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Obi Egbuna Jr, Correspondent 

When the Mother of Zimbabwe’s 1st Chimurenga Mbuya Nehanda uttered her last words “Mapfupa angu achamuka” (my bones will rise) in 1896 after being captured by Rhodesian colonialists and invaders, our fallen comrade was attempting to warn these sadistic war criminals that 28 years later Zimbabwe’s eventual founding father would make a safe and quiet entrance into this world. 

For nearly a week, Mother Africa’s most honest daughters and sons have been celebrating the transition of a one of a kind national hero and liberation icon, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, who bid as he would say, his comrades and friends farewell on Friday September 6, 2019.

Following the courageous and revolutionary example of Cde Mugabe himself, Zimbabweans in particular and Africans in general, deserve the ultimate praise for keeping their cool in the face of a barrage of insults and attacks on his character by enemies and detractors.

To the colonialist and imperialist forces of European cultural make-up, even though we find a degree of humour in your vitriol and contempt for Cde Mugabe, you are fully aware that you will have to answer for your blatant disrespect starting right now.

Coming from the mouths of people, who have an ancestral bloodline to savages who named captivity ships after Jesus Christ, some of these white supremacists had to audacity to call Cde Mugabe Adolph Hitler’s reincarnation. 

Our response to that emotional and senseless comparison is in the form of a question rooted in logic and historical accuracy.

Did Cde Mugabe put British and Rhodesian colonialists in stoves or pardon them for crimes against humanity committed during their illegal occupation of Zimbabwe?

To the neo-colonialist regime change agents, whether they are working feverishly to disrupt the normal flow of society in Zimbabwe or somewhere living rather comfortably in Washington, Britain or anywhere in the European Union, if Cde Mugabe was truly a raving blood thirsty despot why are all of you still alive?

It would be dishonest if we didn’t acknowledge, that a few of us on the frontline, have occasionally fantasised that Cde Mugabe would have done an impersonation of real iron fist dictators like Mobutu, Boukassa, Houphouet Boigny, Paul Biyot and put all Zimbabwe’s regime change agents on a firing squad, however, the path of revolution requires discipline and patience in the face of ignorance. 

Whether the western puppets in Zimbabwe realise it or not, the very man they have made their careers vilifying, developed a constitutional framework, that made it completely legal for them to openly work for his demise on the very land he sacrificed his life to liberate in the first place.

When the political dispensation that led to Cde Mugabe’s resignation took place nearly three years ago, we remember regime change agents with fancy demonstration signs paid for by the likes of George Soros, Madeline Albright and Carl Gershman, dancing in the streets of Harare looking to upstage an internal decision by Zanu-PF.

That gutless political theatre orchestrated by MDC, ZCTU and civil society groups who were working overtime that day, should never be compared to the 1,5 million people who welcomed Cde Mugabe and Zanu-PF guerillas back from Maputo after the final phase of Zimbabwe’s 2nd Chimurenga.

While many petit bourgeois historians and academicians who avoid frontline struggle at all costs, prematurely declare themselves master teachers, Cde Mugabe’s revolutionary transformation took flight when he was teaching youth at St Mary’s College in Takoradi, Ghana.

This foundation as a teacher, explains why Cde Mugabe graciously accepted the offer from Commandante Fidel Castro for 3 000 Zimbabwean teachers to go to Cuba for academic training, this resulted in Zimbabwe establishing and maintaining Africa’s highest literacy rate to date.

Before that, Comrade Mugabe was at Fort Hare University alongside Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, Herbert Chitepo, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and Madiba Nelson Mandela absorbing lessons of civil disobedience, directly from the mouth and pen of Mahatma Gandhi, just like members of Civil and Human Rights Organisations in Babylon IE CORE, SCLC,and the NAACP.

The only thing that separates Cde Mugabe and his Fort Hare colleagues, from the civil and human rights organisers, is that they did not regard non violence as a cardinal principal that could never be abandoned under any circumstances.

When we pay homage to the trailblazers of liberation theology and the social gospel like Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, which was followed by rebellions that were planned by true men of God like Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser, this pantheon continues with people like Howard Thurman, Benjamin Mays, Gardener Taylor and J Archie Hargraves due to his devout spirituality we must add Comrade Mugabe to this illustrious list.

This explains why Dr King used his invitation to Abyssinian Baptist Church from Reverend and Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr to discuss Southern Rhodesia, and his disciples Reverend and Ambassador Andrew Young, Reverend Walter Fauntroy and Reverend Jesse Jackson, felt morally and historically obligated to have befriended Cde Mugabe.

Shortly after the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey said to us Africa for the Africans, Ireland For The Irish, an Irish priest named Father O Shea introduced Cde Mugabe to the Irish liberation struggle against British colonialism, similar to how Garvey’s passion to liberate Mother Africa ignited Ho Chi Minh’s fighting spirit to liberate Vietnam.

As time went on, Africans and other colonised and captured peoples rescued the concept of nationalism from the gutter or what Marxist Leninists call the dustbin of history, Cde Mugabe and the 1st and 2nd wave of African liberators, have never received their full credit for this political and philosophical breakthrough. 

At a moment in history, where many bemoan President Trump proclaiming the banner of nationalism, let us remember that Cde Mugabe like Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Patrice Lumumba, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Modibo Keita before him, showed us that nationalist politics as articulated by the oppressed is a clear departure from the legacy of Julius Caesar, Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler.

Cde Mugabe will be remembered for his command of not only language, but platform.

Cde Mugabe’s marriage to Amai Sally Mugabe should serve as an example of a bond between two revolutionary historic figures, especially to those in the diaspora who have married regime change agents born in Africa, simply because you prioritised romance and hormones over history and responsibility.

We thank President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF for immediately declaring Cde Mugabe a national hero. Cde Mugabe’s place in African history is eternally secure.

When the name Robert Gabriel Mugabe is spoken, Africans everywhere collectively understand we are speaking of the face and voice of African homeland security.

• Obi Egbuna Jr is a US Correspondent for our sister paper, The Herald and External Relations Officer of ZICUFA (Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association). His email is [email protected]