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Row over Mzilikazi Day celebrations

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Mthwakazi kaMzilikazi Cultural Association, organisers of the King Mzilikazi Khumalo annual commemorations set for this Saturday at Mhlahlandlela, have been sucked into a row with the Institute for Ubuntu who are organising parallel commemorations this month-end. Mthwakazi kaMzilikazi Cultural Association are arguing the September 28-29 commemorations set for the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair exhibition centre […]

Mthwakazi kaMzilikazi Cultural Association, organisers of the King Mzilikazi Khumalo annual commemorations set for this Saturday at Mhlahlandlela, have been sucked into a row with the Institute for Ubuntu who are organising parallel commemorations this month-end.

Mthwakazi kaMzilikazi Cultural Association are arguing the September 28-29 commemorations set for the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair exhibition centre are “parallel” and will “confuse members of the public”.

In a statement released on Friday, Mthwakazi kaMzilikazi Cultural Association spokesperson Roger Mthethwa said they had engaged the organisers of the celebrations set for September 28-29 at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) to no avail.

“Whilst preparations for the annual cultural function for the 10th of September 2011 are underway, an organisation called Institute of Ubuntu, whose directors are McDonald Khumalo, Ndumiso Matshazi and Vimba Masuku, has opted to launch a parallel King Mzilikazi Commemoration at the end of September (28-29) at the ZITF grounds,” said Mthethwa.

“Attempts to understand what is going on and find out how we can work with them hit a snag because the ZITF commemorations are “elitist, strongly laced with politics and culture is (being) used to seek political forum in Matabeleland”.

“A simple analysis, for classification purposes, shows that this end-of-September function is not a King Mzilikazi commemoration, but a festival that could find space in the Intwasa Festival.”

But, a spokesperson for the other group said they did not understand where the misunderstanding was stemming from.

“I don’t know. Ask them. What we are doing was discussed with them.

“There is nothing parallel that we are doing. Talk to the Khumalo family,” one of the directors said.

A member of the royal Khumalo family, Leo Khumalo, said the Institute for Ubuntu had raised the issue with them (Khumalo family), but the family had insisted on unity.

“They raised the issue but we asked them what the people’s response to that is.

“What is important is how the people feel about it and that there should be unity of purpose in this.

“We told them to work together. As Khumalos, we are part of the commemorations to be held this weekend and we suggested that they (Institute for Ubuntu) work together with the organisers of the celebrations on this weekend,” he said.