Maravi

Robert Makasa University

Robert Makasa University
By The Post
Wed 10 Oct. 2012, 14:40 CAT

The renaming of the university the government is building in Chinsali is highly welcome and befitting honour to a very deserving freedom fighter and nation-builder.

Michael Sata's decision to name the university in Chinsali Robert Makasa University, in honour of freedom fighter Robert Kapasa Makasa is a clear demonstration that our people have a sense of gratitude to those who serve them.

For the past two decades, the men and women who fought a noble battle and lived their lives in pursuit of a better life for all of us were marginalised, humiliated and ridiculed.

And a good number of them died of depression, poverty and general negligence. Even their retirement benefits, benefits that were genuinely their due, benefits they had worked for were denied them and in some cases taken away from them. For two decades, we had a political leadership that wanted to rewrite history and project itself as liberators, playing down the role of these true heroes of our homeland.

And while they denied them the opportunity to retire from public life in a meaningful way and with their benefits, the corrupt clique that directed the affairs of our country over the last two decades paid itself huge gratuities and gave themselves other benefits that were far beyond their contributions to the common good of our nation.

They even sold themselves huge government houses for close to nothing, leaving those who built them in squalor or semi-finished structures. The new rulers became rich very quickly, became the largest property and land owners in the country. The names of our true heroes were seldom heard.

We were made to forget them and not to realise that the Zambia we are enjoying today is the sweet fruit of their lives of struggle and sacrifice. Even in death, they were buried quietly and most of them in unmarked graves - not even a small stone to say 'here lies so and so who did this and that for our homeland'.

Since coming to power, Michael has demonstrated a high level of respect for these heroes and heroines, these unsung heroes and heroines. Today, almost all our key airports are named in their honour - and befittingly so. And the universities are starting to follow the same pattern.

But there is also a bigger message in all this. It is a demonstration of the magnitude of importance Michael attaches to the independence of our homeland and to those who helped make it a reality. It is also an indication of the direction Michael wants to take in the politics and development of our country. It is clear to us that Michael wants to continue the revolution started by these freedom fighters.

It is also a clear indication that no revolution comes to an end and that all revolutionaries have the duty to keep its ideas, principles and goals alive. The successive MMD governments tried to close off prospects for future progress along that revolutionary path which was started by these freedom fighters, but they have been unable to permanently stop it. Nobody controls the future.

We think that these revolutionaries did some great work in our country; they effected great changes and engaged in important social projects that two decades of hostile and extremely reactionary regimes have failed to wipe out.

Clearly, we have no alternative to meeting the future, we have no hope but the changes, advances and improvements that the future may bring. And above all, there are the Zambian people - patriotic, courageous, revolutionary people who refused to be deceived forever and voted out the MMD, to begin a revolutionary process and to keep struggling and to recover from setbacks.

And with Michael at the helm, we will continue to see more and more honourable things being done in honour of the men and women who gave us our Republic, our homeland. These were decent and selfless men and women. If they were selfish people who thought more and more about themselves, after independence they would have named every street, every public institution after themselves.

It is good to recall certain deeds, certain deeds as evidenced by the fact that they waged the struggle for independence, they led it, they won it, and there were no honours accorded to themselves. Our country has no statues of these heroes and heroines. They took nothing for themselves.

They liberated the land but did not share it among themselves as others did in other places like Kenya. They acted this way from a profound revolutionary conviction. Great responsibilities fell on their shoulders.

The masses of our country placed great powers in their hands, but they never abused that to enrich themselves, to give themselves benefits that were not their due.
A society that does not value its liberators, its freedom fighters denies its roots and endangers its future.

Michael's honouring of these freedom fighters is a very spirited one, something that comes from a deep conviction. And it is also something that one sees in Michael's emotional engagement with these freedom fighters when he meets them. Michael has no problem belittling himself, humbling himself, subordinating himself to these heroes when he is in their company.

Michael still jokingly refers to Comrade Grey Zulu as his boss. He jokingly says it, but in truth he means it. Look at the respect he has towards these freedom fighters.

We have no doubt that under his leadership Michael will as far as possible honour these men and women who sacrificed themselves to give us a dignified homeland.
There are many types of revolutionaries. And one who liberates his homeland from domination, oppression and any other form of subjugation is a revolutionary deserving all the honour and respect.

Under Michael's leadership, we have no doubt we will see more and more of these revolutionaries, these freedom fighters being honoured in all sorts of ways. The new roads he is today constructing will, in the main, be named after them. What they could not do for themselves, the honours they could not give to themselves, Michael will give to them.

A man who acts in this way deserves respect, deserves support. A man who honours and respects our homeland's revolutionaries, liberators, freedom fighters, nation-builders in this way is a revolutionary also, is a liberator also, is a freedom fighter also, is a nation-builder also who equally deserves our respect and honour.

The Robert Makasa that Michael is today honouring was one of the outstanding earliest, veteran freedom fighters who possessed a rare and admirable commitment to the causes of the masses of our people, courage and determination. Robert was a graduate of Lubwa Mission School, where his relationship with Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Simon Kapwepwe started as schoolmates.

Robert mobilised the masses against the exploitation and racial discrimination of colonial rule and led the struggle for self-government from Chinsali, where he initially served as a head teacher at Chinsali Boma Lower Primer School in the colonial system before he drifted into politics and eventually into the struggle for the independence of Zambia.

Robert was the founding chairperson of the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress in Chinsali in the mid-1950s, mobilising the party and forming more branches.

He was instrumental in the formation of the Trade Association of Lubwa Church, the Chinsali African Welfare Association in 1947 together with Comrade KK, Reverend P.B. Mushindo, John Singoyi, Daniel Besa, Reuben Mulanga and Moses Mumba. Robert ingeniously used the structures of colonial rule, Congress and later of UNIP to mobilise the masses against the injustices and exploitation of colonial rule.

He led a civil disobedience campaign against the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in Northern Province together with Peter Mukanga and Jonam Nsofu and was imprisoned in 1955 for 18 months with hard labour while his colleagues received a one-year sentence. One of his favourite political songs, the one that he sung to UNIP after his arrest, was:

In the continent of Africa, slavery still goes on let us look to the future when all the chains of slavery will give way to freedom fight for freedom and national independence the day is coming as sure as death.

Prison did not change his committment to freedom in any way; if anything, it increased his resolve and appetite for national self-rule. Robert continued his political campaigns for self-government while in prison, where he found and worked with other nationalists jailed for their demand for political freedom such as T.B. Mukupo, Mandalena Kalonde, R.C. Puta and Dixon Konkola.

When he came out of the Livingstone Central Prison, he continued with his anti-colonial activities. After independence, he worked hard to unite the people under the 'One Zambia, One Nation' motto.

In short, this is the man Michael has honoured; this is the man in whose honour Chinsali's Robert Makasa University is named after.

Labels: DANIEL MUNKOMBWE, INDEPENDENCE, UNIVERSITIES

posted by MrK @ 8:23 PM