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“I’ve been called Father Zimbabwe. Whether I deserve that title isn’t for me to say.”

Yoliswa Dube, Features Reporter
IN his autobiography, the late nationalist Dr Joshua Nkomo recounts how when he became a man, he understood                                               that he could not be free while his country and its people suffered.

Before the country attained its independence in 1980, Zimbabweans were subjected to a government in which they had no say.

“I thirsted for freedom.  In middle life, I fought for national independence, and I was 63 years old when, in 1980, Zimbabwe emerged as the last of Britain’s African colonies to win nationhood,” says Dr Nkomo.

We had won our national right to independence, but our human rights were still suppressed, he says.

“I’ve been called Father Zimbabwe. Whether I deserve that title isn’t for me to say. But by a dozen years in prison and half as many in exile I believe I’ve earned the right to speak up for freedom while it’s still endangered – this time not by far-off colonial rulers, nor by a settler population who will, I hope, now play their full part as citizens of a new nation, but by my former colleagues in the liberation struggle,” says Dr Nkomo.

He says our war of independence was longer and crueler than any yet fought in Africa because it was unnecessary.

The white people of Southern Rhodesia outnumbered at least 20 to one by the blacks whom they refused to acknowledge as their fellow citizens.

“They must have known in their hearts that they couldn’t in the long run perpetuate their rule. We had no alternative to taking up arms. By their prolonged resistance, the settlers themselves fostered bitterness not only between themselves and the black majority but also between the various African factions struggling for justice in prison or in exile.”

Hardly a family in our country was unaffected by the bloody war that was forced upon us, says Dr Nkomo.

“Tens of thousands of young people grew up knowing nothing but chaos and disruption – living in danger, in the bush, in exile, in makeshift camps, outside the steadying framework of established communities. The war was necessary and I do not regret my part in it. The price of freedom can never be too high,” says Father Zimbabwe.

He says: “I’m a Zimbabwean patriot and an African patriot too. I refuse to accept that we can’t do better than we have so far done, or to reach for the easy excuse that all our mistakes are simply a colonial inheritance than can conveniently be blamed on the invaders. Of course our history has made us what we are. It’s up to us to do better now.”