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Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
THERE should be no doubt in anyone’s beleaguered mind right now that once the satanic Covid-19 clears off the world stage where it is causing untold havoc, a surge in tourism is bound to fill the vacuum created, with foreign tourists to this country literally bruising each other’s heels after the armed revolution and land reform souvenirs, respectively.

But sadly enough, neither the armed struggle which dismantled racist colonial Rhodesia, nor the land reform programme which made Zimbabwe the West’s enemy in southern Africa if not on the African continent as a whole — and imposed harsh economic sanctions to try to remove the Zanu-PF Government from power and reverse the economic embargo — has not been immortalised into black and white souvenirs for foreign visitors to take back home to their native countries and flaunt or give to friends and family members as portraits of a country that gallant sons and daughters sacrificed with their blood to liberate from iniquitous rule by foreigners who used force to exact bended-knee compliance with their racist laws and regulations.

Yes, some Zimbabweans have written or made political speeches about the land reform programme and the armed liberation struggle but regrettably, Ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo, the ruling Zanu-PF national spokesman, said two days ago that instead of praising land reform and the armed revolution as landmarks of Zimbabwe’s freedom and independence the speeches and writings were largely self-praising as opposed to popularising the events and their consequential liberation and freedom as enjoyed by all in the country today so that these are not rendered null and void for imperialists and their black stooges lurking in the background to drag us all screaming and kicking back to square one with a vengeance.

During his first republic rule, the late former president Cde Robert Mugabe was on record as saying that the Government would set up a panel comprising historians and Zimbabweans who took part in the armed freedom struggle to produce Zimbabwe’s official liberation history from collaborated and corroborated evidence.

However, no official move in that direction has taken place in the Second Republic after Cde Mugabe’s passing on, Ambassador Moyo said and suggested that pamphlets containing information about the liberation struggle and land reform as an elaboration of the struggle that reunited blacks of this country with their land forcibly occupied by white settlers would give the global village, through visitors to our country, a semblance if not a complete picture of the bumpy road on which Zimbabweans have travelled to this day. Zimbabwe will on April 18 celebrate 41 years of adulthood as a free, independent and sovereign state.

It is however, regrettable that a people touting itself, and lauded by others as being among the top literate nations in Africa, has failed lamentably during 40 years to produce a history of the road we have travelled to date. Or is our much highly praised literacy rating nothing but mere functional literacy for reading and writing instead of it being used as a tool to strategically project Zimbabwe’s image abroad to win hearts and minds out there and support for the Government and our country developmentally?

That obviously suggests that without liberation history as a road map from colonial oppression to freedom and self-determination, some if not most born-frees might toy around with the freedom they enjoy oblivious to the risk that any delinquent act by them and everyone else could result in dire consequences for them and for our nation as a whole.

On the contrary, in this communicologists’ humble opinion a no-holds-barred liberation history is wont to catalyse Zimbabweans to elect by popular vote a government of the people, by the people, for the people ad infinitum.

It therefore, behoves on the powers that be to move with speed in having a true history of our liberation in place for the world to have a clear picture of where the Zimbabwe of today came from and for relatives of those gallant sons and daughters of the soil who sacrificed with their lives for our freedom and lie in unmarked graves in Zimbabwean and foreign bushes to perhaps look back with relief in the knowledge that their kith and kin did not die in vain after all.