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‘Pakistanis must have done it'”. These sentiments were recently echoed by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah Hussain Haroon as he decried the Afghan authorities’ refusal to take responsibility for their actions, imploring them to borrow a leaf or two from the Indo-Pakistan relations.
In a year when so much has happened in all spheres of life, I felt like Mr Haroon. What does last week’s “accidental” felling of a Musasa tree at the intersection of Josiah Tongogara Avenue and Sam Nujoma Street got to do with Zanu-PF, let alone President Mugabe?
What also has it got to do with Prime Minister Morgan’s marriage to Ms Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo?
Why would a fallen tree generate so much interest, even in the international media, as if trees have not been falling due to old age, weather conditions and in some cases, people’s careless attitudes? Have we as Zimbabweans suddenly rediscovered ourselves and also realised that we after all have a passion for flora and fauna and, instead of cutting down trees, we should call for their preservation and plant more trees?
Judging by the debates – for and against, it was clear that that this was no ordinary Musasa tree. If this kind of debate could spread to other areas, then it would be the beginning of good things – people seeking knowledge and those with it, passing it on willingly.
Indeed, this was no ordinary tree. Despite the controversy, it is believed that the Musasa tree felled by a Harare City Council employee is the tree where the legendary heroine of Zimbabwe’s revolution was hanged by white settlers together with Sekuru Kaguvi.
The spirit medium Mbuya Nehanda (Charwe Nyakasikana) who is believed to have been born around the 1860s, but executed by the white settlers in 1898 when she was accused together with her accomplices of the alleged murder of Mazowe’s Native Commissioner Henry Pollard in 1897. Myths and legends surround her persona, including the tree where it is believed that she met her fate.
This is not unusual because spiritual issues have always been shrouded in the mystique. But, the bottom line is that just as Nehanda did not die of natural causes, the tree also fell due to unnatural causes. In both instances, outside forces were involved.
Sadly, we once gain failed to use this opportunity to learn more about the personality who spawned the second, third and now fourth Chimurengas (revolutions) – marrying the past with the present and the future.
We failed to utilise the opportunity to know the personality behind the institutions that we use on a daily basis, and in the process, failed to know who we are.
Instead, the most bizarre interpretations came out. While a lot of these old trees are being uprooted, and in some cases with disastrous consequences, this was not the case with the tree that has now been nicknamed the “Nehanda tree”. Sam Nujoma and Josiah Tongogara are very busy roads. It was a likely possibility to have the tree falling on passing vehicles resulting in major tragedies, but this is missing in the discussions.
This tree, together with others provided beauty and some of the oxygen we use on a daily basis. It needed to be appreciated as such whether or not Mbuya Nehanda was hanged there. We also need to understand that a tree starts with a seed; the ground where the seed is planted and the planting. It needs water to germinate and grow. It also has many elements: roots, tree trunk branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, etc. These have multipurpose uses, and they represent different elements and qualities in life.
Extrapolating far-fetched meanings in order seek relevance was stretching it a bit too far. Indeed Mbuya Nehanda was a key figure during the liberation struggle, and her words, which her executioners made sure they recorded were, “Mapfupa angu achamuka” (My bones shall arise (and fight back)).
I have always wondered why this statement became so important to warrant recording. As a spirit medium, she was operating in the realm of the spirit, but how many of us can relate to the realm she operated under, and any other spiritual realms after the spread of Christianity? If what she represented was hogwash, how come it is still part of us? If she was not powerful both politically and spiritually, why even bother?
Whether it was an inadvertent accident or not, what did that fall have to do with the Zanu-PF National People’s Conference that kicked off a day after the tree fell? And why connect it to President Mugabe? By hitting the tree, what was being implied?
Below are some of the comments from different media outlets. Lance Guma of the UK-based SW Radio Africa said, “Although historians says it’s an ‘urban myth’ that spirit mediums Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi were hanged on that tree in the late 1890’s, superstitious Zimbabweans nevertheless believe the tree has a powerful spiritual force and its fall signals that something significant is about to happen in the country.
“Writing in her weekly letter from Zimbabwe, author Cathy Buckle said: ‘On the same day as the ‘Hanging Tree’ collapsed in Harare, Mr Mugabe was in Bulawayo, planting a tree on National Tree Day. All eyes were on him and Bulawayo as Zanu-PF held their annual congress.” I remember Guma’s story about Ms Karimatsenga allegedly sleeping outside PM Tsvangirai’s residence for three days, pressuring the PM to marry her. I wondered how a rich woman could turn herself into a destitute, and also wondered where the security details at the PM’s house were.
On http://inewp.com they wrote, “The ‘Hanging Tree’ hangs no more” adding, “The ‘Hanging Tree’ of Zimbabwe, a Msasa tree declared to be a national and historical monument, was felled by a truck driver working for Harare City who accidentally knocked his vehicle into the revered and sacred tree causing it to crash down . . . Indeed, though no one may know for certain if the felling of the sacred tree will bring on disasters upon the African nation, elections are being held next year after more than 30 years of current 80 year old President Robert Mugabe’s regime.”
You cannot miss the double-speak on the ‘Hanging Tree’. Although we tread on a political landscape with minefields, we cannot stand on the high moral ground and start pointing fingers at other people. The commentaries were screaming, “tragedy, tragedy, tragedy” against Zanu-PF and its leader.
Have we become so self-centred and uncaring that if tragedy falls on our neighbours, we are not bothered? Since there are a number of spirit mediums claiming to be Nehanda, did these people arrive at their conclusions, after consulting those spirit mediums?
Even Nehanda Radio raised such sentiments – end of an era. This is not Mbuya Nehanda’s radio station.
Nehanda has become a household name whereby people with certain spiritual belief systems would want to be associated with. They see her as a role model, and not in the negative sense as the interpretations and comments read so far imply. And it was also interesting that the people that came up with balanced information were non-Zimbabweans.
Then, the flip side of the coin is, if Zanu-PF had not held its Conference before and/or after that, what would be the significance of the fall of the tree?
Now we turn to PM Tsvangirai and his alleged “marriage”. Chiefs, who are the guardians of our cultural values cried foul because the marriage rites were carried out during the sacred month of November.
If the fall of the tree could assume political hiccups in Zanu-PF, why should it not do the same in MDC-T or any other political party for that matter? Are they not Zimbabwean? Was Nehanda not executed for the people of this land? Why should it only be a pointer to Zanu-PF’s assumed demise?
Mbuya Nehanda was from Mazowe District. More than a century later, PM Tsvangirai has a relationship with Ms Karimatsenga Tembo whose rural home is Chiweshe in Mazowe District. Her father David Karimatsenga joined the liberation struggle to fight for the liberation of this country, a legacy that Mbuya Nehanda left behind. And, as E M Forster says, “Only connect, the prose and the passion.” So, what does the felling of the “Nehanda tree” mean to MDC-T and PM Tsvangirai, since the interpretations on Zanu-PF and the President abound? We also have national institutions that are supported by tax dollars. They contain information and are run by competent people who should quickly put the record straight.
These include universities, the National Archives and the National Museums and Monuments. Why should the narratives about our being continue to be told by other people, while we are busy pointing fingers at each other?