Online Reporter
TODAY we celebrate the 45th anniversary of our Independence which came on the back of a protracted liberation struggle against white colonial rule. As we commemorate this important day, we need to remember the sacrifices made by the gallant sons and daughters of the soil who sacrificed their lives so that a new, free and sovereign Zimbabwe could be born.
As we reflect on the past 45 years of self-rule and determination, it is important to take stock of the gains and successes of Independence while looking ahead to a brighter, prosperous future.
A majority of Zimbabweans were born after independence and many more have grown up since independence and some of these are now even moving into leadership positions in the public and private sectors. A lot of that movement is possible because they grew up in a free and open society that allows people to move ahead based on their talents and hard work, a society which they see as normal.
That normality is perhaps the greatest result of independence, that people are not judged or held back because others are in control who fear their advance and will do anything to prevent it. The struggle for independence in Zimbabwe was a double struggle, against both the admittedly declining imperialism of the far off metropolitan country, and far more bitterly against the colonial settler regime and society that was so determined to maintain its control forever.
So the struggle for independence was not just a struggle for political independence, important as that was, but also a struggle to transform a most peculiar society and that also meant that people had to realise that they were able to take control of their own lives. And it was this second struggle that was the harder.
For many Zimbabweans the struggle for independence is something learned from history books and history lessons in schools, or perhaps from what parents or grandparents may say. So they are properly grateful that the struggle was successful, but perhaps do not see immediate relevance to the issues of today and the needs of tomorrow.
Yet everything is linked, and there are no great breaks in human society and human progress, and so the spirit of independence is as relevant today as it was 45 years ago.
As older people look back to April 1980, the lasting memory is the sense of optimism and hope that lit up the nation, the whole nation, that all things were now possible. The struggles for independence had been very hard and bitter, but had been successful so other struggles were equally likely to be a success.
The victory had been marked by celebration, but also by a sense of reconciliation and the need to recommit to maintaining freedom and building something a great deal better than what was inherited.
The people who thronged the stadiums across the country, and the special flag-raising district ceremonies after the main event in Rufaro Stadium, were gathering to express both joy and hope. Joy that we had, as a nation, won our freedom and our right to decide our own future and hope that we would be building something a lot better.
A lot of that was done, perhaps not always continuously but adding up over the decades, and where mistakes were made there have been efforts to get back on the correct course, a course which does change as new generations come to the forefront since we are continually building on what has gone before.
But despite the tacking and problems, we need to maintain that sense of everything being possible, that we are the builders of our own future, and that we need to make sure that we build better all the time.
President Mnangagwa has in recent years been stressing this idea that Zimbabweans and Africans must take more responsibility for their destiny; that we have to rely more on ourselves since others are not going to do it for us.
That is the serious lesson that he and many others learnt in the long liberation struggle and the liberation war, that if they did not do it themselves then liberation would simply not happen. That those who did not want it to happen would remain in control and would maintain the society that allowed them to automatically exclude most Zimbabweans.
It was that dedication of so many who had pushed for freedom, struggled for freedom, fought for freedom, suffered and died for freedom, that lit up the stadium at the moment of victory. While today’s struggles might be different, we will, because we are human, always be struggling to build something better and we will always need that dedication.
So Independence Day is not just an anniversary of the day when the new Zimbabwe flag fluttered in the sky for the first time, or even when the country’s name changed to the name everyone wanted. If it was just that, then it would be a low-key public holiday.
Rather it must be the day when we can concentrate on what sort of Zimbabwe we want, a Zimbabwe that we have to build ourselves because we are independent, we are now responsible for our own tomorrows. We then need to use the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to that future progress and to rededicate ourselves to maintaining our freedoms.
