I am one of those people who was and still is labeled a munozi and/or musalad but to a much lesser extent as compared to years gone by. Up until just after starting high school I went to these so called group ‘A’ schools until I was shifted to a boarding school out in the rural areas. Within the first few hours of being there I was labeled a munozi. Very soon after that I was given a nickname brought about by me being told to stand up and tell the class my name. When I opened my mouth, the entire class burst into laughter and I didn’t understand what was going on until the teacher eventually asked me to repeat what I had just said whilst a number of my classmates (and the teacher) were still laughing and mimicking what I had said with a very exaggerated nasal intonation. The nickname I was given was what they thought they had heard me say and it stuck through out my time at the school. It wasn’t easy going by day to day and having to deal with the discrimination (which is how I saw it) but as time went by I got used to it and paid less attention to it. Those years of my life were probably my quietest and I only spoke when I really needed to so that I didn’t have to deal with the onslaught if I spoke. I did make a few friends and those who got to know and respect me saw more than just what was on the surface.
Masalad are viewed by many as, “vanhu varasa tsika” (people who have lost their traditional ways). This Shona term, tsika refers to knowing and being able to use the rules, customs and traditions of society to be regarded as a respectable person. Not all masalad are a lost cause. Those who went to schools where they mixed with other races, they had and still have different accents to those from a rural background. For most when they got back home it was back to their traditional ways but they would take along what they picked up in their environment. They way that they speak is different but it is not necessarily fake or put on. Yes, there are some where it is a bit over the top and obviously put on and bound to draw a lot of attention and criticism. The video shows what I would consider to be over the top. The people in the video do live in the United States but you could very easily come across people in Zimbabwe who have never stepped out of the country speaking like them.
It is not only masalad who get discriminated against. An example I can use from years and years ago is that before I left the private school, an SRB (someone with a Strong Rural Background) was awarded a scholarship to do his ‘A’ levels there. He was ostracized because of his mannerisms and the way he spoke English with a very heavy Shona accent. He was a very nice guy but his background and the environment he was in did not do him any favours.
I have been criticized by family and friends who said I had an identity crisis because of the many white friends I had and the ‘white things’ I did (whatever they were). Yes, I did mix and mingle with a lot of white people but that did not make me less of a Zimbabwean. The discrimination encountered by both groups of people (masalad and SRBs) is unwarranted at times because we should not be judging a people by the way they speak, what they wear and how they carry themselves. As long as those in question know who they are and where they come from they should be treated with respect. When cultural identity has been lost there should be cause for concern because you will have lost a lot of who you are.
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October 7th, 2008 at 2:13 am
INTERESTING!!!! I went to all private schools, hang around all races but no one really labeled me as having an identity crisis. I think the thing with most of us private schooled people or masalad as you may refer to us is, “we don’t know when to switch off the musalad act – there’s a time and place for everything. I know that sometimes you oblivious to the fact that you’re acting like that but if you go to kumusha and refuse to drink the water there because you think it’s dirty or maybe you ask for a “SALAD” then you have major problems, you’re not being mindful, just bluntly arrogant, your mother should have taught you better. Any who I’m sorry that you experienced such discrimination, my advise to you would be “try to fit in, blend in, know your place, be mindful, and know who you are!” As for the video, LOL! Some people especially those with strong rural backgrounds (as you call it) think its cool kunoza shona – it’s just plan ridiculous. I know a few people like that, they actually like being called a munozi. I sum them up with a few words, lack of self confidence, embarrassed of their heritage, they need help. I like the post keep up the good work.
October 7th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I am from Zimbabwe, not salad, this is an interesting post and love your blog, the accent in the embedded video is not really the zim salad accent if I must say.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Gerri….I think people are influenced mostly by who they hang around with most of the times and age as well. It’s easy when you are young for you accent to change.
If I take my son, his accent is so much different because he spends his time in an English speaking school. Ndivo vave kunoza shona……but I wouldn’t call him musalad.
But some people do take it over the top.
Unfortunate what you had to go through in your early days at boarding school. You reminded me of one guy who was at the boarding school I went to and had done his primary education in UK.
Not easy from London to boarding school in Mrewa
October 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I went to a former Group A junior schools, then forms- 1 4, kuboarding yekumusha, and came to a former Group A school for my As. Junior, school, I was coming from a former Group B school, and was seen as an outsider initially,and then after years of being forced to speak only in English, the accent changed somewhat and I was more or less one of them…This made me different at the boarding school, but I was not discriminated against in any way- if anything at all, there were elements of envy- for my part I didn’t just speak Prospero’s well, but I was a Caliban who had learnt to curse in quite well in in written form…
A’ level, this a former Group A school in its truest sense, only a handful of non- Blacks remained, while the rest had fled to private schools, and coming from the schools we were coming from we were seen as invaders, who were killing the long- held traditions the school had had…
By then I had a problem with that mentality, and I guess that is where the whole question of identity crisis comes in…You might have many white friends, are familiar with many white customs and traditions but you are not white and the kind of flake we took for not upholding white values was misplaced, misdirected and tragically unfortunate.
do Jews lose their Jewishness, Indians, their Indianness, etc? Beyond the superficial difference of accents if people can connect around certain core values,hunhu,etc, which make up African identity, despite certain differences, then bye- bye the “class” induced conflicts engendered by accents…
The pathology of self hatred that afflicts anyone, whether a musalala or SRB, or gives rise to tensions between, the two, that is the enemy in need of defeat, and the wound that needs healing