Online Reporter
COMMUNION with Bishop Lazarus
The land between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers is blessed, sacred and enchanting.
Those who are lucky to set foot on this hallowed land during their lifetime cannot help but be bowled over by the effusive welcome of its people, its hospitable climate and fabulous wealth.
The European Union’s top envoy to Zimbabwe, Jobst von Kirchmann, who has just wound up his tour of duty, is no exception.
“We fell in love with Zimbabwe,” the German lawyer told scribes after bidding farewell to President ED at State House on Thursday.
“I am here today with my wife (Maria). As a family, we fell in love with Zimbabwe. Often, people say it’s because of the beauty, Victoria Falls and the wildlife. I say no: it’s the people, because home is not a place; home is the people who make you feel that you belong there. And I think this is something I have experienced in Zimbabwe — the warmth of the people, the respect, the education, the friendliness is something which is absolutely outstanding.”
A little birdie told Bishop Lazi that the top diplomat, who previously worked in Cote d’Ivoire before heading to Harare, was so enthralled by this teapot-shaped Republic that he bought a property in Highlands, suggesting he might be toying with the idea of making Zimbabwe his second home.
But he is not alone.
Many have been similarly enchanted.
An enigma
Zimbabwe’s limitless wealth and irresistible allure lie in the disarming civility of its people, who will always go out of their way to connect and assist with everyone they come across.
It is one of the commendable attributes of Ubuntu that has been inculcated in Zimbabweans by domineering matriarchs in families across the country since time immemorial. Bishop Lazarus once told you how our mothers ran their homes in the same way the military runs its boot camps.
They invariably trusted the hammer-and-tongs method of shaping the character of their kids.
As the Holy Book advises, they did not spare the rod. In fact, they were too liberal with it. They, therefore, raised well-mannered men and women of character who were as soft as wool but as tough as nails.
So, family homes were essentially crucibles that produced the model citizen.
You see, Zimbabweans can be so obsequious (obedient) to a degree that can be mistaken for weakness.
Their shyness can be easily mistaken for timidity, while their willingness to serve and please can be confused for servility.
Do not be fooled.
Zimbabweans are a people of consequence. If they were a snake, they would be pythons.
These non-venomous reptiles, which can reach up to 10 metres in length, can look seemingly harmless.
Their intricate and alluring viscose-patterned skin can effortlessly draw in prey.
Once in the kill zone, these snakes pounce by coiling around the victim.
They then squeeze their muscles tightly to constrict blood flow.
And the more the prey gasps for breath, the more they squeeze tightly into a deadly and suffocating deathly grip.
They will then swallow their prey whole.
Pythons have been known to swallow whole human beings.
So, while this species can look as harmless as pets, they can be lethal when they strike. Generations of white settlers learnt how lethal Zimbabweans can be from the First Chimurenga to the Second Chimurenga.
King Lobengula’s valorous warriors put up a protracted war of resistances against the encroaching supremely armed colonial forces in the late 19th century.
They were more than prepared to lay down their lives to defend their dignity and territorial sovereignty.
Our history will forever remember the heroics of warriors led by General Matshana Kumalo, who eliminated the Major Allan Wilson-led Shangani Patrol at the Battle of Pupu on that rain-soaked Monday morning on December 4, 1893.
All, except three members of Wilson’s 37-soldier unit who escaped, were eliminated. It was also the same in the northern part of Zimbabwe in 1896 when the people rose against the rapaciously exploitative and oppressive white settlers.
Historians such as Marshall Hole, David Beach, Howard Hensman and Terence Ranger who tried to examine this epoch could not agree whether the revolt, which took place almost simultaneously, was pre-planned and coordinated.
Of course it was.
The whites thought the Shona communities, which they regarded as servile, were inherently incapable of mounting any meaningful resistance, if at all they could.
Nothing could have warned the whites of the uprising that was brewing under their noses.
While people went about their usual business, a plot, led by Charwe Nyakasikana (Nehanda), Chinengundu Mashayamombe, Chingaira Makoni, Gumboreshumba (Kaguvi), Mapondera, Mashonganyika, Chitekedza Chiwashira, Hwata and Mukwati (who is thought to have been the major instigator), was thickening, culminating in the uprisings of June 1896.
After initial successes, the war ended around October 1897 — after close to 14 months of fighting — following the capture and execution of some the leaders, including Charwe Nyakasikana, Gumboreshumba, Hwata and Chingaira Makoni.
For the settlers, the battle was won, but the liberation struggle was just beginning.
As prophesied by Mbuya Nehanda, a new generation was to take up arms again, with the Battle of Chinhoyi on April 28, 1966, where seven young guerrillas perished — Cdes David Guzuzu, Arthur Maramba, Christopher Chatambudza, Simon Chingozho Nyandoro, Godfrey Manyerenyere, Godwin Dube and Chubby Savanhu — heralding the beginning of the bloodletting, gruelling and brutal Second Chimurenga, which rumbled on for the best part of 14 years.
Charmed by the country’s wealth, the white settlers were determined to stay on, but their resolve was surpassed by the indomitable willpower and bravery of Zimbabweans.
By the end of the 70s, it was becoming increasingly clear that the liberation fighters would resoundingly defeat the relatively well-resourced, better armed and organised Rhodesian Security Forces, a prospect that unnerved the West, which feared for the safety and vulnerability of their vanquished kith and kin.
So, the negotiations that culminated in independence were not so much to end the war but to protect the white settlers.
It once again showed the effectiveness and ruthlessness of the guerilla army’s war machine.
As the former American president Theodore Roosevelt would have said, Zimbabweans might talk softly but they carry a very big stick.
A sacred covenant
Just as the Chinese waged a brutal 14-year struggle to defeat the imperial designs of Japan between 1931 and 1947, which claimed more than 15 million lives — more or less the current population of Zimbabwe — and displaced 100 million others, Zimbabweans also shed precious blood to regain the country’s sovereignty.
This sacred blood of its sons and daughters, which flows underneath our feet, is a sacred covenant that bound, and will continue to bind, past, present and future generations of Zimbabweans to honour the integrational aspirations of a happy, successful and prosperous life.
John 15 verse 13 says: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 10:11-18 adds: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So, when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”
The war has since changed, and the battleground has shifted.
The greatest challenge for our generation is to leave behind a modern, prosperous and highly industrialised country, where its people can pursue their own versions of happiness.
As the late Guinea-Bissau revolutionary, Amílcar Lopes Cabral, taught us, “Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.”
For the past seven years, ED has successfully steered us to the Promised Land.
Locals now grow more tobacco and wheat than the white farmers could ever dream of. The continued increase in output from the fields where liberation fighters once bled represents the fulfilment of aspirations of the struggle.
Record gold also continues to be hauled from the belly of the earth.
As economic growth accelerates — with Zimbabwe now one of the fastest growing economies in the region, if not the continent — Harare is now beginning to project its might and influence on the international stage. And all this is taking place when Zimbabwe continues to be under sanctions.
It shows that behind the gentle faces of Zimbabweans, there is an unmistakable iron will.
Zimbabweans are not meek, but mighty.
Bishop out!
