Marginalisation dissolving Zimbabwean Nationalism

The collective identity of a Zimbabwean and what constitutes Zimbabwean nationhood faces a barrier of non geographical but ethnic divisions between the northern (Mashonaland West, Manicaland, Harare, Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland East)  and  and southern regions (Matabeleland North, Bulawayo and Matabeleland South) of Zimbabwe. The argument on marginalisation of Matabeleland being a myth holds little water when contrasted to the population of the two afore mentioned regions of Zimbabwe, the north and south, in which one notes a particular overwhelming proportion of one ethnic tribe in one region over the other.

As is evidenced by Zimbabwe's census results, the northern region consists the greater proportion of the national population of Zimbabwe whilst the Southern region is the smaller part of Zimbabwe populous wise. This directly translates to a marginalisation of the ethnic groupings that abide in the southern region, in this case Matabeleland regions. Further contributing to the drowning of the ethnic groupings in the southern region is the location of the capital city, Harare, in the northern region in a centralised political economy which is Zimbabwe.

When one is dealing with the ethnic divide in Zimbabwe one has to note the historical elements that have contributed to its existance. this ethnic distribution in Zimbabwe emanates from the first Chimurenga and prior to it, making the country a story of two halves which are crossed particularly between ndebele in the southern region and shona tribe in the northern region. Therefore the ndebele and other even smaller by population tribes such as the khalanga, tonga, venda and tswana become the minorities in Zimbabwe while the Shona tribe is a majority.

This marginalisation of ethnic groupings is noted in many levels but this article will draw down to the media, commerce and education. In the media this is seen in the national broadcasting networks content which largely consists of vernacular programming in the Shona language. Of particular note are the prime time television shows on ZBC television such as talk shows and dramas which are not only filmed in harare, the capital city but are also in shona language. this trend extends to the radio broadcasters, such as star fm and power fm which have a predominantly large shona language content in terms of local music and interview languages. this means that the tribes in matabeleland will be left out of the media public sphere and fail to relate with the national broadcasters content, virtually leaving them out of the public debate and popular culture of Zimbabwe.

Furthermore, Bulawayo which was once an industrial hub and a pride of Zimbabwean Commerce  has had a number of industries shutting down including big name companies such as Archer, Colcom and CSC even scaling down its operations. On the other hand Harare has become the central point of commerce in Zimbabwe, with exponential growth of the city's malls and central commercial industries. Education wise, considering the large array of tribes in the southern region of Zimbabwe only 2 have examinations set for their languages, being Ndebele and Tonga examinations, of which the Tonga examinations were introduced in 2012 by the then Ministry of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture.