THE late Retired Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku defended the revolution: Are we defending the revolution?
Saka tinoti isu, mapfupa aVaHerbert Chitepo akamuka. Havana kurova. Gamba guru iri, VaChidyausiku, rakashingisa nokurwira zvakasiiwa zvadzidziswa naVaChitepo, zvokuti bumbiro rehondo yedu yeChimurenga raiva reivhu.
So it is not just about knowledge and skills, but knowledge and skills to serve. It is about which side of the fence you are on; of your people or of the few who benefitted from white privilege and can sit on top of the rest.
Anthony Gubbay went to law school, so did Comrade Chidyausiku; the major difference between the two is the side of the fence on which each stood. Chidyausiku stood for the masses, the goals of the liberation struggle, restoration of their land, while Gubbay stood for white privilege.
It is their ideological axis which was diametrically opposed.
When we train lawyers, doctors, nurses and soldiers, among others, the fundamental issue is on which side do we train them to stand; on the side of the people of Zimbabwe, the broad masses, or the privileged few?
It is the ideological axis of the curriculum in which we train them which is of ultimate importance.
Do we train our lawyers to be like Chitepo and Chidyausiku or Gubbay, who defended white privilege.
Do we train our nurses and doctors to be like Tichafa Parirenyatwa, do we train our soldiers to be like Josiah Tongogara?
Those who are involved in developing curriculum for any level of education and training have to acquit themselves correctly on this issue.
In Zimbabwe today, we live under a deluge of misappropriation of information. Whichever way you turn, we are demonised for standing for the truth.
Stalwarts like Comrade Chidyausiku were not daunted by such, but too many times we let something that is so untrue fester among us, for lack of will power, for lack of ideological clarity, for the ‘peace’ of burying one’s head in the sand like an ostrich, may be, but certainly it is not a position that defends us or our heritage Zimbabwe.
When you listen to the other voice and not your own, you will never be at peace. When people talk of the land liberation with disdain, they are not being true to the struggle. Muchemwa (2015) chronicles the jambanja by which whites took land from the Africans, but that process is legitimised in the popular discourse, and those who sought to correct this evil by the whiteman are demonised as land grabbers, as violent and unruly.
It is amazing how the truth can be manipulated,
You talk of land-grabbing, who grabbed whose land?
The war veterans are associated with violence and lawlessness. What is lawless when you have conquered and liberated what was once robbed of you with extreme violence and callousness?
When a whole village wakes up in the morning, cleaning, cooking, sending off their children to school, working in the fields, and the shepherds take out the flocks, children are playing, mothers are suckling their babies, and those heavy with child are anxiously awaiting the moment of delivery, toddlers are learning to walk gingerly, nursing each new step and babies are sleeping quietly on their mothers’ backs, others are marrying and giving in marriage and from nowhere the demon raises its ugly head.
From the blue, lorries come to ferry them to an unknown destination. There were no homes there, they had no fields there, they had to discover where to get water, they had to build new homes and what was still in the fields they left.
This is what happened to hundreds of families throughout Zimbabwe. The late Alexander Kanengoni’s family was among the many, many families dispossessed of their lands in this heartless manner.
This is the most heartless and callous way to treat another human being — it is something totally indefensible.
The trauma of being treated so infernally, as being totally worthless, totally undeserving of human consideration qualifies for the International Criminal Court except that we really do not have an ICC but a Kangaroo court to punish African leaders who dare to question the West.
The way the land was grabbed from the people of Zimbabwe was a most heinous crime.
If such could be done and people fought to destroy it, went through a bitter war in which thousands perished to end this, and still today in Zimbabwe voices are heard insisting that to end this evil, to end this total dehumanisation of our people is violent and lawless, if there are still voices which say that the white way was orderly; the way he butchered thousands to take our land, the way he tormented thousands of families to take away their land is normal and acceptable, then Zimbabwe has so many tears still to shed. She cannot rest, she cannot be at peace.
Mazwi iwawa akangomirira chete kuti akawana mukana adzorere nyika kuvarungu, kuvapambevhu.
These voices claim that there is no violence in marshalling a force of armed bandits, convicts, mercenaries, coming all the way from England to take away what belongs to others by force of guns?
Was there no violence in massacring all those thousands between 1893 and 1897?
Was there no violence in refusing to give the land back to its owners from 1897 through to 1963 when its owners had to take the harsh decision to take up arms?
Was there no violence in embarking on an unjust war against those who were fighting to reclaim what was theirs, their God-given land; in unleashing a cruel and lethal machinery against unarmed civilians here at home and in Mozambique and Zambia for the reason that they dared to stand for the truth that Zimbabwe is theirs?
Was there no violence in refusing to pay for the land as they had agreed to at Lancaster House as part of their terms of surrender?
Was there no violence in such intransigence when the people of Zimbabwe had already paid such a heavy price at their hands?
Was there no violence in them and their European and American kith and kin imposing sanctions against us for taking back our land, land for which they had killed thousands, land we had conquered and liberated with our own blood, land which never belonged to them but which they had robbed us of with the power of guns?
So there is justice in all this?
So all this is lawful and non-violent?
There was no violence in sponsoring puppets to topple the Government and leadership the sovereign people of Zimbabwe had chosen for themselves, in order to reverse the repossession of our land. There is justice in this? There is no violence in this?
So after all this, your conclusion is that it is the war veterans who were cruel, heartless and violent and not the British armed robbers and that there was nothing so special in taking back the land?
Zvivhunze paugere ipapo, vose vakafira ivhu irori unovabhadara nei?
Thus, for some to take the pen, to go on the airwaves and over cups of tea or glasses of beer to jeer at and deride the repossession of our land as violent, lawless and land grabbing is sacrilegious.
We are not violent but we ended the violence of those who took what was ours by force of arms.