The Last Of The Classic Shona Warriors!

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu 

I am planning to run the 42.2 Kilometre Athens Classic Marathon this year dressed the way Shona Warriors of the 5th Century would have dressed. I will also carry mock Shona weapons of the period: I envisage a Shield of some sort and a Battle Axe (Gano). Incidentally, the Battle Axe would have been my weapon of choice had I existed in that period.

MISSING PIECES:

The Athens Classic Marathon re-enacts the events of 2 500 years ago, when a Greek Soldier, Pheidippides, ran the 42.2 Kilometres from Marathon to Athens to announce to the Athenians, that they had won a brilliant victory against the invading Persians in the "Battle of Marathon." But do you doubt for a moment that these same exploits and feats were also happening, at the same time, far far away in Southern Africa? I don't doubt it for a moment, that's why I will introduce that previously untold story to the corpus this year.

AUTHENTIC OR SYNTHETIC?

Now, running a Marathon is hard on its own, it is even worse if you are carrying props and paraphernalia, this is why my props will have to be of the most lightweight materials possible. Perhaps reinforced Kaylite painted to look the real thing.

Also, because of animal rights activists, I suspect I will not be able to wear my Lion Skins (as brave warriors of that period would have done), so even my "Mhapa" and "Shashiko" will be synthetic. I may just get away with the Ostrich feathers in my Head Dress being authentic, because you do not need to have killed one to use the feathers. 

BUT...

Here is where you come in, as the expert of Zimbabwean History, you must answer me this: what did the Shona Warrior look like 2 500 years ago? What weapons did he carry? Did he have a Battle Cry? Belong to a military unit? Rank? Insignia?

Your failure to answer these questions will introduce the most wild distortions to world history. For if you do not reign in my imagination thus, expect to see poetic licence gone insane! I am just a patriot, and as we all know, Patriotism ruins history!

“Zimbabwe After The Robert Mugabe Era”

“If snakes didn’t bite, they would be used to tie firewood” - Cameroonian Proverb.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Against my better judgement, I attended the lecture of the above title at the School of Oriental and African Studies on 19th February 2018. I was in the area anyway, doing other things, so thankfully, I didn’t go out of my way too much. I am afraid this was an opinionated discussion not worthy of academia. I will not, like Plutarch before me (The Malice of Herotodus), go into a point by point refutation of all the false premises that were raised in this lecture. Instead, I will only say something about the tone of the whole event. The tone, besides being non-academic, was pessimistic, but what pessimists do not realise is this: they actually wish for the things they propagate. To the extent that, if they had the means, they would midwife the scenarios they envision.

But, fortunately, as the Shona saying goes: “Kuhukura kwembwa hakutadzise Nzou kufamba” (“the barking of dogs does not prevent elephants from travelling along their paths”), the practitioner does not have the luxury of the armchair-know-it-all, he must act whatever the odds. Even more fortunately, if you were to read what these so called experts who led the discussions yesterday wrote, prior to the current Zimbabwean government taking over, you will find that they have always been off the mark. Theory has its limits. It's at that limit that the genius practitioner takes off and thrives.

Arriving at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Fate Has Given Zimbabwe's New President The Easiest Of Tasks!

Mr President! Comrade Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe's New President.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

For me, my President's task is very simple, to do only those things that are defensible as being in Zimbabwe's (objective) Nationalist Interest. Zimbabwe's National Interest, too, cannot be divorced from Zimbabwe's foundational story - the Chimurenga War Story.

For the outsider who wishes to engage with Zimbabwe, your task is simple too - engage in a way that is defensible as advancing Zimbabwe's (objective) National Interest.

I cannot think of anything simpler.

The Tribal Aspect In Zimbabwe’s Succession Politics.

“Nulla fides regni sociis omnisque potestas; impatiens consortis erit” - Marcus Annaeus Lucanus. [“There is no friendship between those associated in power; he who rules will always be impatient of an associate”].

The Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Comrade Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.

Realities in the Post-Colonial African State have scant regard for the anthropologist's comfort. Just when my project of mapping all the tribes in Zimbabwe and assigning them their true interests was nearing completion, new tribes have just emerged there. In staying true to the anthropological spirit, I cannot, as yet, give them definitive names or descriptions since much further study is required. I cannot, as yet, enumerate them though I have observed two and can infer from these that other new tribes have also come into existence. I cannot, as yet either, say whether the two new tribes I have observed are mutually exclusive or not. 

But to understand alright what I mean by new tribes, we have to revisit what one respected intellectual observed about "tribes" in the 21st Century in, of all places, Washington DC. He observed that politics in the United States's seat of power followed the same dynamics followed by tribal politics in the most primitive stages of human history. Whatever new forms of affiliation we now have - guilds, ideology, similar pastimes - have replaced tribes as the new "tribes" in modernity. Wall Street is a tribe. 

The two new tribes that have emerged in Zimbabwe's succession politics thus are what we can provisionally call the "Corrupt Tribe" and the "Security Tribe." The "Corrupt Tribe" prefers the current rot to persist as it has guaranteed them a seat at the table that they couldn't possibly reach through merit. The "Security Tribe," on the other hand, want gradual change that takes into account national values and the realities of the globalised world. I surmise that there must be a "Human Rights Tribe," "Business Tribe," "Law Tribe" etc but I suspect, for now, that these other tribes can find their full expression in one of the two main tribes I have sketched out above. 

Zimbabweans Do Not Like To Honour Their Heroes Properly

"Go and tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here, obedient to their laws, dead we lie" - Simonides of Ceos (556-468BC), Epitaph on the monument marking the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC).

It is an anomaly is it not? (As I read more into Zimbabwe’s history) that Changamire Dombo defeated the Portuguese using superior military tactics way back when - and the Portuguese even acknowledged this rout in their historical documents - yet travel the length and breadth of Zimbabwe, you will not find a single statue commemorating Changamire Dombo’s military genius. Search high and low, and you will not find this victory honoured in any medium - drawings, films, re-enactments, nothing! 

Yet, here I am, in the picture above, in Thermopylae, at a monument erected in honour of King Leonidas of Sparta who lost a battle here to the invading Persians in 480 BC. There already has been 2 major films made in honour of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans. When I arrived in Athens, while relaxing and trying to get my bearings, I was talking to a young medical student in the Gazi District. Not only did she know of, word for word, the Battle of Thermopylae, she also recited the stories of Thucydides, Herodotus and Homer. I, on the other hand, am only getting to know the stories of my country the hard way, and retro-retrospectively too.

"Three hundred Spartans and their allies held off the invaders for seven days, until, their weapons smashed and broken from the slaughter, they fought 'with bare hands and teeth' (as recorded by Herodotus) before being at last overwhelmed.

Thermopylae means Hot Gates, named so because there are hot springs at this place. On the day I visited, it was overcast and raining, the mist you see there comes from the hot springs that are still active to this day. There can be no mistaking the site of the battle.