The Sunday News
Limukani Ncube
IN June this year, a 21-year-old man dominated news headlines all over the world when he went into the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and gunned down nine worshippers as if he was starring in some thriller movie.
The story did not end there, the man, Dylann Roof, had planned to kill blacks, and targeted the church known for housing mostly black worshippers, in an apparent racist attack, bringing to the fore once again that there are some whites the world over who do not consider blacks as equal human beings to them.
The story did not end there, it turned out Roof belonged to a group of die-hard white supremacists that has its roots in Rhodesia and South Africa, as evidenced by a jacket he boastfully posed wearing in one of his pictures on social media, which had a Rhodesian flag.
Witnesses told the media that Roof told people in the church, “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go,” before he opened fire.
Such a barbaric act proved that while slavery and other forms of oppression like colonialism may have been abolished and defeated, white supremacy still lives in the minds and hearts of many whites out there. The truth of the matter is that the world is still dealing with a deep racist, white supremacist ideology that refuses to back down to the whims of the new world order, something which should remind Africans in particular never to lose guard of the hard-won independence.
Africa might be free from the bondage of colonialism, but there are still bitter erstwhile colonisers out there who still wish they were in charge of Mother Africa, in charge of our resources, and will always be busy plotting and dreaming of regime change that will allow them free access to our land of milk and honey someday, and they will never tire, so it seems.
Across the Limpopo, the UK Daily Mail in April published shocking pictures of young boys being subjected to vile racist indoctrination which many probably hoped had disappeared from South Africa for good. There were pictures of white boys as young as 15 years old, being trained how to use firearms, and asked to burn the South African flag and hoist the Afrikaner one.
The story told of how a terrifying white supremacist movement was brainwashing teenagers to rise up in defiance of Nelson Mandela’s hard-fought dream of a Rainbow Nation. The far-right Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) was allegedly training thousands of youths in military-style boot camps northwest of Johannesburg to fight for a separate white state.
Filmmakers followed their story for a controversial documentary called Fatherland by TIA Productions. The camp is allegedly run by Colonel Jooste, a veteran of the South African apartheid era.
“South Africa is bleeding . . . and this is why we have to train our people to be prepared. There’s millions and millions of blacks around you, smothering you . . . and killing you. So you have to implement certain systems to survive and that’s why we say the only system we can go now for is not apartheid. That’s second prize. First prize is freedom,” he was quoted as saying.
It appears there are many things taking place in the dark across the globe, all aimed or wishing for a return of white rule in Africa. News that former Rhodesians last week held celebrations in the UK, Australia, United States, New Zealand and other geographical locations where they are domiciled to mark 50 years of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith, itself a non-event to Zimbabweans and all those who believed and still believe in majority rule was testimony that there are die-hard Rhodies who still long for a return of minority rule in the country. The UDI was declared on 11 November 1965.
“The UDI being celebrated today by unrepentant Rhodies is Zimbabwe’s 11/11 curse!,” said Cabinet Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo on twitter last week, and rightfully so, the ruling party Zanu-PF, and other liberation movements across the continent, have to be vigilant against this “curse”.
“Those people are unrepentant and incorrigible. Zimbabwe will never be a colony again and they can go to hell,” said Zanu-PF spokesman Cde Simon Khaya Moyo in response to the said celebrations, adding that Zimbabwe celebrated independence day which is inclusive of all people, showing the revolutionary nature of the Zanu-PF leadership.
War Veterans Affairs Minister Cde Chris Mutsvangwa noted that the Rhodesian elements were adherents to a racist ideology which killed so many Zimbabweans and caused so much suffering on either side of the colour line.
“Their myopia eventually led to the demise of their miscreant Rhodesian settler minority nation. Now their extinguished memories only exist in the non-physical world of cyberspace,” he also told our sister paper, The Herald.
Zanu-PF UK chairman Ndavaningi Nick Mangwana told the paper: “The Rhodesians are just a bunch of sore losers with misplaced nostalgia. Celebrating Rhodesia is an insult to the formerly suppressed majority and the memory of our fallen heroes. The whole purpose of UDI was to frustrate Zimbabwe from joining the wave of African countries gaining independence from the imperialistic powers like Britain and France.”
He added: “If there are people 35 years after real Zimbabwean Independence who think that UDI and the then continued marginalisation of the indigenous populations of Zimbabwe is worth celebrating, then the only conclusion is that it is an obstinate outfit who are feasting on a sentimentality of evil.”
The opposition MDC-T, which has enjoyed support from erstwhile colonisers, was at some point represented at the celebrations in Australia by former ambassador to Australia Jacqueline Zwambila.
Last weekend, the said shamed celebrations were held at the Government House Ballroom St George’s Terrance in Perth, among other places. The money raised from raffle tickets was meant to be donated to an outfit called Zimbabwe Pensioner Support Fund. Another event was slated for Bedford in Britain. The events were expected to spill over to yesterday.
One of the notices read “In Association with the British South Africa Police Regimental Association (Australia) and in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Ian Smith Unilateral Declaration of Independence, you are invited to attend a UDI ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION WEEKEND Where: COFFS HARBOUR, New South Wales”. The Facebook page, Rhodesians Worldwide, is awash with messages of Rhodesian solidarity and scores of posts denigrating Zimbabwe’s independence and calling for regime change.
While Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa belong to a dark history of humanity which should not be celebrated, the fact that there are whites out there who were part of the system that treated blacks as inferior human beings in their own land and have the guts to celebrate it, shows that they did not accept the hand of reconciliation extended by President Mugabe and other liberation stalwarts at independence.
Nonetheless, the new world order, particular in Africa, agreed that colonialism will never come back again, and those yearning for it are trapped in a time warp and holding on to an illusion and dream which will never come to pass. Racism is bad and has no place in our society. It’s a system that treats one race as superior.
Racism is the result of a complex interplay of individual attitudes, social values and institutional practices. It is expressed in the actions of individuals and institutions and is promoted in the ideology of popular culture. It changes its form in response to social change, and we continue to see it time and again, flickering like veld fire, but finally the world has to stand firm and extinguish it for good and allow rightful owners of mother Africa to enjoy their place in the sun.
Soon after independence, President Mugabe spoke of beating swords into ploughshares, of reconciliation, not recrimination.
“I urge you, whether you are black or white to join me in a new pledge to forget our grim past, forgive others and forget, join hands in a ne w amity, and together as Zimbabweans, trample upon racialism,” these words are still relevant today, they will be relevant in future. These Rhodies should listen!
