I sing the song of the Matebele,
I sing the song of the tortured, butchered, marginalised and ostracized,
I sing the song of the hopeless,
It is the cry of the downtrodden, weary, and abused,
It is the voice of the Ndebele people.

My muffled voice wails from the deep dungeons of the Great Shangani River where my king’s story ends.
Deep in the dungeons, I cry for recognition and inclusion yet no one seems to take notice.
Every time I make an attempt to claim my position, to claim recognition and identity I am labelled a tribalist and a sell-out.
Every time this happens I am drawn back to self pity and self hatred.

My pain has been worsened by the Son of Bona
The Son of Bona tortured, brutalised and killed my clansmen simply because they were Ndebele.
Since then he never looked back.
He has made sure that my people are marginalised and peripherised.
Now he has made it worse by refusing to let go the reigns of leadership.
My cry is now so deep such that its tears can fill an ocean.
It is this deep because I see myself and my clansmen buried in poverty and swallowed by doldrums of history.

My cry has grown to be a cry of the people of Zimbabwe.
This is because the bitterness is no longer the Ndebele one only but a bitterness of everyone in Zimbabwe.
Son of Bona, you have destroyed our beautiful land, you have destroyed our pride as a nation.

I cry for the departure of the Son of Bona.
Son of Bona, Zimbabwe has had enough of you.
Son of the Bona, you cannot offer us anything that we can believe in.
Give others a chance to lead; Zimbabwe is for all of us.
Farewell, Son of Bona, Zimbabwe will be a better nation without you.

This entry was posted on October 20th, 2008 at 1:08 pm by Fungisai Sithole and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.