Mid Week Digest With Masola Wadabudabu: Why I hate Zanu PF
Published: 2016 June 01 13:59:09 (4922 Views)
Greetings fellow Zimbabweans, wherever you are and whatever your creed and beliefs are. May I take this opportunity to introduce myself to whosoever set their eyes on my first ever installation with Zim-Metro. I will begin in the beginning.
My name is Hopewell Masola wa Dabudabu, known as Masola wa Dabudabu within some circles of social commentary. I was born in Mzwanyane village under the chieftainship of Mpini Ndiweni in the arid district of Plumtree. Please attribute all my mannerisms, behaviours and approaches to life's challenges to my rural upbringing. That be the case, however, I will not bore you with the ins and outs of my miserable childhood.
My formative years will not be complete without mentioning my two-year stint as a student at Empandeni Secondary School, again in the poverty stricken Plumtree District. For me Empandeni was an eye-opener. Picture this; January 1976, a skinny boy with a strong rural background, Grade 7 results in hand, approaches the school's admin block seeking a "Form One" place. Imagine the jitters as I told the Principal, a frail-looking Father Andrew, that I could do with a place in the Catholic run school. Suffice to say, I was offered a place owing to my acceptable Grade 7 results. Once I started finding my feet within what I considered to be an imposing environment, things were never the same.
Empandeni was the source of inspiration and presented the ingredients for a perfect storm that blew the fledgling Masola wa Dabudabu along the opinionated path. I brushed shoulders with people from all walks of life; the poor, the rich, the wretched, the ignorant, the imaginative, the dunces, imbeciles and those endowed with sheer brilliance. It was at Empandeni where I met up with Catholic priests with people's interests at heart. Father Benno was a revelation; I considered him a maverick priest who knew what the people wanted. It was a pleasure to attend catechism lessons under the watchful eyes of Sister Bernadette and Brother Pius Ncube who was to become Archbishop Pius Ncube. Brother Pius Ncube personalised piety throw his natural religiosity and humility.
School days at Empandeni were both fun and hectic. As a boys only school, the topical issue was surprisingly not girls but the liberation war versus the prospects of conscription (call-up) to the Rhodesian forces after completion of secondary education. We were reliably informed that call-up was the only way school-leaves could nurse any hopes of either accessing tertiary education or getting jobs. Most of the boys chose the liberation war route as opposed to serving the brutal Smith regime as conscripts. That was why I joined a couple of my school mates and skipped the border to join Nkomo's ZAPU soon after completing our last Rhodesia Junior Certificate (RJC) in November 1997.
I arrived in Lusaka after staying for a couple of months in a refugee camp in Francistown in Botswana. The highlight of this perilous journey was my first ever journey by air from Francistown to Lusaka. I learnt a lot in Zambia, I learnt to struggle and I struggled to learn. I attended political lessons that exalted Communism, Marxism, Leninism, Scientific Socialism, Kim Il-Sung's Juche Idea and other doctrines. At that tender age I could confidently regurgitate the sociopolitical thought of dictatorship of the proletariate. I was groomed to be a socialist. I bet Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had a huge place in my nascent political heart.
I guess the anticlimax of all this was the realisation that the horse I was backing could not keep up the pace when Zimbabwe's first democratic election results were announced. I vividly remember that March the 4th day in 1989 when a BBC World Service broadcast announced the election results that ushered in majority rule. I was at Nkumbi International somewhere between Kapiri-Mposhe and Mkushi in Zambia. I was indeed heart-broken. My ideal world had come to a crumbling halt. I could not stomach the idea that Robert Mugabe had upstaged Joshua Nkomo in the grand stand.
I returned to Zimbabwe in 1981 from my exile in Zambia. As a stop gap measure I served in education as an untrained teacher. It was during my stint as a teacher in Nyamandlovu that I experienced the rotten fruits of Independence. Who will have forgotten that Nyamandlovu area was swarming with armed malcontents and murderous government soldiers in 1982. I was lucky to escape the wrath of the Gukurahundi as I got a job with the Posts and Telecommunications Cooperation early 1983 as a Trainer Telecommunications Technician. This saw me getting placed to man the new,y commissioned electro-mechanical exchange in my home area of Plumtree in 1984.
My stint at Plumtree exchange was another eye-opening experience. I saw ZANU-PF's brutality. I saw innocent people being treated inhumanely on the suspicion that they were either dissidents or sympathisers of dissidents. I witnessed ZANU-PF literally attempting to obliterate ZAPU by forcing the meek people of Plumtree and its environs to buy ZANU-PF membership cards. I saw the effects of the hurtful and hate-filled curfews imposed in support of military operations to wipe out armed dissidents. I heard ZANU-PF bosses spew hatred. I saw ZANU-PF members inflicting untold pain on suspected ZAPU supporters. I could never forget the acts of the satanic apostles like Enos Nkala, Callistus Ndlovu, Mark Dube and others.
What I saw during my service to the PTC in Plumtree fortified my view of the skewed political landscape in Zimbabwe. I could not bring myself to respect the people who exercised untold savagery upon innocent civilians. I developed a thick skin against anything that looked like ZANU, smelled like ZANU, walked like ZANU and preached the ZANU gospel. Even the advent of the so-called Unity Accord in December 1987 did not accord me any temerity to warm up to them. I suppose the wickedness I personally experienced in the hands of ZANU-PF gives me a right to loathe all things ZANU-PF ad infinitum.
This, dear readers, is Masola wa Dabudabu's story so far. I am apolitical, yet I believe in freedom of speech. I endeavour to write objectively without my traumatic experiences under ZANU-PF occluding objectivity. I will grudgingly praise Mugabe for the good things he has done for Zimbabwe yet my real remit is to continue to expose the badness and the rot within. In all my pieces, emotions may have the better of me; please forgive me as I am only human.
This is I Masola wa Dabudabu giving you my introductory installation for my new column, Mid-Week Digest with Masola wa Dabudabu. So long; suffering Zimbabweans.
- Zimmetro
My name is Hopewell Masola wa Dabudabu, known as Masola wa Dabudabu within some circles of social commentary. I was born in Mzwanyane village under the chieftainship of Mpini Ndiweni in the arid district of Plumtree. Please attribute all my mannerisms, behaviours and approaches to life's challenges to my rural upbringing. That be the case, however, I will not bore you with the ins and outs of my miserable childhood.
My formative years will not be complete without mentioning my two-year stint as a student at Empandeni Secondary School, again in the poverty stricken Plumtree District. For me Empandeni was an eye-opener. Picture this; January 1976, a skinny boy with a strong rural background, Grade 7 results in hand, approaches the school's admin block seeking a "Form One" place. Imagine the jitters as I told the Principal, a frail-looking Father Andrew, that I could do with a place in the Catholic run school. Suffice to say, I was offered a place owing to my acceptable Grade 7 results. Once I started finding my feet within what I considered to be an imposing environment, things were never the same.
Empandeni was the source of inspiration and presented the ingredients for a perfect storm that blew the fledgling Masola wa Dabudabu along the opinionated path. I brushed shoulders with people from all walks of life; the poor, the rich, the wretched, the ignorant, the imaginative, the dunces, imbeciles and those endowed with sheer brilliance. It was at Empandeni where I met up with Catholic priests with people's interests at heart. Father Benno was a revelation; I considered him a maverick priest who knew what the people wanted. It was a pleasure to attend catechism lessons under the watchful eyes of Sister Bernadette and Brother Pius Ncube who was to become Archbishop Pius Ncube. Brother Pius Ncube personalised piety throw his natural religiosity and humility.
School days at Empandeni were both fun and hectic. As a boys only school, the topical issue was surprisingly not girls but the liberation war versus the prospects of conscription (call-up) to the Rhodesian forces after completion of secondary education. We were reliably informed that call-up was the only way school-leaves could nurse any hopes of either accessing tertiary education or getting jobs. Most of the boys chose the liberation war route as opposed to serving the brutal Smith regime as conscripts. That was why I joined a couple of my school mates and skipped the border to join Nkomo's ZAPU soon after completing our last Rhodesia Junior Certificate (RJC) in November 1997.
I arrived in Lusaka after staying for a couple of months in a refugee camp in Francistown in Botswana. The highlight of this perilous journey was my first ever journey by air from Francistown to Lusaka. I learnt a lot in Zambia, I learnt to struggle and I struggled to learn. I attended political lessons that exalted Communism, Marxism, Leninism, Scientific Socialism, Kim Il-Sung's Juche Idea and other doctrines. At that tender age I could confidently regurgitate the sociopolitical thought of dictatorship of the proletariate. I was groomed to be a socialist. I bet Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had a huge place in my nascent political heart.
I guess the anticlimax of all this was the realisation that the horse I was backing could not keep up the pace when Zimbabwe's first democratic election results were announced. I vividly remember that March the 4th day in 1989 when a BBC World Service broadcast announced the election results that ushered in majority rule. I was at Nkumbi International somewhere between Kapiri-Mposhe and Mkushi in Zambia. I was indeed heart-broken. My ideal world had come to a crumbling halt. I could not stomach the idea that Robert Mugabe had upstaged Joshua Nkomo in the grand stand.
I returned to Zimbabwe in 1981 from my exile in Zambia. As a stop gap measure I served in education as an untrained teacher. It was during my stint as a teacher in Nyamandlovu that I experienced the rotten fruits of Independence. Who will have forgotten that Nyamandlovu area was swarming with armed malcontents and murderous government soldiers in 1982. I was lucky to escape the wrath of the Gukurahundi as I got a job with the Posts and Telecommunications Cooperation early 1983 as a Trainer Telecommunications Technician. This saw me getting placed to man the new,y commissioned electro-mechanical exchange in my home area of Plumtree in 1984.
My stint at Plumtree exchange was another eye-opening experience. I saw ZANU-PF's brutality. I saw innocent people being treated inhumanely on the suspicion that they were either dissidents or sympathisers of dissidents. I witnessed ZANU-PF literally attempting to obliterate ZAPU by forcing the meek people of Plumtree and its environs to buy ZANU-PF membership cards. I saw the effects of the hurtful and hate-filled curfews imposed in support of military operations to wipe out armed dissidents. I heard ZANU-PF bosses spew hatred. I saw ZANU-PF members inflicting untold pain on suspected ZAPU supporters. I could never forget the acts of the satanic apostles like Enos Nkala, Callistus Ndlovu, Mark Dube and others.
What I saw during my service to the PTC in Plumtree fortified my view of the skewed political landscape in Zimbabwe. I could not bring myself to respect the people who exercised untold savagery upon innocent civilians. I developed a thick skin against anything that looked like ZANU, smelled like ZANU, walked like ZANU and preached the ZANU gospel. Even the advent of the so-called Unity Accord in December 1987 did not accord me any temerity to warm up to them. I suppose the wickedness I personally experienced in the hands of ZANU-PF gives me a right to loathe all things ZANU-PF ad infinitum.
This, dear readers, is Masola wa Dabudabu's story so far. I am apolitical, yet I believe in freedom of speech. I endeavour to write objectively without my traumatic experiences under ZANU-PF occluding objectivity. I will grudgingly praise Mugabe for the good things he has done for Zimbabwe yet my real remit is to continue to expose the badness and the rot within. In all my pieces, emotions may have the better of me; please forgive me as I am only human.
This is I Masola wa Dabudabu giving you my introductory installation for my new column, Mid-Week Digest with Masola wa Dabudabu. So long; suffering Zimbabweans.
- Zimmetro
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