adminHarare Bureau
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday buried his sister, Bridget, and then used the occasion to make a case for the intensification of practical subjects teaching in schools.The government had established a ministry responsible for psychomotor activities to ensure that pupils acquire practical life skills.
Speaking shortly after the burial at his rural home in Kutama Village, Zvimba, President Mugabe said his two sisters Sabina and Bridget – both late – were gifted differently but the former had managed to acquire her own properties by using the practical skills she acquired.
“In the end we had a Sabina who was more self-reliant and a Bridget who was less self reliant and more dependent on bhudi,” Cde Mugabe said.
“She lived with me at State House. Buying her own house, ah she had no money. Sabina formed some women’s groups, they did sewing and made money, she was able to buy a house.
“That’s why we say our education must have what I have termed a psycho-motor element. If you get an education and that education does not enable you to do things, that education is hollow and we don’t want hollow education. We’ve a minister who should ensure that the psycho-motor element in our education is vibrant.”
Cde Josaya Hungwe is the Minister of State for Liaising on Psycho-Motor Activities in Education. President Mugabe said while the colonial education was discriminatory, it provided students with life skills that enabled those less gifted academically to venture into other fields like carpentry, building and agriculture.
He said while he had chosen the teaching profession, he always had an interest in agriculture. President Mugabe said he had never forced his siblings to join the liberation struggle saying they did so of their own volition.
He said Bridget had suffered the most because of her political activism. He told the hundreds of mourners: “She suffered a lot much more than Sabina, she suffered while she was still at Mamina in Mhondoro where she was a teacher. Some thought the more force you use, the more frightened others would become.
“Force is not what brings people to a cause, people dedicate their lives to a cause because of the message, the principles of the leaders. What are you waiting for? Are you truly honest about wanting to accomplish programmes that truly benefit the people?
“That’s the crux of the matter. Even the British still wonder how they lost Zimbabwe, it’s just that. The people want their land, the land belongs to us.”
Cde Bridget Zvenhamo Mugabe, who died in Harare on Sunday, was declared a liberation heroine. She succumbed to heart failure at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals at the age of 78 after having been hospitalised since she collapsed at the burial of her sister, Cde Sabina Mugabe, at the National Heroes Acre in 2010.
Among the mourners were diplomats from Algeria, Botswana, Britain, China, Cuba, the DRC, Ethiopia, the European Union, Indonesia, Malawi, Namibia, Palestine, the Sudan and Zambia among others.
Cabinet ministers, Zanu-PF parliamentarians, members of the party’s Politburo and Central Committee, and service chiefs were also present.
Proceedings started mid-morning with choral groups from the local Roman Catholic Church and Vabvuwi (Methodist Church), and Mbare Chimurenga Choir celebrating the life of the liberation heroine, with Zanu-PF youths chipping in with revolutionary songs.
Family members said the late Cde Bridget Mugabe was close to the people.
Regina Gata, her younger sister, said: “I was close to my sister because we stayed together and she looked after me when I was young in Highfield.
“She did a lot for me and while I would say some things to other people she never held any grudge against me. She was God-fearing; my sister was love itself.”
Gata said the late heroine was a humble person who never abused the family name for personal gain. President Mugabe expressed his gratitude to all the people and medical personnel who had assisted his family during his sister’s illness.
Bridget was buried at the cemetery where her mother Ambuya Bona Mugabe, brothers Donato, Michael and Raphael who died in 2007, 1934 and 1922 respectively, are also interred.
She leaves behind her daughter Lorraine and several grandchildren.
Online Reporter