adminIndeed the events of the First Chimurenga in Zimbabwe from 1896 to 1897 ignited and brought about the desire for the right to liberation of the people of Zimbabwe. In 1980, the Second Chimurenga ended with a convincing victory over Ian Smith’s illegal regime, wrote Nyaradzo Mtizira in his book, The Chimurenga Protocol. Men and women both took part in the armed struggle.
Zimbabwe is endowed with various tourist resorts including the Victoria Falls and Matobo Hills, an array of minerals and agricultural resources. The Land Acquisition Act of 2001 is a piece of legislation that was drafted to address the colonial injustices of land distribution. This is the reason why even now the former colonialists still wish to retain control over Zimbabwe’s resources. The Land Acquisition Act replaced the Land Apportionment Act of the colonial era. This is the reason why even at
Independence in 1980, 90 percent of the fertile land was in the hands of a mere five percent of the population. For the first time, the land was given back to the rightful owners and this fulfilled the black people’s desire to land ownership.
Black people on the African continent including Zimbabweans were dispossessed of their fertile or reproductive land and even livestock, wrote Andrew Wutawunashe in his book Dear Africa. Relegated to barren tracts of land, many of them were employed on meagre wages to the work that enabled the colonial master to accumulate wealth.
The minds of black people for 400 years were trained to accept that he had no right to ownership of wealth and resources even on his own continent. Even today, the reasons why black people are subjects of charity is rooted in the fact that during the colonial period people owned nothing and were used to getting handouts from their white masters.
Even today there are some black people who do not want to be associated with Africa and its people. There are black people who will never disclose where they came from or they simply lie due to “embarrassment” of their own roots. Some children who are born and grow up in the Diaspora will never know or remember their identity. Wutawunawshe states that indeed there is among black people a crisis of patriotism.
What we should not forget is that nations like the United States of America also went through such hardships as civil wars and times of deep poverty such as the Great Depression of the 1930s. The American people remained steadfast; they did not abandon their country because of their love and commitment to their land. They stayed, fought and worked until they built their country into a state of competitiveness. There are also other great African-American leaders such as Dr Martin Luther King Jnr and Malcolm X and other black leaders who went back to Africa and inspired fellow black people to liberate themselves.
It is believed that there are more Malawian doctors in the City of Manchester than in the whole nation of Malawi. If black people learn to love their country they will learn to develop it.
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy once said that “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. As we approach 18 April 2012, the day Zimbabwe gained its Independence, let’s remember our gallant sons and daughters who sacrificed their lives in order to liberate Zimbabwe.
Indeed Ambuya Nehanda said that her bones shall rise again. As a woman, as a spirit medium she played a great role in the First Chimurenga. She led Zimbabwe’s
First Chimurenga that inspired the Second Chimurenga.
Our fallen heroes Joshua Nkomo, Samuel Parirenyatwa, Josiah Tongogara, Herbert Chitepo, Sally Mugabe, Simon Vengesayi Muzenda, Leopold Takawira, Simon Mazorodze, Simon Ziyapapa Moyo, Solomon Mujuru just to mention a few must be remembered and applauded for their role towards the liberation of
Zimbabwe from the shackles of colonialism and imperialism.
The book The Chitepo Assassination for example, gives the history of how Herbert Chitepo was assassinated just after 8am on 18 March 1975 in Lusaka the capital of Zambia headquarters of liberation movements fighting against colonial or minority administrations in Southern Africa. That morning in the wreckage of a pale blue
Volkswagen lay the body of Herbert Chitepo (then 51) national chairman of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) and leader of its Dare re Chimurenga or War Council that was directing the guerillas infiltrating across the Zambezi River into the then Southern Rhodesia to fight against the white minority regime of Ian Smith.
For 10 years, the death of Herbert Chitepo remained a mystery and the true story of the crime and its perpetrators remained a secret known only to a handful of people who were involved in the planning. Despite what happened, Herbert Chitepo was a central figure in the Zimbabwe liberation struggle. Chitepo, born in June 1923 in Nyanga, was a man of contrasting images. In the book The Chitepo Assassination, he is described as a warm and compassionate family man whom his
Rhodesian adversaries regarded as the “brains” behind the guerilla war and whom his comrades described as the architect of Chimurenga.
Besides the portfolios he held, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chitepo defended many nationalist figures in Rhodesia before being appointed as the first African Director of Public Prosecutions in Tanganyika now Tanzania in 1962. He was also a founding member of the National Democratic Party in 1960. He was a founding member of the Zapu in 1962 and one of those who broke away in August 1963 to form Zanu. In 1964 in absentia he was elected national chairman at Zanu’s first conference in Gweru. It was then that most nationalist leaders were arrested and began a decade in detention.
In 1966 Chitepo left his prestigious job in Tanzania and moved to Zambia to devote himself fully in re-organising the party, Zanu and began the armed struggle in earnest. Under his guidance, Zanu shaped its military wing the Zanla. It was a few months before he took over the party’s external leadership that the Battle of
Chinhoyi took place where seven guerillas died in a shoot-out by the Rhodesian troops. The battle marked the start of the Second Chimurenga.
Indeed our dear comrades who took part in the struggle including our own President His Excellency Comrade R G Mugabe should be applauded for their role in liberating Zimbabwe from oppression, colonialism and imperialism.
- The writer is the provincial development officer in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Bulawayo Province. She can be contacted on: 0772111592, 09-889224 or E-mail: [email protected].
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