FREEDOM NYAMUBAYA died on Sunday July 5, at 57; she was barely old enough to die.
Our paths did not cross during the liberation struggle but after independence we worked together on several things related to writing as we were both writers.
For a few years we both were in the executive of the Zimbabwe Writers Union.
Freedom was full of life, she was brave, daring and a hard worker.
Once I met her and she was going to sell her goats to a Harare butcher to raise school fees for her son.
I also admired her determination not to let her publishers get away with murder, she would sell her books directly, locally and abroad, circumventing the red tape which pauperises authors.
She raised a fine son, 19-year-old Naishe, I trust he will make it.
The media has been praising the late comrade for championing the cause of female combatant whom she said was abused during the struggle.
The papers hyped the story, especially the aspect that kuhondo raingova basa rokubhinya vasikana.
Is it correct to summarise the participation of the woman combatant in the struggle down to a mere victim of male abuse?
Is it true to say that the male combatants who perished at the cruel hands of the Rhodesian armed forces were no more than rapists and adulterers?
It is not true and that is why my views and Freedom’s were sometimes divergent on this issue.
My story ‘Ndangariro’, in the book of the same title that I shared with Nyamubaya’s poems, is based on my experiences from the struggle.
Our views are not quite the same.
My short story ‘Ndangariro’ celebrates the romance of two young combatants where love triumphs over the prejudices against combatants which existed, especially soon after independence.
I wrote the story to demystify the view that the liberation war was a celebrated harem in which the female was an object of sexual abuse.
It is the same view popularised by the film Flame, a story which could not be further from the truth of the lives we led during the struggle.
I wanted to share with the family of Zimbabwe the truth about the lives we led during the struggle.
That we remained the sweet girls our mothers raised us to be; that we did not become monsters nor powerless victims of our male counterparts; that during the struggle our romance was deep and intense, a daring act of faith where your loved one ‘went’ anytime.
In the struggle, the rules were very clear, no cohabiting.
If two comrades fell in love and they wanted to live together, they had to register with the commissar as a married couple.
Discipline at the front was enshrined in the eight points of attention which guided the behaviour of combatants kuti:
‘Tisaite choupombwe muhondo yeChimurenga’.
In any war, there were deviants, but this certainly was the norm.
Our parents knew and trusted that the Chimurenga war of liberation was a noble and just war through the conduct of freedom fighters.
It is therefore not true to make Cde Nyamubaya seem preoccupied with the perceived abuse of women in the struggle.
The late Cde Simon Muzenda had four of his children with him in the struggle. Three of them were girls.
Can a father take three of his daughters into a war infested with rapists and adulterers?
Contrary to what many might think, Cde Muzenda’s children lived with everyone else in the camps and his daughter Theresa died in the Chimoio attack in November 1977.
What protected us as females in the struggle was the ethos of the party.
The liberation war was a very grave matter, it would take a party with no conscience at all to recruit thousands of young girls and women and use them as sexual objects in the war.
It would the greatest travesty by anyone purporting to be a liberator.
I went to the struggle starry eyed and I still came back starry eyed.
In the 19 years that I spent in Zimbabwe’s civil service, and seven years teaching at a Zimbabwean university, I have never been treated with as much love and respect as I was during the liberation struggle.
My rights were respected beyond what I have experienced here in Zimbabwe after the war.
The driving force of the Chimurenga war of liberation was sacrificing one’s life for others and that is the ‘greatest love’, it is the ultimate sacrifice.
We hold the memory of the struggle close to our hearts because it is one of the most beautiful moments in our lives and the male combatants with whom we fought side by side are some of the best friends we have.
We, the women of Zimbabwe took the mantle from Nehanda and fought a heroic war and it is for this that we want to be remembered.
To reduce our contribution to sexual objects to satisfy men’s lust is to empty our pearls into the abyss, but that is not possible, because history will absolve us.
Rest in peace Freedom, we remain fighters to the end and deep down you know that our legacy is not that of victims.
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.