When people have been victimised all their lives to the point of powerlessness, they tend to take it out on anything or anybody as a means to feel better. Research shows that bullies as well as women and children abusers are largely insecure individuals with low self-esteem. In some cases, such people would have had a history of abuse themselves, and they try to ‘contract’ others so that they themselves can ‘expand’. Nothing can better explain the motive behind a deluge of social media jokes and memes depicting people of Masvingo as dull and backward. Blacks in general have been victims over the centuries; exploited, humiliated and oppressed in every corner of the world they have set foot, including their own home continent. The resulting low self-esteem and inferiority complex manifests itself in many different ways including gender-based violence, primitive tribalism and narrow self-interest. In South Africa, Black inadequacy manifests itself in xenophobic attacks that are targeted against other Blacks from other African countries only. In the case of Zimbabwe, 90 years of political oppression and economic marginalisation during colonial rule, followed by almost four decades of brutal rule by Zanu PF created a largely wretched population. In their wretchedness, some people are looking for anything they perceive to be weaker than them so that they can take out their frustrations. Men are abusing women, adults are abusing children and now the abuse is taking a tribal dimension. The victim now are the people of Masvingo, themselves a hardworking people with a lot to be proud of. There is no doubt the jokes we are seeing on WhatsApp are not aimed at the land that is called Masvingo because by the country’s pathetic standards, the province is fairly developed; with surfaced roads connecting all the seven districts. The province has many good schools that attract children from all over the country and has three teachers colleges, one polytechnic and two universities. The attack is therefore against the ethnic group that reside there; the Karanga-speaking people. What the perpetrators do not know, however, is that the Karanga are found not only in Masvingo, but in the Midlands too where they again form the majority. Instead of fighting the obvious enemy they see, those people have given up and now want to feel better by attacking a certain ethnic group to stir tribal tensions.comment
