DEMAND FOR RESPECT FOR THE MATEBELE PEOPLE

This Petition is a direct response from the Matabele ethnic group in regards to the Zimbabwean First Lady's views towards the Matebele men. We are aware that the University of Zimbabwe has approved the First Lady, through awarding her with a PhD in Sociology, to contribute towards studying communities for the benefit of community development. We are aware that the First Lady's sociological findings will greatly influence scholars in Social Sciences to use these research findings as a source of studying and interpreting communities. However, we the Matebele people strongly believe that the First Lady still has a lot of hard work to learn about us and our behaviours, before she can come up with suggestions on how we can be helped or help develop ourselves and our community. The need to know more about the Matebele people was vividly evidenced through the First Lady's speech in Gwanda, where she said that the only thing the Matebele men know is to have many wives, many babies and then leave their families to go to South Africa without developing their areas. As the Matebele people, we know ourselves far much better than any expert that has ever been produced by the University of Zimbabwe and we believe that we can help you as a newly graduated Sociologist to know about us from our perspective, hence you will explore ways of suggesting how we can be helped or help develop our areas. The Matebele men go to Souh Africa due to socio- economic and socio- political reasons like fleeing from the Gukurahundi genocide between 1983- 87, relocation of factories from Bulawayo to Harare and failure to get jobs in Matebeleland due to nepotism. We believe that an apology in misunderstanding us will reveal that you are willing to learn more about us through our experiences. Failure to apologise will influence scholars in Sociology and other Social Studies to take your statements as a sociological finding about our reasons behind the malfunctioning of the Matebele communities.

 

By the concerned Matebele community