By Nomazulu Thata| Professor Welshman Ncube has a farm, who knows if he benefited from the farm invasions of the Millennium. He is owner of several buildings and objects for trading in Bulawayo. He has above all a beautiful wife at home. He also has the audacity to tell us that Zimbabwe is a free country. In retrospect we do not see the freedom the professor is talking about. Is this freedom in the hands of the few citizens, is the freedom only a preserve of those who have the monopoly of our natural resources in the country that enjoys unfettered access to them: the economy is indeed in their hands? The professor is economically powerful especially in Matebeleland and Bulawayo metropolitan city of Kings and Queens.
It is wholly insensitive of the learned professor Welshman, telling us how free our Zimbabwe is. Mugabe can celebrate his birthday anywhere he wants, he says. Such a statement comes from people who are personally not affected by the Gukurahundi atrocities. But at one time he made claims that his grandfather was a victim of the Gugurahundi atrocities. What makes him make such statements regarding the venue of the Mugabe birthday bash? The people of the Matobo area are not happy about this venue. Can the professor sincerely tell us why his own statement should override the wishes of the villagers who are directly affected by genocide of the 1980s?
Welshman Ncube, we cannot call Zimbabwe a free country. Zimbabwe is not free anyhow if there are more than 3 million political and economic refugees living rough in the streets of Johannesburg. We cannot call a country free if we experience famine wholly man-made, you know this too well. We cannot call a free country with unemployment 95% sky-rocketing to this day. Our schools and hospitals are dilapidated, there is no medicine for common diseases. Sewages are a sorry sight. No clean water and sanitation for all. We cannot call a free country with such dilapidated major infrastructures a free country: no Welshman you are dead wrong. The professor is dead inaccurate in his political observations and comments. He comments political situations in relations to his stomach, what a shame, a waste of education no less. We get education to serve mankind dear Prof.
We cannot call a free country if our children especially girl-children can dare the streets and become prostitutes because of dire poverty in their lives. We cannot call a free country if people are incarcerated for petty issues such those of Pastors Evan Mawarire and Magadza: no Welshman; there is no freedom in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is wholly a repressive regime, a dictatorship, a despotic regime that has deprived its citizens of genuine freedom! You see freedom in Zimbabwe because you benefited from the chaos. There is no freedom if people cannot demonstrate freely like in neighbouring South Africa where your Sebele Zuma is President!
Your wanting always to appear to be different from the main-stream thinking makes you a very questionable politician indeed. It does not surprise us all that you are a failed politician from your yards there in Matebeleland and Midlands and Bulawayo people have never given you a chance for a decent parliamentary seat. Your politics is for you a hobby and never a service to the disadvantaged, your politics serves you first and foremost and the people last if at all.
Does it surprise us then that you are matching back to MDC-T; you have realized that you can never make it alone in Bulawayo itself, you have become wholly irrelevant. That coalition; according To VP Thokozani Khuphe will be a waste since you are not electable at all. At best you should resign from politics but since you want to seek relevance in Donald-Trump era you have to swallow your pride and be seen to be a coalition partner with MDC-T.
Professor Ncube: To say Zimbabwe is a free country is wholly insulting to many people especially from Matebeleland. When they cry out their pain about the insensitive venue of Mugabe-posh party you should respect it. You cannot speak on behalf of the people who suffered atrocities of that magnitude of genocide and tell them that casually that: Zimbabwe is free and anybody can celebrate wherever they want, that statement saves you to be seen to be different from the mainstream thinking of the people of Matebeleland. It is for this reason that the people of Matebeleland showed you the political door, long back. You do not belong to us and not even to the people of Mashonalands, your main-line-thinking is nearer to Zanu PF than any other political establishment in Zimbabwe.
The life you are living is not anywhere a comparison with the average citizen of this country. Your life is posh and therefore your thinking is posh, removed from the mainline thinking of average people of Mathebeleland. You are privileged through and through, it is for this reason that you fail legal simple definition of freedom, Zimbabwe is far away from being called a freed country: your own imaginations perhaps dear professor can call such country almost at the verge of collapsing a free country. Your presence in politics is wholly a poisonous concoction: you can be seriously misleading in your academic thought processes, however the peoples of Matebeleland know you better. They appear to know how to deal with fly-by-the-night politicians like you.
At best the learned professor should have reserved his comments; to say them loud is insolent at best; they are wholly insensitive and wholly insulting to Gukurahundi victims. Your legal knowledge and your learnedness do not give anyone in Matebeleland and Midlands some emotional comfort; but digging into their wounds to be painful all over again. Those comments serve you and your immediate family: you are indeed free and you have all the reason to feel a free citizen. We the majority of the population do not feel free at all. Our situation is even worse than the colonial time of Ian Douglas Smith’s UDI regime. This is how low we have been reduced by this Zanu PF regime.
Dear Professor, there is no freedom in this country with such buckets of poverty, no food securities, no proper medication in hospitals, this magnitude of potholes in our roads causing thousands of accidents and deaths. Your family does not suffer any of those cruelties of the regime of Zanu PF. No energy to maintain our industries. How many people have drowned trying to cross the Limpopo River, just to get those jobs and assist their families at home? The learned Professor says Zimbabwe is a free country!
If you are not well you go to South Africa to Sebele for treatment. Your kids are in the Diaspora for their best schooling and excellent college education. You can afford to say loudly Zimbabwe is free for you it is indeed free and independent for your family to enjoy what the majority of the population cannot. Zimbabwe id free in your comfort zone yes indeed it is independent. How many citizens in this great country enjoy the comfortable life you have in your home?
This feudalistic thinking that we lower mortals have to see luxury life in few elite chosen people is wholly outdated and barbaric. How do you feel when you see so many thousands of street children in our streets and yours are tugged up in absolute comfort you are removed from the daily and seemingly unending suffering of the masses? Do you really enjoy this difference between rude poverty in Zimbabwe and your riches in your home that make you indeed say loudly Zimbabwe is independent?
Those countries you visit to make those academic lectures are busy closing social-economic gaps between rich and poor. Have you ever wished to have such kinds of systems that narrow the gaps between rich and poor? In Zimbabwe this is the type of feudalism kind of life: the few privileged versus the many poor languishing in absolute poverty you would want to uphold. Shame on you professor Welshman Ncube! How we wish you acquired education and not learning that made you becoming a learned person. Your comments really fired me up!