Being an incurable optimist – not a starry-eyed one who naively believes anything and everything like being promised 2,2 million jobs in five years – I have never had any doubt about Zimbabweans rising to the occasion.
echoes: CONWAY TUTANI
Last Saturday, June 17, 2017, I posted this observation on social media after seeing that magnanimity and maturity, that absence of malice and meanness, among fellow Zimbabweans, in action, in motion, following the passing-on of Dickson “Cde Chinx” Chingaira: “Quite refreshing for a change how people across the political divide are paying tribute to the life and times of Cde Chinx, who died yesterday.”
Former Zanu PF MP Charles Majange, in his response, expanded that to unpack the war of liberation and put everything into perspective. Majange, who I have known since we were teenybopper Form One boarders at Fletcher High School during colonial times, wrote: “Yeah, Conway. The war was mostly fought through mind liberation, through song and dance. You win the mind, you have won. Morale was central, and he (Chinx) delivered, during and after.”
Any clearer case for conferring Chinx hero status? Thanks, Charles, for bringing out that the struggle had many moving parts and was fought at different levels – not this one-centre-of-power nonsense which has crippled the nation in every way.
Wrote Tonderayi Chanakira:
“… I personally loved and respected Cde Chinx. His music embraced a Zimbabwean nationalistic appeal to all Zimbabweans across the political divide … He was … a very nice person who could associate with ordinary fellow Zimbabweans. He earned my respect as a fellow Zimbabwean.”
If you met Cde Chinx face to face, you immediately discovered that he was more than a friendly enough fellow. Yes, the regime forces almost everyone to hate it, but let’s not let that turn into a complex that blinds us to some positives among individuals in Zanu PF – like Cde Chinx – that we can learn from in terms of approachability, sociability and effectiveness. For instance, Cde Chinx had greater impact and more influence than those in the opposition calling themselves thought leaders. What thought? Whose leader? Chinx, with his genuine modesty, beat them all hands down.
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Yes, there has been a surfeit of propaganda, but at some point people start to tune it out. Some of Cde Chinx’s songs were stand-alones and so became hits as opposed to his Hondo Yeminda recordings that were not a commercial success. To me, this propaganda aspect did not detract from the time when he was at his artistic peak. Cde Chinx had many followers – including myself – when he collaborated with Ilanga, one of the best groups to emerge in independent Zimbabwe, both in live shows and in recording in the studio from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.
And, of course, it was his democratic right to be staunchly Zanu PF. All things being equal, there is nothing wrong per se with being Zanu PF, but those in control of the party have given it a bad name, to put it mildly. It should never be an issue at all to be in Zanu PF, but for the polarising leadership at the very top of the tree.
If the truth be told, Zanu PF is more feared than respected. A new low point emerged last week when even the ruling party’s topmost officials had to suffer the indignity and humiliation of being made to leave their cellphones at the entrance before being allowed to get into the politburo meeting. If it can do this to its own highest members, what more with you and I as mere outsiders?
Yes, the regime has used and abused us big-time, but we should not disown everyone and eschew everything that has somehow got to do with the regime. Our oneness as a nation supersedes that because the regime is not Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe is not synonymous with the regime. In fact, we should be demanding our country back from the regime. After all, Chinx was the most high-profile victim of the system during the notorious Operation Murambatsvina in 2005 when the regime demolished his house, the biggest single asset that the average person – of which Chinx was one – can acquire, and one can only imagine his anguish at what his own party had deprived him of in an instant.
To his credit, Cde Chinx did not carry Zanu PF, his beloved party, everywhere he went. As is his democratic right, he was enthusiastic about Zanu PF, but, unlike some of his party colleagues, not imposing or intrusive about it. It’s quite torturous to sit down with Zanu PF, MDC-T, PDP characters who constantly talk about their party in effusive terms like religious fanatics. Chinx did not talk shop with everyone he came across, saying Zanu PF this, Zanu PF that. I had occasion to sit down with him in informal private conversation. He knew where I came from, but there was not any personal animosity.
The late Mozambican leader Samora Machel said: “We are not fighting the whites, but the racist system.” Similarly, we should interact with our Zanu PF compatriots because it’s not that every Zanu PF member is cruel, but that the system is cruel. I have no problem interacting with Zanu PF members. You can’t avoid Zanu PF or MDC-T supporters because, as the biggest parties in Zimbabwe, they are everywhere – in the family, in the neighbourhood, at church, at work, etc, etc. So, it’s impractical and impracticable to say you won’t have anything to do with Zanu PF or MDC-T. There is a high chance that your boss could be MDC-T and your maid could be Zanu PF and vice versa. And Zanu PF derives its strength and endurance from the fact that it is a broad church.
And, of course, the justice of the cause of liberation cannot be erased just because of those rotten apples at the top who have hijacked the party. That’s why genuine war veterans, led by the straight-shooting Christopher Mutsvangwa, feel betrayed that the system is building up and pushing up opportunists like Jonathan Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere and, lately and most irresponsibly, Kudzanayi Chipanga at the expense of true nationalists. Remember the late Vice-Presidents Joseph Msika and John Nkomo questioning Moyo’s rise and role? In contrast, Chinx was for real. What you saw is what you got. He did not have to hide behind or masquerade as someone.
That said, in Zimbabwe’s current situation, being snubbed by officialdom can actually be a badge of honour, while, on the other hand, being lionised by that officialdom can condemn one to the hall of infamy. So, it takes nothing away from Chinx whether he is declared a hero or not. Getting caught up in the ugly and unseemly haggling over the hero status befitting Cde Chinx would amount to stooping low to the level of the regime because whether it terms him a hero of whatever category or completely overlooks him, his place in history is sealed in his own individual right. Said eminent academic and respected music critic Fred Zindi: “The fact that he (Cde Chinx) declared himself a Zanu PF person never stopped people from loving him.”
That’s the Cde Chinx I know who was a man of the people.
Conway Nkumbuzo Tutani is a Harare-based columnist. Email: [email protected]
