Munhamu Pekeshe

THIS year is a golden jubilee for many memories African.
Not least being that 1963 is the year the first born in our family, vaManyoni was born.
She has grown up to be a true daughter of the soil.
Identifying with its struggles, rivers, herbs, you name it. Fiercely independent, she excelled in school sports before sacrificing a career in the trappings of white servitude to serve the struggle as a chimbwido of repute.
Some of her friends went to town to become nannies.
A few ‘lucky ones’ went further with their education and later served the white economy from executive offices.
At independence she married a war front colleague, a union that allowed her to remain her own boss as a cross-border trader.
Today she is a cultural activist seeking answers to Zimbabwe’s spiritual disconnect.
She has also become a new farmer and activist of the struggle to give due reward to those that toiled and sacrificed for the Zimbabwe we are enjoying today.
These include her late husband whom we planted back into his dear Zimbabwe soil a few years before war veterans were vetted.
She explains to any who care to listen, the illogic of not recognising her as a war widow when the same system paid her late husband demobilisation allowance.
She acknowledges the late husband has continued to fight battles from the grave.
Two of her children, who are technically not dependents of a war veteran, have been recipients of the Presidential Scholarships to South African universities.
Don’t they say lightning only strikes once in the same place? Bitterness against bureaucracy aside, Manyoni has every reason to celebrate the fruits of a well lived 50 years.
She is unlikely to even realise this age mark unless I or my nephews and nieces remind her.
The maturing memories will likely remain bottled until earthly disposal becomes due.
Will they ever make it to the archives?
I wonder.
The year 1963 is also the year a soccer team I have grown to dislike since 1979 was formed.
This team, Dynamos, became a second religion for my late father.
He lived and worshipped the Dynamos story.
But 1979 was the year a much smaller team CAPS Rovers (now United) made a loud arrival on the local soccer scene.
They stole my heart and I have been with them ever since.
It is ironic then how CAPS United should this year be the reason for real Dynamos golden jubilee celebrations.
The two points Harare City lost against CAPS United last Sunday handed Dynamos the championship.
But save for the animated hysteria at Rufaro on final whistle nothing seems to suggest that we are in for a golden jubilee fiesta this year.
Can sweet memories so ably captured in archived Herald back pages be so bitter?
I wonder.
Fifty years ago in Highfield a political party that grew into a continental heavyweight on the liberation front was born.
This party, ZANU, became ZANU PF, as part of the Patriotic Front alliance and later ZANU PF under the Unity Accord.
The 50 years walked have been thorny.
Fighting the Rhodesian war machinery and with nothing, but justice on their side, ZANU’s men and women moved mountains.
What Rhodesians dismissed as child’s play in 1966 had by the late 1970s turned most parts of Zimbabwe into ZANU liberated zones.
Enos Nkala, in whose house ZANU was formed, we recently interred at the national shrine.
Also gone are many of his comrades. In their graves they are probably nodding, saluting the fruits of a long and bloody struggle.
Will champagne bottles be popped this year for these bitter sweet memories?
Can the ZANU PF archive inspire these celebrations?
Where is it?
I wonder.
As fate would have it in that same year, 1963, independent African states came together to form the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
This club mobilised material and political support for independence struggles in those parts of Africa then still under white oppressive rule like Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia and South Africa.
Between the Ethiopian capital and the Tanzanian capital the OAU through its Liberation Committee ensured that children who left comfort of homes to fight for a better and free tomorrow were nurtured into patriotic soldiers for social justice.
There were muted celebrations in May to mark this golden jubilee.
The African Union (AU), successor to the OAU, appeared discomforted by the celebrations.
This was entirely not unexpected.
A year before, some of AU’s key members had literally delivered Gaddafi and the Libyan people to the West.
Not easy to pop champagne bottles with hands dripping with blood.
So what will become of the AU’s rich 50 year history?
I am really worried.
Last weekend my sources relayed terrifying things from Brussels.
An International non-governmental organisation (NGO) on archives was holding its annual conference.
The AU’s Archivist presented a sad picture of the organisation’s history archives.
Its manuscripts, capturing the contributions of Africanists from Guinea, Congo, Burkina Faso, Libya, Zimbabwe and many other places could perish for lack of care.
For a start they have no home of their own as they are constantly moved from place to place to make way for ‘more’ important functions of the AU.
This year the Chinese government donated a state of the art building to be the AU home.
No space was found for the archives.
The low point of her presentation was when she reported on a US$10 000 grant from an NGO to help fund a consultancy on rescuing this archive.
My foot!
A US$10 000 grant from NGOs to help rescue the AU archive? Akomaaana!
A state of the art AU Archives is the only justice we can give to the memory of African struggles for freedom.
Until then can we celebrate?
I wonder.