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TODAY we celebrate and commemorate the deeds and lives of the heroic sons and daughters of the soil, living and dead, who laid down their lives for the birth of independent Zimbabwe from the Chimurenga Uprisings of 1896/7 through the Second Chimurenga to the dawn of independence on April 18, 1980. Independence, however, was not the end, but the beginning of another phase of the struggle right up to the Third Chimurenga when the land and all that repose on and in it, itself the raison d’être of the struggle, was returned to its rightful owners in the face of serious opposition from the erstwhile colonisers and their hired hands.
This is why today, it is not only shocking, but disappointing that some of the comrades who fought the Smith regime are today happy to go to bed with the erstwhile coloniser and appear willing to be cat’s paws against the national interest.
Maybe it is providential that we commemorate Heroes Day at a time of fissures in the ranks of the leadership of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, a post-independence association formed to look into the welfare of the former combatants, as that will enable the nation to distinguish the association leadership from the membership.
This is vital in light of the spirited race by all manner of political and quasi-political organisations to appropriate not only national symbols, but the leadership of the veterans of the struggle no matter how alien their agenda. All this with an eye on 2018, where these groups hope to use turncoats to challenge Zanu-PF’s monopolisation of the liberation narrative. These groups, whose western parentage and cause is a matter of public record, apparently realise they have been serially rejected at the polls because voters could not identify with their foreign agenda, and now wish to parade compromised individuals as coterminous with the ideals of the struggle. But history tells that some of the biggest sellouts came from the ranks of trained cadres, a case in point being one Morrison Nyathi, who led Rhodesians to slaughter innocent refugees at Nyadzonya exactly 40 years ago today. These groups are lost to the fact that, while individuals have a price, the foundational values of the Zimbabwean State are priceless and can never be appropriated.
This is why today we would like to defer to President Mugabe, the ZNLWVA patron, by recalling the enduring questions he posed during the burial of national hero Dr Bernard Chidzero on August 12, 2002.
‘‘Bernard and all who lie buried here worked for the people, sacrificed for their well-being and that of our children. Today, in the eerie silence of this sacred acre, they ask you and me many questions. What have you done for your country in your little sphere of activity? What are you doing with your life for your Nation, for your People, for our Children? Or are you negating the very illustrious essence of those proud and venerated men and women of honour we gather yearly to acknowledge?
“If Joshua Nkomo were to rise this hour, would you be fit to hold his hand and walk in step with him down the path that emanates from this very sacred shrine and ends in a great future for our country? If Leopold Takwira, Chairman Herbert Chitepo, General Josiah Magama Tongogara, Jason Moyo, Nikita Mangena were here with us today, would you embrace them and greet them in comradeship; would you be found among the trusted cadres they would have proudly inspected . . . 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 our revolution, our heritage and the future of our children? . . .
“Each grave here speaks to our Nation through the undying, immanent spirit of the heroic men or women whose transient remains it keeps. Each one of these lives will tell you a tale of fortitude; will chastise you when your courage and endurance weakens, reminding you that there is not a life too precious to be laid for this Nation; no battle too hard to be fought for this land, indeed no enemy too big, too powerful, too awesome to be fought and vanquished for this land. Each one of these lives will remind you with the harshest of language that there is no price big enough to fetch this Nation; no gold, no silver, precious enough, to buy its sovereignty. We are not for sale.”
Need we say more?
Online Reporter