NOVEMBER 23 2015 was the 38th annivesary of the Chimoio massacre.
On this day Rhodesians murdered thousands of Zimbabweans at a major ZANLA base in Chimoio, Mozambique.
The victims of this crime against humanity included several hundreds of defenseless schoolchildren.
These precious lives were destroyed for no other reason except that they claimed what was theirs and would not rest until they had repossessed their heritage, Zimbabwe, the land of their fathers.
Last week as part of the commemorations of Martyr’s Day, Star FM interviewed Mrs Willia Bonyongwe on the events of this day.
Astonishingly, one of the comments made on her contribution was that the problem with war veterans is their tendency to exaggerate.
Really!
Against what background is one judging these experiences?
Sometimes the song is that war veterans have not done enough, they have not done the right thing, they have not written about the struggle, about their experiences, we need this precious heritage, it is said.
Tomorrow it is: “Ah you war veterans exaggerate.”
You have not even heard the whole story and you have already passed judgement that the story is exaggerated.
Since so ‘little’ is written why are detractors in such a hurry to dismiss this as exaggeration.
There should be time to listen, to appreciate.
It is necessary to correctly seek to understand why perhaps we do not have avalanches of writings about our armed struggle.
How could people who participated in the struggle be so reluctant to share experiences of something so precious?
After all, this is one of the sure ways of perpetuating the ethos and purposes of this great struggle for our land.
For those who truly want to know why we have not written many, many books about our experiences in the liberation struggle, consider this:
When you go through something horrific, when you get traumatised you need to heal and that takes time.
I am not talking about going to see a psychiatrist, no.
I mean the healing that comes through being at peace, putting aside that which cost you so much physical and psychological energy, allowing the soul and the body to regenerate and return to form.
You need to shift your focus for a while, concentrate on some other things until you are able to talk about this without emotionally breaking down.
In life, there are times when people have to narrate the last moments of a loved one, and they break down, it is too close, too hurting, it is unbearable.
People break down at funerals when they try to talk about the departed one and sometimes the wounds take years to heal.
It works in the same way.
There are emotional wounds that can heal and there are also those even time cannot completely heal.
There are experiences which even today are too painful for us to talk about among ourselves as war veterans.
Sometimes we start talking about certain experiences from the struggle and we stop in the middle of the conversation; we can’t go through with it.
The reason the writing has not been coming fast is not because we have anything to be ashamed of, nor is it because we are negligent; just some conversations with us will clarify a lot of things, it is good that we are still around, for a few more years at least, and that is plenty of time for conversations.
Some of the reasons these attitudes of labelling war veterans continue is the Rhodesian psyche which remains dominant in some circles of our society.
This Rhodesian psyche is also being fuelled by Western-sponsored non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
This is the psyche that labelled us terrorists, brutes, rapists, whores, callous atheists and so on.
If one imbibes this psyche, it then becomes impossible to appreciate comrades as ardent patriots who were sensitive to the suffering of their people without doing anything about it.
You then do not see the comrades as those who fulfilled the precept: ‘There is no greater love’.
The armed struggle was not an action movie.
It was real blood and bones which left deep scars on the soul.
There was no gallery to perform to, you put your life on the line and to have escaped with one’s life was by God’s grace.
Those who fought so viciously to eradicate such an evil cannot be the ones to stand before a gallery to boast and exaggerate.
It is not the way it works.
When you recollect about the liberation struggle, you stand before the thousands who perished for Zimbabwe, you bow in deep reverence to such dedication and sacrifice, it is not natural for one to boast; what can you boast of before those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, who gave what no-one can surpass?
We are writing and we will still write, but it does not come as easy as writing a movie script or a novel.
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.