Online Reporter
Heroes Day being celebrated today has seen its ambit being widened over the years to bring in the new heroes who want to see their Zimbabwe develop along roads that mean something important, although it remains firmly based on those who fought in First and Second Chimurengas.
The first Heroes Day, in 1980 a few months after Independence, was direct. Most Zimbabwean families had a member who had fought in the liberation war and many families had mourned for someone who had died in the struggle.
There were also the comrades of those who had fought and died, who wished to remember them.
So it was easy for just about everyone to relate to Heroes Day and to the struggle and to remember those who had fought and died. So the first Heroes Day was immediate in the aftermath of a war that had not been over for even a year.
Since then the decades have passed and we now have most Zimbabweans born after independence and so have no direct experience of what happened in the liberation war and how people suffered yet remained steadfast.
They know something about it from personal family history, the missing grandparent, the missing uncle or aunt, but they have no direct experience.
They can be shown and told about what happened, and that does take place, but they also need to have some direct ties with heroes and this is now happening with the expansion of the definition of a hero to include those who have devoted their lives to the new and free Zimbabwe, to build the country that the first generation of heroes freed.
This is important, and it makes the idea of a hero a living concept, not something that occurred once and for all in the past. Obviously the new generations of heroes are inspired by the past generations, and know that quite often when something worthwhile is being achieved a fair degree of sacrifice is required.
We get so many people who think their sole goal in life is to make money, that we sometimes overlook those who could be highly successful in the world of business, and have a worthwhile and productive life in that world, who have made a conscious decision to serve their country and their fellow citizens in quite different paths.
This aligns with those thousands who left Zimbabwe, while at high school or university to volunteer for the military wings of the liberation movements. Those had a fairly successful path outlined for them, even in colonial Rhodesia, and yet they felt they had a higher responsibility and a more important mission.
And quite a few died before they saw the fruits of their sacrifice, and knew that they had made the right decision. That, in some ways, is a real definition of a hero, that you can embark on the journey to serve your fellow human or your country, even though you might not be around when the results of your efforts reach fruition.
This is why it is important that we do remember all our heroes and even more importantly that we recognise that they made their sacrifices before they knew these would be successful and that they never lived to see the fruits of their victory.
That applies to both the traditional heroes of the Chimurenga and the new generations now being recognised.
We still need to remember all our heroes, but we also need to remember that it was far from simple for them to make those decisions.
That is why we need to make sure that they are properly honoured, and the upgrading now in progress at the provision and district heroes acres, as well as the expansion of the national heroes acre, is part of that honouring.
Many of the families who lost someone in the liberation struggle and where there was an identified set of remains have preferred a family burial. But there are many sets of remains that cannot be identified, beyond knowing that they were combatants in the struggle, and who should be buried in these provincial and district heroes acres, which need to be properly maintained.
The design and maintenance of these heroes acres need not be elaborate, but they do need to be decent and it should then be easy to hire a caretaker for each of the cemeteries who can cope with the routine maintenance and gardening.
Suggestions that some sort of display, showing what these heroes and their comrades did in the district and provide, would also help to ensure that we do not forget. That same sort of work is needed at even the national heroes acre, where some of the young generations who never knew a hero might have problems identifying what the hero did and why they were honoured by being buried there.
Meanwhile, today we all need to reflect on just what drive our heroes to leave a life or at least safety, if not comfort, and go to war or to, in later years, serve the people of Zimbabwe and the nation of Zimbabwe in special ways.
Peter Tanyanyiwa