of Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall, white South African professors from the apartheid era felt directly confronted and the mother of all intellectual debates erupted, a high voltage and charged debate in which Mamdani drew from his world experience and those from adjoining Filabusi were vicious and saw a lot of families being evicted to distant places, notably the Shangani Reserve (Nkayi and Lupane) and Gokwe. Others remained behind on white farms where they paid rent but only to be evicted later to places such as near Ngundu in Masvingo.
Many books have been written on the story
Mamdani recalls an event in 1963 when the FBI knocked on his room in New York after midnight and demanded to know his relationship with a man called Marx. “I don’t know him, has he died?” the terrified student asked, “he died long ago, stay away from Marxism” cautioned the officers. From there on Mamdani became a Marxist, introduced by the FBI, and Marxism did not stop him from critiquing the limits of Marxism and political economy analysis in Africa.
Through the platform of the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Mamdani has together with other veteran African scholars participated in the mentorship of thousands of young African scholars that have in their turn become productive intellectuals.
Mamdani has emphasised the difference between a scholar and a public intellectual, with a public intellectual exemplied by Walter Rodney as one who goes beyond the call of formal duties to pursue social justice for himself and society. Where Mahmood Mamdani has fundamentally parted ways with most senior African scholars of note is in his humble approach to teaching and supervision of younger scholars. Scholarship development, that is the habit of grooming young scholars into successful intellectuals, is for Mamdani a vocation and not a profession, a mission not a job.
He has been rightly accused of turning his students into his disciplines and this has not been by bullying and bludgeoning his protégés into the Mamdani cult; it is by humble tutelage that he has created a dedicated following of Mamdanian thinkers that swear by his name. Not for Mamdani is that arrogant professorship where the prof is the magistrate who passes wounding and harsh judgements on the work of novices.
Those students that do not tow the prof’s line or are seen as competition are bludgeoned with toxic condemnations of their work while mediocre favourites have their substandard efforts commended by the prof who is willing to throw his or her professorial weight in turning nonsense into sense defending the mediocrity of disciples. The a political training ground. Many of its graduates went on to become, initially, trade unionists and later nationalists. These included, inter alia, Benjamin Madlela, Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, Stephen Jeqe Nkomo, Boysen Mguni, Edward Ndlovu and Jason Ziyapapa Moyo. Their industrial qualifications matched those of whites within the industry but were discriminated against on account of being Africans. Many politically oriented personalities used to visit Umzingwane School where they addressed students and raised their political consciousness. When NK was there Joshua Nkomo, Eric Tikili and Tennyson Hlabangana, all university graduates, used to visit the industrial institution.
NK specialised in Leather Craft and Tannery. At the end of 1949 he left Umzingwane to enter the world of work. He was armed with an industrial qualification and fired with political consciousness. His father had participated in World War II (1939-1945) and came back via Bechuanaland (now Botswana) sporting some military fatigue. Meanwhile, his son had trekked to Johannesburg, South Africa in search of greener pastures. When he came back, he had nothing to show for it save some driver’s licence. His father, keen to make sure he established himself, sold some cattle in order to buy him a bus. The bus, known as Super Express Bus Service, plied the Gwanda-Manama route. NK landed his first work experience in 1950 as bus conductor for the next 12 months.
NK’s brother-in-law, J B Hove, advised him to take up a teaching post. He heeded the advice and became a teacher at Vhutulula Primary School in Butururu in 1955. He did not stay long in Beitbridge. A vacancy opened up at Matopo Mission. Authorities at the BICC institution were looking for someone to teach Agriculture. They preferred one of their own. NK landed the job though he had not specialised in the field of Agriculture. He did not stay long there either.
Meanwhile, after the cessation of hostilities (World War II) in 1945, Bulawayo experienced industrial boom. Job opportunities became available. Many people came from various places in search of employment. Among the people who came were the disabled and the disadvantaged who did not get appropriate rehabilitation. One person who decided to offer assistance was Jairos Jiri, a man who arrived in Bulawayo from Bikita. He got assistance in his rehabilitation endeavours from persons such as Nkomo, Mike Masotsha Hove, Benjamin Burombo and the Bulawayo City Council (BCC). In October 1950 Jiri opened the first training workshop in Makokoba, with assistance from the BCC.
The year 1959 witnessed the official opening of the Nguboyenja Training Centre. Interns were being trained in the production of handicrafts. BCC provided both land and buildings. There arose a vacancy for one to instruct interns in Leather Craft. Meanwhile, the BCC had set up the African Department which was headed by Dr Hugh Ashton and was later deputised by Dr Eric Garget. The former arranged recruitment of one who was to become Leather Craft instructor. Three men were shortlisted and NK landed the post. He served at Jairos Jiri till the time he was incarcerated at Gonakudzingwa in 1965. NK lived in Makokoba or the Location, Bulawayo’s oldest township for Africans. He lived at 4-Boy, a term that meant there were four boys occupying a single room. By moving to Bulawayo, NK found himself going straight into the eye of a developing political storm. This time he had been fired more by coming into contact with Tarcisius George Malan Silundika. At the same time he came under the influence of the Reverend Percy Ibbotson of the Wesleyan Methodist Church who was heavily involved in the activities of the African Welfare Society. Masotsha Hove, who was a Federal Member of Parliament on the United Federal Party (UFP), added some fuel to the seething political flame
in NK’s mind.
Our discussion venerated the need for the severance of the arts from the ministry it’s currently under Rural development, Culture and Heritage preservation. The opinion became mutual as we unpacked the load of work there is in Rural Development alone. It is no secret that we desperately need rural progress and as a governance ministry itself, there is a lot of attention it has to direct to rural expansion let alone culture and heritage preservation. From a breezy observation, rural development demands rural infrastructure construction and rehabilitation. There is a lot of attention on traditional leadership as they are our custodians of traditional culture and heritage. Our chiefs preside in the customary judiciary system. One of the many things that ministry has to do is to restore and protect national spaces such as monuments, galleries and archives. What more the creative industry which is spread across the country and has over 12 million stakeholders who are both consumers and producers of the arts industry which is now an economic competitor globally?
In summarily depicting the artist, Okot p’Bitek called “The artist, The ruler” inferring that the creator shapes national discourse, memory and is a powerful actor in the grand scheme of things, and so shouldn’t be ignored. One suggestion which was amplified was to split the ministry and put arts under Sports and Recreation or Tourism. The first reason of suggesting that it be put under Sports and Recreation struck my mind as the appreciation the artistes now have for the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Honourable Makhosini Hlongwane. A while ago, one arts columnist declared their desire to have him as their minister, so I assumed the first option was born of it. I do not know how to subtly put this, but it’s now becoming common that the Honourable Minister of Sport and Recreation is becoming a National “darling” among young and innovative Zimbabweans. To the artistes, I thought it was because of his prose pricking articulation at the “My Zimbabwe” exhibition sometime in April and an ever accessible personality which they repeatedly commended. To the young Zimbabwean, I thought it’s because of his age and intelligence. I also assumed that it’s because of his stern disciplinarian character which makes him a cut above many young policy makers. I was yet to learn later why he was recommended. Which are for the old and which are
for the young? Through the conversation, I learnt three important things. One, the Ministry of Arts needs a young person to be the minister and two, either Honourable Walter
THE Government has established 80 Communication Information Centres (CICs) in rural districts across the country as part of efforts to address digital divide, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Speaking on Friday at the commissioning of an information centre in Plumtree and during the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day belated celebrations, the Minister of Information Communication Technology (ICT), Postal and Courier Services Cde Supa Mandiwanzira said the 80 information centres were awaiting commissioning.
“About 80 information centres have been set up and they are yet to be commissioned. Some are being equipped with computers while some are being connected as part of the final touches before they are up and running. These centres are meant to benefit all community members and I would like to urge mostly youths to utilise them,” he said.
Cde Mandiwanzira first commissioned and conducted a tour at the information centre that has been opened at the Plumtree Post Office before addressing members of the public at Dingumuzi Stadium in Plumtree. He urged community members from the border town and surrounding areas to utilise the facility.
“The communication information centre that is being opened today is part of Government’s efforts to ensure that people in rural districts have access to internet and most important of all, information. Our aim is to cover all districts and ensure that there is communication infrastructure in all parts of the country,” he said.
He said Government has embarked on an exercise to convert all post offices into communication information centres. Cde Mandiwanzira urged local authorities nationwide to provide land for free which could be converted into information centres as some post offices had limited space.
He appealed to network providers in the country to expand their coverage to rural communities. He raised a concern that villagers in some parts of Matabeleland South Province were still using networks of neighbouring countries because of limited coverage by local service providers. He said the country was losing its revenue to other countries as a result of this anomaly.
He said the Government’s aim was to achieve universal voice and broad brand coverage by 2020 and network providers had a crucial role to play in this regard. Minister Mandiwanzira recently noted that more than 50 000 of people in Matabeleland region were relying on network services from Botswana and South Africa.
Speaking at the same event Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) deputy director general, Mr Alfred Marisa said this year’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Day celebrations were being held under the theme “Big data for big impact”.
“Despite the prevailing economic down turn the ICT sector has remained viable. ICTs are a crucial tool in the growth of the economy hence the importance of commemorating this day. As Potraz we will always do our best to ensure that we create an enabling environment for people to access ICTs,” said Mr Marisa.
The Government recently announced that it has allocated over $2 million towards establishing community information centres in various districts countrywide.
In Bulawayo there was ample scope for him to thrust himself into the political arena. A year after his arrival in Bulawayo the first truly national African mass political movement was established.
That was the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) which was formed at the Mai Musodzi Hall in Harare Township (now Mbare) in Salisbury (now Harare), on 12 September 1957. Joshua Nkomo led the party and NK became its ordinary card carrying member. It was during the days of his membership of the SRANC that NK cut his teeth in nationalist politics.
In February 1959 the Edgar Whitehead-led regime proscribed the SRANC during the so-called Emergency Regulations and numerous leaders including VicePresident James Robert Dambaza Chikerema, Maurice Nyagumbo and Bernard Mutuma were arrested and detained at various locations. The following year, on 1 January 1960, the National Democratic Party (NDP) was established, initially with Michael Mawema as President. Later in the year, Nkomo who since the banning of the SRANC had been in London, returned and took over the leadership of the party. Once again, NK became an ordinary card carrying member of the NDP.
When the NDP was also proscribed in 1961, a new party was formed-the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) on 17 December of the same year. Once again Nkomo was its leader.
This time NK became a committee member of the Bulawayo District chaired by Abel Siwela (first Executive Mayor of Bulawayo). Included in that committee were cadres such as Mgqibelo Ncube, Thenjiwe Lesabe and Mavava Khumalo.
To be continued next week
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