The Sunday Mail
Last week, the most educated President in the whole world, Cde Robert Mugabe, made reference to uneducated members of the Kalanga group of southern Zimbabwe who are notorious for committing petty crimes in neighbouring South Africa.
The Sharp Shooter
The uproar since then has been deafening and numerous sections of the private media have latched onto that statement with glee and elation.
But it was the truth. The truth hurts and the truth is brutal.
If you are an educated Kalanga, why are you worried about what a man who studied for and passed seven degrees has said about those of your clan who are uneducated?
Cde Mugabe’s bold utterance was a wake-up call for anyone who is uneducated, whether Kalanga, Zezuru or Korekore.
Anyone who thinks that in this global age you can get away with ignorance and illiteracy must either be foolish or uuumm … uneducated.
If one is Kalanga and one is uneducated, then they should be worried. If one is Kalanga and one is uneducated and one is a petty criminal, that person must commit suicide.
There should not really be any fuss about an uneducated Kalanga because an uneducated Kalanga is just the same as an uneducated Shona, an uneducated Zulu, an uneducated Sotho, an uneducated Xhosa or an uneducated Ndebele.
If you are uneducated, get an education. If you are uneducated follow the footsteps of Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge, the Kenyan first grader who entered the Guinness Book of Records for seeking an education at the ripe age of 84.
After over 35 years of building schools and universities and providing life-giving education to the masses of Zimbabwe, the timing of Cde Mugabe’s statement could not have been more appropriate.
Since 1980, Zanu-PF embarked on a deliberate policy to educate all its citizens by planting a plethora of educational institutions in a radius of not more than 10km in a bid to eradicate illiteracy therefore, in 2015, there can never be a Zimbabwean who can be allowed to make an excuse that they are not educated.
Today Zimbabwe boasts of having the highest literacy rate in Africa with a staggering literacy level of 92 percent of the population.
So who really is the uneducated Zimbabwean?
Who really is in the eight percent of illiterate Zimbabweans?
Without a doubt you will find Kalangas among that eight percent, without a doubt you will find Shonas as well as Ndebeles.
Therefore, if you are uneducated, get an education.
The schools are there, the universities are there and plenty of them for that matter so if you are the one being referred to as an uneducated Kalanga, then it is your fault.
You maybe decided to run away from school to commit petty crimes first in Zimbabwe and then in South Africa.
\Had you been educated, you would have found something to do in your motherland, and if you decided to migrate to South Africa you would be in a professional job for educated people.
It is frivolous to try and blanket each and every Kalanga under Cde Mugabe’s statement in as much as it is mischievous to be an educated Kalanga who demands an apology for that statement instead of stirring your own to prioritise education like you did.
Doing so, for all practical intents and purposes, makes the educated Kalanga who makes such a demand, a functional illiterate.
Cde Mugabe was very specific, he referred directly to the “uneducated” Kalanga not to all Kalangas and certainly not the educated Kalangas.
Furthermore, he narrowed his definition to that “uneducated” Kalanga who, in particular, commits petty crimes. In South Africa at that!
So what really is the fuss?
Cde Mugabe was not even talking of the uneducated Kalanga who commits big crime but the one who commits petty crime.
Therefore, if one is an uneducated Kalanga who does not commit petty crimes, that Kalanga must make himself useful by abstaining from crime or, better yet, obtaining an education so that he may never be tempted to be a petty criminal.
Of course if you are an educated Kalanga who commits petty crimes then you are not only a functional illiterate but an abomination for which the Kalanga should carry out rituals for your severance from their community.
Now that a recent credible survey has revealed that Cde Mugabe is the most popular public servant in Zimbabwe, those against his truthful statement about uneducated Kalangas have been left with egg on their face.
The more they try to wipe that egg off their miserable faces the more pronounced the smudges became and the more popular Cde Mugabe and his observations become.
Such kind of popularity can only come about by being educated and trust Cde Mugabe to hold his own in spite of the many Western universities that stripped him of those conditional honorary degrees.
Only a popular person can tell you to your face that you are uneducated; only a popular person can tell you to you face that you are a petty criminal; only a popular person can tell you to your face what an abomination you are and he receives a popularity award for that.
If your friend does not tell you what your problem is, no one will.
Cde Mugabe is a friend of the Kalangas. He is a friend of the Shonas. He is a friend of the Ndebeles. He is a friend of Africa.
Indeed, he is a friend of all blacks.
Let us look at our real enemy and deal with it. In this instance, the enemy is clearly being uneducated and the enemy is clearly being a criminal so what is the fuss about an uneducated Kalanga who commits a petty crime?
Dubulaizitha!
