Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
Yes, people in this country and those elsewhere in Southern Africa, as the original inhabitants of this region, need liberation history libraries to demonstrate to all and sundry in the global village how blacks in this part of the world were united before those without knees invaded and usurped our common liberties and common tribal linkages prior to empty bellies reuniting us into an economic community about which this region touts itself to the world today.
But charity starts at home, as this common truism goes, so that in the important case under discussion in this discourse our own people, us Zimbabweans, must of necessity kick the ball – and kick it very hard and far – by inaugurating such libraries of liberation right here at home.
Some politicians and individuals, including this communicologist-cum sociologist, have repeatedly called for the writing of books on the history of the liberation of this country to reunite the blacks and re-inaugurate their common desires thereby guaranteeing their common destiny in various aspects of life while marching into an unseen future.
But with no specific programme or financial support being mentioned the project in point here has remained subject to speculation that funding for it would come from book publishers, for instance., as these already know the techniques of going about this job financially and technically in the absence of Government saying it would weigh in in support of immortalising the liberation struggle in black and white for younger generations of today and in the future to know how our people freed themselves from the vicious knuckles of racist oppression.
However, it certainly amounts to an absurdity of absurdities for any right-thinking Zimbabwean or other blacks elsewhere on the African continent to expect publishing houses set up by former colonial powers in Zimbabwe or elsewhere on the African continent to spend their money on the production of history or literature as a whole that supports and praises in a way, the efforts of people they previously oppressed but now stand as heroes and heroines after reversing the racism bromide.
The answer to this mind-boggling dilemma is no doubt provided by author and self-publisher Mr Pathisa Nyathi of Bulawayo, whose books on contributions made by several individuals to the liberation of our country have been snatched up by publics hungry for information about how our people went the whole hog in their contribution to the freedom from colonial, racist oppression of the motherland.
He said this week that writing the history of the liberation of our country from colonialism must rest squarely on individual Zimbabwean patriots, notwithstanding money required for research, printing and publishing such works but which some might not possess.
It was in the category of the financial haves and have-not that funds to proceed with their work would be required from external sources, in which case the Government might wish to consider setting up a fund for the purpose of executing the liberation history project which is obviously of great importance to our liberated country.
Wishful thinking alone by anyone in any quarter will remain horses that no one can ride to get anywhere in the fulfilment of a project that stands to demonstrate to the rest of the world the lengths to which a down-trodden people went to free themselves from usurpers of their rights and freedoms as guaranteed by the Creator Himself in the first place.
Of course, tribal and linguistic diversities in our country as well as in other SADC countries make it imperative for the histories of liberation in our region and elsewhere on our continent to be also written or translated into indigenous languages, if first produced in the languages of erstwhile imperialist rulers.
That way, in the humble belief of this communicologist, the peoples of Southern Africa will identify the commonality of their destiny and survival in spite of their concomitant tribal and linguistic diversities.
Now the ball is in the courts of democratic governments in power to intervene, where such intervention with funding is urgently needed, so that those individuals who played indispensable roles in the revolution may be interviewed for their contribution to the history of liberation before they vanish from the face of this earth along with important information about their contribution to the liberation of our country from, brutal, foreign rule.
As things stand right now it amounts to an irony of ironies for our nation to flaunt the Museum of African liberation being setup in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, when no one can point a finger at even a make-believe library bursting at the seams with works about the liberation of the motherland by gallant sons and daughters of the soil, some of whom remain buried in unmarked graves in local and foreign bushes while those that they freed walk with their heads and shoulders thrust high and buffeted by the precious freedom brought by this country’s selfless fighters for the dignity of black people.
Finally, and to be sure, a nation of born-frees without liberation history for guidance on a journey into the future is like a ship without a compass on a voyage.
Terrifying, or is it not?
Online Reporter