Mazowe farm evictions demean legacy of Mbuya Nehanda

Obituaries
Central government, through the Mashonaland Central resident Minister, Martin Dinha, has been evicting settlers on newly resettled farmland that is in the Mazowe district. The latter district is now publicly known to be the home of two major projects linked to the First Family.

Central government, through the Mashonaland Central resident Minister, Martin Dinha, has been evicting settlers on newly resettled farmland that is in the Mazowe district. The latter district is now publicly known to be the home of two major projects linked to the First Family.

SUNDAY VIEW TAKURA ZHANGAZHA

Media reports have also indicated that the First Lady, Grace Mugabe has a vested interest in the establishment of a game park in the area where families are being evicted.

Even more importantly, it is also known that the spirit medium of our national heroine from the First Chimurenga, Mbuya Nehanda resided in the same area before being forcibly relocated to Rushinga.

There are therefore a number of striking contradictions in the actions of central government and their tragic result of homelessness of over 300 families in the Mazowe district.

In claiming to have led a successful land reform or in its more politicised term, Third Chimurenga, the three last Zanu PF governments have given the impression that they are on course to a people centred and historically organic land revolution.

This would have included not only reversing the land tenure system created by the infamous Land Apportionment Act of 1930, but also use the land as much to reflect our knowledge of our history (the First and Second Chimurenga’s included).

So the acquisition of land would have been intended to not only be the acquisition for the purposes of essentially copying the land practices of the Rhodesian settler state. Either by way of repressive agricultural practices informed by the colonial myth that the natives were destructive to the environment (the lie of the land), or by way of arbitrary disenfranchisement of a majority population in the name of “development” and “modernisation”.

 

IMG-20140318-WA0009 IMG-20140318-WA0022

I raise these points particularly because what is occurring in Mazowe unfortunately reflects the same colonial approach to both the land and the poor that live on it.

The fact that central government has brazenly evicted citizens of this country from land without either adequate preparation of alternative land or at the beginning of the harvesting season is reflective of the traditions of the settler state and not a democratic one that claims to have led a successful land revolution.

So for example, when Resident minister Martin Dinha refers to the spirit medium’s relocation to Rushinga by saying

“I am sure she [Mary Kazunga] is now happily practising her traditional healing work back at her home in Rushinga,” he essentially reflects more the arrogance of a colonial native administrator than one who serves a democratic and recently elected government.

 

IMG-20140318-WA0033

Both by way of the lack of sensitivity to a national icon but also by way of the typical forcible removal of people that would have been deemed to be an influential leader, in similar habit to the colonial state.

In taking into account, once again, the specific eviction of the spirit medium of Mbuya Nehanda from Mazowe, we cannot forget the historical record that during the Second Chimurenga, she is said to have fought from the same hills against mercenaries of the British South Africa Company. It is the patent symbolism of her eviction today that makes the Third Chimurenga appear ironic.

Perhaps the spirit of Mbuya Nehanda will inform those in power that land belongs to all the people of Zimbabwe, and not in order to merely replace one elite race of landowners with another, but to ensure that its distribution does not reflect more our repressive past than a democratic land ownership future. And God forbid that Mbuya Nehanda should have to again say, Mapfupa Angu Achamuka. (My bones will rise)

Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)