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We gathered in our thousands within the embrace of Great Zimbabwe, the cradle of our nation’s identity.
It was in recognition and celebration of a man whose life and sacrifice has been for that House of Stone, Zimbabwe, to stand firm upon its human and natural resource endowment.
President Mugabe has been blessed with 92 years and counting, and defies age like the solid pillars of Dzimba Dzemabwe to champion the cause of a nation set upon economic revolution.
To us the youth, President Mugabe remains our generation and future’s pathfinder, like the battle-scarred and hardened bull whose perseverance and experience finds the herd’s path leading to renewal and posterity.
This begs the question: How shall we best celebrate his ideology, vision and leadership?
How do we celebrate a legend who is living, his pursuits as alive as him?
Any celebration then can never be about a day, but a way of life that reflects his ideological pursuit and sacrifice.
We can only truly celebrate him when we have embraced and consolidated his legacy which has been founded upon a clear and consistent ideology and objective.
The past few months leading to the 21st February Movement celebrations have best defined the Robert Gabriel Mugabe brand, a brand forged in the struggles of Zimbabwe, now embraced by the continent and certainly unsettling imperialist machinations.
At the November 2015 G20 Summit in Turkey in his capacity as African Union Chair, President Mugabe warned erstwhile colonisers of another revolution by an Africa that wants to control its economy.
The pathfinder in him spoke to the path our generation must tread, directing that “our natural resources are exploited by our erstwhile masters. That requires another revolution”.
Back home after that Summit, President Mugabe remained consistent in directing the path he knows Africa must maintain, certainly with Zimbabwe as an example.
It is a path he expressed during the ruling Zanu-PF’s 15th Annual National People’s Conference in Victoria Falls in December 2015.
He said, “We have our own philosophy and ideology, and we believe our natural resources are our own. We don’t share them with anyone except ourselves, and except those who come to us as partners. But they must accept that we are the owners of our resources”.
He went further: “There are companies in this country that still refuse to accept our empowerment policy within the mining sector. But certainly come January 2016, that stubbornness and resistance, we say, should end in 2015.
“(In) 2016, we will not accept a company which refuses and rejects our policy of indigenisation and empowerment in the manner we inscribed it.”
The President declares our ideological pursuit undeterred by bookish economics under copyright of Western interests.
His bold stand relates to our worth as a nation; as a people.
To those who would seek to invoke fear by claiming that indigenisation “inhibits” Western economic interests here, he declares that “let it be inhibiting”.
He is uncompromising because “those resources are not just ours for this generation alone, they also belong to our children and children’s children”.
There: that is the reason why Robert Gabriel Mugabe transcends generational boundaries.
His ideology and vision relate to and endears him to the aspirations of post-independence and future generations.
The man will not sell out our birth-right just because of a sanctioned, grumbling stomach.
Instead, he will have us persevere while drawing us nearer to our promised land.
Why must they wonder why God adds years of life to his shepherding purpose?
It is no surprise, when the European Union and US continue to try to alienate the people of Zimbabwe from him by opining that sanctions “are targeted” at him, while simultaneously playing the charade of supporting our economic well-being.
This is as good as denying a breadwinner his livelihood, then claiming to love his starving children.
In his closing speech as the outgoing AU Chair, President Mugabe declared, “We will fight a fight for our own identity, for our own integrity and personality, as Africans. We also belong to the world, part of the world called Africa, and Africa shall no longer tolerate a position of slavery, slavery by any other name.”
And for good measure, he reassured Africa’s people: “As long as I am still alive, I will still have the punch.”
But his closing remarks at the 21st February Movement celebrations spoke the most to the spirits that lingered within the embrace of Great Zimbabwe.
“So, to everyone here, everyone celebrating with me my 92nd birthday, I wish to thank you, to thank you all from the bottom of my heart and say you are friends indeed. I need you. I shall always need you as friends. I shall always need you as supporters.
“I shall always need you as comrades and I shall always need you as co-fighters in the battle for the right of self-determination for us to remain as we are, independent, free to decide how we shall run our country, how we shall run our economy.”
As we endeavour to find our own way as Zimbabwe, we dare not suffer the fate as that Biblical generation of unbelieving Israelites led from Egypt only to have unbelieving souls purged by 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
Blessed were those who believed, whom Moses led to the doorway of their Promised Land.
God bless President R.G Mugabe.
Rangu Nyamurundira is a lawyer and advocate of Government’s indigenisation programme and establishment of a new indigenous economy founded on an empowered society
Online Reporter