ANALYSIS | Emmerson Mnangagwa has held a meeting with the forces of reality, following his wish to exhume the late businessman and imperialist Cecil John Rhodes.#

Mnangagwa wants to

The prolific US based writer Bvumavaranda opened the thread by outlining his own views saying Rhodes has to be exhumed.

Bvumavaranda said:

Cecil John Rhodes had a deep understanding of the ways of ancient Egypt. Some may very well say his knowledge was esoteric. Indeed, I have come across whisperers who say Rhodes was a Freemason. The so-called secret information and sacred knowledge are not that esoteric, I think. Rhodes had initially wanted to be buried at Great Zimbabwe, a stone monument falling on the same longitude as ancient Egyptian monuments at Giza, Nabta Playa and Karima. According to the information given to the late historian, Professor Ranger, someone disclosed the spiritual and cosmological significance of the place where Rhodes was ultimately buried.

As is evident in the picture, he was buried paruware. Typically, such a place is used as a threshing floor for processing grain. The leader the ancient Egyptians saluted as the Great Lord, but mispronounced by the alien but respectful Greeks as Osiris, is said to have been buried beneath a threshing floor. The place was chosen as an ideal place for hiding the Great Lord’s body from his enemy and murderer. Indeed, we are told that the ancient Egyptians considered a burial an act of concealment. As an aside, the Karanga term for burial I am familiar with is KUVIGA, meaning to hide.

Anyhow, the Egyptian Great Lord’s burial/concealment/kuvigwa beneath pachipuriro/paruware was replayed upon the death and burial of Nyatsimba Mutota. Mutota is said to have been concealed beneath paruware, according to what was shared by Adrian Nyakwava and historian Jim Latham. The latter teaches us that eight baobab trees were strategically planted around Mutota’s grave. Each tree was a proxy or representative of each of Mutota’s eight councilors or ministers. Tuwuyu tusere, the eight baobab trees, and the concealed body of Mutota lead us to one of the ancient Egyptian customs. We know, or are taught, that the ancient Egyptians understood the Heavenly court to be presided by a chief G_B_/G_V_ and eight assistants. The burial of Mutota gives tantalizing hints at what looks like a link to an ancient Egyptian custom.

In the Bible, when Jacob dies in Egypt, his sons taken him back to Canaan. On arrival, the mourners take Jacob’s mummified body to a threshing floor. As they conduct the funeral service, the onlooking Canaanites tell us they were witnessing an Egyptian funeral.

Going back to Nyatsimba Mutota and the Tuwuyu Tusere, I seem to notice some boulders around Rhodes illegal and sacrilegious grave. From what I can make, there seems to be seven boulders. Are there eight boulders? If there are, were they naturally there before Rhodes’ burial? I ask this question bearing in mind that we call the site of Rhodes’ burial MARINDADZIMU because we say our Karanga ancestors sleep at place since deep antiquity.

Along this vein, I hear Mnangagwa is contemplating the long-overdue exhumation and removal of the body of Cecil John Rhodes. It is all well and good for as long as it is not a political gimmick deeply steeped in gross ignorance. I express this fear given what has been happening at the similarly significant Dambarare. That place, important as it is in terms of its spiritual, historical, and cultural significance, has been ravaged in the hard-to-understand establishment of what I hear will be a city named after some one-horse village in Scotland. I do not think even a cursory archaeological study was conducted at Dambarare before the Chinese earth-moving equipment were dispatched to Dambarare. These gimmicks leave me completely scared, especially coming from ignorant “leaders.”

My hope is that we do not repeat the sacrilege we are witnessing at Dambarare. Marindadzimu is way too important to be mishandled in like manner. We will have to understand every historical, spiritual and associated protocols as we seek the restoration of the spiritual and cosmological role of this Holy place. At that place, we can ill-afford to mess around like the nonsense we are witnessing at Dambarare.

Response from Simba Chikanza |

Interesting points raised here, though I have a few contentions:

1. That there is a body inside. There is none, as Rhodes was cremated.
2. That his presence is a defilement of the place, and the basis upon which he must be exhumed # what exactly is it? Is it because of being buried at a sacred site? Are we sure he is the only foreign invader buried at Matopos, or we just know his case because of the visible grave.
3. Of what Cosmological or spiritual value is an exhumation and is Rhodes the only ‘cruel’ imperialist or invader buried on the land during this nation’s millennial history?
4. Do not such opinions help feed the risky political thinking you’re cautioning against?
5. Seeing the many hundreds of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Gukurahundi victims buried in shallow graves there, is Rhodes the only person “improperly” buried at Matopos or you’re targeting him because his grave is more visible?

While you’re busy trying to exhume Rhodes’ skeleton which is not even there, do you not have a real Rhodes who invaded State House in 2017-18, and who’s currently directing your rage towards Matobo? You’re already currently trying to pull out Mugabe’s skeleton from Zvimba. By year end, how many will you have exhumed, and how much money blown that could have saved lives?

Instead of monumentalising Cecil John Rhodes as a National Asset, the way US, UK, Australia have of their own, you are here busy looking for a skeleton which is not even there. This same Rhodes you call a curse, literally assembled this country out several scattered chieftainships which had little connection or strategy to the outside world. How many Rhodes are there right now buried in US, a country that does belong to them, but yet transformed that jungle into a superpower that’s now greater than its mother nation, Britain? If they are a curse to the nation, how many Rhodes characters are right now buried in New Zealand, Canadian, and Australian mountains? This man was a businessman, no matter his failings, and if you had monumentalised him, would Zimbabwe not by bow have produced thousands of its own black Rhodes going round the world conquering the planet for this nation, the way the tiny nation of Britain did?

How many Cecil John Rhodes would you have produced? Right now the only to only two to talk about are Strive Masiyiwa, and Douglas Munetsi (murdered this year). The last remaining Rhodes, Masiyiwa won’t come back because he will be killed or become dispossessed, or both, once landing in his country of birth, and after that you will go after his corpse also?