By Evans Mushawevato
Recently in Tshwane, South Africa

THE statement “long live dead Rhodes” made in a speech at the Union Buildings, in Tshwane, during a historic State Visit to South Africa by President Robert Mugabe aptly captured the prevailing sentiment among ordinary South Africans.
It is a sentiment best described by renowned writer the late Chinua Achebe, describing the effects of colonisation, he wrote; “despite the significant changes that have taken place in the last four or five decades, the wound of centuries is still a long way from healing”.
Before President Mugabe landed south of the Limpopo River, a wave of protests against colonial relics in the form of statues of imperialists had begun and after his visit it goes on.
The statues issue in South Africa is a people going back to the agenda of their liberation struggle.
On the bringing down of statues that represent apartheid heroes, particularly Rhodes, President Mugabe said; “you may have the statue because that’s where he began, but he came to us and wanted to be buried and we have him down, down below in Matopos…I say to my people, let’s let him down, down there.
“That is history now, From Cecil Rhodes from the lot of the others and now we have our own people, we have President Zuma here, we have President Mugabe, that’s what you fought for.
“I say you, all of you whose parents were with us and you who were born of those parents, I hope you are freedom fighters by birth and if you are freedom fighters by birth, I hope you will support us.”
South Africa is the second largest economy in Africa, a member of the BRICS which is challenging western hegemony.
But blacks in South Africa, which has a population of 42,28 million blacks, 4,60 million whites and six million other races, are not happy.
Blacks remain on the margins of the economy whose GDP as of 2013 stood at US$350 billion.
Blacks are not in control of the vast natural resources, which include minerals such as platinum and diamonds that drive the economy.
The SADC chairman emphasised the need to be in total control of resources.
“The African resources belong to Africa,” he said.
“Others may come to assist us as our friends and allies, but no longer as colonisers and oppressors. No. No longer as racists. Apartheid is gone, I hope you buried it down as we did Rhodes.”
At the banquet hosted in his honour by President Zuma, President Mugabe called on increased unity between the two nations to thwart forces of imperialism.
“These forces have an insatiable appetite for our natural resources and are devoid of respect for human life and dignity,” he said.
“We must remain united if we are to thwart the machinations of these evil doers who sugar-coat the dagger with which they intend to shred the African to pieces, so they can plunder his wealth.”
President Mugabe, who is also Chairman of the African Union, said the solution to challenges facing the continent lay in countries cooperating at all levels.
“In this globalised world, characterised by the growing marginalisation of developing countries in the global economy and body politic, it is prudent for our countries to engage, at all levels, in various for a, so we can assess the challenges threatening the consolidation of our gains,” said President Mugabe.
“As we share experiences, we will be able to adopt strategies that respond adequately to these challenges.
“They employ a wicked concoction of threats and bribery to try and keep us cloistered in offices, while they roam our rural areas, conducting feasibility studies on our extinction. But, comrade President, they will not succeed: the African is awake and is guarding his patch.”
Twenty-one years later in a free South Africa education is easily accessible and graduates are demanding opportunities previously denied them.
“We want integrated systems, transformed and highly developed. But systems that are now in your control, in your hands, the hands of Africans,” said President Mugabe.
Speaking during a South Africa-Zimbabwe Business Conference President Zuma expressed the aspirations of his country.
“If we worked hard to bring about political freedom I think it is their turn (the young) to work hard to bring about economic freedom,” he said.
President Robert Mugabe was evidently moved as he sat at a forward-tilt listening intently.
“President Mugabe is paying attention and not exhibiting the attitude that President Zuma is preaching to the already converted that is important,” said a South African banker, Dumiso Ndlongwane.
“We are now free, we are skilled why can’t we change Africa. One of the things we should not be shy about is to use our political power to economically empower ourselves that means Cde President (Mugabe) our definition of democracy must be realistic, it must not be sentimental,” said President Zuma.
“The principles of democracy and open everything must not be used to chain us to perpetual subjugation, we must liberate ourselves no one is going to do so (for us) except us.
“Young people must bare this in mind that the black people all over the world are subjected to difficulties even in the most democratic countries or countries that declare to be leading democracies a black person can be murdered by the police in the public,” he said.
The South African President hinted that more bold moves would be taken to ensure economic empowerment of the impoverished.
“I am saying that political power…if you don’t use it, it will be used against you, you must be bold, be correct, be effective for the sake of the suffering people,” he said.
“You can’t say democracy is the rule of the majority and be in the middle of it and don’t use the majority and you who are in the majority looks like you are in the minority, very shy to take decisions that change the lives of our people because you are going to be given all the names, be given all the names but do it for your people.
“When people today say there is a growing gap between the rich and poor you will be found to be more on the poor side… you have the parliament make the laws, in many countries we have the majority use the majority and I can tell you if the other people were in the majority they would use it effectively.”
In recent weeks university students have risen against statues that represent the abhorred apartheid era.
“Perhaps they are responding to something that is not external but something deep inside them- a badly damaged sense of self. The psychology of the dispossessed can be truly frightening,” wrote Achebe.