DURING the war of liberation the leaders of the Second Chimurenga sat down and strategised very well how they were going to execute the struggle to get our country back.
In their recruitment of combatants they were fastidious about explaining what it entailed, severe shortages of food, clothing, and medicines, the hazards of living in the bush under the enemy’s constant surveillance and bombardment and ultimately confronting death at the battlefront.
At the rear, they gave the recruits ideological training so that they would have an even deeper understanding of the source of their commitment to free their country. Every single combatant knew precisely that they were going to give up their life for, thus they sang:
“Baba naMai, sarai zvakanaka
tiende kuhondo yokusunungura Zimbabwe
Ropa rangu muchazoriona
Pasi poMureza”
Once the combatants were ready they were put through the actual physical combat training at the end of which they were ready and expert, a formidable combination that distinguished them from the mercenaries and homegrown terrorists recruited by the Smith regime.
“Simithi!
Usaona vana vamai vedu kugara musango
Vanogarira nyika yavo
Kurara mumba, vanongokudawo
Kusevenzawo vanongokudawo
Kuroorawo vanongokudawo
Asi kuti vanogarira nyika yavo”
No reward was sought, no payment, except the freedom of Zimbabwe.
Those who would ever wonder why they ever went to the struggle, would find the answer beneath the Zimbabwe flag.
It is a romantic tale of love for one’s country that surpassed anything one could possess on this earth.
If you found them dancing to Rhumba music at a growth point, you would never guess that these youths had just escaped death by a whisker, you would not believe that they know that death was an ever present reality, you would not know that they carried the weight of Zimbabwe on their shoulders, but they did; Zimbabwe was their very life.
The planning at the rear continued, commanders strategised, Zimbabwe caught fire and in 16 years, the liberation forces brought the British to their knees and Zimbabwe was free.
A nation’s greatest resource are its people.
During the liberation struggle, the greatest resource was the thousands of young men and women who left home to fight.
Today we are no less rich than then, we have millions of children in our schools, captive, whom we can train ideologically and equip with skills to build precisely the Zimbabwe we want.
Our children today are no different from their predecessors who embraced the struggle, fully knowing the hardships involved and that it would cost them their very lives.
We too can recruit the children of today for Zimbabwe’s struggle to end the cultural and economic domination by our former coloniser and its allies.
If each one of these millions are ideologically trained and equipped with the correct knowledge and competencies to carry out this revolution, it means we have millions of combatants, and what can we not achieve?
Cuba eradicated illiteracy in one year when the nation’s youths flooded the countryside to carry out this mission.
It is staggering to imagine what would happen if each Zimbabwean child is taught systematically to love their country the way we were during the liberation struggle, so many problems would be solved.
The seemingly insurmountable problem of dirt and trash all over Harare for instance, would come to an end.
No-one who truly loves and respects this country can litter to the extent that Harare is fast sinking to.
These children outnumber us greatly, if millions of young patriotic Zimbabweans said no to a dirty Zimbabwe, it would be difficult to silence them.
Why are we denying the generations that liberated Zimbabwe their rightful successors?
If a revolution has no successors, it certainly will derail.
When it is complained that the children today are purposeless, almost dysfunctional, they are lax, ‘masalala’, of doubtful moral rectitude, the boys plait their hair, that they no longer wish to marry properly, they are prone to easy marriages and easy divorces, they do not dress decently…the fingers are not pointing at them but at the adults.
How do we become expert at pointing out what is not desirable in them?
Children do not grow on trees like oranges and apples, they are raised, whatever is not proper in them points to the adult world.
What do we do with them those 11 years at school?
It is an incredible opportunity to teach them all the correct attitude, values and beliefs.
It is ample time to teach them to love and respect themselves as Zimbabweans, to love their country Zimbabwe, their heritage, to have moral rectitude, to emulate the heroism of those who fought to liberate this country, to look forward to being loving husbands and wives, responsible parents, citizens.
If the correct attitudes, values and feelings are taught for eleven years, we would not fail.
We wonder why they prefer to survive by picking the crumbs that fall from the table of the capitalists rather than being masters of their own.
There is enough land in Zimbabwe for each child to learn the basic law of human existence, that labour is the source of all wealth.
We want an economy based on a culture of productivity, hard work, and entrepreneurship, but where in the school curriculum are we teaching this.
The state of Zimbabwe can afford to raise heirs who grow up eating the chickens they raise on the school farm, the potatoes they have grown, the salad made of the cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes they produce, the green mealies and the sadza from the maize they grow so that at the end of the 11 years they graduate with pride as masters of the hoe and the pen.
The missionaries have successfully practised this for many years, so did the Zimbabwe Foundation for Education with Production, but why has this not caught on in a land that was liberated at such great cost?
Without the correct ideological training of each Zimbabwean child, the skills taught in the schools will continue to have no meaning, a few of the children will join the ever shrinking capitalist net while more and more will join mushika-shika.
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.