By Charles T.M.J. Dube

IN my last week’s instalment in remembrance of our national heroes, I emphasised that the national agenda had been scripted in the blood of our fallen heroes.
We are all very clear on where we want to get to and what the fight with the colonial regime was all about.
There are those who must lead us to where we want to get to and it is important that we always analyse and assess if the programmes they place before us lead us there or they are letting us wander in the wilderness when Canaan is only around the corner.
We must question what they pre-occupy our minds with and refuse openly to be led to dog fights where we end up nursing wounds caused by fights intended to detract us from their greed and selfishness.
We cannot afford to let anybody starve us so that our pre-occupation becomes getting the next meal instead of fulfilling the national agenda.
We are made to be pre-occupied with how to get cash, how to get medical attention, how to pay ZESA and municipal bills instead of building an estate for future generations.
My ancestry is Nguni and my forefathers got to this land before the Ndebele.
They did not come to this land by accident, even if there was the Mfecane behind them.
They came here because they remembered in their times of trouble that whereas they had migrated along the eastern coast, some of their kith and kin had taken the more central route.
It is therefore no wonder that when they finally settled in present-day Matabeleland, they were able to adapt as well as adopt and earned themselves the title Mukumbudziwamambo (Swati), Umkumbuzi or reminder/consultant in Zulu as they got accepted as the Rozwi King’s chief advisors and not aliens.
Those of us who are very spiritual know that there is no accident in history. The Mfecane predefined the present day SADC states through its resultant migrations.
The new arrivals got integrated even unto spirituality and let our friend Aeneas Chigwedere challenge that the last Chaminuka who died on a peace mission at the hands of the Ndebele was of Nguni extraction and his motivation in taking that bold step to encounter Lobengula was on the strength that Lobengula’s mother was of Swati maternal extraction which could give him advantage although we know what eventually transpired.
It is at his death that he prophesies that they had killed him on a goodwill mission and this would bring a curse upon the land as the country would be occupied by a people without knees, in reference to colonials who would be putting on long trousers.
Our country is blessed by some homogeneity not found in many other nations as we are a de facto Bantu people.
According to research, all Bantu languages originated from one common language 2 000 years ago.
And yet the false prophets among us will preach artless things like dialects as critical definitions of who we are for purposes of accessing or retaining power.
We are long past Kwame Nkrumah’s cry for independence as the right to manage or mismanage our own affairs.
It should be now the right to compete to manage our own affairs to optimal national advantage.
There is a job to be done and if there are issues to be laid on the table, then these should be revisits as to who we are and where we have come from as reminded by last week’s commemorations.
It should be about where we want to get to and how to get there.
It should also be about what our obstacles have been, what has been slowing us down, and what we can do about it 37 years after independence.
Every citizen who has ended up being Zimbabwean by whatever historical dictates has a right to participate and be a stakeholder in unravelling and implementing the national agenda which we all know; which has nothing to do with the issues that are being hammered into our heads as the real issues at stake.
We must refuse to be told that we cannot get there without the involvement of some foreigners or our former colonial masters.
We want to live comfortable lives and if not us, then let whatever we do give assurance to our progeny that they will lead better lives and this, not through the debts we accrue on their behalf, but through the national estate that we are able to build.
There must be evidence that the national cake is expanding and not dwindling.
I have enjoyed Dr Tafataona Mahoso’s series on common sense in dealing with our economic situation.
He is right in saying that we must discuss the things that affect us in a language we all understand instead of mystifying them in guild-like jargon.
If it affects me, then you cannot hide it from me through some ‘technical’ gobbledygook.
Those who want to lead us must be prepared to be our servants all the way, while we who are governed must be able to keep them on their toes — accountable at all times.
Let each one of us be our brother’s keeper.