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Stephen Mpofu
Perspective
THE discourse by this pen in today’s Saturday columns is about the importance of preserving ad infinitum the impact or repercussions of the armed revolution that secured our motherland from racist colonial occupation under which blacks became virtual slaves with little or no clout to determine their future in the land where God placed them.
Today, 42 years into independence from April 18, 1980, the minds of born-free young adults bubble with knowledge about how they trounce around with their shoulders and heads raised high because they still rub shoulders with some gallant sons and daughters of the soil who participated in the armed revolution that freed our country from British colonial occupation.
That is all very well.
But tomorrow, when the shadows of more of the remaining ageing freedom fighters vanish, as the latter’s suns set, the born-frees will have an incomplete picture of the armed revolution as they must only then rely mainly on snippets in newspaper library files about how young Zimbabwean men and women laid down their precious lives in exchange for the freedom that everyone enjoys today and which the inverted patriots among us nicodemously trade for promises made by their imperialist masters to raise the political quislings to semblances of power should they help in vanquishing the Zanu-PF Government.
But when the newspaper library files about the armed revolution are exhausted tomorrow’s born-frees will wallow in darkness about how to secure their freedom permanently and that ignorance will reduce them to political mince, rendering them powerless to prevent their independence being replaced by neo-colonialism with all its political machinations as experienced when our country was under rule by those without knees.
Which urgently calls on the ruling party, Zanu-PF, or its Government to move swiftly while there is still time to do so by setting up mechanisms for the writing of a complete history of our country’s liberation and for the books to inundate national archives and various other libraries in order to revive the patriotic zeal for jealously guarding the freedom and independence for which many of our dear ones shed their blood so that everyone else might enjoy the freedom that we deserve, like many other people in the global village.
When still in power, the late President Robert Mugabe once announced that his Government would set up a panel for the writing of the country’s liberation history.
The Second Republic might wish to move in that direction while many who took part in the freedom struggle, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa, are still alive and active in ensuring that Zimbabwe remains a no-go area for imperialists eyeing the country.
Another way of going about this urgent and important national assignment to immortalise, if you will, the armed revolution under which we all remain free today is for the ruling party to co-ordinate the writing of the all-important liberation history of Zimbabwe by putting together a team of former freedom fighters and journalists, like Dr Obert Mpofu, a highly trained journalist abroad, a published author who also participated in the liberation struggle and is now Secretary for Administration in the ruling party, with some renowned historians landing a hand here for the team tasked for producing the complete history of our country’s liberation to serve as a mirror reflecting to future generations how our people were marginalised by colonial rulers in political, economic and social spheres before the armed revolution restored all of our marginalised human rights to us, citizens of this land.
It is indeed a tragic irony that 42 years into independence, Zimbabweans going to cast their ballots in next year’s harmonised elections will have no complete liberation history book to waive to others.
(This writer, a veteran journalist born and raised in colonial Rhodesia to experience the same inequalities as experienced by fellow blacks has made a small contribution to the history of the liberation of our motherland through a book, CREATURES AT THE TOP, available in Zimbabwe and countries overseas, and another one on land reform expected soon on our bookshelves and entitled LITTLE HEARTS CAN ALSO DANCE.)
But my contributions are only a small drop in an ocean of imperative liberation history that Zimbabweans deserve to immortalise their freedom from racial rule and oppression by foreigners.
Online Reporter