Free Matebeleland Movement

Umagogo sthole : ngemva kobuthumba nokubhubhisa isizwe sika hanesi abesotho yabambana entumbane ekazulu vs amantungwa take note hayi amandebele, umashobane enqaba nezinkomo, ingwazi yakithi umagogo sthole yasala kuleyompi yasentumbane ,leyompi yayingencane bayasho omkhulu ukuthi kwaze kwangakusasa ilwa ibambene ngezihluthu,ila yahlehla khona ekazulu yayobika enkosini ushaka ukuthi lomzilikazi sevuke injebovu sevuke inyokemakhandakhanda ila kubuya khona igama inkanyamba ,umagogo uyena njalo ozala leqhawe eliwu maqhekeni sthole , nelokishi intumbane laqanjwa ngalesehlakalo , ize lomlando awehli kahle kubanewethu bakozulu#mantungomdabu

"MTHWAKAZI MEANING LOST, WORD ABUSED"
"XOLANI IDLAMANZI JAMELA"

I ALWAYS monitor what people discuss on social media to educate myself on new ideas. This other day I was surprised when a group of Kalanga educationists said that the Mthwakazi are the Nguni and the Khumalo. They were even screaming that people of certain Kalanga surnames cannot claim to be Mthwakazi.

This line of argument and thought if not corrected will harm our children and their children destroying the achievements that their ancestors had covered in uniting the local people. Diversity does not mean division.

I worry about these educationists who did not get history from their grandmothers to juxtapose it with the history from missionaries, hunters and researchers whose source of knowledge of our continent and our past is solely based on what others have read from non Africans that have been published before them.

For the benefit of our children I share in this article what Mthwakazi is and what it means.
Bazukulu I will talk about Africa south of the equator and so when I say African I mean south of the equator.

The first white people or non Africans to settle in Southern Africa were a bunch of vendors from Arabia. They are called Arabs in your textbooks.
These vendors sold cloth and plastic beads to our people. This is the reason why Bazukulu, when our spirit mediums come they all request for a piece of cloth (amalembu) and some beads. This is so with prophets too. Just as much as when all of you come back as spirit mediums you will demand walkmans, cellphones and soda drinks! For the Arabs it was all about swag.

The second group of white people to settle in southern Africa was a bunch of poor peasant farmers from Holland. They brought with them apartheid. It is for this reason that today we have poor areas and rich areas of our urban cities and why we have people called liberation war veterans. For the Dutch it was all about fast food.

There are many folk stories and songs told by our grandmothers that speak to this fact.
Before these two non indigenous groups, you had across Southern Africa black indigenous people.

Bazukulu not all areas of the continent were covered by people because population numbers were very low. Just as in today’s Africa you have forests where humans don’t stay. Names of places and tribes in the then African settlements were derived from the names of the eldest or most powerful people in that community.

Social power was not derived from killing or fighting only. It was also derived from many other human skills and achievements. It is only now in our wrongly educated society that recognises power as coming from political achievement and war only.

The majority of names of places and even tribes that we have inherited were once names of people. This background takes me to what I want to discuss in this article, the meaning of Mthwakazi.

Bazukulu, Mthwakazi is a name of a place. The place got the name from the first ever known indigenous people who lived in the area. Those people were the different families of the Khoisan people. Stupid white scholars called them Bushmen.

The Nguni people of the south called them AbaThwa. The Bantu coined the name Mthwa from the skilful manufacture, use and sound of the hunting bow, arrows and language sounds of the San people.

AbaThwa is not a derogative term but a heroic collective identity name given to champion hunters who did it better than any other Bantu people of the South. If it were derogative the Nguni warriors were never going to associate themselves with it because they had superior military power anyway to choose what they wanted to associate with and how.

AbaThwa left their footprint all over what we call Zimbabwe today in form of their creative fine art on rocks.

The place of Bulawayo and Matopos of today was the prime site and land of the AbaThwa where their Queen lived. Yes they had a powerful respected Queen who the Nguni called Inkosikazi YabaThwa. There are folk stories told about her land, people and herbs.

Before the AbaThwa no other known indigenous people lived here. If ever there were others it remains guess work by those whose job is to dig up history from underground and that history may not be accurate.

Bazukulu every other indigenous people, tribe and clan came to what is now Zimbabwe from somewhere at some point in time. In fact all people who are today Zimbabweans became so because of some historical coincidental movement by their ancestors except for the AbaThwa.

When the warrior King Mzilikazi and his people arrived in this part of Southern Africa many other tribes had arrived and settled here before them. King Mzilikazi being a nation builder and one who unites people under his leadership decided to give due respect and credit to the first indigenous people to have been known to stay in this part of Southern Africa and called the land the country of the people of Mthwakazi.

Bazukulu (kazi) yisijobelelo that describes gender referring to the female. In Bantu of the south indigenous religion, land is female hence when they referred to the land of the AbaThwa they called it Mthwa-kazi.

It was King Mzilikazi who popularised this name as he declared that everyone who stays within this land of the AbaThwa must give due remembrance and respect of the first indigenous people who lived in this beautiful country lest every one forgets about them by referring to everyone as those of the land of Mthwakazi.

He wanted a collective identity that would bring everyone together regardless of tribe, colour, language and social class and background to build a united strong nation while maintaining every one’s unique cultural identity.

To call everyone people from the land of Mthwakazi served that objective well and it was a very suitable selection in honour of the San people.
Bazukulu any other meaning and definition of Mthwakazi that is not inclusive of all the people who stay in this beautiful part of Southern Africa is for selfish interests that divide the people and is neither correct nor desirable.

Any progressive leader would want people to be united under their leadership so that they can prosper as a collective people. Anyone or anything that points at division comes from shallow-minded people who have only read history books written by white authors.

Colonialism and its education Bazukulu continues to hurt us as a people through its wrong one sided education system that excludes Africa’s indigenous knowledge in its composition. This one sided education system motivates us as Africans to fight over petty socially unsustainable things.

We do not have to stick to the word Mthwakazi and its use but we have to stick to its values and to why King Mzilikazi introduced it.

If we are not going to use it in our time then, we have to find another word for the same united identity that is above tribe and race because that is where our ancestors want us to be as a people who call this country home.

This can be so because empires rise and fall throughout the history of man, just as today governments rise and fall. Any government in power can create its own social vocabulary but that vocabulary must be for peace, unity, security and prosperity of all people.

So Bazukulu stop yearning to be identified and be respected through empires and kingdoms that fell a long time ago to a point that you find yourselves abusing such beautiful history and heritage as Mthwakazi and what it represents for the future. Those kingdoms and empires are now in the past. Politically they don’t mean anything anymore.

Your mandate is to come together and create a new world with new identities but same old values of ubuntu. Mthwakazi was not a kingdom or empire. It was a social value of unity, peace, prosperity, security and heritage of many different peoples of this area.

No tribe or indigenous people have the right to claim more ownership of this country or land more than the other tribes or indigenous people. It is simply stupid to do so. We mislead our children. It is important to take the best out of our history and let the worst to die.

Let me end Bazukulu, by letting you know that there is a lot of wrong history that is making rounds and it is your responsibility to be vigilant. Focus on togetherness and oneness all the time from family units to communities and to the nation because this is what a Mthwakazi heritage speaks of.

Diversity is not division

BY Xolani IDlamanzi Jamela
BY

08 MAY 2020

*WE STRONGLY CONDEMN POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST WOMEN AND ALL OF US*

We would like to thank the online publication that brought to light the senseless Zimbabwe Republic Police 's unprovoked tribal brutality of two women in Cowdry park Nokuthula and Ntombizodwa Mpofu who are sisters. Thank you Mr Zenzele Ndebele and your Team at CITE.

We are worried by the fact that the two women were abused only because they are Ndebele and the police officers who did this are Shona, who had the guts to beat women's buttocks. Considering that this is one of many incidences of police brutality in Matabeleland and nothing meaningful has been done about it, we are left with no choice but to conclude that it is government policy to ill treat Matabeleland people according to their shameful, satanic and tribalistic 1979 Grand Plan.

Just to high light a few publicly known cases, during this current covid-19 inspired lockdown, it is Bulawayo province that has recorded the highest number of victims of police and army brutality including death. It is in Bulawayo the capital city of the southern region "Matabeleland" where the police have arrested more people than anywhere else in the country.

We are aware that people in their thousands in Harare have been busy with their business activities but still the recorded cases of police brutality are very few compared to Bulawayo which leads us to a single conclusion that their main motivation is Tribalism.

The 16 April 2020 Cowdry park incident is just one of many cases of state security forces violence perpetrated against innocent lawful citizens of this country. Since the Matabeleland Gukurahundi Genocide era they never stopped it. Last year police officers shot a vendor in Bulawayo's CBD nothing was done about it, this last April a young man died after he was attacked by police near his home in a location popularly known as Mabuthweni in Bulawayo no one was arrested or held accountable for that.

Thousands of our innocent people are languishing in Zimbabwe's filthy prisons following last year's violent protests. The police officers and soldiers went around Bulawayo's high density suburbs beating up people, ra**ng and arresting some for no apparent reason, no investigations were done for those arrested, the tribal courts didn't waste time they quickly convicted and sentenced our people without any evidence linking them to the chaos, weeks after the protests ended.

We demand justice for all victims of police brutality and we encourage our people to remain vigilant report any cases of state's brutality against you don't die in silence. We encourage our people to attend court proceedings against the tribalist police officers in solidarity with Nokuthula and Ntombizodwa Mpofu who were arrested and tortured by police for no apparent reason. An injury to one is an injury to all of us.






Cde Mbonisi Solomon Gumbo is a member of MRP writing in his personal capacity.

Face2Face Africa

This is not taught at school.

Many people know Lozikeyi Dlodlo as one of the wives of King Lobegula Khumalo, of the Ndebele. Not so many know that she was the leader and the inspiration for the second Anglo-Matabele war, also known as the War of the Red Axe (Impi Yehloka Elibomvu) and the First Chimurenga, which is considered Zimbabwe’s first war for Independence.

Born in 1855, Lozikeyi was the daughter of Ngokho Dlodlo. Her marriage to Lobengula was to strengthen the king’s support base as the Dlodlo family were traditional healers and military expertise.

Although she had no biological children, Lozikeyi had children through a surrogate: her cousin, who bore her a daughter called Mamfimfi.

Among her duties as Senior Queen was overseeing the white people and their interaction with the members of the Ndebele community. King Lobengula would consult her about boundaries to set when it came to sexual relations between white men and Ndebele women.
She was also the head of the royal women quarters and was attached to one of the king’s prestigious age sets called iMbizo.

When King Lobengula disappeared, Queen Lozikeyi became the defacto leader of the Ndebele.

She was in charge of the King’s army, thanks to her Dlodlo powers. Together with her twin brother, Muntuwani, she ensured that the army had enough ammunition ahead of the 1896 war by using the weaponry her husband did not use in the first Anglo-Matabele war of 1893.

She comes from a family of traditional healers, known as Iziyanga, and believed that the power of the Ndebele warriors was peak during the full moon. With this knowledge, the warriors made the first attack on the night of 29 March 1896, beneath a full moon.
The attack happened at the Big Dance ceremony, where the Ndebele warriors, and their allies, the Shona, would kill any white person they encountered.

The fight went on until August 1896, when the two parties decided to negotiate. Queen Lozikeyi guided two negotiations that oversaw the reinstatement of the Ndebele autonomy as well as the prevention of more deaths.

After the war, the Queen continued to defend and protect her people. However, she was still unable to bring back the Ndebele monarchy. In 1909, after years of being against Christianity and western education, she eventually surrendered to the western style of education even welcoming an evangelist from the London Missionary Society to settle in her retirement home, known as Queen’s Location.

Quite a number of schools were opened in Bubi District.

Referred to as a dangerous and intriguing woman by the British, Lozikeyi was a no-nonsense woman who spoke her mind and was openly defiant against the white settlers.

Source: https://face2faceafrica.com

Face2Face Africa The Premier Pan-African Voice

Maphungubgwe, Great Zimbabwe and Kame, are of the four man-made Unesco World Heritage Sites in Southern Africa, established by Bakalanga. With known kingdoms such as Monomotapa, Tolwa and Lozwi, over a lifespan of over 1500 years. There's other hundreds off these ancient sites scattered all over southern africa.
Bakalanga comprises of BaNambya, BaLobedu, Vhavenda, BaLilima, BaNyayi/BaLozwi, BaTwamambo, BaLemba, BaTembe, BaTalaunda, BaBirwa, BaLembethu, BaTswapong and BaShangwe.
The majority of those people currently identify as
Ndebele (Matebele) in Zimbabwe who use such surnames as Ndlovu, Khupe, Sibanda, Tshuma, Mpala, Nyoni, Nyathi, Ndebele, Ngwenya, Hhou/Zhou, Moyo, Nkomo, Nleya, Dumani, Mlalazi, and so forth. Also included are those Bakalanga in Botswana
who identify as Ngwato-Tswana.

They're the largest minorities in both countries with an estimate of up to 7 million people.

Names of some of Bulawayo suburbs and how they came up.

BULAWAYO,

Lobhengula chose this name because there was some opposition to him succeeding his father Mzilikazi. Two turbulent years passed before he was enthroned. It was so named to express Lobhengula's feelings that he was the one meant to be killed (ngingobulawayo). It was common at that time to refer to Bulawayo as 'kobulawayo umtanenkosi.' Mbiko Masuku wanted Nkulumane to be King instead of Lobhengula- his wife Zinkabi was sister to Nkulumane. Notwithstanding the name Bulawayo was also a historical name of a similar city in Zululand. Lobhengula first named it Gibixhegu when he settled ENyokeni. This was in reference to the death of Mzilikazi his father. Uku ‘giba ixhegu’ was to wash himself of the cloud of the late father’s death as it were. It was the opposition as staged by Mbiko’s Zwangendaba that inspired the new name of Bulawayo. The colonial and other historians have wanted to call it “the place of the killing” to justify the stereotyping of the residents as murderous. No! the suffix ‘-yo’ rather means or describes the person being killed.

MZILIKAZI: named after the founding king of the Ndebele nation King Mzilikazi. It is a reference legend would have it, to the events around his birth when his father had come from battle...elomzila wegazi!

MAKHOKHOBA: The suburb is named after the actions of Mr Fallon, the Native Commissioner, who used walk around with a stick. The name comes from the word "ukukhokhoba" which in the local Ndebele language means "bending and walking with a stick'. It was referring to Mr Fallon as "the little old man who walks with a stick". The word actually describes the noise of the stick hitting the ground ko-ko-ko or the doors.

BARBOURFIELDS: was named after a Bulawayo mayor H R Barbour.

NGUBOYENJA: was named after one of King Lobhengula's sons who was whisked out of Rhodesia by Cecil John Rhodes to give them western education in the Cape Province. It is said that when the mother of Nguboyenja could not conceive she was treated by the use of a dogs parts. This is a process common in Ndebele medical practice and it is known as ‘ukumiswa’ when such an operation is successful the child is named either after the Doctor or after the source of the medication. This is acknowledgement and statement of gratitude.

MATSHOBANA: named after King Mzilikazi's father. Matshobana was the son of Mangethe.

SIZINDA was named after one of the Ndebele regimental villages called iSizinda, at one time iSizinda village was stationed where the present township is sited

IMINYELA: the township built for men only was named after the tree species that abounds in the area.

MABUTHWENI: sometimes referred to eZinkabini, there lived men who were not supposed to bring in their wives, frequent searches were carried out to flash out women. Amabutho refers to conscripted men, ready to be trained as soldiers during the heyday of the Ndebele State this was therefore a pun by the colonial masters to make the labour conditional movement of men while separating them from the women. Making the men work without women close by was a ploy to emasculating the men and create a subservient clture of the men they would frequently refer to as boys.

NJUBE: was named after one of the royal sons of Lobhengula, Njube was the first to be born after Lobhengula had become king. He alongside Nguboyenja were taken to Lovedale institute in the Eastern Cape by Rhodes in order that there be no rallying point in Matabeleland that could lead to the resuscitation of the Ndebele state. Lovedale institute was the precursor to the current Fort Hare University and it is likely that they would have been in the same classes with the great song writers of the early Christian Hyms and poems like Enoch Sontonga (author of Nkosi Sikelela iAfrika), Tiyo Soga (author of the Xhosa Hymn Lizalise idinga lakho) as well as Jordan and many other poets that have made the Nguni Language and Culture grow.

MPOPOMA: was a favourite of many residents in Bulawayo, it provided a long term lease and accomodated lodgers. Mpophoma in isiNdebele refers to a waterfall. The name is derived from a stream further west which flowed towards the Khami river and the stream in question had a waterfall. It was in these surburbs that the activities of the Youth League and Trade Union Movement bare root.

PUMULA: was built further west and its name captured the ongoing struggles to gain longer and more secure housing tenure for Africans in Bulawayo since the Rhodesian laws stipulated that town belonged to whites and Africans were to live in reserves hence Africans had to rest and phumula from the struggles.

PHELANDABA: became the name that immortalised the struggles for more secure tenure. The matter (of the struggle) is over, indaba iphelile. Phelandaba became a prestigious township where big names lived, Joshua Nkomo had a house there. This township was meant to house a class of blacks that needed to be differentiated from the rest. It housed many of the liberation stalwarts some of whom now lie interred at the National Heroes’ Acre and are revered as icons of the struggle for Zimbabwe’s independence.

MAGWEGWE: this suburb was named after King Lobhengula's senior induna, Magwegwe Fuyana. When King Lobhengula fled north under attack from Cecil Rhodes' forces, Magwegwe was killed in place of the king and his remains, disguised as those of King Lobhengula, were interred in a cave in Chief Pashu’s area in Binga.

LOBHENGULA: was named after the last Ndebele monarch, the very king who gave the name koBulawayo.

ENTUMBANE: comes from King Mzilikazi's burial place, a small hill off the old Gwanda road.

EMAKHANDENI: is a name that derives from one of the four generative villages at the time of king Mzilikazi. It was the third to be established following the integration of the Dlodlo clan led by Mehlomakhulu okaLinganisakubaqedabafo, uMpangazitha into the Ndebele group as it left kwaZulu. UMzilikazi wayengakoniwa at this time. These beHlubi were earlier migrants across the Drakensburg. The regiment was then called amaKhanda. When they left koMkhwahla the place where Mzilikazi was made King this was now a trusted regiment. A number of companies were part of aMakhanda that is, iNzwananzi, iNxa, iNdinana, iNsinda and iNsingo. Amakhanda was also the place where amabutho were undergoing millitary training. It was from amaKhanda that iGabha likamaQhekeni Sithole was formed. Not a tin but an annexure ngoba iNkosi isitshelwe nguMpangazitha ukuthi abantu sebengigabhele...they have increased. Emakhandeni is where Fort Rixon currently is. It was where the Wives and princesses of the King were kept ngoba kuyisiphika seNkosi...the King's epaulettes so to speak. Further it should not surprise the reader that when the archeologists came to the area they also discovered the Danangombe ancient stone structures and because they were close to the Dlodlo people of Msindazi the ruins were then called and registered as the Dhlodhlo Ruins as we know them now.

NKULUMANE: the name derives from Nkulumane, King Mzilikazi's heir apparent, Nkulumane was born during the visit of Dr Robert Moffart. By then King Mzilikazi

was then resident at Mhlahlandlela where Pretoria stands today. Dr Moffat was coming from Kuruman but that name was corrupted by the Ndebele to Nkulumane.

EMGANWINI: the name derived from aa tree found in the vicinity. The marula tree is called umganu in isiNdebele hence place name given in locative form. The last tree where traders and missionaries from the south usually stopped and outspanned their wagon.

TSHABALALA: was the surname of King Lobhengula's mother a woman of Swazi extraction Fulatha (ngoba wazalwa efulathele) Tshabalala. This was also a reason to bar Lobhengula from succeeding his father that Fulatha his mother was not a pure Nguni. After ascending the throne, Lobhengula rightly treated his mother as the queen-mother.

FAMONA: was named after one of Lobhengula's daughters Mfamona but the name was corrupted to Famona.

MAHATSHULA: bears the name of a senior member of the Ndebele royal circle, Mahatshula Ndiweni who lived in the Nhlambabaloyi village. Mahatshula is a name that also shows the Ndebele medical science at work. Wazalwa kumbe wamiswa ngoku ‘habula’ … ‘wahatshulwa’ The presence of a large number of the Ndiweni clan in the Ndebele state is significant. This is because of their close relatedness to the founders of the Ndebele State. This points to Cikose as the mother of Mzilikazi. This also resonates with the song the Khumalo sing “…Enkulu eyabekwa ngaMangwe..” aMangwe are the Ndiwenis who are also praised as “…osisu esihle esalalwa yinkosi!”

KHUMALO: was named after the Royal Clan of the Ndebele

LUVEVE: named after one of the native handlers. Luveve was the harsh survivor of the first wars.

MALINDELA: was Lobhengula's maternal grandmother, Fulatha Tshabalala's mother.

NKETA: at some point in the census or restructuring of the Ndebele state the people had to be counted and there was a separation of the people by ethnic origin. Kwakhethwa kwehlukaniswa abetshabi and this was called iNkethabetshabi shortened to Nketha

Apparently The Real Reason Why We're Celebrating 67 Minutes On 18th Of July Is Because He Died In 1985 Aged 67. The Mandela That We Knew All Along Was A Man Named Gibson Mkanda Trained And Cloned To Act As The Real Mandela..Also Reminded Me Of Winnie Madikizela When She Said " The Nelson Mandela That Went To Jail Was A Burning Mandela, The One That Came Out Of Robben Island Isn't The Man I Know.. " ... She Was Hated, Banned And Stripped Off Her Women's League Leadership For Saying That.. Divorced " Mandela ".. Got Falsely Accused For Stompie's Murder So That She'd Be Scared And Not Tell The People The Truth.I Mean You Cant Spend 27 Years In Prison, Come Out And Occupy The Presidency Seat For Just 4 Years.. Say You've Fulfilled All You Were Supposed To ..Mbeki Became President Afterwards.. So What Was Delivered To SA Was A Fake Democracy.. Oppenheimers And Rupurt Have Been Controlling SA Since The Apartheid Days. They're The Ones Who Trained Ramaphosa For Presidency From A Younger Age.. Ramaphosa Was Supposed To Be The One Who Succeeded "Mandela" But The ANC Went Against It.. Opting For Mbeki.. Then Ramaphosa Got Mad, Oppenheimers And Rupurt Pumped Him With Money So That He Can Hang In There And Not Give Up (No Wonder Why He's Rich Today)
..Told Him His Turn Would Come After Zuma's And Indeed It Came.. The Real Reason Why Zuma Also Became President Because He's One Of The Few ANC Comrades Who Know About The Fake Democracy Delivered.. Seat Was Given To Him To Shut His Mouth.(No Wonder Why He's Still Not Arrested For His Crimes,Man Has Power Over Them) .
People Who Know The Truth Say The Cloned Mandela Wasn't Supposed To Be The Nation's President.OR Tambo Was Supposed To Be..Since He Led The ANC From The 60s(Nelson's Incarceration).But He Died From A Stroke (Truth Is He Was Killed).. Chris Hani Had The Favour To Become The President After Tambo's Death But Died The Same Year