HomeOld_PostsFay Chung sings from same hymn as detractors

Fay Chung sings from same hymn as detractors

Published on

By Shingirirai Mutonho

IN the book Re-living the Second Chimurenga, Fay Chung takes the reader through her experiences during the Second Chimurenga.
Chung joined the liberation struggle in 1973 as a ZANU member when she was staying in Zambia before fleeing to Mozambique after an attempt on her life by the Rhodesian regime.
Being a member of the ZANU PF education department, Chung had the opportunity to visit military camps, where she also served as a teacher in the schools at the camps.
Having lived through the Second Chimurenga, Chung is of the opinion that after independence ZANU PF lost sight of why it had gone to war.
One of the major reasons why the locals had taken up arms against the colonial rule was the issue of land and economic empowerment for the masses.
However, according to Chung the top brass of ZANU PF was bribed by the Rhodesians not to deliver to the people.
“Many Rhodesians realised that it was essential to form alliances across racial lines with new leaders, and they were not slow to do this,” writes Chung.
“Beautiful houses and farms were changing hands……The new leaders were also offered directorships in old established companies. ZANU PF itself was offered a number of such free shares in companies that sought government patronage.”
The writer pushes the notion that ZANU PF lost track of its ideals of empowering the masses opting to enrich themselves.
She writes that between 1980 and 1990 the party concentrated more on transforming itself from a liberation movement into a business conglomerate.
Chung is convinced it was during this era when the party began to engage in corrupt activities.
She writes that ZANU PF leaders were only concerned about empowering their friends and family.
The writer gives an example of how during her tenure as the Minister of Education and Culture in 1988 leaders would recommend that their relatives be given top positions which they did not deserve.
All this she says was done at the expense of deserving ordinary people who had no connections to ZANU PF.
The writer, however, fails to account for the various developmental programmes that were carried out by the party during the same period.
Instead she chooses to paint the black government with an evil brush portraying it as a self-centred party that did not have the interests of the people at heart.
What Chung fails to appreciate about ZANU PF, that she belonged to is that it sought a reconciliatory approach genuinely wanting to accommodate whites, many of whom were professing not to be racists.
The education system prior to independence was meant to equip blacks with the knowledge of how to work for the whites and never to run businesses, let alone a country.
And the new government had to make do with what was available but still it had the best of people having been regarded as the only revolutionary party in Africa that had highly educated guerrillas.
Hence credit should be given to ZANU PF for doing the best they could in ensuring that the ordinary people were taken care of.
Chung does not mention the efforts made by Government in improving the health and the education sectors.
The then Government crafted an education policy that has today made the country possess a high literacy rate than any other country on the continent.
Interestingly instead of praising Government for spearheading the Land Reform Programme, which satisfied the major reasons behind the liberation struggle, Chung criticises the programme.
To her, the programme was a move by ZANU PF to regain popularity.
One would, however, expect that for someone who took part in the Second Chimurenga under the ZANU PF banner, Chung would know that the land issue was one of the reasons why people took up arms.
Surprisingly the writer embraces the lies churned out by the West to try and portray the Land Reform Programme as a devious plot by ZANU PF.
Chung also sings from the same book with the country’s detractors that the programme benefitted top ZANU PF leaders and their relatives.
The writer chooses to ignore the facts on the ground indicating that more than 400 000 households benefitted under the programme.
Chung also uses the book to portray ZANU PF as a violent party.
“The use of violence as a political tool was well entrenched, especially among the poor, for whom violence against the rich was a way of expressing their frustrations,” she writes.
The writer says during the struggle she had witnessed how ZANU and ZAPU had used violence on its opposition even locals.
She goes on to say that violence escalated during the ‘farm takeovers’ in 2000 and during elections.
In as much as Chung now wants to portray blacks as failures in Government, she should realise that the indigenes appreciate what Government has done for them and will not tolerate the coming back of whites into power through their proxies.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading