Online Reporter
Gift Dube
As we mark Heroes and Heroines Day, we bow our heads for the fathers and mothers, the brothers and sisters, living and fallen, who gave up ubujaha nobuntombi babo — their youth — so that we could have a tomorrow.
They did not enjoy being young. While others danced, they crossed. They braved the Shashe and the Limpopo rivers, thick with crocodiles that did not care whose son or daughter you were. They walked through bushes that hid landmines and wild animals that hunted at night. They slept with hunger as a blanket and fear as a pillow. Many left home with a name and a jersey, and never came back with both.
It was not just flesh and blood that carried them. It was a revolutionary spirit. The same spirit that led the children of Israel out of Egypt toward Canaan. No matter how many times Pharaoh hardened his heart, no matter how many obstacles he threw across the desert, the people kept moving because freedom was ahead of them.
For us, Pharaoh wore a different uniform. For decades he told us where we could live, where we could farm, what schools we could enter, and whose hands we could shake. Yet our fathers and mothers, and our sisters and heroines, disregarded that bondage.
They soldiered on through detention, through torture, through the pain of watching friends fall beside them. They carried messages on foot, they carried the wounded on their backs, they carried hope in their chests when everything else was empty.
And on 18 April 1980, that hope became a country. A new Zimbabwe, ruled by the black majority. A Zimbabwe where the land could finally call our names. That was the treasure they brought home.
To the living and the fallen, we say thank you.
Thank you to the combatants who never got to finish school.
Thank you to the mothers who cooked for the fighters and hid them under their beds.
Thank you to the young girls who became couriers, nurses, and soldiers before they became wives.
Thank you to those whose graves we do not know, and to those who came back with scars that still speak at night.
Your pain was not in vain. Your sacrifice is the soil on which we stand.
To the youth: Safeguarding what was paid for in blood
The freedom you enjoy on your phone, in your classroom, in your business, was not free. It was bought. And anything bought with blood must be guarded with wisdom.
Know your history. Read it, ask the elders, visit the heroes’ acre. When you know the price, you will not sell it cheap.
Defend unity. The same colonial system that divided us by tribe, by class, and by race is still looking for cracks. Do not let social media, rumours, or foreign funding turn brother against brother.
Build, don’t burn. The best way to honour the heroes is to work. Plough, invent, teach, create jobs, pay taxes, serve your community. A strong Zimbabwe is the greatest monument.
Be critical, but be patriotic. Questioning government is part of democracy. But always ask: who benefits if Zimbabwe falls? If the answer is not Zimbabweans, then pause.
A word of caution
We must be honest about the world we live in. Some superpowers have not let go of the old “divide and rule” playbook. Their strategy today is softer in language but sharp in effect.
About the writer: Cde Gift Dube is the Umzingwane Constituency Ward 6 Councillor and ZANU-PF District Chairman.
