Online Reporter
Yesterday, Mvurwi became more than a farming town in Mashonaland Central. It became a national stage where history met the present, as over 100 000 young Zimbabweans gathered to mark Munhumutapa Day on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 84th birthday.
The significance of the venue and the day cannot be overstated. Munhumutapa was never just a king. He was the symbol of a State that controlled our gold from Mazowe to Kwekwe, and whose caravans reached Sofala, trading with Indians, Arabs and Persians long before Europe knew us. That the day coincides with the President’s birthday (15 September) is meant to remind every youth that they are heirs to an economic powerhouse, not to poverty.
Munhunmutapa Day is not just a date on the historical calendar. It is about a nation reclaiming a truth that colonialism tried to erase. Long before the Union Jack was ever raised, Zimbabwe was an economic superpower whose influence stretched from the heart of the Zimbabwean plateau to the Indian Ocean at Sofala in modern-day Mozambique.
President Mnangagwa understood this connection perfectly. He captured it in a proverb that has become his signature: Just like the ancestors built Great Zimbabwe stone by stone, stone upon stone, the President is also building this country brick upon brick, stone upon stone.
It is a profound statement. It links the philosophy of Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi balo to the very granite walls of Great Zimbabwe. No mortar was used then.
But the most powerful part of his address was his message to the youth, delivered not as a politician, but as an elder. “If I have to be honest, I would want to see the young generation respecting the older generation, first and foremost. Secondly, I would like to see a young generation that is adventurous, that wishes to break new ground.”
And further: “They shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s only through trying and failing that the country moves forward.”
This is leadership wisdom. The President is telling young people that respect for heritage is not blind copying. The youth of Mutapa did not become great by walking only where their fathers walked. They opened new routes to Sofala.
Today’s youth must open new routes in lithium beneficiation, in ICTs, in climate-smart agriculture and in the 640-million-person COMESA market.
The President directly challenged the youth to work hard, taking advantage of the available youth fund to support systems to grow the economy.
Hence his direct economic challenge: “They must take advantage of the opportunities and enter the value addition and beneficiation space. No sector or part of our society is out of bounds for you.”
Yet, none of this is possible if the nation loses its youth to drugs. This year’s Munhumutapa Day theme — the war on drug and substance abuse — was timely. The President was blunt and correct: “The youth of yester-year fought against the seen enemy of colonialism and imperialism. Today, yours is a fight against an enemy that is across all communities and often unseen. This includes decadent cultures advanced through ICT platforms as well as drug and substance abuse.”
He said drugs will rob the youth of their ability to fulfil their God-given purpose and destiny and weaken families, ultimately leading to the degradation of our national fabric. He emphasised that the youth must choose discipline over destruction for a healthy nation is a productive nation.
This is the truth. A nation that fought and defeated the Rhodesian army cannot surrender its future to mutoriro, guka and crystal meth.
The launch of the 259-hectare Munhumutapa Youth Housing Scheme — 59ha in Mvurwi, 100ha in Centenary and 100ha in Bindura — and the gazetting of this day as a permanent public holiday under Statutory Instrument 148 of 2026 gives substance to the symbolism. It says heritage must come with land, with houses, with empowerment.
If our ancestors could build an empire that reached the Indian Ocean without modern machinery, what excuse do we have in the age of Artificial Intelligence not to build a modern, industrialised Zimbabwe?
The past has spoken in Mvurwi.
The youth must now answer.
