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(HERALD) Let’s document liberation history

Let’s document liberation history
By Stephen Mpofu

A SEASONED Zimbabwean author watched the launch of former United States of America President George W. Bush’s memoirs the other day with much salivation.

In Decision Points, Bush justifies his unjustifiable invasion of Iraq in 1993 on a trumped up claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein harboured weapons of mass destruction. Not mandated by the United Nations, the illegal invasion resulted in the ouster and execution of Saddam.

However, the US and its British and other allies found no trace of the alleged weapons.

Bush’s book deals also with his war-mongering points in Afghanistan and no doubt offers Americans a rich harvest of his other decision points during his tenure in the White House.

The world is aware now that the invasion of Iraq, apart from taking a heavy toll on the lives of American and other invasion forces, has left that Arab country unstable and virtually ungovernable.

Zimbabweans will no doubt recall that it is the same Bush, now sunning in the glory of his memoirs, who once told the United Nations General Assembly that Zimbabwe was a threat to America’s foreign policy, his remark betraying a veiled threat of invasion on this country if he had his way to do so.

Be that as it may, George W. Bush embellishes American history with his offering after leaving office. But what have Zimbabweans to show as justification for waging a justifiable war of liberation which freed this country from white minority, racist rule and ushered in majority and democratic rule which has unfortunately made some Zimbabweans so drunk with freedom as to thumb their blocked noses on the revolution that has made them what they are, human beings who walk with heads high, like other citizens of the world who enjoy independence and sovereignty.

All this in spite of our people touting themselves as some of the most educated citizens of Africa. Does the loud, pervading silence of the pen suggest that Zimbabweans are incapable of immortalising the story of where this independent country came from and how?

Why then, are the living heroes of the long and bruising war of liberation not telling their story not only to enrich Zimbabwean history but to correct introverted perceptions about the liberation struggle, such as that demonstrated by a certain maverick Zimbabweans diplomat in Australia who forbade the singing of parts of the Zimbabwean National Anthem that instil the virtues of the liberation war?

As things stand, there is no liberation war history library to talk of in Zimbabwe today. Yet our libraries should be stocked with a wide range of titles by war veterans telling the story of their participation in the freedom struggle with much aplomb.

Apart from David Martin’s The Struggle for Zimbabwe, there is really nothing that one can hold in one’s hand and wave to the world at large as a demonstration of how the war that brought this country into being was fought and won.

Martin is now late but thanks to him for the historical legacy that he left behind in his book, which ought as matter of fact, to inspire living, Zimbabwean journalists to put pen to paper and fill the yawning gap in Zimbabwe’s history.

The country is running out of time and people and this article should be seen and read as a call to pens to capture the rich treasures in accounts of the war of liberation of which the country might be robbed when time takes its toll on the heroes of our liberation struggle, as it has already done on Zanla’s Josiah Tungamirai and on Lookout Masuku of Zipra among other stalwarts of the revolution.

David Martin did not bear a gun in Zimbabwe’s war of liberation. He was a journalist resourceful enough to research and put together a compelling historical read for Zimbabweans and the outside world.

This country is endowed with seasoned journalists probably capable of providing historical tapestry of liberation war extents because of their much closer association with the sons and daughters who fought the Rhodesian forces and also because of their very personal and deeper interests in their native country’s history.

Where is Charles Ndlovu the freedom fighter and journalist? Of course, he is very much alive as Media, Information and Publicity Minister Cde Webster Shamu who should tell more about Zanla’s persecution of the war from the Eastern, Mozambican, front not to mention others with a similar ability and dexterity with the pen.

On the western front, why, for instance have journalists such as Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu and Obert Mpofu, Minister of Mines and Mining Development, both remained rather shy in telling the world about Zipra’s execution of the war from across the Zambezi in Zambia?

Mpofu participated in the bush war before going over to Zambia to complete his secondary education, in Livingstone, train and work as a journalist in Lusaka before proceeding to India to study Commerce.

This writer knows Mpofu as a competent journalist and knows Gwakuba, too, as a veteran scribe and prolific writer with whom I once shared an office at the Zambia Star in Lusaka in 1965 before the Catholic Church Newspaper, edited by an American Tony Dralle, ceased publication for lack of money.

Gwakuba’s pen has remained loquacious on other topics but rather reticent, even mum, on Zipra’s activities to the West and North of the country. Why should Gwakuba and Mpofu for instance not tell the world how PF Zapu’s military wing and Umkhonto weSizwe, the military wing of South Africa’s African National Congress, fought jointly from the western front to try to dislodge a combined force of Rhodesian and apartheid Pretoria’s soldiers.

Pretoria deployed its troops to help rebel Rhodesian troops check any advance of Umkhonto weSizwe into South Africa to end apartheid there. The war fought on both fronts should not be treated with shyness as though it were a mother-in-law and yet the silence that Zimbabweans writers and others have kept would appear to suggest to some people that silence is an apparent apology for fighting to liberate ourselves from racist oppression and illegal rule.

This reader is dying to consume the military exploits of Teurai Ropa Nhongo or Joice Mujuru in the rugged terrain in the Eastern fronts as well as those of Oppah Muchinguri who was also secretary to the late Zanla Commander, General Josiah Magama Tongogara and of other women of valour.

Both Cde Mujuru, Vice President, and Cde Muchinguri were not fast tracked to their positions in the government and in Zanu as a way of appeasing Zimbabwean women; they bore the AK 47 side by side with their men folk and so merited every step up the rungs on the ladder of the party’s leadership to where they are today in the Women’s League and in the government respectively.

Now, if because of their heavy schedules they and other veterans of the war have little time left to tell their story, why cannot other people tell it for them and for the country’s benefit.

What Zimbabweans have heard in the 30 years after the war ended have been snippets or excerpts culled from interviews with leaders who were involved in the liberation struggle.

But Zimbabweans need a complete story told about how the gallant sons and daughters of the soil ran the gauntlet of mosquitoes, snakes, capricious weather conditions and worst of all Rhodesian soldiers in wait for them in the bush and in the air sometimes with the assistance of black sellouts with a dim idea of how blacks liberated from under the boat of white racist could shape their own destiny.

Producing an authentic history of the liberation struggle should perhaps be regarded as a compelling, natural duty so that those with a story to tell, and they are to be found all over the country, but are not talented writers themselves, would make time and record their story into a dictaphone.

Those with a flair for writing history, such as Anneas Chigwedere, Governor and Resident Minister of Mashonaland East province, and the like of author Phathisa Nyathi in Bulawayo can then transcribe and then turn the material into history books for schools and the general readership.

Perhaps, one veteran or veteran journalists in the person of Dr Nathan Shamuyarira of African Daily and also a senior Politburo member of Zanu-PF should add to his repertoire of national responsibilities the task of supervising a group of chosen Zimbabwean writers to produce a veritable history of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation.

Such a cadre of writers can be assembled from the country’s many educated and learned journalists, including such articulate and prolific scribes as Presidential spokesperson and Secretary for Information George Charamba.

They will feast on a gem of accounts about the atrocities of Rhodesian forces in villages across the country, as exposed by New Ziana’s electronic broadcast of tales given, by villagers to enrich the war history.

And why not in addition to setting up a desk for writers, have a chair of liberation war history at any selected Zimbabwean universities to enrich our national history with historians such as Midlands State University academic and Vice Chancellor Prof Ngwabi Bhebhe, helping in that respect?

Today, some born-frees and others probably regard accounts of the armed struggle as cock and bull tales, out of their blissful ignorance of the war history and the two political parties, Zanu and Zapu, which jointly waged war on the illegal Smith regime as the Patriotic Front, are likely to be judged harshly by history for failing to eradicate that ignorance by providing true accounts of the war.

They are racing against time and time’s life-harvesting sickle to accomplish that imperative and noble task and should not let themselves be hamstrung by their strange bedfellows some of whom are known vociferously to rubbish the liberation struggle and use their tongues as paint brushes to caricature and lampoon former freedom fighters at the most opportune time, to placate their imperialist masters who still regard former freedom fighters as "terrorists".

The above is one sad scenario regarding the making of Zimbabwe. Having said this one comes to another equally depressing scenario which poses the question of who will read any new books about the war of Zimbabwe’s liberation.

The question is prompted by a paucity of a reading culture that should epitomize one of Africa’s most literate nations, or so as Zimbabweans regard themselves as such, supported by international statistical data.

The Bulawayo based writer who watched the launch of Bush’s book spoke of a long queue of people waiting to buy the memoirs — one of them having waited for 18 hours — with some of them buying as many as five copies each for friends and having them autographed by the author.

The writer bemoaned a virtual lack of such a reading culture in Zimbabwe and was last week strongly supported in Bulawayo by high school teacher and marker of the English language and by a Chief Executive of a Harare-based book publishing company.

"The reading culture in Zimbabwe is very poor due to a lot of things," said the teacher whose name is being withheld for professional reasons. Children of today as well as adults spend most of their time glued to the television, stuck on the computer and play games on their cellphones.

"This has robbed them of their precious time to go to the library, get a book and sit down and read it. Most of them say that books are boring and do not offer the entertainment which the television, cellphones and computers offer them."

The teacher added that in rural areas a lack of books had led to a poor culture of reading as people there have no access to libraries.

"To develop a culture of reading, libraries should be built in communities and schools should equip their libraries with good books for children to borrow and read. Competitions on various books should be held in order to encourage pupils to read and attractive prizes should be given. In schools there should be compulsory supervised library periods," she said.

A spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association could not immediately be reached in Harare for comment on what effect the poor reading culture had on sales of books that are not school textbooks.

However, Mr Ben Mugabe, managing director of College Press, a member of the association also located in the capital, gave a story that is no doubt represents a situation faced by other book publishers.

Mr Mugabe concurred with the Bulawayo school teacher that the reading culture in the country has seriously declined and he attributed the drop to a downturn in the country’s economy.

When the economy was vibrant, he said, the message on a need to cultivate a reading culture, especially among young Zimbabweans, had been well-received in schools and by parents who bought general reading books for their children.

But when the economy nosedived due as anyone should imagine, to illegal Western economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, parents, Mr Mugabe said, had to make a painful choice between buying a book or food and other necessities for their children

When the economy was buoyant schools stocked their libraries with general books in addition to school texts. For instance, a teacher kept a small library in a classroom that lent general books to pupils to try to pep up their interests.

This was an addition to the larger school library.

Mr Mugabe said he hoped that as the economy picked up and schools and parents get more money to spare, so also would books of general reading interests be made available to catch the children young and develop a culture of reading.

On the needs for a credible history of the war of liberation, Mr Mugabe sighted David Martin’s book as probably the only one providing the history of the Zimbabwean revolution and agreed with this writer for an urgent need to augment Martin’s accounts of the struggle for Zimbabwe with more books by Zimbabweans who went into battle against soldiers of a regime that wanted to keep Africans under its thumb ad infitum.

"We are running out of time and people," Mr Mugabe said referring to the passing on of Tungamirai and other heroes of the liberation struggle before telling their story to a waiting reading audience.

"Tempus fugit," they say in Latin meaning that time flies. And this should ring a bell to Zimbabweans to wake up and write the story of their freedom before time obliterates potential sources of information but any new liberation war history will be incomplete if it does not include the pivotal roles played by Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and also Botswana under Seretse Khama in the liberation not only of Zimbabwe but also of other countries in Southern Africa that still remained under white minority rule.

That history will also make the world understand that the relationship between Zimbabwe and post apartheid South Africa did not start in 1994 when the ANC ushered in democracy to South Africa but that the solidarity began way back in the bushes of Western Zimbabwe between freedom fighters from both countries and was enhanced by the support that the independent government of Zimbabwe provided to cadres of South Africa’s liberation movement waging the struggle from Zimbabwe to liberate their own country.

Aluta continua.

Labels: CHARLES NDLOVU, HISTORY, LIBERATION, SAUL GWAKUBA NDLOVU

posted by MrK @ 4:18 AM