WAFA WANAKA, our culture says.
We never bad mouth the dead.
Hence today we mourn the tragedy of a life well lived, that is the life of Rolihlahla Mandela.
We mourn the cadre that spent the greater part of his life fighting the evil colonial practice of Apartheid.
We mourn a man who put his career and his family on hold for the greater good of his nation and his people.
We mourn a warrior who spearheaded the armed wing of the ANC Umkhonto we Sizwe.
For that we claim him and write him on the walls of African history so the next generation can be inspired.
He is our Mandela and our comrade-in-arms in the continued struggle against black genocide throughout the continent.
Hence our shock, disgust and alarm when the crocodiles come in their numbers to shed a tear or two. Of course as we look at the pictures pouring in we see the Danish Prime Minister, David Cameron and Barrack Obama take a minute to pose for a group photo we are calmed with the knowledge that the reptiles haven’t changed.
So we ask ourselves itsitsi dzei tsvimborume kubvisa mwana we mvana madziwa.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan branded Mandela a terrorist and asked him to drop their militant stance.
Asking Mandela to put down his weapons first and labelling him a terrorist was hypocritical as the same American government had openly declared their support for the murderous racist regime.
While they insisted that Mandela lay down weapons they were at the same time funding the civil wars in Angola and in Mozambique.
President Ronald Regan declared unending support to the White-controlled Apartheid regime because it was “a country that has stood by us in every war we’ve ever fought, a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals.”
Until 2008 Mandela was still on the terrorist watch list.
They still regarded him as a communist because in 1990 he had saluted America’s enemies Castro, Arafat and Gaddaffi. In 2003, when the West invaded Iraq Mandela is quoted saying; “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.”
So l ask again itsitsi dzei tsvimborume kubvisa mwana we mvana madziwa.
The whites can mourn but Africa should not for a moment believe that we share heroes with the West.
Where were they in the 27 years that got him the lung infection that killed him in his old age?
Where were they when the white regime ‘broke the back’ of the proud African warrior?
Cameron even denounced Mandela in his youth so today as they take smiling pictures at Mandela’s funeral we should not be shocked.
The West provided the tools for the crimes Mandela forgave that today had him canonised.
Africa can mourn because the same violent and great history that course in our veins ran in Madiba’s.
The Caribbean and the Asian world can mourn because we shared the same marginalised and violent history that banded us together to fight injustice.
What does the West mourn?
Why do the vultures and the jackals descend today to speak of Mandela’s greatness?
Again l ask itsitsi dzei tsvimborume kubvisa mwana we mvana madziwa.
Go well comrade.
Go well son of the soil.