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Needless to say, Nelson Mandela’s death continues to make the headlines. The Mugabe-bashing crusade — yes, a crusade because it bears all the hallmarks of religious zealotry uninformed by solid fact and unperturbed by logic — found this to be the perfect opportunity to draw unsolicited and ultimately unproductive comparisons between Mandela and Zimbabwe’s President.
The crusaders’ big issue was why President Mugabe had taken “so long” to express his condolences. We hold no brief for President Mugabe beyond the fact that he is the legitimate Head of State and Government, but it was quite strange to find an embedded media and its captive public trying to determine a mourning schedule for the leader of a whole, sovereign country.
Perhaps President Mugabe was concerned with weighty domestic matters as per the mandate given him on July 31. And he had his own hero to bury, a man who from 1975 dedicated his life to serving Zimbabwe when the nationalist call beckoned.
Herbert Chitepo died that same year that Brigadier-General Misheck Tanyanyiwa decided to go for military training in Tanzania. By all accounts, it is a decision that Cde Chitepo would have been proud of.
Because that is one of the most important measures of a life well-lived: are you proud of what you have done for your country?
Can you look back, can others look back on your life, and say, “Yes, this man/woman gave his/her all for Zimbabwe”?
Back in 2002, President Mugabe posed a similar question to all Zimbabweans. It was on that August day that Cde Bernard Chidzero was aptly interred at the national shrine on Heroes Day.
“If Leopold Takawira, Chairman Herbert Chitepo, General Josiah Magama Tongogara, Jason Moyo, Nikita Mangena were here with us today, would you embrace and greet them in comradeship…?
“. . . .The old man Tangwena, would he again stretch his age, cross the fierce, untamed Nyangombe, to join your cause. To applaud your actions?
“What is your cause today? Does it derive from and connect with the lofty ideals of these men and women we honour today? Or are you, through your actions today, a willing traitor and second executioner of these heroes, willing posthumous betrayer of their cause, indeed the eager butcher of the revolution, our heritage and of the future of our children?”
That was 11 years ago, and today the same questions remain relevant to every Zimbabwean: are we working in service of our country or are we “eager butchers of the revolution”?
When we place personal gain over collective good, are we not “willing traitors” of Chairman Chitepo? When we engage in corruption and when we embrace a brand of politics that places expediency over principle, are we not “second executioner” of Cde Jason Moyo?
In everything we do, we must keep in mind service of the nation. And we are not doing this for ourselves. We are doing it for our children, to give to them the sweet outcome of the dreams of our own fathers and mothers who fought and died before us.
As President Mugabe urged the nation at yesterday’s burial of a man that Chairman Chitepo would have been proud of: “We should remain ever vigilant because the enemy will try to come back in many guises, even in the form of puppet political parties, created in the name of democracy to deceive the world about their real intentions . . .
“It is up to us to dedicate our lives to the realisation of the dreams of our fallen heroes, freedom from colonial bondage, defence of our national sovereignty, exploitation of our resources for the benefit of all Zimbabweans.”
Online Reporter