Chronicle Editor
Colonel (Rtd) Ernest Mganda Dube, Special Correspondent
The purpose of this discussion is to reconstruct the history of the colonialism of Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular from a Zimbabweans’ lenses. At the same time, much effort is put to demystify the Euro-centric long-held teaching which denied and obliterated African Zimbabweans’ understanding of their own history.
History must therefore be understood from a nationalistic standpoint that asserts that ‘history is not only a game of remembrance but an instrument of power’. Against this understanding and driven by their conquest desire of enslaving the weaker nations, the pro-imperial British colonist writers pursued the following doctrine: “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
It is interesting to identify how all the racial groups settled in today’s Zimbabwe came about, the discussion traces the Zimbabwean bantu migration; the North-South Movement as a result of human friction in now Egypt which started between 400 and 800 AD and subsequent settling in Great Mapungubwe, later Zimbabwe, with little resistance from the Twa (San) {BaTwa State} and Tonga/Thonga people.
Furthermore, the tracing of the other large group, the South-North Movement into Lozwi/ Rozvi state who were popular for their “vuma varanda”/ or vuma balanda spirit implying acceptance of alien settlers, sums up the traditional accounts on how various nationals came to settle in Zimbabwe between the period 400AD and 19th century forming various state systems ranging from BuTwa, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Togwa, Mutapa, Lozwi/Rozvi to Ndebele.
The forerunners to the colonisation of Zimbabwe were preceded by the Arab merchants who operated mainly to the south of the Zambezi River between 700 and 800 AD followed by the 17th Century Portuguese merchants of Goa, India and later the Western European legion of hunters’ traders and missionaries dubbed the foot-soldiers of colonist Europe.
Once Africa’s fate is debated and finalised at the Berlin Conference (1884), followed by King Lobengula’s signing of Cecil John Rhodes’ conspiracy document, The Rudd Concession, that caused Queen Victoria to append her signature on the Royal Charter Document (29 October 1888) that authorised the formal establishment of colonial administration in Zimbabwe, marked the genesis of a 90 years’ pro-white supremacist regime system that treated indigenous Zimbabwean Bantu as third class citizens.
Following the 13 September 1890 white-supremacy establishment, Zimbabwean Bantu found themselves having lost land control, sovereignty, and other security paradigm rights prompting them to rise and later fight attritional wars which the Ndebele system defined as Imfazo War 1 and 2 while the Shona chiefs dubbed theirs as First Chimurenga.
Chief Mapondera’s War (1901-1903) dubbed the War of Defiance, was another of the localised war of resistance against the colonial administration however, and was brutally suppressed in the same manner to other past resistances.
The foiled resistances of both Imfazo and First Chimurenga became the motivating spirit to both Zapu and Zanu that triggered the third war of resistance dubbed Second Chimurenga/ Impi yeNkululeko (1960-79) where the nationalist dream was to recover land control, sovereignty, and other security paradigm rights.
The main objectives of Second Chimurenga/Impi yeNkululeko were the establishment of a nationalistic, socialist and Pan-African Republic, adult suffrage, repeal of all colour discriminations and repressive laws, national control of all land with the government as the people’s trustee, and improved health and educational services.
The reason for taking arms of war by both Zapu and Zanu was triggered by the wrestling of power from Winston Field on 13 April 1963 by Prime Minister Ian Smith, marked by his famous speech of 17 April 1964, “Not in a thousand years will a black man rule…” and the brutal State of Emergence of 26 August 1964.
Against this brutal system, young men and women trooped in their numbers into neighbouring states of Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and later Mozambique where they received training, formally marking the genesis of an attritional war highlighted by the 1964 ZANLA’s Crocodile group attacking farms in Melsetter now Chimanimani, the 1964 ZPRA’ Moffat Hadebe–led group attack on Zidube Farm in Kezi, the 1966 ZANLA’s group of 7 Chinhoyi Battle and the 1967/68 ZPRA’s Hwange and Sipolilo (Guruve) battles.
The Mbeya Accord resolutions were among the failed Zapu and Zanu attempts to unify not only the people of Zimbabwe but the military; (i) Unification of the armies under one central command ZIPA, (ii) All training activities were to be carried out in Tanzania, (iii) All operational bases were to be established in Mozambique (iv) All logistics and financial support were to be channeled to ZIPA and no more to the former party.
This unification effort resulted in the formation of the Patriotic Front (PF) and later the 22 December Unity Accord.
Following the establishment of the First Republic government regime of 18 April 1980 and the later Second Republic of November 2017, the restoration of the nationalists’ dream which achieved the Social Sector reforms were as follows; Review of Zimbabwe’s anthropological accounts; Traditional Leaders Act re-alignment as custodians of culture, formal teaching of all Zimbabwean dialects at the institutions of education, re-focus on education with production ‘Education Policy 5.0’, Heritage related re-alignment policies among others.
ν Col (Rtd) Ernest Mganda Dube is a former ex-combatant and political scientist. He is also a resource person at the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology.
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