Byo Chronicle cartoonist angers Matabeleland and Midlands residents

These are some of the  strong sentiments from my friends on facebook

 An activist Maziwa Bue wrote!
It is interesting how telling reactions to this newspaper cartoon have been. maybe explain to those who think "we", who are so worked up over it and must have a better sense of humour, are failing to "just laugh at this seemingly "simple and harmless cartoon". In my little and amateurish knowledge of social commentry, information dissemination and media, various methods can be used to send a message and or promote an ideology. If you think for example Hugh Masekela or Miriam Makeba's songs in exile were just for entertainment, then why were they banished from the land of their birth? Why are some songs that criticise our government not given time of day on Radio? Why did the Charlie Hebdo dozen die over a Prophet Muhammad cartoon? Why would a newspaper give space in its pages for laughs without effect? Yes we laugh & we sing but subliminal messages are being carried and reinforced . If you think the movies, news, music videos you watch have no impact on the way you/society think, behave or perceive reality then just look around you or at your children and how they are now behaving. I beliéve Marxist theorists called in "Media's social construction of reality" and to this lot, its how those who control institutions of power (politicians) and own the means of production (control the economy)use the media to perpetuate certain perceptions and realities among the unsuspecting and often poorer masses such that they forget their poverty and the need to fight for their emancipation. In the end the masses begin to think its normal that things are the way they are and in fact to rationalise their situation as proper = ‪#‎CulturalHegemony‬ (Gramsci). Ladies and gentlemen we are in a perfect hegemonic state. We have given our consent for the way we are thought of and treated. That being said let us continue the debate beyond the cartoon to what it chooses to ignore. Why are pass rates in Matabeleland and the Midlands always the lowest? Is it a system to force our young men to see SA as the only saving grace and our beautiful girls to see themselves as nothing more than booty calls for some so called "better educated" men from other regions? Who then come with their wealth and flashy gifts, lie to and use them and then leave them pregnant with children they cannot support. They too are then forced to leave these children with their old parents and head to SA to fend for them, there by repeating the cycle of poverty and entrenching the belief that all matebeles want to do is to go and live in SA (As if there are no other Zimbabweans flooding that country too?) May the rage look beyond the cartoon. ‪#‎NgitheLamiNgiphoseeLami‬.