Online Reporter
Dr Moses Mpofu
EIGHTEEN April is perhaps the most important day for our nation. No other day is as significant as the iconic 18 April, 1980.
This is the day that the black majority achieved the impossible and successfully dismantled the system of oppression that had existed for close to a century, where our people had been dispossessed and relegated to non-entities in their own land.
It is quite surprising how some individuals in some far off land came together and decided to carve up our lands among themselves.
So, days like 18 April are a reminder of how resistance against colonialism was the only option left for the blacks to reclaim their heritage.
Zimbabwe @45 invokes deep memories and a profound sense of awareness of the journey traversed thus far. The journey we have traversed up to the point where we achieved majority rule for all was far from being an easy or simple one. It was riddled with pain, betrayal and death. Many of the comrades that we started the journey with did not live to see the sun shine on a free Zimbabwe.
Our freedom was not without a heavy cost. Even the journey that we had to travel post-independence to build our nation was far from a simple one. Efforts were made to deliberately impede our energies towards the attainment of full emancipation.
The concept of a free Africa has never been fully accepted by those who were responsible for our subjugation.
The oppressors had vowed that never in a thousand years would the black Zimbabwean ever be free from their oppressive ways. They had taken what was ours and had made it theirs. They were so intent on keeping it that way that they sought to exterminate the black man from their ancestral lands.
They came in and took for themselves our land, cattle and mines and exiled us to reserves that were inhospitable and not suitable for sustaining life as we knew it.
Even after so many years, some of the important questions with regards to colonialism are still to be addressed. Our people still have deep colonial scars that will likely last for the longest time. Even after dismantling the colonial system, so many of our people’s ways were lost and will never be regained. Colonialism ran deeper than the visible.
Our people may never reclaim their ways that were diluted and erased by the colonial system that was imposed on us for many years on end.
It is our mission to fully decolonise the mind of the African, otherwise all will be lost. The former colonisers left a system so deeply entrenched that we must fully devote ourselves to dismantling it otherwise we will regress and any gains made from independence will be meaningless.
Some of the struggles we are grappling with as a nation are not of our making. They are a result of the colonial injustices and the deliberate sabotage of our efforts towards full emancipation. Sanctions and western sponsored puppet opposition parties have been some of the preferred tools by those bent on reversing the gains of our liberation struggle. The attempt has been to cripple Zimbabwe at every turn.
Each day since independence our beloved nation has been fighting wars on many fronts. It is sad that we have opposition parties in this nation that fail to recognise the importance of Independence Day to all of us as Zimbabweans. Their warped thinking is that, if they cannot take control of the levers of power, then everything else we fought for as a nation is irrelevant. To them, the only relevant thing is their attainment of power.
Such characters should never be allowed to govern Zimbabwe as they will reverse the gains of our liberation struggle and decimate everything that we hold dear as Zimbabweans.
None of us are against a divergence of ideas. This is important if we are to take our nation forward. But, such divergence should be one that is useful to nation building. There is need to rethink the whole idea of opposition politics and place it within a patriotic opposition. It is my hope and wish that one day Zimbabwe has a patriotic opposition, capable of pushing the country’s agenda while recognising and respecting the country’s true values.
Every Zimbabwean is duty-bound to ensure that they guard jealously this hard-fought freedom that we have come to enjoy. It does not matter what their political disposition or ideological inclination is, this is one of the things that we should never compromise on as a people. Without the sacrifices made that led to our emancipation, then all would have been lost. We should never allow anyone to deceive us into believing that our independence is not important.
Such thinking would result in our nation being run over and overtaken by our detractors. So far, Zimbabweans have stayed true to our nation’s cause and defended our nation’s independence with pride. This should continue till the end of time. As our country inches closer to its desired prosperity, let us all cherish this great gift of freedom that was given to us by those who fought the war against the colonisers. Happy 45th Anniversary Zimbabwe!
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is an academic and the Secretary General of Zanu-PF. He writes in his own capacity.
