ONE of the not so talked about grievances of the First Chimurenga is that the people of Zimbabwe would not accept that they were a natural resource to be exploited by the whiteman.

Zimbabweans were land owners and had a share in the land of their ancestors. 

They were owners of their own means of creating wealth. 

They had means of production and what they knew and cherished was to work for their families.

It was, therefore, the harshest assault on Zimbabweans to have their land, cattle and mines expropriated by the whiteman. 

The repercussions of this assault went beyond the material loss of means of creating wealth. 

It was also an assault on their psyche and, therefore, utterly intolerable. 

Once owners of rich vast lands, owners of great herds grazing on lush pastures, for the Ndebele it was unbearable to be reduced to beggars to work on once their lands, herd once their cattle and mine once their mines for nothing. And Dr Felix Muchemwa notes in his book The Struggle for Land in Zimbabwe (1890-2010):

“And then, to add insult to injury, Selous and many other syndicated European settler-farmers loaned many ‘royalised’ Ndebele families and chiefs the same cattle that had once belonged to them. 

They were tasked to herd the cattle for the simple benefit of milk only. 

But even more humiliating to the Ndebele people, in particular the Zansi and the Enhla, was the forced labour on European settler-farms and mines.” 

Villages in parts of northern Matabeleland were subjected to early dawn raids by white settler-farmers supported by the Matabeleland Mounted Police to capture young Matabele males for labour on ‘white’ farms. 

Many were forced to desert their homes and become refugees elsewhere.

To be forced labourers at all was such deep trauma, but the worst was to labour for the armed robbers on the very lands that formerly belonged to them (the Africans).

How could they walk in the land with their heads high, as ensconcements of Musikavanhu, the Lord of the land? 

Their spirits were broken. 

It was a new era, a devastating one which was utterly intolerable.

Muchemwa says forced labour was one of the deepest grievances of the First Chimurenga:

“Forced labour was a strange phenomenon to all Shona people. 

Any form of slavery had been fiercely resisted by them and the slave trade had never been allowed to penetrate into the plateau area of the Munhumutapa Empire, south of the Zambezi River. 

Also, the fact that it had never been part of Shona culture to be employed by individuals be they rich or powerful or even chiefs only made the Shona resistance to forced labour fiercer.”

Therefore, in 1896, when the Ndebele and Shona took up arms against the white menace, it was to redeem their land, gold fields and livestock. 

They were also refuting that they were a natural resource to be exploited by the whiteman. 

For these gravest of transgressions Mwari/Mlimo instructed that the white invader be wiped out. 

It was a very clear-cut mission. 

However, today, after Chimurenga wars had been fought to reverse that robbery, we are struggling with an insidious mentality which suggests that there is nothing wrong with things as they were at 1896. 

It is suggested, ‘let them own everything as long as they give us jobs’.

They see no injustice in them being exploited as a natural resource.

So, those who bring machinery to dig our heritage can expropriate our resources and decide how much to give us! 

Whether they take 95 percent and give us five, it does not really matter! 

There is anger against those who would say: ‘Let us not let the foreigner take the majority of what he digs out of our land’. 

In anger it is argued: “Tichidyei!” 

Let them take, at least we get something in return no matter how small, it is better than starving to death!

There is a startling, disturbing difference between this sinister mentality quite prevalent today and that of our predecessors who fought the Chimerenga wars.

Our predecessors drew the lines simply and unequivocally: ‘Our heritage or your death’. 

There were no compromises.

What has brought us to this regrettable and tragic psyche? 

Is it that a century of capitalism has eroded that consciousness of sons and daughters of Murenga who was instructed by the Most High that, ‘…nhaka haitengeswi’? 

Have we truly lost the consciousness which says: “I am not a natural resource to be exploited but shall use my labour to recreate my means of livelihood”; which says I shall not work for you for all in this land is mine?

Our young today are content to be at street corners in the sun, rain and cold peddling rejects from all over the world. 

They have forgotten that they are princes and princesses of this great land, children of Murenga. 

They cannot dream of going home to work the land of their forefathers and create their own means of livelihood. 

They have forgotten who they are. 

If there should be cheap goods all over the show, that means independence? 

If by some magic everything becomes affordable, then it is independence? 

Is that so? 

We have forgotten how to ask the correct questions: Who owns major corporates in Africa?

Before the coming of the whiteman, we did not know what it meant to work for anyone. 

Now we know only to work for someone. 

We never dream of becoming a competitor to the major corpotates. 

Whatever we earn, we plough into consuming the so-called best and we are content thus.

The diamond companies, the platinum miners, the gold miners, all of them can continue tok.jkusvbd take away the bulk of our heritage which they dig out, as long as they give me my expensive stuff; a house, some servants and they pay my children’s fees to the most expensive schools?  

It no longer occurs to us to own our own minerals. 

It really does not matter we hide behind the finger: ‘Indigenisation haidyiwe, ideology haidyiwe’.

Have we totally forgotten that we are the children of Murenga?