Languages: a Political Hotbed in Zimbabwe

Article by originally by Vicent Gono, reporting for The Sunday News.

Chief Shana of the Nambya had no kind words of the political machinations which he said were an insult to other tribes. “I am not Ndebele, I am not Shona neither am I English. Why then should I be forced to officially speak in those languages? It can only be said by people who want to dominate others and distort their feelings. We are not happy about the current set-up where our children are shy to speak in their language because they will be laughed at. Whoever is proposing that is courting trouble and disregarding other people’s rights. We thought the constitution was going to provide a platform for us to be heard and recognised in our country but it seems the opposite is true,’’ he said.

AS the country struggles to bring finality to the long overdue new constitution, there is growing discontent among people after political parties entrusted with the work of writing this document proved to have reached the apogee of insincerity not only to each other but to the civilised citizenry of the country they purport to represent.

They have without being apologetic, heavily tampered with the people’s views as they seek to gain political mileage and probably intend to use the anticipated referendum as a mock election examination.

Contentious issues among them devolution of power, homosexuality, running mate and the issue of what are commonly referred to as minority languages are a cause of a splitting headache among politicians who seem to be writing the document for themselves.

The general belief among the affected societies is that politicians seek to malign them by indirectly saying they are less Zimbabweans than others and bring extinction to their culture and languages by simply not recognising them as official as if there is something at stake if the languages are officialised with political vultures pouncing and feasting on the topic to gain political mileage.

The assumption is that politicians have discarded what they gathered from the people through the Copac outreach teams and have substituted the views of the majority with their own views which are largely influenced by political ideological biases.

Fears are that the resultant document will reflect an aborted and heavily panel-beaten smokescreen of people’s views behind which lay the true facade of political parties’ views which are anti-people.

While it may be true that villagers in Siansundu in Binga, Bvukururu in Zaka, Mgodimasili in Tsholotsho, Zezani in Beitbridge and Maguswini in Nkayi were not in the know of real constitutional issues, it was not for the Copac chairpersons to think on their behalf and include issues that they know to be constitutional which were never mentioned by the communities.

It is clear that devolution of power, running mate and to a lesser extent homosexuality, were little-known especially in rural communities and when they were mentioned it was a result of serious campaigns and canvassing by political parties. Assuming as we are led to believe, that three-quarters of the country’s population is in the rural areas it is clear that some of those constitutional issues were little mentioned.

The same however, cannot be said of the so-called minority languages. One could be forgiven for suggesting that it is as factual as death that no Zimbabwean in their right senses would want their language to be treated as a stepchild to other languages for the simple reason that they are spoken by the so-called majority. For language in most cases is the pride of a people and an important part of their culture, therefore, for politicians in the country to hoodwink people saying Zimbabwe celebrates cultural diversity minus other people’s languages would be the highest level of insincerity.

Former Great Zimbabwe University Vice- Chancellor Prof Obert Maravanyika said there was no need for the country to bury its head in the sand and pretend that everything was normal when people were not speaking their own languages.

He said there was a need for every other language to be made official as there was a symbiotic relationship between language and thought as what one thinks is usually influenced by their language.

He said even countries as small as Greenland were teaching their own local languages and the country should pluck a leaf from such countries and start teaching all indigenous languages at schools.

Prof Maravanyika however, said the teaching of these languages was supposed to be a process and not an event as there were practical economic considerations to be taken into account such as the country’s ability to teach them and publish reading material.

“Every language is a lens through which a certain society sees things. There is a symbiotic relationship between language and thought and language and culture are a mirror image of each other.

“There are practical considerations that have to be taken into consideration but there has to be a political will first and that political will should start by declaring all the languages as official. Such things as sourcing reading material, training lectures and others will follow but there is need for the country to make great strides in addressing the issue of languages,’’ he said.

The question is whether there is anything at stake for the country if it allows all the languages to be official as is the case in most African countries including neighbouring South Africa that has 11 official languages. In fact, that is why there was a protracted liberation struggle against suppression of people’s culture and freedoms. No-one therefore went to war so that their rights and that of their children could be trampled upon with impunity; they fought for recognition of their pride and for the restoration of their culture, religious practices that had been swept from under their feet by the colonial regime.

War Veterans chairman, Cde Jabulani Sibanda, said the issue of languages should not be problematic in independent Zimbabwe.

He said all languages should be recognised as official adding that this business of minoritising other languages was politically, socially and morally the worst form of suppression of Zimbabweans by other Zimbabweans.

“There should be no question when it comes to the issue of languages, it is my submission that all the languages that we have in the country should just be made official. The mere mention of other languages as minority is an insult to a tribe and to individual persons and we wouldn’t support that in independent Zimbabwe.

“We went to war to free ourselves from all forms of oppression and we would not want anyone to force us to re-eat the colonial vomits of oppression. Politicians should get the message clear; the writing of the constitution is a great opportunity for all languages to be made official. After all there is nothing to lose; we will lose everything by living in denial of ourselves. Languages such as Jaunda which are almost extinct now should therefore be revived,’’ he said.

He added that the issue of languages should be treated as sacred as it borders on humanity and who people were as a country adding that any attempt at trivialising Zimbabwean languages by politicians will be suicidal.

It is clear that the constitution that is still in the incubator therefore is a by-product not of people’s views but of the three political parties in Government that are seeking to politically outmanoeuvre each other if reports that the national report was completely discarded are anything to go by.

The leaders of are therefore guilty of playing cheap political games with the citizens of this great country. As alluded to before the issue of languages has turned out to be a political hotbed with various interesting arguments being proffered.

Amendments to the draft by Zanu-PF revealed a lot of grey areas which other parties conspired and deliberately wanted to pass for the simple reason that they had smuggled them through the back door and behind Zanu-PF’s Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana.

As the debate on the new constitution rages, Zanu-PF is reported to be proposing officialising Shona, Ndebele and English and leaving all other languages to be spoken freely but not to be used as official. These languages include Tonga, Venda, Kalanga, Nambya, Shangani and others but the people in these areas contend that this is not what they told the Copac team and it is hoped that the people’s party will get the clue.

Zanu-PF spokesman, Cde Rugare Gumbo, said the party only thought it wise to make official Shona, Ndebele and English but people could freely express their objections at the second all stakeholders’ conference.

“Yes, we made those three official but all the languages can be freely spoken. Let’s not talk of the constitution as a complete document, those that have objections should bring them forth and we listen to them. Zanu-PF is a people’s party,’’ he said.

There is an outcry from sections of society in the southern part of the country where the bulk of these languages are spoken that they never abandoned their languages as suggested by the Copac draft and are calling the Copac chairpersons to relook the issue in the national report so that their languages are recognised and used as official.

Chief Shana of the Nambya had no kind words of the political machinations which he said were an insult to other tribes.

“I am not Ndebele, I am not Shona neither am I English. Why then should I be forced to officially speak in those languages? It can only be said by people who want to dominate others and distort their feelings. We are not happy about the current set-up where our children are shy to speak in their language because they will be laughed at. Whoever is proposing that is courting trouble and disregarding other people’s rights. We thought the constitution was going to provide a platform for us to be heard and recognised in our country but it seems the opposite is true,’’ he said.

“If our languages are not official then this is not our constitution. Those that wrote it have left us out, yet the same constitution says there should be no discrimination. Look my grandmother in Matobo does not care about running mates. She is worried about her children and grandchildren’s space, as a family, a tribe with its cultural heritage. We know that Zanu-PF as a people’s party will listen to our views. We cannot accept the legitimisation of our extinction. Who said we want to speak in Ndebele, who said the Shangane in Chiredzi want to speak in Shona,’’ said Mr Peter Moyo, a Kalanga old man from Matobo.

They submitted that English and Ndebele are the most minority languages arguing that the country is still suffering from a colonial hangover and paroxysm where it still wants to embrace the use of a colonial language at the expense of its own indigenous languages.

They further argued that Ndebele was also not one of the major languages in most parts of the rural communities of Matabeleland as Kalanga was dominant in Matobo, Bililima and Mangwe, Venda and Sotho in Beitbridge and Gwanda, Tonga in Binga and Nambya in Hwange while Bulawayo was a cosmopolitan city with Shonas and any of the above languages. They further contend that what makes Ndebele look like the most spoken language was that most of the so called minority languages were until recently not taught in schools so most people became Ndebeles purely by forced academic association.

Shangani is spoken in Chiredzi and parts of Mwenezi while Jaunda that was spoken in most parts of Gwanda is now almost extinct. It collapsed under the weight of heavy suppression and not being recognised. Its demise also saw the demise of a culture with its people adopting some other alien languages not because they wanted but because they had no other option and fears are that all the other languages may face the same fate as Jaunda if nothing is done to salvage them now from the wide jaws of political machinations by unscrupulous politicians.