Real faces of the struggle
Saturday, 11 August 2012 20:16
Munyaradzi Huni
Assistant Editor
These are not the ordinary liberators that Zimbabweans have known as their heroes since the attainment of Independence in 1980.
They are a rare breed and it’s not an understatement that, 32 years after independence, these heroes are fast becoming an endangered species. Very rare to come across and despite the country’s trial and tribulations in recent years, they remain loyal to the liberation struggle and its goals.
They were the pioneers of the Second Chimurenga. They recruited some of the country’s finest soldiers; they trained comrades who became veterans in defeating the colonial regime.
They went to the war front and fought battles that former Rhodesians are now writing about in their books. The Smith regime did not know what had hit it.
In true guerrilla style, they set the Rhodesian administration on fire and spread the struggle in both the rural and urban areas like a veld fire. Against a formidable enemy who was armed to the teeth with strong airpower and heavy machine guns, they waged a war that left Ian Smith wondering what had hit him.
At that time, the populace — povho in their language, was so afraid of the whiteman. The whiteman was untouchable, Smith was like a demi-god and his administration was too powerful to be challenged.
How could these ill-equipped “terrorists” defeat the mighty Smith? It just didn’t make sense to the povo. What with Smith vowing that Zimbabwe will not be free “not in a million years.”
But they came and politicised the povho. At first, the ordinary povho could not understand their mission and so, in a bid to recruit more comrades, they had to abduct some pupils and students from school but later as people got the full understanding of the war, they volunteered to join the struggle.
They sang and danced during pungwes with reckless abandon and finally the povho got comfortable siding with these comrades that others preferred to call “magandanga.” Of course, other blacks refused to believe these comrades and in the middle of the night, they sneaked out to sell-out the comrades to the Rhodesians.
Their family members were arrested, tortured and killed. Their belongings were set alight and they lost all their wealth. They missed the opportunity to go to school and, not surprisingly, today some who are misinformed call them “uneducated.” They take it all just like they endured and just like they absorbed the pain and sorrow of liberating Zimbabwe.
When one takes time to listen to their heart- rending story, one is hit strongly by their humbleness, their down-to-earth approach to life, their modest requests for little comfort and their refusal to glorify themselves.
Of course, they are not the only ones in this category of rare heroes, but Cde Herbert Shungu, Cde Vhuu, Cde Tandie, Cde Steria, Cde Muchazvipedza Mabhunu and Cde Chinodakufa who are living a very humble life in Muzarabani, Centenary and Matepatepa are those unsung heroes whose stories just have to be known by future generations.
Labels: CHIMURENGA, LIBERATION, RHODESIA
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Hauntingly, quintessentially chimurenga
PERCY ZVOMUYA - Sep 30 2011 00:00
"Chimurenga" -- the Zimbabwean word for revolutionary struggle popularised by musician Thomas Mapfumo -- comes from the name of a mythical late 19th-century priest, Murenga (or Mulenga).
The priest told the fighters squaring up to Cecil John Rhodes's occupation forces not to wilt in fear. The bullets from the white man's Maxim gun would turn into water, he said.
Not that Zimbabweans needed a priest to tell them to resist. The devastating rinderpest epidemic of 1896 and the various taxes introduced by Rhodes's administration were causing unrest among the people.
The word "chimurenga" -- never forgotten in the quiet decades in which colonial rule was entrenched -- became part of everyday parlance when the Second Chimurenga resumed in the 1960s, this time against Ian Smith's regime.
Chimurenga, true to its mythical origins, refuses to be constrained in a mono-narrative. It refers to connected phenomena that are sometimes contradictory. This is to be expected of a word with a meaning that is central to how both nationalists and ordinary Zimbabweans see themselves.
Which might explain why the foremost proponent of chimurenga music, Mapfumo, lives in exile in Oregon in the United States.
The monotheistic interpretation of chimurenga is perhaps best exhibited by an episode dating from the late 1980s. The sheen of Zanu-PF's revolution was already showing signs of dulling when an eccentric nationalist politician, Edgar Tekere, started talking about the need for another revolution. It was, of course, dangerous talk and Robert Mugabe wanted to put an end to it swiftly. "There will not be another revolution in this country. The only revolution was the Zanu-PF revolution," said Mugabe.
On Mapfumo's last visit to Johannesburg, in July, I sat down with him to understand his personal journey and, by extension, the evolution of chimurenga music, the most Zimbabwean of sounds.
A shrinking place in the world
Mapfumo was born in 1945 as the world was trying to rouse itself from the nightmares of the World War II. He spent the first few years of his life as a herd boy in a rural idyll that was being disrupted by successive land laws, which were disenfranchising black Zimbabweans.
"I went to Salisbury after I had finished what was then known as Sub A. I was going to live with my parents."
After finishing school Mapfumo started playing guitar at Mutanga Night Club in Highfields, a township in Salisbury, as Harare was then known. Mutanga was probably "the first nightclub to be owned by a black Zimbabwean".
Mapfumo and his band, Springfields, were not playing struggle music. They were jamming cover versions of Western music -- the Beatles, Rolling Stones -- and occasionally playing rhumba.
"The club owner had given us contracts in which you played throughout the week and got paid at the end of that week," Mapfumo said.
Because there were few places where black bands could play, the nightclub scene in Salisbury was intensely competitive.
"We used to be in competition with a rhumba band called Lipopo Jazz that had a guitarist with three fingers but who was so good …" Mapfumo could not remember the Congolese musician's name but a Wikipedia entry suggests it could be one Franco Luambo.
To trump their competition Mapfumo was always looking for good musicians -- artists who could improve the band's sound. In this way he got Manu Kambani, one of Zimbabwe's nimblest guitarists who is eulogised by some as the country's Jimi Hendrix, from a band called Sound Effects. "We taught him how to play rhumba."
Sometimes the musicians resorted to subterfuge. Having failed to properly inculcate into Kambani's rhumba the necessary intricate and voluble patterns they deployed him, like a spy, to learn from the three-fingered master himself.
"We said to him 'Go and learn to play like them'. He was with them, copied all their skills." After this apprenticeship, achieved under false pretenses, Kambani came back to rejoin the band. By then he was "even better than the old man himself", Mapfumo said.
Moving on
One could not stay still in a town for long and Mapfumo's band was always on the move, shedding members and acquiring others. In this way they played in Bulawayo, the eastern city of Mutare, the northern copper-mining town of Mhangura and many other small places.
"And then one day I sat down and said to myself: 'We've played all this music -- rock, soul, rhumba. Yet when I grew up in the rural areas with my grandparents I was listening to traditional music -- the drum, the mbira.'
"And then I remembered some of the songs we used to sing as children and I thought: 'This music is not inferior to other forms of music. What it needs is instruments.' And from this point I started infusing snatches of traditional songs into my music."
Slogans like "local is lekker" were not in vogue in the countercultural 1960s. Amnesia about the rich local cultural heritage extended to everyone around Mapfumo.
"I had an uncle who used to play in a band called City Dicks. He had a Shona folk song that went 'I had cattle but now I have nothing'. And then I said to myself: 'Does uncle realise how powerful that song is?' Then one of my friends, Dominic Mandizha, took the song and recorded it."
The Springfields had several other incarnations, including the Cosmic Four and the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band -- a moniker with rather strange evangelical and agricultural overtones. The name's origins tickle but also show the music industry's humble origins.
Finding the Salisbury nightclub scene suffocating, the band moved to Mhangura. By day they were working as labourers on a poultry farm and over weekends jamming in the smoky community halls built to entertain mine and farm workers.
Starting to speak out
"One day our boss [a certain Mr Walker] came to us and asked: 'What is the name of your band?' I told him our band is called the Hallelujah Band. And then he said: 'Why don't you call it the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band?'"
This was also the time that they started to pay close attention to what Osibisa, a British Afro-pop band, was doing. "We said we want to play like them." And they found a supporter in Crispen Matema, a jazz drummer who was then working for Teal Records as a producer. Hoyo Murembu, the 1974 single they recorded with Matema, made reference to the war against minority rule that had begun in earnest.
When the band was invited to play at a small festival with other bands, some of these groups played rock. "When it was our turn we played our local stuff. This was perhaps the first time people were genuinely excited about Zimbabwean music."
After a few more years in which they battled to make a living from music, Mapfumo got in touch with keyboard player Charles Makokove, then leading a formation called the Acid Band.
"I talked to Makokove about collaborating. The result of this was Tozvireva Kupi and Pamuromo Chete; both songs were hits." Using a loan from Teal Records they bought instruments and hit the road.
The Acid Band preceded an ensemble called Black Men Unlimited. At the suggestion of one of their patrons, a certain Murape, the name was changed.
He asked what the band was called.
"Black Men Unlimited," Mapfumo replied. "Why don't you call it Blacks Unlimited?" the patron suggested. And Blacks Unlimited it has been ever since. The name might appear cheesy, especially viewed through today's lens, but in dark Rhodesia it was revolutionary. "This was around 1976, or '77."
It was a crucial period, one in which the liberation ethos and the ancestral Shona folksy sound of the band took root.
Some of the dirges from this period are classics, including Pfumvu Paruzevha, Kuyaura, Chitima Cherusununguko, Bhutsu Mutandarika, Chauya Chiruzevha, Dangurangu and Chipatapata.
Introducing the band
In many ways Mapfumo's musical soulmate was the bass player Jonah Sithole, a peripatetic yet constant presence around him. Whereas in the early years of Blacks Unlimited Sithole had strummed the guitar in a style that imitated the mbira, from the mid-1980s the band actually incorporated the instrument. Other band members from then include Leonard Chiyangwa, Enock Manda, trumpeter Bobby Mtukwa and Everson Chibhamu.
The way Chibhamu joined the group shows that they were always looking for talent -- anywhere they could find it. Even in church. Accordingly, Chibhamu used to play trumpet in the Salvation Army church.
The fabulously talented Sithole first played with Mapfumo in the mid-1970s. He would stay with the band for a season, wander off to start his own thing and then return, ad infinitum. He died in 1997.
Another influential member of the group was Ashton "Sugar" Chiweshe -- you guessed it; he was diabetic -- who joined the group in the early 1980s. "He [Chiweshe] could play the mbira and he tried to transfer the mbira sound to the guitar. He was very versatile," said Mapfumo.
Looking through internet forums I saw that four of the guitarists who had played with Mapfumo were included as some of the best guitarists ever to come out of Zimbabwe. The list included Sithole, Joshua Dube, Chiweshe and Chiyangwa.
Dube was important for more than his adept guitar work; he could also play the mbira. When I asked Mapfumo the names of his mbira players from the 1980s, he could only remember the eccentric detail that it was "someone who used to bring his mbira on a bicycle".
Putting the truth on record
Some of Mapfumo's best albums came out in the 1980s. Outstanding albums include Varombo Kuvarombo, a 1989 release that included the hit single Corruption, a song that bemoaned the pervasiveness of graft in society. The album was, in effect, saying that Zanu-PF's socialist doctrine was a charade and that true liberation was yet to come.
Varombo Kuvarombo was a different offering to Zimbabwe-Mozambique, Mapfumo's 1987 album that is easily one of the most important albums ever to come out of Zimbabwe. The album, the first one on which the mbira was used, is dark and brooding. The embittered ghost of Mozambique's founding president, Samora Machel, whose plane had just crashed to his death, seems to lurk in the vicinity.
The title track, Zimbabwe-Mozambique, is a triptych that begins as a rock-steady tune (a reggae genre), then picks up speed as it is fired up by ska-like horn sounds before speeding up in a drum-based jit sound.
The song Ndave Kuenda, as chimurenga music scholar Banning Eyre wrote, "provides a powerful example of Jonah Sithole's passionate mbira guitar playing".
The 2000 CD Manhungetunge (Troubles), recorded together with American avant-garde trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, exists in that sonic void in which the otherworldly strains of jazz merges with the cadences of chimurenga music.
When one interviewer asked him about the inspiration for the album Mapfumo deadpanned: "Each time you reminisce about the way the motherland used to be, and what it has become, you feel pain in your stomach. That is manhungetunge."
Mapfumo is, to be sure, not the only proponent of the mbira sound. Over the decades other musicians have played the instrument. The list includes the late Ephat Mujuru, a group called Mbira DzeNharira and soulful diva Chiwoniso Maraire, whose father, Dumisani Maraire, was teaching Americans how to play the instrument in the 1960s.
Some, especially Mujuru and Mbira, stuck close to the template of the spiritual roots of the music.
They did not stray far from the work and war songs that have little to do with the daily pressures of the colony and its sibling, the post-colony.
Music from the man
Zanu-PF itself is an active player in the nationalist musicography. Its oeuvre, including songs from the 1970s, trumpet the perpetual Zanu-PF revolution as is evidenced by the CD Chimurenga Songs: Music of the Revolutionary People's War in Zimbabwe.
The CD is complete with Zanu-PF slogans; primeval claims to the Earth (nyika yemadzibaba -- Shona for fatherland); deification of central protagonists in the various struggles, especially Mugabe and Mbuya Nehanda (a female hero of the First Chimurenga); and connectedness to the continent's other liberation movements.
Mapfumo is regarded as an abrasive and arrogant personality; anecdotes abound to support this. One, probably apocryphal, features him being interviewed abroad.
What is the biggest football team in Zimbabwe? asks the interviewer. Dynamos Football Club, Mapfumo replies. What is the biggest political party? Zanu-PF, of course. Who is the best musician? Thomas Mapfumo, comes the answer.
Yet in this interview Mapfumo was keenly aware of others' contributions to his sound. He was particularly effusive about Edson Nonusi -- a virtuoso pianist and guitarist who died suddenly in the 1960s.
"Vakomana hatisati tamboona zvakadaro (We hadn't seen anything like that). He was so good on the piano and guitar. And whenever I got my notes wrong Nonusi would say to me: 'Aiwa, mukoma (brother) Thomas, play like this.' And then he would show me."
In the evolution of the chimurenga sound Mapfumo specifically mentioned keyboardist Charles Makokove, drummer Sebastian Mbata and trumpeter Chibhamu. He also singled out guitarist Zivayi Guveya, who joined the band as a teenager; the late Dube and Sithole; founding member and guitarist Chiyangwa; Ephraim Karimaura; the late Chiweshe; and Washington Kavhayi. The musician also mentioned his brothers, William and Lancelot Mapfumo.
The mbira has become intrinsic to the chimurenga sound and some of Mapfumo's players over the years have included Basil Makombe, Chaka Mhembere and Chartwell Dutiro.
"These are the people who played a big role, who made chimurenga music what it is," Mapfumo said.
The priest Murenga was all about social justice.
So does the music that bears his name.
Thomas Mapfumo will play at the Macufe Festival in the Free State with Chiwoniso Maraire on October 8 and at the Standard Bank Arena, Johannesburg, on October 9
Labels: CHIMURENGA, ENTERTAINMENT
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Zanu PF: an introspection
By Jonathan MoyoPolitics Last updated on: August 10, 2011
WHAT critical questions should preoccupy our national introspection this week and throughout this month as we remember and celebrate the memory of the selfless sacrifices of our gallant sons and daughters of the soil, some who paid the ultimate price to free our country from colonial bondage in 1980 and others who, thanks to providence and history, have lived long enough to variously contribute in immeasurable ways to the making of a liberated Zimbabwe whose sovereignty is today under illegal regime-change attack from the same interests that colonised us in 1890?
If the truth were to be told without fear or favour, there are at least seven current and critical national questions whose mere mention ties the tongues of some comrades in the nationalist movement in ways that betray the revolutionary commitment and ideological clarity of the liberation heroes whose legacy we celebrated on August 8. These issues are the following:
# Why is it that some comrades in the nationalist movement in general and in Zanu PF in particular seem to be afraid of change when it is a fact of everyday life and is thus essential to the survival of any living thing whether biological, social, economic or political?
# Why is it that comrades appear to have lost the distinction between transformation and change and the understanding that transformation is revolutionary and that those who, like the MDC formations and their sponsors, use change to attack transformation are in fact counter-revolutionaries seeking reactionary or negative change?
# Why is it that some comrades in the nationalist movement do not seem to understand that the whole debate about when elections should be held has absolutely nothing to do with the alleged implementation of the GPA or the need to fulfil the so-called SADC election roadmap but is all about confusing everything to ensure that the next elections are held when it is practically impossible for President Robert Mugabe — whom the UK, US and EU governments and their local puppets see as an unbeatable electoral opponent in the post-GPA era — to be candidate?
# Why is it that there continues to be utter confusion and a total lack of fiscal and monetary leadership on the fate of our national currency whose destruction was instigated by merchants of regime change some of whom inflicted their damage by pretending to be on the side of the people when God knew better? When will the Zimbabwe dollar return given not only the fact that an overwhelming majority of our people, especially in the rural areas, cannot access any of the foreign currencies in use but also given that the same ordinary people are losing their assets such as their livestock in ways that are yet to be told through barter trade led by the some of the same sharks that instigated the fall of the Zimbabwe dollar?
# Why is it that the political class in the nationalist movement appears unwilling or unable to come to terms with the fact that the logical consequence of our independent country’s unprecedented and unparalleled investment in education since 1980 is that we now have an empowered youth, based on the principle that the most important empowerment is education? In particular, why are some comrades trying to block the inevitable fact that the time has come to allow and enable our country’s Generation 40 to take charge of the national indigenisation and empowerment thrust as an expression of the legacy of our heroic liberation struggle whose legacy we celebrated on August 8 and throughout this month by remembering the historic sacrifices of the youth of yesterday?
# Why is it that some comrades in the nationalist movement have allowed a situation where the vanguard party, Zanu PF, has come to be associated with political violence and has, by definition, been made a perpetrator thereof by merchants of violence in the MDC formations and their founders and funders when the truth is that our party is the only political organisation in the country with a substantive political and economic programme to benefit the majority of our people rooted in our history and aspirations?
# Why is it that some important comrades in the nationalist movement are afraid of denouncing corruption when all indications are that this has become a cancer that threatens the gains of the liberation struggle whose heroes we celebrated on August 8 and throughout this month?
# Why is it that some comrades in the nationalist movement appear to believe that our leadership cannot make mistakes and that in that vein, our leadership must not be criticised?
Starting with the last point, it is almost axiomatic that we have comrades in our midst that will have the world believe that our leaders in the nationalist movement should be treated like corruption-free demigods who never do or say anything that is wrong. But of course this is not true. No wonder why charlatans have taken full advantage of the untruth to misrepresent not only Zanu PF policies but also the legacy of the liberation struggle itself.
Yet the fact which we should acknowledge as we commemorate and celebrate our heroes is that there is no leadership on earth which is infallible or which does not make mistakes. All human beings by their very nature make mistakes and that is part of the essence of humanity. As such, it is important to acknowledge mistakes when we make them and to commit ourselves to not only correcting them but also to avoiding them in future under similar circumstances.
As nationalists, we have not fared well on this score. We have tended to be shy to acknowledge our shortcomings and this has given cheap and undeserved ammunition to our UK, US and EU detractors and their local puppets who have shamelessly sought to define us on the basis of our mistakes and not on the basis of our values and yet surely our mistakes are not and cannot be our values. It is in this connection, for example, that we have not been able thus far to deal adequately and resolutely with the Gukurahundi scourge which some among us have sought to avoid dealing with or have sought to explain away or have sought to even justify when it was a monumental mistake that should not have been made and which, having been made, should have been corrected as it still must be in an open, honest and responsible manner in the national interest that unites rather than divides us as a nation.
The fundamental point on this issue is that the heroes we commemorate and celebrate this month would not be shy today to criticise each other constructively or to admit or correct mistakes. There’s no leader anywhere in the world who has never made a mistake and that is why the essence of leadership is to learn from mistakes and that accounts for experience. What we must reject and resist resolutely is any attempt by merchants of regime-change to define our cause, values and objectives on the basis of our mistakes.
That we should never ever allow because our founding values are clearly rooted in noble and gallant sacrifices of the heroes whose standard and legacy we celebrate and commemorate this month.
Second, it is unfortunate that some comrades in the nationalist movement are afraid of denouncing corruption when all indications are that corruption is the number one cancer in our public life. This cancer threatens the gains of the liberation struggle because it short-changes the masses who are the beneficiaries of our liberation struggle. As nationalists, we must be the first to denounce corruption not least because it is always committed by individuals who must not be allowed either to hijack the revolution or to tarnish its cause.
It is not possible for the nationalist movement itself, or for Zanu PF, to be corrupt. What is possible is for some among us to be corrupt under the cover of the nationalist movement or of our vanguard party. The challenge is whether our movement or party gives cover to corrupt individuals whose despicable deeds soil our movement and party.
If our commemoration and celebration of our heroes is to be as meaningful as it should be, then we must be prepared to denounce corrupt individuals in our midst without fear or favour. That is the least we can and must do in the name of our fallen heroes. We need to be willing and able to do this especially now when the UK, US and EU alliance is pouring millions of dollars to corrupt NGOs and the media in pursuit of illegal regime-change. In fact, there’s now enough documented evidence of dirty brown envelopes all over the place to show that the whole quest for regime change is nothing but one hell of a corrupt enterprise. There are no important, selfless or enduring values behind this enterprise of regime-change besides stinking corruption whose shocking extent and depth is yet to be told.
Surely, the nationalist movement has every reason to be above this kind of fly-by-night corruption which is driving the so-called private media, NGOs and other sections of our society. Anyone at a loss about this should find inspiration in the August 8 commemoration and celebration of the heroes of our liberation.
Third, it is as surprising as it is disappointing that some comrades in the nationalist movement now seem to believe the propaganda that the vanguard party, Zanu PF, is by definition guilty of the political violence as alleged by its detractors. If the media propaganda about violence in Zimbabwe were true, our country would be the most violent not only in Southern Africa or in Africa but in the world outside a war zone.
While we cannot deny that there have been unacceptable incidents of political violence in our country, on the basis that a single case is one too many, the fact, for example, is that there is by far more violence in South Africa than there is in our country yet South Africa is ironically supposed to be mediating peace in Zimbabwe. The gun is more prevalent and more used to settle all manner of issues in South Africa than it is in Zimbabwe. The heroes we are commemorating and celebrating used the gun to liberate our country. It would take a lunatic to say we have used the gun to run our country. The evidence that’s there for anyone and everyone to see is that we have used our brains to run the country and used the guns to defend it as a matter of pride recognised by the United Nations which explains why our security forces have participated in many UN peace-keeping and peace-making missions around the world.
Violence is therefore not part of our culture as an independent nation yet it clearly has been the manifesto of our detractors. The time has come to be bold about this fact and to state it robustly given that the MDC formations have nothing to offer besides falsely seeking to present us as a violent party. None of the MDC formations has the programme or capacity to benefit ordinary people better than Zanu PF. Nothing. The truth of the matter is that the two MDC formations find meaning and support only when they claim to be under attack from Zanu PF, and never when they promise to do anything for the people as they have no capacity to deliver anything whatsoever.
We must, therefore, denounce and shun violence in the strongest and visible terms possible and assert our values, ideology and superior policies such as land reform, indigenisation and empowerment in honour of the heroes we are commemorating and celebrating this month as a matter of our belief and practice.
Fourth, the commemoration and celebration of the heroes of our liberation struggle is a perfect opportunity to recall that our struggle for independence was fought and won by young people. This is true of every revolution. The current struggle for indigenisation and economic empowerment will not be won unless young people are its core fighters. At the moment, we have an excluded Generation 40 whose marginalisation by the nationalist movement is not in the national interest. We have started addressing this issue in both Zanu PF and the broader movement but far more still needs to be done otherwise our country might suffer undeserved counter-revolutionary Facebook and Twitter quakes.
We have educated our youth. Now we must hear them by giving them real responsibilities in the running and management of our public affairs with the demand that they must be guided by the legacy of the selfless sacrifices of the gallant heroes of our liberation struggle we are commemorating this month. The time has come for Zimbabwe’s Generation 40 to consolidate the gains of our liberation struggle by winning the Last Chimurenga through indigenisation and empowerment.
Fifth, it is really a sad commentary on our country that we have no national currency. The symbols of our sovereignty are our national flag, national anthem and national currency. It is a shame that we have no national currency because of policy failure and even outright treachery on the part of those who were charged with the responsibility of defending our national currency as their primary public responsibility. Mozambique went through arguably worse experiences under the Renamo attack than we did between 2000 and 2010 under the MDC attack but survived with its currency while we did not. Even Somalia with all its chaos and mayhem still has its currency.
Some of the heroes we are commemorating and celebrating are tossing and turning in their graves over the fact that we dismally failed to defend our national currency with the result that the majority of our people in the rural areas have been forced into exploitative barter trading as if we have no fiscal and monetary authorities in place.
The currency situation is a clear threat to our national security and either we get new appropriate policies to deal with the situation or we get new responsible authorities capable of coming with requisite policies. The current situation of self-indulgent fiscal and monetary authorities is simply unacceptable as it as an affront to the heroes we are commemorating and celebrating this month. We made a mistake and we must now correct it by coming up with a clear and actionable plan to restore our national currency in the public and national interests.
Sixth, the comrades we are commemorating and celebrating tomorrow, whether departed or among us, would be aware and thus disappointed that some comrades in the nationalist movement don’t’ seem to understand that the current UK, US and EU driven debate in SADC and in our country on when elections should be held is not about the alleged implementation of outstanding GPA issues or about the need to fulfil the so-called SADC election roadmap or about the pending referendum on a new constitution but only about finding roadblocks and not roadmaps to ensure that President Mugabe is not a candidate.
The narrative in currency is that if Zimbabwe holds elections in 2011 or 2012, the likelihood is that President Mugabe will stand as the Zanu PF presidential candidate. If that happens, so goes the narrative, it is more than likely that he and Zanu PF would win because President Mugabe commands the respect and support of the security sector more than any other potential Zanu PF presidential candidate. The prevailing presumption is that the security sector would either ensure that President Mugabe wins or would be in place to allegedly reverse his defeat.
In the circumstances, the enemies of Zimbabwe peddling this narrative in and outside SADC have resolved to do everything possible to throw all manner of spanners in the works to ensure that there’s no election in Zimbabwe until the last second permissible by law in 2013. The thinking behind this strategy is that at that time it will not be practical or reasonable for President Mugabe to be a presidential candidate given the allegations that are being made about his age and alleged poor health. Furthermore, the detractors peddling this narrative believe that no other Zanu PF candidate will be able to unite Zanu PF and the security sector as President Mugabe, hence the mayhem they are promoting.
The challenge for the nationalist movement arising from this is obvious. Is it right that we should allow our enemies to determine when we should hold elections in a manner that is counter-revolutionary in pursuit of our personal interests? This time of remembering our heroes gives us an excellent opportunity to examine this question with the seriousness it deserves.
Seventh and finally, the time has come for comrades in the nationalist movement to understand that there is an important difference between change and transformation. The heroes we are commemorating and celebrating knew this and that’s why they succeeded. Change is a constant of life because everything changes. As a revolutionary party, Zanu PF seeks change to bring about the transformation of our society from a colonial state to an independent, developing state. This change will not be overnight, it will take decades if not centuries. Whereas the MDC formations seek reactionary change to benefit our erstwhile colonisers, we seek revolutionary change to effect the transformation that the heroes fought for.
We must, therefore, embrace change and lead it in every respect so as to connect with today’s youth who make up the current Generation 40 while also connecting with yesterday’s Generation 40 whose gallant sacrifices we are commemorating and celebrating this month.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-5787-Moyo+chides+Zanu+PF,+demands+change/news.aspx
Moyo chides Zanu PF, demands change
10/08/2011 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
JONATHAN Moyo has scolded Zanu PF for failing to measure up to its critics; being hesitant to “change”; tolerating corruption and failing to act decisively on public concerns about the Gukurahundi “scourge”.
Zanu PF’s main political rivals, the former Information Minister said, had “no programme or capacity to benefit ordinary people,” but they “find meaning and support only when they claim to be under attack from Zanu PF”.
“We must, therefore, denounce and shun violence in the strongest and visible terms possible and assert our values, ideology and superior policies such as land reform, indigenisation and empowerment ... as a matter of our belief and practice,” Moyo said in a candid newspaper column published under the title ‘Zanu PF: an introspection’.
Urging his Zanu PF party to embrace “change”, Moyo said the party could not move with the times without tackling issues that were “betraying the revolutionary commitment and ideological clarity of the liberation heroes whose legacy we celebrated on August 8 [Heroes’ Day].”
“Why is it that some important comrades in the nationalist movement are afraid of denouncing corruption when all indications are that this has become a cancer that threatens the gains of the liberation struggle ...?” Moyo wrote in the Zanu PF-leaning Sunday Mail newspaper.
He added: “As nationalists, we must be the first to denounce corruption not least because it is always committed by individuals who must not be allowed either to hijack the revolution or to tarnish its cause.
“It is not possible for the nationalist movement itself, or for Zanu PF, to be corrupt. What is possible is for some among us to be corrupt under the cover of the nationalist movement or of our vanguard party.
“The challenge is whether our movement or party gives cover to corrupt individuals whose despicable deeds soil our movement and party.
“... we must be prepared to denounce corrupt individuals in our midst without fear or favour. That is the least we can and must do in the name of our fallen heroes.”
In a lengthy piece that read like an urgent internal memo to the party, Moyo said a denialist approach on some critical national problems, like Gukurahundi, had allowed Zanu PF’s “UK, US and EU detractors and their local puppets” to “shamelessly define us on the basis of our mistakes and not on the basis of our values and yet surely our mistakes are not and cannot be our values”.
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He added: “It is in this connection, for example, that we have not been able thus far to deal adequately and resolutely with the Gukurahundi scourge which some among us have sought to avoid dealing with or have sought to explain away or have sought to even justify when it was a monumental mistake that should not have been made and which, having been made, should have been corrected as it still must be in an open, honest and responsible manner in the national interest that unites rather than divides us as a nation.
“The fundamental point on this issue is that the heroes we commemorate and celebrate this month would not be shy today to criticise each other constructively or to admit or correct mistakes. There’s no leader anywhere in the world who has never made a mistake and that is why the essence of leadership is to learn from mistakes and that accounts for experience.”
The Tsholotsho North MP, who is a member of Zanu PF’s politburo, has been vocal about the 1980s army crackdown in Matabeleland where rights groups say more than 20,000 people died after President Robert Mugabe accused his main political rival Joshua Nkomo of arming dissidents to carry out an insurrection.
Moyo’s CV submitted at the time of his appointment as minister in 2000 stated that his father was killed by the 5 Brigade, a special army unit created for the Matabeleland operation under Mugabe's direct command.
In 2006, Moyo drafted a ‘Gukurahundi National Memorial Bill’ which said in its text that “ensuing encounters between the 5 Brigade and dissidents took on a life of their own and resulted in what on July 1, 2000, His Excellency President Robert Mugabe described as an ‘act of madness’ that led to what is now commonly known as the Gukurahundi atrocities in which thousands of ordinary people were killed while many more lost their homes or livelihood or both”.
The Private Member's Bill, which would have criminalised the denial of the atrocities; established a Gukurahundi National Memorial Shrine; Fund; and Board “to develop and maintain a credible record of Gukurahundi atrocities and plan and implement national programmes aimed at eliminating any tension or divisions caused by or related to Gukurahundi atrocities”, never reached Parliament but it was widely-circulated among legislators.
Further in the Bill, Moyo said: “It remains indubitable that the wounds associated with the dark Gukurahundi period are still open and the scars still visible to the detriment of national cohesion, national unity.
“These open wounds and visible scars have diminished the prospects of enabling Zimbabweans to act with a common purpose and with shared aspirations on the basis of a common heritage regardless of ethnic origin.”
In his Mail column, Moyo also chided Zanu PF for failing to change – although his comments appeared not directed at 87-year-old President Robert Mugabe, whom he is backing to lead the party at the next elections.
Moyo said “comrades appear to have lost the distinction between transformation and change and the understanding that transformation is revolutionary”. He called on the party to put what he called the “Generation 40” at the forefront of its programmes.
He blasted: “Why is it that some comrades in the nationalist movement in general, and in Zanu PF in particular, seem to be afraid of change when it is a fact of everyday life and is thus essential to the survival of any living thing whether biological, social, economic or political?
“The heroes we are commemorating and celebrating knew this and that’s why they succeeded. Change is a constant of life because everything changes. As a revolutionary party, Zanu PF seeks change to bring about the transformation of our society from a colonial state to an independent, developing state. This change will not be overnight, it will take decades if not centuries.
“Whereas the MDC formations seek reactionary change to benefit our erstwhile colonisers, we seek revolutionary change to effect the transformation that the heroes fought for.
“We must, therefore, embrace change and lead it in every respect so as to connect with today’s youth who make up the current Generation 40 while also connecting with yesterday’s Generation 40 whose gallant sacrifices we are commemorating and celebrating this month.”
This "change", Moyo said, must be visible in the party’s programmes for indigenisation and black economic empowerment.
“The current struggle for indigenisation and economic empowerment will not be won unless young people are its core fighters. At the moment, we have excluded Generation 40 whose marginalisation by the nationalist movement is not in the national interest.
“We have started addressing this issue in both Zanu PF and the broader movement but far more still needs to be done otherwise our country might suffer undeserved counter-revolutionary Facebook and Twitter quakes,” he warned.
Labels: CHIMURENGA, JONATHAN MOYO, ZANU-PF
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The
Chibondo exhumations in pictures. The site is more like a serial killer's dumpsite. This is the legacy of the illegal Smith regime of Rhodesia.
Labels: CHIMURENGA, IAN SMITH, LIBERATION, MASSACRE, RHODESIA
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Tsvangirai dishonest on land issue
Monday, 25 April 2011 22:10
By Alexander Kanengoni
During the Easter holidays, I bumped into two old friends and two views about Zimbabwean politics that I found interesting. The first guy seemed extremely worried about what I write and asked whether they had not put me on the sanctions list yet.
I was bemused. Actually, I had never contemplated that possibility. If that is what it takes to have your name put on the sanctions list, it's crazy. Just to express your point of view? Isn't that the democracy they preach to us day and night?
My friend advised me to take my foot off the pedal a bit and take it easy, leaving it to others to run with it.
It wasn't quite the same with the second guy. I met him by accident along the First Street mall, and we both expressed surprise how long it was since we last met. In fact, several years.
But he quickly added that it wasn't the same regarding me, because once in a while, he reads me in the papers.
We talked for some time and just before we parted he remarked that he would continue to keep to the side-lines, waiting to see what happened next.
My two friends' political position is the same, they are happy to remain outside.
I cannot, because I have always been inside.
The Rhodesians peddled the myth that everyone who joined the struggle was forced, I wasn't.
Ian Smith claimed we were the happiest Africans on the continent. I joined the war on my own volition.
I cannot stop expressing my views publicly when we fought a war so that people would do just that.
But then, Ian Smith was a mad man. He believed it would take us more than a thousand years to be free.
Which brings me to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Independence Day message that came out in the press last week.
It was an interesting message.
Whilst it tried to support the reasons why we went to war, it got confused at the end, but that was not surprising, knowing Morgan.
The message talked about freedom, justice and prosperity as the cornerstones of the war for independence.
No one would disagree with that, but how do you achieve those objectives?
How do you make the people prosper?
If the Prime Minister believes that the issue of land only popped up 20 years after independence as he claims in his message, he is being deliberately dishonest. The issue of land was always at the heart of our fight for freedom.
[To quote the MDC leader from this Independence Day message:
" Twenty years after independence we were told that the land would set us free. The same land was later grabbed by avaricious politicians and the well-connected in our society.
Now, thirty years after independence we are being told by multi-millionaires and multiple farm-owners that indigenisation will set us free. By this they are not referring to broad-based empowerment of the ordinary man and woman, but the looting and plunder of national resources by a small, parasitic elite. " - MrK]
The First Chimurenga, in 1893, was fought over the land. The Third Chimurenga, more than a century later, was all about the unresolved issue of the land. How then could the Second Chimurenga, in between, be about other things excluding the land?
The PM talks dismissively about the land in his message too. He says 20 years after independence in 2000, we were told land would make us prosper but that didn't happen. Well, such a view from Morgan Tsvangirai is not surprising.
His contempt for the land reform programme was evident when he once described the newly resettled farmers as mushrooms erupting all over organised white commercial farming areas.
The Lancaster House Conference almost broke down over the issue of the land, Morgan surely knows that.
So, he is only being dishonest when he says the issue only cropped up in 2000.
And then, his message goes on to dismiss the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme as a ploy to enrich the already rich elite, presumably the Zanu-PF leadership.
The question becomes - how do you make people prosper without empowering them? How do you make them prosper without opening up entry into mainstream economic activities for them?
Minister Kasukuwere has many times given Schweppes as an example of the success of the indigenisation programme, where the employees successfully negotiated 51 percent shareholding equity.
It is most likely that some of the beneficiaries at Schweppes are members of the MDC.
He cannot deny that!
The most likely people to resist the economic empowerment programme are our erstwhile colonial masters, the Rhodesians and the British; because they still believe all the resources in the country rightfully belong to them.
As an African, one would not expect Morgan to participate in, let alone champion such resistance and yet he doesn't.
It is for this reason that we say Morgan and his MDC are driving a foreign agenda. That is why we say Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC are being used by imperialism. These are the kind of views that one of my friends doesn't want me to express publicly.
In fact, he went on to say that he found what I write more enjoyable if it wasn't politics.
Later, I wanted to know what his real political position was; his motivation.
It's not true that one can remain outside and have no political point of view; it's impossible. So my friend was being dishonest.
He just didn't have the courage to tell me he did not agree with what I write, no matter how sensible it might sound.
My nephew, also an avid MDC supporter, put it in a pleasant and surprising way.
He said he no longer read what I write because he found it difficult to disagree with it.
For example, the American ambassador, Ray Charles, cannot deny the fact that he is black and that his grand parents were probably slaves, can he? And, that our fate in history is basically the same!
Or the fact that the West is in Libya not for humanitarian concerns but purely for their selfish desire for oil!
What we are witnessing with the West is a 21st century version of the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884, the scramble for resources from the Third World.
The French came quite strongly in Libya and the Ivory Coast.
If they tried to do the same regarding Zimbabwe, the British would nudge them gently on the side and smile menacingly.
The message would be clear: Take your hands off, Zimbabwe is British. And the French would oblige.
With the creation of the EU, the possibility of war in Europe has been virtually eliminated.
Instead, they have transferred their wars to our territories. We are fighting their wars and they only enter on our invitation. That is what is happening in Libya.
That is what happened in Ivory Coast, inviting them to re-colonise us! What sort of people are we who are not proud of their African identity? People fawning for the white man's perpetual leadership?
And here at home, the MDC is foolishly agreeing to be used to do exactly that, agreeing to an agenda for our re-colonisation; what a tragedy!
Does Morgan not have the capacity to understand this or he just doesn't care? The British are more interested in our resources than the so-called humanitarian situation.
Europe is running out of raw materials and they are prepared to go to war to get those resources where they are available in the world.
The contemporary popular parlance is: getting them by "ginya".
And yet, there are some amongst us who are literally inviting the British and the West to come and invade us.
I hope they can see the scale of the destruction and the enormous loss of human life happening in Libya.
And the West doesn't care a hoot. And so would the British.
In fact, for them, it would translate into a boom for their depressed construction industry and economy when they have razed Zimbabwe to the ground and start to rebuild it.
That is what the Americans did in Iraq and they are making the rich pickings. Who would want to be left behind?
They went to Libya hoping to do a quick job.
More than two months later, they are still bombarding the country and contemplating sending ground troops, and there shall be more destruction of property and loss of life and the solution still not in sight.
One hopes that those people who are foolishly stopping short of calling for such an invasion to happen here would survive to tell the horrible story.
Those who have survived the liberation war know that war is all about destruction of infrastructure and property, killing of people or getting killed, nothing else.
It is difficult to keep quiet when we are faced with such a horrible prospect. It is also difficult to keep quiet when the Prime Minister misrepresents some basic issues like that of the land.
You feel obliged to point it out to other people for the sake of the record. Or perhaps, for the sake of those who might ignorantly believe him.
Giving land to the people and economically empowering them to own and control their economy is the surest way to make them prosper.
You cannot talk about them being free when they continue to be poor.
The war to empower the people, just like the liberation war, requires tough fighters and not pathetic pretenders who returned before they got to Chimoio because the going had become tough.
I hope I have not offended my two friends from the past.
Labels: ALEXANDER KANENGONI, CHIMURENGA, INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), LAND REFORM, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Patriots, revolutionaries, liberators
Sunday, 20 February 2011 01:25 Top Stories
THE 21st February Movement was born out of a desire to inspire Zimbabwe’s youths to emulate President Mugabe’s revered attributes. As the President celebrates his birthday tomorrow and joins youths at the 21st February Movement celebrations in Harare later in the week, our reporter Itai Mazire chronicles the critical role young people played in the liberation of the country.
WHENEVER people talk about Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, many are inclined to think of the cadres who were stationed in Mozambique and Zambia during this period as the only liberators who fought for the freedom of the country.
But the truth, of course, is that the liberation struggle was also fought from within Rhodesia by brave young men and women. These young people played an important role.
During the colonial era, youths dotted across the country fought from within Rhodesia’s racist belly to topple the Smith regime by operating underground regiments.
Fearless young cadres in Harare, Mutare, Gweru and Bulawayo, among other major centres, never ventured outside the country’s borders, but still managed to influence the course of history by willingly turning their homes into mini-army bases.
The late Cde Danny Garise was among the heroes of this underground battle.
His death in the United Kingdom on December 23 last year evoked emotional reflection.
Media, Information and Publicity Minister Cde Webster Shamu battled hard to hold back tears as he spoke at Cde Garise’s burial in Mhondoro on January 8.
“Dick Dan (Cde Garise), a fearless warrior whom we forgot to mention in our history and his cadres, was key to the benefits we enjoy today as a country,” he said as it drizzled over the Garise homestead.
“They were young. He was in Mbare — an astute organiser, a centra point for the recruitment of cadres for military training outside the country.”
Most of the mourners only knew Cde Garise as a former teacher who had been strict during his years in service.
Yet the minister’s eulogy opened their eyes to a new view of the greater service that destiny had in store for him. Such was the importance of Cde Garise and his counterparts.
A shrewd campaigner and mobilising agent, he was a vital component of the Zanu-PF propaganda machinery from the days of nationalism right up to the peak of the liberation struggle.
The role of urban youths under the Youth League dates back to September 1962 when Zapu was banned. The leadership then resolved not to form another political party but to wage the struggle from underground.
It was only a matter of time before the Youth League metamorphosed into a close unit of guerillas. And so it did.
The youths announced their militancy as they confronted the settler regime. They also ensured locals did not collaborate with the enemy. In Harare, the youth undertook to subvert the colonial regime with the late Cde Enos Chikowore “General Chedu” as their leader.
Cde Garise’s operations in Harare were also unmistakable. His Mbare home was a springboard for more than 70 cadres who left the capital to join colleagues across the border. The late Brigadier-General Paul Armstrong Gunda was among them.
Cde Garise mobilised cadres around the Mwana Wevhu Campaign and organised many political meetings and rallies in and around Harare as the people rose against the oppressive regime.
The likes of Cde Shamu, the late Cde Ephraim Masawi, as well as other urban youths, operated from Mbare and Highfield where they spearheaded the downfall of the white regime by engaging in operations deemed “subversive and acts of terrorism” by the settlers.
In cow-horn formation, the youths rapidly destabilised the regime using urban guerilla warfare tactics that helped win the war. They burned down tobacco fields while other selected groups forged the movement passes enabling new recruits to train at camps outside the country.
The passes were also used to facilitate the easy movement of cadres who would attack the white regime’s key assets.
The biggest operation must have been the bombing of fuel storage tanks in Southerton. The flame from the blast took five days to douse.
In Mutare, youths also bombed bridges to hinder the flow of settler troops into Mozambique.
Their counterparts in places like Bulawayo and Beitbridge sabotaged railway infrastructure to block the then apartheid South Africa’s aid from reaching the regime.
In rural areas, other members of the league became informants for their brothers and sisters across the borders about the movements of enemy forces.
After independence in 1980, the Youth League became the maturing phase of the 21st February Movement which was formed in 1986.
The movement caters for children between the ages of five and 14 with its key activities centring on education, culture and environment conservation.
Members of the movement automatically graduate into the league upon reaching the age of 15. However, each member is also free to be part of the league.
Today the Youth League has continued to pursue the course charted by its predecessors.
It has pursued programmes of patriotism, revolutionary commitment and the defence of the interests of the grassroots against foreign and domestic exploitation.
Cde Shamu implored youths countrywide to pursue this line of patriotism.
“As a country, we are now worried about the behaviour that has been inculcated into most of our youths across the country by the West and its allies,” he said.
“The role that was played by the youths who fought on the war front and from within was key.
“Loyalty to your leaders brings harmony to the nation and the youths should always bear in mind that another generation of their type shed blood in Nyadzonia and Chimoio to ensure they walked freely in this country.”-The Sunday Mail
Labels: CHIMURENGA, LIBERATION, ROBERT MUGABE
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Zim: A liberated zone in every respect
By Netfa Freeman
IF Kwame Nkrumah were still able, how would this revolutionary Pan-Africanist classify Zimbabwe today? According to Nkrumah’s very instructive Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare Africa can be broken down into three zones distinguished by certain political states of affairs.
This is commonly known as his Three Zone Theory or Three Zone Analysis, with the three being "liberated zones", "contested zones", and "enemy controlled zones".
So, is Zimbabwe a contested or liberated zone? This question arises regarding Zimbabwe because of the assertion by some that it is a liberated area or zone and because others still doubt this. So then, a critical examination becomes necessary.
It should be apparent that Zimbabwe is not an enemy controlled zone since that is defined as a state under imperialist control through a foreign manned administration, a puppet government, or a settler minority government.
Since such is what determines an enemy controlled zone, Zimbabwe cannot fit that description and if it did, it would not be under such heavy attack by the West.
Because the complexity of Africa’s politico-economic situation has changed considerably since the time Nkrumah formulated these classifications, it becomes necessary to refine how we further apply the analysis.
A closer examination reveals the following: A contested zone is defined as an area that starts under enemy control then becomes contested when "the revolutionary forces in activity there, are either on the verge of armed struggle or have reached an advanced stage of revolutionary organisation.
"In such a situation the enemy is only in superficial command and relies exclusively on support of the police, civil service and the army, where it retains control only as long as the force of habit remains unchallenged."
Zimbabwe is clearly beyond this stage since the forces of the liberation struggle have already rid the people of what was settler minority rule and now, the liberation forces themselves have control over the police, civil service and the army.
The Government of the liberation forces is recognised internationally as a sovereign nation.
To call Zimbabwe contested is to legitimise as "revolutionary" the forces of neo-colonialism, who are openly and shamelessly supported and encouraged by imperialism that is, the Movement for Democratic Change, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and a plague of NGO’s or "non-governmental organisations", etc. all of which work to blur the lines between individual versus social/collective rights through their opposition to the Government and which mirror the imperialist agenda against Zimbabwe.
Some would maintain, however, that because Zimbabwe’s economy is still dominated internally and externally by capitalism, this classifies it as contested at best.
It is true that major industries and enterprises, such as mining, hotels, etc are still predominantly capitalist owned and controlled; a legacy of settler colonialism.
Hopefully this fact will be short-lived and we can see the first concrete steps toward state seizure of mining since independence.
Such things cannot happen overnight but this past November, the Government did release a 60-page draft proposal for amendments that strip foreign control of mining and give control over key mines to the state.
Regardless, nowhere does Nkrumah’s
analysis suggest that an area must have completely rid itself of all vestiges of capitalism and/or have in place a socialist economy in order to graduate from contested to liberated status.
Furthermore, is such a scenario even possible today with the global economy now more intricately integrated and with neo-colonialism so firmly entrenched on the continent?
Nkrumahist-Tureist ideology — named in honour of the theoretical and practical contributions of Presidents Osageyfo Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sekou Ture — holds that political independence is one of the preconditions for socialist revolution and that by definition socialism is still a class stratified-society, which will have varying and particular manifestations of capitalism.
As Nkrumah once said, "Seek ye first the political kingdom."
Politics means a disposition of power, which is what allows a people to control their economy.
Some changes that have occurred in Africa’s politico-economic situation are relevant to understand capitalism’s continued dominance over Zimbabwe.
First, at the time when Nkrumah formulated the three-zone analysis a strong socialist block existed, offering an alternative with which to trade and collaborate.
In addition, the call for socialism enjoyed a much greater and broader affinity among the African masses and in the Diaspora.
Neither of these conditions exists today. In addition, Africa as a whole has deviated from her revolutionary path towards political and economic integration or continental unity, which Nkrumah foresaw as necessary to overcome her dependence on capitalism and the West.
Lastly, the West’s pressure on African nations to subscribe to multi-party systems, so-calling them "greater expressions of democracy", is used to polarise the people, as what it is really meant to do.
Nkrumah warned us of this phenomenon. In such parliamentary governments, multiple parties including reactionary ones serving neo-colonial interest, can hold seats and influence policy. Unfortunately Zimbabwe has been no exception.
Although Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe’s ruling party did not originally have the objective of sharing power with other parties this was one of the compromises of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that brokered Zimbabwe’s independence and has been used to preserve settler privilege and manufacture alternative poles of attraction.
It may be unknown or disputed, but since its inception there has always been the struggle internal to Zanu-PF to further the cause of socialism. History reveals that the fast track land reclamation process was not the first step in breaking capitalist control in Zimbabwe.
Adopted at the Second People’s Congress in August 1984 was the Leadership Code, which was established to "impose on (Zanu-PF)
leaders a strict code of behaviour with a view to assuring the advent of socialism in Zimbabwe".
The preamble of this code and the Zanu-PF constitution declare Zanu-PF a "Socialist Party". A detailed account and critical analysis of Zimbabwe’s history has to be made to explain the set backs and challenges along its revolutionary path and why capitalism still dominates the economy today.
What must also be taken into consideration is the evolving complexity of the global economy and imperialism, as it resists and adapts to oppressed people’s struggle for justice.
The question is; should not Zimbabwe be defined by including the objectives of its ruling party, Zanu-PF or merely by the situation in which the current circumstances confine them and the rest of world? When compared with Nkrumah’s description of a liberated area, we see that it is not a stretch to say Zimbabwe stands the test of scrutiny.
Liberated zones are defined "as territories where: [a.] Independence was secured through armed struggle, or through a positive
action movement representing the majority of the population under the leadership of an anti-imperialist and well-organised mass party.
[b.] A puppet regime was overthrown by a people’s movement (Zanzibar, Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt), and [c.] A social revolution is taking place to consolidate political independence by: 1). Prompting accelerated economic development 2). Improving working conditions 3). Establishing complete freedom from dependence on foreign economic interest."
While Zimbabwe clearly conforms to item (a.) and item (b.) does not apply, item (c.) needs more critical examination. A social revolution has been taking place in Zimbabwe that started with accelerated economic development during the first decade of independence.
According to Deborah Pott’s Structural Adjustment and Poverty: Perceptions
from Zimbabwe, the economy enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 4 percent with reputable achievements in public health and education.
This occurred while cutting its debt-service ratio in half between 1985 and 1989. Only the World Bank’s Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes taken on in 1991 that began Zimbabwe’s plunge into its current economic challenges interrupted these achievements.
Surely, the working conditions since independence were a marked improvement over those of Rhodesian settler colonial apartheid. Zimbabwe has not, however, established complete freedom from dependence on foreign economic interest.
"Complete freedom" from foreign economic interest is difficult to determine and seems it may be impossible until a more revolutionary unity exists in Africa as a whole.
It can be said that Zimbabwe is in the process toward this freedom with its Land reclamation programme, the 2000 abolition of the ESAP (a fact for which the Government rarely gets credit, but is often condemned by so-called progressives for the mistake of adopting the ESAP) and we should not forget the aforementioned developments in the mining industry.
These are things for which all African people should be proud of Zimbabwe and surely more such bold measures against capitalism and imperialism are inevitable there.
Things are undeniably not as they should be in Zimbabwe. What’s more, the difficulties entrenched on the continent of Africa as a whole do not help the situation.
However, all things considered, Zimbabwe seems to have earned Nkrumah’s designation of a Liberated Zone and as such deserves the support and encouragement of all genuine revolutionary Pan-Africanists.
l Netfa Freeman is the director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists at the Institute for Policy Studies. Freeman is a longtime activist in the Pan-African and international human rights movements. Netfa is also a co-producer/co-host for Voices With Vision, WPFW 89.3 FM, Washington DC. He can be reached at netfa@hotsalsa.org. This article was first published on www.blackstarnews. com.
Labels: CHIMURENGA, KWAME NKRUMAH
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Zimbabwean: 'We were the enemy'
Zimbabwean Richard Donald Munsaka, 53, told the BBC News website, via telephone from his home in the north-western town of Hwange, how he felt after hearing that the ex-Rhodesia leader Ian Smith had died. Ian Smith was a sick old man. I don't begrudge him for what he did - I think he felt he was doing right. He was just an old Zimbabwean man. But life under Ian Smith wasn't better than it is now. I have lived under a cruel regime and I am old enough to know the difference between the two.
When he was prime minister most of us [black] Africans used to live in what were then called tribal trust [communal] lands. But my father worked on the railways so I lived in town - in the country's second city, Bulawayo.
Little change left over
In those days, things like bread, although it was there on the shelves, for us it was a luxury. Our staple food was sadza [maize meal cooked with water and a little salt]. We had a desire for bread but didn't have money to buy it. I remember always smelling bread if I was walking near to the area where the whites lived and shopped - I loved its smell and wished I could taste it. But I never did for many years!
Working on the railways until 1978-79, my father's wages enabled him to buy two 50kg bags of meilie [maize] meal and have a little change left over. My father worked as an assistant grinder - a white or a coloured [mixed race] man would weld the tracks and then my father would grind. The most an African could aspire to be, working on the railways, was a stoker on one of the locomotives and even then that was more for coloureds. Blacks only got the menial jobs. But if you were an educated African you could be either a teacher or a nurse.
Blacks weren't allowed
Under Ian Smith the job that I do now - I am an operating superintendent at Hwange power station - would have been a job for a white man. Even train drivers were white - blacks weren't allowed. People like me weren't trained to learn skills.
When my dad set off to work in the morning, my mother would follow him along the railway line to look for shrubs and any wild vegetables that were growing. She would return home and cook them - without cooking oil - so we had something to eat with our sadza.
That was the life of my mother; to make sure we had a meal on the table. And there was no tea either because there was no money for sugar. In those days there were many silly taxes that blacks had to pay. You had to pay a sum to be able to own a dog, even a bicycle.
Goodbye
And if you so happened to have a few cattle to your name and if a white person came along and wanted them, they could just take them. Us Africans, we had to fend for ourselves - we were the enemy. You would just be told: "You see that bull over there, that is for the boss." That was it. Goodbye. There was nothing you could do.
I had a cousin who left in 1978 for Angola to become a fighter. He went to war because his late father's nine cattle had been taken away from him by a white cattle rancher. At independence he went and took his cattle back.
But I lost another of my uncles to that same white rancher. He was fishing with a few of my other uncles when they were used for target practice. I was still a young man but I have never forgotten, up to this day.
My parents had to pay for our school fees. My two younger brothers lived with one of my uncles in the so-called tribal trust area so they could attend school.
War
When I visited them, I remember the soldiers - Selous Scouts and forces from the Rhodesian Light Infantry. We even knew some of the notorious ones by name. They used to come and ask: "Where are the terrorists?". They used to beat up the women and children if no-one answered.
I remember in 1978 there was a fight between the Rhodesian forces and the guerrillas. We all had to run and hide for a long time because the next day Ian Smith's soldiers came, as they always did, to take all the young men away. It was war then. I stayed and hid at an uncle's home. There were 20 of us in a three-roomed house. We survived on cabbage leaves cooked in plain water with some salt (no cooking oil or tomatoes!) and sadza when it was there. I never actually joined the struggle as a fighter because by the time I wanted to fight, we were told to stay as it was said that there was so many in Zambia, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania.
We were the enemy
The things we see now, like the bad shortages and everything, you still can't compare. Us Africans, we had to fend for ourselves. We were the enemy. In those days, though, people in tribal trust lands did not suffer like those in the towns because they made sure they were self-sufficient despite that the land the blacks had to live on was not so fertile. The whites took the best for themselves. Then my father used to point to this land in the distance and tell me that was where our family belonged... but now since the land reform programme, our family have got a portion of our land back. I never saw a time when I thought that Ian Smith was helping the African people.
Tough nowadays
The comparing reasons that people are making now is not right. After 1980 and up to the 1990s, life in Zimbabwe was so good. Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith meets the press at 10 Downing Street with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson (Photo by Terry Fincher/Getty Images)
Britain tried to persuade Smith not to illegally declare independence. It was only after the 1980s that blacks could afford to buy cars, televisions, radios, furniture and houses. And everyone went to school, right up to university.
Right now I own a motor vehicle - a Toyota Hilux [4x4]. I live in a nice suburban house - three bedrooms, two adjoining lounges, two bathrooms each with a toilet, TV with satellite and I have the internet. You are phoning me on my mobile phone and I also have a landline.
And I although I am a Zanu-PF member, I am not an official. I have worked for everything I own. Apart from the land that was returned to my family.
I own property in Victoria Falls that I acquired myself, without a loan. I am having a house and guesthouse built but these days it is difficult. Getting building materials, even cement is a challenge. Yes life is tough nowadays here. But when I say that I am comparing it to life during the 1990s. Not to the those during Smith's time because about that, there is nothing to talk about - it was oppression. Robert Mugabe is not the best leader that we can have. I want the president to leave - he has had his go, he has had his time. But never will Mugabe be worse than Smith.
Labels: BBC, CHIMURENGA, RHODESIA
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Mugabe is being punished for pushing African agenda - Charamba
By George Chellah in Harare, Zimbabwe
Tuesday June 19, 2007 [04:00]
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is being punished for pushing the African agenda, Presidential spokesperson George Charamba has said. And Charamba said Western countries honoured African leaders so that leaders could do the West's bidding. In an interview, Charamba said manoeuvres by Western countries on Zimbabwe would not yield anything. Charamba said the period when President Mugabe attracted honours from Western countries was when he pronounced the policy of reconciliation.
"But even then he was looking for peace, he was looking for harmony. The moment he takes on the social grievance of the Zimbabwean people, then he is now being stripped off those honours, which means the West only saw his presidency in terms of serving Western interests not in terms of pushing the African agenda. And if a person gets punished for pushing the agenda of his own people then he belongs to the Lord,” Charamba said.
He said the West honours African leaders so they could do their bidding.
“And that’s exactly what Mugabe has refused to do. He says ‘whatever the honours, I am not going to stand flattered. I will stand for the interest of my people and my people need land, land which is owned by the British and those British on that land which belongs to my people will have to go’,” Charamba said. “That is the punishment which Mugabe is now suffering. He has failed to be a good servant of the Queen, failed to be a good servant of the British government and the punishment is now the withdraw of honours which are meaningless, as a matter of fact.”
Charamba further said even the decision by the University of Edinburgh to withdraw President Mugabe’s honourary degree was cheap politics by the British government.
“It’s amazing how institutions of higher learning can sink so low. But you are looking at a politician, a leader, and an academic, who has enjoyed recognition from various institutions, from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. And also the President has 17 honourary degrees, five of which are from what you may call Western institutions and essentially these are British and American,” Charamba said.
He said the University of Edinburgh recognised President Mugabe for his excellent leadership in education.
“And Zimbabwe as we speak enjoys 96 per cent literacy levels that has not been taken away. What has been taken away is his honour, which the University of Edinburgh on its own accord decided to give to the President. They decided in their own wisdom to give it to him and at that time it was more Edinburgh borrowing fame from the President than the other way round,” Charamba said.
“The President already has seven degrees; first one a BA, second one a BED, third one a Bachelor of Laws then an LLM. He has a BAC in economics, he has a master of science in economics, then he has the seventh one - Bachelor of Administration. These are personal solid achievements, they are not honours. Now with such a man how do you reduce his stature at all?”
Asked what the President’s reaction was when his honourary degree was withdrawn, Charamba responded: “He has joked about it, in fact he didn’t even remember that he got that honour from Edinburgh in as much as he also doesn’t remember when he received the Knighthood which they so much talk about.”
Labels: CHIMURENGA, MUGABE, ZIMBABWE
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Chief Chingaira — unsung hero
By Kamurai Mudzingwa
"It is all very well to call me a rebel but the country belonged to me and my forefathers long before you came here." These enduring, defiant words were uttered by one of the original and historically underplayed heroes of the First Chimurenga, Chief Chingaira of Makoni District in Manicaland Province as he faced the colonialists’ firing squad on September 4 1896.
Chief Chingaira is the only known person in the history of the three Chimurenga Wars whose military ingenuity and resistance to colonialism instilled both anger and unprecedented fear into the British colonialists to the extent that they took his head Indian style to their native land.
"They wanted to show the British government that they had indeed killed him. They were so afraid of him that they wanted to make sure he would not resurrect," said Chief Naboth Makoni.
Chief Chingaira, who became the colonialists’ nemesis, was given the name Mutota at birth but he was later nicknamed Chingaira because of his eyes.
"He was called Chingaira because his eyes were red and they resembled that of a ngaira, an eagle-like bird of prey," explained Chief Makoni.
According to the oral history from the Makoni people, Chingaira’s ascendance to the throne was fortuitous because his life had a national purpose.
Chingaira was the fifth eldest son of Chief Nyamanhindi and according to royal tradition, there was no way he could have ascended the throne when his four elder brothers were still alive.
"Two factors and his character propelled him to chieftainship," said Donald Sarudzai Kamba-Makoni, whose great ancestor was Chingaira’s first cousin.
First there were ethnic wars and then second there were whites to contend with. Enemies faced the chief and his brothers were afraid, only Chingaira was courageous enough to accept the throne under those difficult circumstances."
From the moment he ascended the throne, Chingaira began to write his own unique piece of historical resistance against colonialism that spanned the seven years of his rule from 1889 until his execution in 1896.
"Whites came and built homes in Makoni and Chingaira did not like it and he went to war with them," explained Chief Makoni.
The chief said the colonialists became so oppressive and arrogant that they grabbed the people’s wealth, particularly land and livestock and this incensed Chief Chingaira who mobilised his people and drove the settlers away from the Makoni area.
He said people were often whipped with thongs and tortured in an attempt to break their spirit of resistance.
"One of the things Chief Chingaira despised was cultural colonisation. Whites wanted to label us heathens so that they could rule us and Chingaira was against that and his death led to lots of cultural distortions by the colonisers," said the Chief.
"After Chief Chingaira’s death, colonialists were so afraid of the potency exhibited by the Makoni people that they partitioned the district and appointed other chiefs who toed their line," said Kamba-Makoni.
Chief Chingaira had a powerful army and before his capture, he defeated the colonialists using their own medicine — firepower.
The whites had underrated Chief Chingaira’s army, thinking it was a bunch of disorganised and barbaric Africans using spears and knobkerries.
"His cousin Kamba helped to sponsor the war. Kamba traded with the Portuguese from the East, particularly Mozambique and got guns. Mostly he traded with a Portuguese named Govheya and he even named his sixth son after him.
"In the first war Chingaira killed 12 white settlers. This disturbed the settlers to the extent that they felt the only suitable punishment was decapitation."
The 12 settlers killed by Chief Chingaira were buried at Saint Faith Mission, a few kilometres from Nyabadza near Rusape. Their graves are still a testimony of Chief Chingaira’s military prowess and unfathomable resistance to colonialism.
He troubled the settlers’ army so much that reinforcements had to come from as far as Harare and Mutare, said Chief Makoni.
"While Chingaira was just but one of the traditional leaders who waged the struggle against white settlers, the manner in which he met his death speaks volumes about the degree of effect of resisting white settlerism," Kamba-Makoni added.
Chief Chingaira would puzzle the white settlers’ army by hiding in secret caves and one of these caves was named after his cousin Kamba and it is known as Ninga YaKamba.
He evaded the settlers’ army until he was captured at Gwindingwi Mountain hiding in a cave.
The gallant fighter and his army had sought refuge in the cave before those who collaborated with the settlers sold him out.
Whites used dynamite to force him out of the cave.
"Ndapfunya and Chipunza were some of the people who were in the company of whites in order to assist them in identifying Chingaira," Kamba-Makoni explained.
Without the assistance of collaborators, the white soldiers would have failed to identify him.
"First to come out of the cave was his brother Muchira and the whites were told it was not Chingaira, then his brother-in-law Gwena came out and again the settlers were told by the collaborators that they were being duped. Finally, Chingaira himself came out and he was immediately arrested," narrated Chief Makoni.
They then took the valiant Chief to Tsorodziwa where they shot and beheaded him.
"They placed two women on either side of him so that if he attempted to evade the bullets by moving to either side they would kill them," explained one elderly villager.
The commander of the settler army, a Watts ordered his soldiers to behead the Chief. He then took the head as a trophy to show Cecil John Rhodes and together they boarded the same ship with the head to the United Kingdom.
"They shipped his head as a treasured trophy for amusement in a museum and they can’t part with this trophy. We are saying it is not a trophy it is our chief’s head and we want it back," said an emotional Kamba-Makoni.
In 1988 a delegation that included Phineas Makoni and James Casper Makoni went to the UK to try and retrieve the head and their efforts were in vain.
They were told it was in South Africa but they drew a blank when they visited that country.
"This is a clear sign that the British do not want to release the head," said an angry villager from Makoni.
It is not debatable that Chief Chingaira is a national hero, this is why some critics say historians and other influential people are not doing him justice by playing down his role in the liberation of this country.
"Tell me about one chief or hero who vexed the whites so much that they took his head to the United Kingdom except Chingaira," an emotional Kamba-Makoni asked.
"Chingaira is definitely a national hero with lots of lessons for the second Chimurenga.
"His bravery and subsequent death taught the liberation fighters that the Second Chimurenga was about dying for the sake of the country. Chief Chingaira should remain celebrated to this day. His part in history should be correctly projected," he said.
The People of Makoni have already set aside July 4 as the day to commemorate Chief Chingaira’s life.
As a parting shot, Chief Makoni said, "As the chief who inherited Chingaira’s throne, I want investigations to be carried out about his head’s whereabouts.
"We want to sit with the British and they should tell us where they put the head."
Labels: CHIMURENGA, ZIMBABWE
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