OUR detractors often hold the mistaken view that the Second Chimurenga and the Land Reform Programme, which we consider the Third Chimurenga, were some spontaneous explosions without a historical past.

They saw these struggles as some violent processes against whites who were predestined to hold the land until the end of time.

Our former colonisers claimed ownership of the discourses of land, giving the impression that there were no other voices to the land narrative before 1980.

No doubt, the West remains the West and its treatment of Africa will never change.

The condescending behaviour remains.

The West, like always, will continue serving the needs of the West and continue seeking world dominance.

The relationship between the West and Africa has not changed.

It remains that of master and servant, big brother and small brother.

If we are to think the West will treat us as equals, without us asserting our inalienable right, then we are doomed.

And that is why we continue calling for the return of the remains of our heroes and heroines who are in Western museums.

They are not objects to be ogled at.

We need to give them befitting burials.

The First Chimurenga was a realisation that the visitor intended to outlive his welcome and thus had to be forcibly ejected from our land.

Mbuya Nehanda promised that: “Mapfupa angu achamuka.” (My bones will rise)

And they rose, as evidenced by the Second Chimurenga.

We were guided by the ideals and vision of these men and women whose heads were shipped to Europeans countries as war trophies.

The third phase, Third Chimurenga, which was long overdue, was finally implemented through the Land Reform Programme in 2000, resulting in the West imposing illegal sanctions on us.

Their hope was to weaken our economy and our resolve towards self-determination.

But remembering our heroes and heroines, our founding fathers and mothers, we have not faltered.

They continue to inspire us.

We demand back the remains of our heroes and heroines because hundreds of years after the first imperial ship landed on the continent, they continue to fight us.

There is a dangerous tendency by many to assume the imperialistic agenda is no more.

It is a naive assumption that any interest in Africa by the former colonial powers ended when we won the armed struggle.

The war on Africa’s resources has intensified and it will get worse.

The return of the remains of our ancestors is important.

They remind us of an unpleasant past.

These remains are not mere bones, but flesh and blood that gave birth to this free Zimbabwe.

They are the cradle of the present and inspire us to keep forging ahead.

We must make as much noise as we can about their return.

There are constituencies that would rather we remain quiet, that would want us to forget, insisting our past does not matter much compared to the future.

To forget is to commit a grave error and history will judge us harshly for this travesty.

We cannot afford to forget colonial injustices and the evil nature of the systems which propped up the colonial regime?

We will never forget the service, the inspiration proffered by our founding fathers and mothers.