adminSifelani Tsiko
Innovations Editor
The latest inscription of a set of historic sites linked to South Africa’s liberation struggle on the UNESCO World Heritage List offers new hope and scope for addition of a number of Zimbabwe’s symbols and monuments critical to the memory of oppression, colonialism and liberation of the country.
This follows the addition of South African human rights and liberation struggle sites in the prestigious list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites at the 46th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee session in New Delhi, India which ran from July 21 – 31 this year.
Dubbed the Human Rights, Liberation and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites, Unesco included a serial property comprising 14 components that are located in four provinces and seven municipalities across South Africa.
These include the Union Buildings, Constitution Hill, Liliesleaf, Sharpeville (comprising three component parts), Walter Sisulu Square, 16 June 1976: The Streets of Orlando West, University of Fort Hare and ZK Mathews House (Comprising two component parts), Mqhekezweni, Waaihoek and Ohlange.
“Collectively, this serial property demonstrates the events and ideas that served as the core of South Africa’s liberation struggle, which continue to inspire humanity and the embrace of reconciliation, a quarter century later,” the South African government said.
“The 14 components exemplify strong memories and beliefs in the triumph of human rights, liberation and reconciliation.”
Prof Munyaradzi Manyanga — Bantu Mosaics Research Associate and Executive Dean of the School of Heritage and Education, Great Zimbabwe University told The Herald that the latest Unesco inscriptions could open floodgates for the inclusion of Zimbabwean liberation struggle monuments that detail how some monuments were used as tools of oppression and dominance during the colonial era.
All this, he said, could help reshape the decolonisation of historical monuments and geographies and contribute to the process of renaming, reclassifying and reimagining colonial identities and spaces.
“There is now so much hope for our liberation heritage sites as world heritage,” he said.
“The addition of the Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites by the Unesco World Heritage Committee as world heritage based on the universal values of democracy, human rights and reconciliation offers more scope for our own monuments to be listed.
“Our own liberation heritage fits in well within this emerging typology of heritage sites. We got work to do.”
Zimbabwe has a massive list of liberation struggle monuments and sites where resistance to colonialism took place.
Prof Manyanga said these could include places of resistance from the 17th century to recent times, the Battle of Maungwe site where the Rozvi defeated the imperial Portuguese traders, Indaba sites of the 1890s in the Matobo hills, First Chimurenga battle sites and memorials — Pupu, Mazowe Valley/Gomba associated with Charwe and Kaguvi and the Mangwende stronghold site.
Others, he said, could include the Mambo Hills and the First Chimurenga memorial sites associated with Mapondera and his resistance to colonialism as well as Second Chimurenga sites, battle sites and memorials.
Second Chimurenga memorial sites include Chimoio and Nyadzonya sites, Chinhoyi 7 war site, Hwange battle sites, National Heroes acre and numerous others.
Prof Manyanga, said additionally, places associated with the country’s liberation icons — Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe, Simon Muzenda, Edgar Tekere, Herbert Chitepo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Edison Zvobgo and other nationalists such as Sikhombela, Hwahwa, Gonakudzingwa and the Trabablas Trail monument are worth listing as world heritage sites.
Zimbabwe is building a monument to be known as the “Trabablas Trail”, which is President Mnangagwa’s nom-de-guerre.
During the war he was also known as “Trabablas Dzokerai Mabhunu.”
This shrine at Masvingo Railway Station is a liberation war era historic site of the 1964 bombing of a Rhodesian locomotive by the famous “Crocodile Gang” which included President Mnangagwa.
There are also many battle sites of the Second Chimurenga throughout Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Botswana.
“Liberation heritage is a new typology of heritage which carries the universal values of democracy, self-determination, equal rights, independence and human rights,” said Prof Manyanga.
Zimbabwe has five World Heritage sites, which are Great Zimbabwe, Khami, Matobo Hills, Victoria Falls, and Mana Pools.
The country has great potential for the inclusion of many more sites.
Recently, the country declared 15 more national monuments that evoke symbols and memories of the First Chimurenga (Umvukela) and Second Chimurenga.
Some of the sites include Harare Kopje, KwaVaMuzenda, Germany Church, Samutumbu, Zimuto Street Heritage in Masvingo, Herbert Mine in Manicaland and the Bulawayo hanging tree monument.
Other sites declared were Matabeleland North provincial heroes acre, Matabeleland South Provincial heroes acre, Alterna Farm in Muzarabani, Mashonaland Central Province, Kamungoma and Gonakudzingwa detention centres, St Mary’s Cathedral in Bulawayo and Mutoko Monument in Mashonaland East.
The sites were declared as national monuments by the Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage ministry through Statutory Instrument 125 of 2024 published in the Government Gazette on 26 July.
“All these sites and spaces offer us great hope and scope for reimagining colonial identities and spaces. These sites offer us a glimpse into the history of black life struggles, oppression, suppression, liberation and quest for emancipation,” said Prof Manyanga.
“These sites provide useful multidisciplinary intervention in the discourse on monuments and memories, asking what they are, what they have been used to represent and ultimately what they can reveal about past and present forms of pain and oppression.”
Drawing on insights from a range of other studies, he said the sites could be of interest to a range of scholars with an interest in the decolonisation of global African history.
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