The sentinel languishes in prison Memory Chirere
Memory Chirere

Memory Chirere

Perspective Stephen Mpofu
Time is fast running out for Zimbabweans to catch up on, and with, what and who really they are before green leaves among them yellow or just drop away and be lost in the soil as vital repositories of liberation war history.

To begin with, you (yes, you) consider the following:

l Zimbabweans fought a gruelling war of liberation in the bush against a white, racist foreign ruling culture to liberate themselves.

l Zimbabweans are the most literate nation on the African continent with a literacy rating of over 90 percent.

And yet educated that our people are with universities in almost every province, Zimbabweans cannot tell for the benefit of present and future generations, as well as for the rest of the global village, where and how they came to be what they are today with a leader holding the chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community as well as of the continental body, the Africa Union.

In the intriguing circumstances, how then can one better explain the paradox of our people’s high educatedness?

“Zimbabweans hurt themselves,” said University of Zimbabwe English lecturer Memory Chirere.

But Chirere was quick to qualify his assertion with the addendum: “They’re nihilistic, are not conscious of their self-hatred as it’s psychic.”

Indeed, one would have expected that people who bore arms to liberate the motherland, and in the process lost many dedicated sons and daughters of the soil, would have been exemplary to the rest of the world by flowing together and harmonising in furthering the revolution that has put the country on a sound economic developmental trajectory, what with Zim-Asset. It is a fact that the illegal Western sanctions have kept industries hamstrung and the economy barely surviving with massive company closures and job losses as liquidity becomes a far cry but that should spur us as a nation.

But no, some of the leaders who took part in the freedom struggle and should have been playing directive and effective leadership roles, have instead been embroiled in maniacal struggles for power and power’s sake, or have dabbled their fingers in corruption among other non-patriotic activities that have had the effect of spoiling their otherwise laudable liberation war credentials.

As a result of these revolutionary discontinuities and contradictions, the liberation war history of Zimbabwe, which ought to serve as a sentinel of the revolution for its continued forward march unabated, remains imprisoned as it were in people who cannot articulate the bruising journey they walked in the fight against colonial rule to this day.

This pen contends that if the Zimbabwean revolution were captured and immortalised in cold type it would serve as a sentinel or guard against the backsliding that has become germane to the situation in Zimbabwe where political parties have become so fractious as to paint a dim picture to the outside world of just where Zimbabwe appears to be headed.

As the situation stands today, just what historical legacy do those who took part in the armed revolution wish to leave behind for the born frees who continue to be inundated with books about the histories of other countries.

But really, are Zimbabwean historians not ashamed of baring that tag when they have nothing much to show for their own ability and enthusiasm to put together a record of how the motherland was wrested from foreigners who might have chased the blacks out of this country, or reduced them to perpetual servitude, if the progressive outside world had not kept its eyes trained on Rhodesia — a name given to celebrate Cecil John Rhodes the godfather of colonialism, the British proponent of this country’s colonisation in the 19th century.

A country without its own history to boast about is like a naked person who grabs any rag, torn, or filthy to cover up his or her nudity. And for Zimbabwe to have remained virtually nude — devoid of its own clothing, its history — for over three decades must speak volumes about the lethargy or unpatriotism of those gifted with the talent to write.

Yes a book here and there by authors who took part in the liberation struggle are to be found in some of Zimbabwe’s libraries, but they cannot mitigate the serious paucity of liberation history that schools badly need and with that eradicate the self hatred that Zimbabweans perpetrate among themselves by not writing about the struggle to keep the revolutionary fire burning in both the young and the old.

A couple of anecdotal cases will serve to illustrate just how Zimbabweans sometimes loath themselves or their true image.

For instance a story is told of how black imbibers in a pub sulked when a programme appeared on a television screen showing blacks in a discussion. But they cheered when the programme was switched off and replaced with one in which whites were taking part.

What is even bizarre, mothers trying to quieten a crying child are known often to threaten their offspring by saying they will “call the white man” to deal with the child.

That kind of self denial by rating whites over and above themselves cannot be a worse reproach on our black people.

Sometime in the 80s, an idea was mooted about the setting up of a panel of some people who had taken part in the armed struggle to write the history of Zimbabwe.

But, to date, that idea has not come to fruition, leaving the question of writing an authentic history of Zimbabwe as nothing but something rhetorical.

Chirere suggested this week something that rings with the potential for a revolutionary history of Zimbabwe finally ending up in books for Zimbabweans and other people abroad to consummate.

Chirere suggested that some key figures from Zapu and Zanu-PF — parties that prosecuted the armed struggle – could be chosen, “workshopped”, and tasked to write the revolutionary history of Zimbabwe.

Many liberation struggle icons are still alive and can give the country a truly authentic history that everyone should be proud of. It is not yet too late to make the nation proud by writing our own history, and this pen urges participants at future writers’ workshops to seriously motivate debate concerning Zimbabwe’s war history.

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