How Zimbabwe’s Zvigananda are reviving colonial dehumanization of black people under the guise of charity

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

There is a specific brand of cruelty that emerges when the distance between a nation’s elite and its struggling majority becomes a chasm. 

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We are currently witnessing a sickening performance of this arrogance in Zimbabwe, personified by the recent actions of the “Zvigananda”—the tenderpreneurs and their offspring who have converted the country’s economic despair into a digital playground for their amusement. 

When Tinotenda Tungwarara, the teenage daughter of Paul Tungwarara, reportedly made a professional nurse at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals dance for a measly $100, she did not just perform a “charity stunt”; she ripped the mask off a system that treats the dignity of Zimbabwean citizens as a commodity to be bought and sold for the price of a quick social media video.

​This is not an isolated incident of youthful indiscretion. 

It is a symptom of a deeper, more systemic rot. 

We saw it again with the recent “challenge” at the Trabablas Interchange, where the same teenager encouraged desperate Zimbabweans to dig through the dirt in search of hidden cash. 

To the wealthy, this is a “treasure hunt”; to the rest of the country, it is a scene straight out of a dystopian nightmare, a real-life “Squid Game” where the prize is survival and the cost is one’s self-respect. 

Watching adults, many of them old enough to be Tinotenda’s parents or grandparents, scramble through the soil for a few dollars is a harrowing indictment of what we have become. 

What values is Paul Tungwarara teaching his daughter when she is raised to believe that the professional class and the elderly are her playthings?  

History has a name for this. 

To understand the gravity of these acts, we must look back at the darkest chapters of our continent’s history. 

During the colonial era, Africans were frequently subjected to degrading spectacles for the entertainment of their masters. 

Whether it was the “human zoos” of Europe or the propaganda films of the “The Adventures of Tiki,” the dynamic was always the same: a powerful, wealthy master making a “naughty” or “foolish” native perform for a pittance. 

Patrick Chiroodza, who played the character Tiki, was paid a mere “tickey”—a tiny coin—to act as a clown for colonial amusement. 

While some might argue these performers were not “forced,” we must recognize that coercion is rarely just a gun to the head. 

It is more often a hand on the throat of one’s livelihood. 

When a nurse, a person who has dedicated her life to saving others in a broken healthcare system, is “offered” $100 to dance, she is not making a free choice. 

She is responding to the crushing weight of an economy that has made her salary a joke—a reality exemplified by the industrial action these healthcare workers undertook over poor pay only a few weeks ago.

This is not consent; it is exploitation under the guise of benevolence. 

It is the same “voluntary” desperation seen when a struggling employee is coerced into sexual favors by a powerful superior in exchange for a promotion. 

The power imbalance renders the word “consensual” meaningless.  

​The irony is as thick as it is bitter. 

These Zvigananda, who have amassed incredible wealth through questionable government tenders and proximity to power, are the very reason the nurse cannot afford her rent and the youth are digging in the dirt at an interchange. 

They loot the national resources that should be uplifting the livelihoods of ordinary Zimbabweans, leaving the people to languish in poverty, only to return as “saviors” offering crumbs from the table. 

We have watched in utter disbelief as the likes of Kudakwashe Tagwirei hand out cash to lined-up veterans of the liberation struggle—men and women who sacrificed everything to emancipate this country from the yoke of colonialism. 

While comedians and so-called social media “celebrities” are showered with luxury vehicles worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and handed thousands more in cash, the elderly heroes of our liberation are insulted with bicycles or forced to line up like beggars for a few bills.

It is a profound insult to the history of this nation.

By turning poverty into a circus, the Tungwararas and their ilk are exhibiting a total lack of shame. 

They have contributed to the very poverty they now use as a backdrop for their “content.” 

In a country with abundant wealth and a supposed “fastest-growing economy,” no citizen should have to dig for $500 or dance for a teenager’s amusement to feed their family. 

This new form of arrogance has crossed a line that can never be uncrossed. 

It is a direct assault on the collective dignity of Zimbabwe. 

The Zvigananda seem to believe that their proximity to power makes them untouchable, that their wealth buys them the right to treat their fellow citizens like circus clowns. 

They should be careful. 

There is a profound truth in our traditional wisdom that warns against such excessive pride and the abuse of the vulnerable. 

In Shona, we say: Kangoma kana koririsa kava padhuze kubvaruka—when the drum beats loudest, it is close to bursting. 

The noise of their arrogance is deafening, and the drum is stretched to its limit.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08