via Video: Kalangas are uneducated criminals – Mugabe – NewsDay Zimbabwe April 30, 2015
President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday waded into a tribal controversy when he claimed the Kalanga, from Matabeleland South, were uneducated and responsible for petty crime in neighbouring South Africa.
Speaking at the end of a Sadc extraordinary summit in Harare, Mugabe said he did not understand why Zimbabweans were flocking to South Africa, where they engaged in petty crime.
“And they are not the only ones, crooks, stealing, beating people. The Kalangas were/are very notorious in South Africa, they are known to be crooks because they are not educated enough to get (descent) jobs,” he said at a press conference broadcast live on South Africa’s SABC.
Mugabe’s statements come barely a week after a state media columnist, Nathaniel Manheru, seemed to celebrate that people from Matabeleland were also being attacked in the xenophobic violence that gripped South Africa in the past few weeks.
The President said foreigners should leave South Africa, expressing bewilderment that most Zimbabwean male victims of the xenophobic violence were determined to return to the neighbouring country.
COMMENTS
It’s really depriving off hapiness to read what our President said about Kalangas. As a Kalanga and borm in that Region, I feel discriminated and underrestimated. Kalangas are the first People to adapt education in Matabeleland. No other province had more secondary Schools than Plumtree in 1970s. I presume the President was once a stundet at Thegwane Mission, which is in the Kalanga Region. In 1983 the parents for 4 of my Cousins were burnt in a house by the fifth Brigade ( Gukurahundi)in Matabeleland south. My Cousins who were between the Age of 8 and 18 ran away to South Africa. We never met up to this date. I have no doubt that, they never got a chance to pursue education. Probably the President is saying the truth when he is talking about the orphans who were dispersed by the fifth Brigade. I have been always trying to accept every Zimbabwean as my brother or my sister, regardless of his or her tribe. The isuue of Gukurahundi took place and passed. It happpened in Rwanda, DRC, Kenya and in other African countries. Some of my fellow Africans find it hard to deep hands in one plate with same betrayers. Lets eat together and consider ourselves as one. Zimbabwe has only Zimbabwean. If a Zimbawean commits a crime, we must all accept that he or she tarnishes the Image of all Zimbaweans. Lets be proud of any Zimbabwean who gets a recognition of achieving somthing, because he or she promotes our Image.I wish we can alos have undiscrimating leaders as well. In Zimbabwe we have many languages, but we have one Person, a Zimbabwean. Tribalism must be eraised forever at home.
unogwa bukhwele gwa mayi!
My father who taught at Tsholotsho in 1939 with John Hammond often spoke glowingly of the pupils, many whom went on to shine in Business, Education and Politics. An abiding memory I have is of him remarking of their remarkable adaptability, diligence,deep respect for the merits of a sound education and of the love of sport. Surely that constitutes what all parents would want of their youngsters?