When Hopewell Chin’ono met Tee Siya, a conversation ensued.

Mr. Tee Siya is a member of the BOAF and is a Point of Light (POL), an initiative that was established by members of the 1873 Network, to raise awareness of the need and urgency of building bridges and not walls among human actors in order to promote inclusivity in efficiently and effectively solving human problems.

Mr. Hopewell Chin’ono, is an award winning journalist, who shared his insights and experiences in being in a number of groups, and the conclusions that he drew are as follows:

By Hopewell Chin’ono
I belong to many community groups some have mainly black folks some have mainly white Zimbabweans.

I have reflected on both communities and shared the message below with one group of former classmates.

I did so because I realized that our problems are not exclusively ZANU-PF, we are also part of the problem.

Read the note and tell me what you think!
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Good afternoon my dear *** brothers,

Have you guys realized why white Zimbabweans are wealthy and continue to be wealthy?

Have you also ever thought about why US black people are poor and continue to be poor?

I am in groups that are predominantly black, and some which are predominantly white.
So this is not a hard reflection on this group alone but on our community engagements.

The quality of information whites share in their groups defines their pockets from what I have noticed.

I have also noticed that as their kids get to 18, they are also added into those groups which are network hubs.

Would you be comfortable bringing your son into this group? What would they learn? If not, why not?

I am not being hard on us, I am just being truthful about our realities as black Zimbabwean people and looking at the things that hold us back.

We haven’t mastered the idea or art of time and place, we only mastered place, but not time.

I just want us to reflect on what we are passing on to our kids.
This is not just about this group, but many groups that we belong to as black Zimbabweans.

At 51, I am thinking about what is next for us.

We have ALL lived more than half our lives, guys.

Can our lives be only about sharing nothing else except naked women?

Don’t we have other things happening in our lives that we think would be of great help to others in the group?

I ask again, why are black Zimbabweans people and why do they remain poor?

Good afternoon.”

The above share provoked a conversation in the BOAF ESWATINI and set out below are some of the observations between two members of the group that is worth sharing as we try to build a shared understanding of Identity Politics and its corrosive impact on the quest to build a value and fact-based communities.

“Good morning.  

Thanks for sharing your departure point.  Indeed, the fact that Hopewell is not alone should provoke me and you to appreciate the problem that in as much as a profession exists called journalism and industry exists in the name of the media, it is not easy to escape the temptation to export personal perspective into the public arena in the name of media excellence.

Lack of standards

1. The question one must ask in the quest for media excellence is whether a standard exists to determine if a story meets any shared minimum threshold to qualify as a good or bad story.  If so, one needs to build structures to measure stories against this standard. It may be the case that media practitioners believe that what they produce and distribute represents the best way of storytelling to inform, educate and entertain the public.
2. I am sure you have been in this group for a while to allow you to conclude that in any grouping of humans, it is not unusual that many people would rather be eloquent in their silence.
3. You have raised key points in your submission but regrettably, no feedback will be forthcoming and therefore your contribution will be lost in the wind.
4. I decided to add my voice to your submissions in the hope that this will provoke the consumers of news to step forward to share their experiences, problems, and solutions to real-life issues that are inevitable in the business of prosecuting the business of life.
5. After 42 years of independence, the problems experienced by ordinary people in a country like Zimbabwe require expression in the stories told and shared.
6. Imagine this group was a country, it would follow that human beings would rise above the level experienced in the animal kingdom where history is never recorded but the reality is unmistakable that sharing is not celebrated and easily embraced.

Ad paragraph 1

• You stated in paragraph 1 of your share as follows:

“Hopewell is not alone in generalizing about other human beings by categorizing them and stigmatizing blacks as poor, whites as richer. Before joining this platform unconsciously l used to make judgments about certain groups. Imagine l had guts even to generalize about other ethnic groups (blacks). Yes, l used to do that! I also subscribed to a toxic perspective that rich people are crooks, other thieves and are not to be trusted yet l visited their premises all the time to enjoy their services.”

• I concur that generalizing, and compounding opinion is generic in the affairs of humans. I am compelled to salute you for giving credit to this platform, yet the reality is that no platform has life without the agency of the persons in it, for altering your instinct to make judgments about the character and personality of groupings. Notwithstanding, and perhaps without much thought, you also have defaulted to congratulating a platform rather than the specific individuals you have learned from. The platform does not exist, but its human constituents do. Although you see Hopewell as the culprit, you may not realize that what you allege you used to do is precisely what you have expressed in your own words that a platform has properties of humans when it has no voice of its own. Imagine, if you chose to see human beings as the drivers of change, you would join me in changing the perspective that a group should substitute the human actors in it. A group of oranges will never collapse into a single orange and a group of humans will never collapse into a personality that is not divisible. It is the human being who is indivisible and as such will always have a personality and character. The rich people lack the power of causation and agency to allow one to establish a common and shared character and personality. The whole idea of belonging to a group is lost in the attempt by many to give the properties of living human actors to a grouping that is administratively established to act as a vehicle for advancing the human spirit and making problem-solving a shared enterprise.

Ad paragraph 2

8.            In paragraph 2, you stated as follows:

“Being a student of History and Development Studies and of course certified to teach l took l thought like brother Hopewell l had a calling to liberate my students using underdeveloped theories from academic giants like Walter Rodney who put the black of South American, Caribbean and indeed Africans underdeveloped squarely on white man’s exploitation! Yes, l used to pontificate with huge confidence. I did not think up inclusivity and human rights in the process. It did not bother me as a teacher what kind of intolerant future leaders l was producing. Young ones have impressionable minds and indeed some believed l was a rock star believing that my teacher knows everything.”

• You represent yourself as a student of history and development studies and being a certified teacher and therefore entitling you to pretend to be qualified to “liberate your students,” other human beings called students when in truth and fact, liberty is a gift of nature and not of man. No knowledge has the power to give liberty but the person who needs it must earn it by finding it. The knowledge holders must be treated as any goods of value that when exchanged ought to attract an equivalent value in return. No one would want to give up time to liberate another without being compensated for the time and effort. A teacher is a student who must learn before sharing the temporary knowledge inherent in the experience. A teacher with no students is no teacher. A teacher who refuses and fails to prepare for a lesson is no teacher at all. A teacher’s certificate is like a license, but this is not sufficient to be a problem solver who is constantly challenged to keep learning even after being certified to teach. Siya failed to explain why a person like Walter Rodney, was an academic giant, who erroneously misled people into thinking that white human beings belong to a tribe that constructively collapsed the minds of this so-called tribe into some economic mercenaries against some perceived homogenous tribe of black human beings. Siya also raises the issue of leadership and its relationship to some reality that leading human beings is a plausible and realistic construction.  No one can lead another to a place where the so-called leader has never been. Human beings walk on the same ground and enjoy the benefit of life and time that is endowed equally by the creator to all. The idea that young ones have impressionable minds is fatally defective and it is a futile investment in the existence of tribes who share the same template mind. Siya who sees the fault lines in Hopewell’s construction falls into the same trap of generalization that young ones belong to a distinct human class. We all belong to the human class and age, gender, and race are artificial properties that are incapable of giving identity to any living human beings who are endowed by the creator with unalienable rights.

Ad paragraph 3

1. In your ad paragraph 3, you state as follows:

“Knowing what l know now l think am best placed to identify facts from opinions. I now see the danger of using “we” in narratives. It is now my belief that l can do more change by sharing only my experiences, my everyday lived experiences if l want to create change or “liberate” like my brother Hopewell.”

1. It is stated by Siya that he now sees the danger of using “WE” in discourses, yet he defaults to his own version of Identity Politics. Instead of sharing experiences, it is always easy for a person like me to default to some standard-bearer on what should be the permissible universe rather than just simply sharing my own revealed reality that unfolds like a reality movie.

Ad paragraph 4

1. In paragraph 4, you state as follows:

“If anyone has Hopewell’s contacts, please add him to the group or at least share the audios so that ideas battle and in the process unlearning and relearning take place.”

1. It is not apparent why Siya would seek to retail his responses or comments on what Hopewell shared in the public domain. It is the case that Hopewell shared his own insights and experiences drawn from his exchanges. It is from these exchanges that he noted that black human actors behave differently from white human actors.  He is entitled to draw his own conclusions but what would be problematic is to seek to impose your own perspectives on Hopewell’s lived reality.
2. You are in groups, why would not observe, provoke, ignite, and inspire the participants to share their own take on the behavior manifested in these groups. How many people when added to a group proceed to want to know what the group is for or let alone wait like eagles to see what is being shared in the group before sharing their own experiences?”