You can keep your racism, I’ll keep thinking you’re an idiot

Is it okay to be outrageously racist to white Zimbabweans? Here’s the editor’s response to The Herald’s recent car crash of a report on Brian Adams and The Warriors

There was an article in The Herald this week that received a lot of attention and charged debate. Tichaona Zindoga snaked his way through the Brian Adams concert and the success of The Warriors in the CHAN tournament like a lost toddler with ADHD. But that’s being too kind. Some of his comments regarding the Brian Adams concert were weighed into the debate on how the event’s organisers secretly advertised the concert like the sub-Saharan Illuminati to ensure that the audience was a nice, clean shade of white. Even though ZiFM and NewsDay were the media partners for the event and aired and published adverts and publicity for the Adams concert.

The audience was indeed predominantly white but that shouldn’t be a massive surprise, Kalabash jokingly predicted the colour ratio in last week’s Kalabash Kartoon. But the talk around the Adams concert isn’t what intrigued nor infuriated me, I don’t care for the artist and don’t subscribe to the obsession over a predominantly middle aged white audience going to watch a middle aged white artist from the 80s and 90s in a 3500-seater venue. Nor do I agree with the Human Rights activists who don’t think international artists should perform in Zimbabwe because they create the illusion of stability. The Adams concert is not a good example, on a more integrated level, but I am 100% behind events like HIFA and Shoko Festival, establishments like the Book Café and any venues around the country that promote arts and culture, be it from within or outside our borders. These institutions have not only entertained crowds but also forged vital relationships and enhanced the career opportunities for so many well-known artists in the country from the late Chiwoniso Maraire to The Prince of Fiya, Dhadza D.

The power of art to provide a reprieve and create conversations can’t be undermined and don’t worry, Western Media’s insatiable lust for portraying Zimbabwe as an unstable and flailing nation will cope with an international artist or two performing here.

What got to me, in the midst of Tichaona’s vitriol was this:

“One commentator believes that if a bomb had detonated at the HICC we would have lost about all of our white species in Zimbabwe.”

“That would have been such a pity, wouldn’t it?”

What a disgusting use of sarcasm. When did it become permissible to not-so-subtly condone or give the written green light to the death of a race or ethnic group in Zimbabwe or anywhere else? How could someone say that and furthermore ink it into national press and circulation? And what lowly editor allows this kind of hate speech into their drivelling excuse for a paper?

In any other instance there would be an outcry over any ethnic group being deemed fit for extinction.

Let me break it down for you Tichaona, I was born in the Avenues Hospital, two blocks away from where I work, and moved to the UK in 2000 because my brother needed urgent cancer treatment. The UK is not my home, nor is Zimbabwe, I’m tired of borders and blind patriotism, you can have it. Call yourself what you will. White, black or green Zimbabwean. If, what is classified as ‘white Zimbabweans’ could or should be wiped out and would not be missed then that would mean that neither of my brothers would be missed. One of them works with illegal immigrants in the UK from all over the world and has an overwhelming passion for helping people who are in situations where they struggle to help themselves. The other has been organising community events in Harare and its outskirts for the last 7 years and is absolutely dedicated to enriching freedom for young black Zimbabweans, ensuring recognition for artists and breaking tension with laughter at the common jokes we share.

My father would not be missed either. He was the director of Zimbabwe Trust and co-creator of one of the most progressive sustainable development programmes in Zimbabwe’s history that is widely recognised and fondly spoken of to this day (CAMPFIRE). A programme that sought to empower rural communities and give them knowledge and ownership over their resources so they could be self-reliant. And, finally, my mother, who has worked with children with learning difficulties intermittently throughout her life, a career which began at St. Giles in Milton Park, Harare. She too would not be missed.

Tichaona, you should be fired, ashamed and stripped of any platforms to blurt out your tattered nonsense. What has hate speech done for the world? Think outside of your own warped cardboard box of a mind-set and open a history book. Stop acting like a child, words can pierce mindsets and children shouldn’t play with sharp objects.