A mural depicting Ndebele leader King Lobengula hugging Shona
spiritual medium Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana by Bulawayo-based visual
artist, Leeroy Spinx Brittain, has reignited a chasm between the
Ndebele and the Shona in Zimbabwe.
Farai Shawn Matiashe

OkayAfrica,8 April 2022

Visual artist Leeroy Spinx Brittain, popularly known as Bow (black or
white), placed his latest work on the wall of a public toilet in
Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo. The life-sized poster
showed King Lobengula intimately holding Mbuya Nehanda with his left
hand, while the right hand, which usually holds his spear, was holding
a heart balloon. “When I did this mural, I was trying to spark a
dialogue between people. I have realized that you cannot progress
without talking,” Bow tells OkayAfrica. “A lot of politicians have
tried it diplomatically but it always ends badly, as people feel
offended.” More than dialogue, the piece sparked a furor from those
who saw it. To understand the uproar it caused is to understand the
long-held animosity between the tribes depicted in Bow’s piece.

Lobengula, who was born in 1845 and presumed dead in 1894, was the
second King of the Ndebele people, historically called the Matabele in
English. He led revolts by the Ndebele in 1893 against the white
colonialists. Nehanda, a powerful and respected ancestral spirit, also
led revolts, in 1896 – in what became known as the First Chimurenga,
or War of Independence, against the British South Africa Company's
colonization of Zimbabwe led by Cecil John Rhodes in 1889. Nehanda
died in 1898 by hanging, after she was charged for murdering a white
person. The mural titled ‘Unconditional Love’ had an inscription Love
is greater than Shona and Ndebele, Africans unite written on it. A few
days later, the painting had been erased by the City of Bulawayo
authorities. Bow did not have permission from them to paste up the
poster art. But the words were left behind, and, overnight, someone
added their own inscription, saying: Gukurahundi - We will never
forget, dripping in red paint, a symbol of blood of the slain.

The mural titled ‘Unconditional Love’ had an inscription Love is
greater than Shona and Ndebele, Africans unite written on it. A few
days later, the painting had been erased by the City of Bulawayo
authorities. Bow did not have permission from them to paste up the
poster art. But the words were left behind, and, overnight, someone
added their own inscription, saying: Gukurahundi - We will never
forget, dripping in red paint, a symbol of blood of the slain. A Shona
word meaning the early rain which washes away the chaff before the
spring rains, Gukurahundi is the term used to refer to the 1980s
genocide in Matabeleland and Midlands Provinces, which resulted in the
death of more than 20,000 Ndebele and Shona people. The majority were
Ndebele. The atrocities were committed by the North Korean-trained
Fifth Brigade, an elite force of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces. This was
after the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic
Front (Zanu-PF), then led by Robert Mugabe of the Shona, accused their
revolutionary counterpart, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU),
then led by Joshua Nkomo of the Ndebele, for plotting a war after
independence from the British white colonialists in 1980. The mural
sparked debates both online and offline, with some Ndebele feeling
that Lobengula, their King, was being disrespected. In the years
following the massacre, people have not been speaking freely about
Gukurahundi. Usually, discussions on ethnicity in Zimbabwe are not
welcome, as they are seen by many as fueling tribalism. However,upon
Nkomo’s death in 1999, Mugabe described Gukurahundi as a "moment of
madness". The government has apologised for the atrocities committed
during Gukurahundi but critics say it has not shown a commitment to
fully accounting for the victims and survivors. Over the past decades,
state security has been cracking down on people who speak about
Gukurahundi. Several plaques which have been erected in Matabelelend
Provinces in honour of the Gukurahundi genocide victims have been
vandalized by uspected state security agents. In the 1960s and 1970s,
Nehanda became an inspiration in the liberation struggle against the
white colonialists. President Emmerson Mnangagwa erected a statue of
Nehanda, which was designed by a Zimbabwean sculptor David Guy Mutasa,
last year, to honor the Shona spirit medium. The Ndelebele took this
as a slight – the Shona tribe is allowed to honor their heroes but the
Ndebele cannot honor their families and relatives who were murdered
during the Gukurahundi genocide. Today, the mural adds to the already
existing tensions. Mqondisi Moyo, a president of the Mthwakazi
Republic party, says it undermines the moral values of King Lobengula.
“The mural depicting an affectionate relationship between King
Lobhengula and Mbuya Nehanda is an insult to the late great king of
Ndebele Kingdom and his family,” he tells OkayAfrica. “The reason why
there have been bitter debates centering on the mural is the
persisting ethnic tensions in Zimbabwe, specifically between the
Ndebele and Shona. Mthwakazi (Ndebele) people perceive the mural as a
ploy by the Shona to cover up for their atrocities against the Ndebele
by portraying a scenario of good relations which have never existed,”
he says. Moyo says the Shona people should genuinely address
Gukurahundi atrocities which they committed against the Ndebele. “The
mural, therefore, is merely a mockery of Mthwakazi (Ndebele) people.
We will continue pressing for justice,” he says. Mbuso Fuzwayo,
secretary of a Bulawayo-based advocacy group Ibhetshu Likazulu
tells OkayAfrica that a king cannot be equated a spirit medium.” He
says it’s an incorrect narrative that the Shona killed the Ndebele
during Gukurahundi as it was the government who was responsible for
the massacres. “By not acknowledging Gukurahundi, the government has
made people look at it in a blanket manner – to put everyone who
speaks Shona as the perpetrator. That is not true. The perpetrator is
the government,” says Fuzwayo. He believes, nonetheless, after the
Gukurahundi genocide, the Shona people had more socio-economic and
political opportunities than the Ndebele. In the meantime, Bow vows to
do more poster art and murals that call for unity between the Shona
and the Ndebele in Bulawayo: “I have got some stuff that I am going to
draw on this theme of uniting the Ndebele and the Shona. I want
something big that can be on the walls of a big story building.”

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk