THIS picture depicts the cruelty of the Rhodesian colonial regime.
The heartless Rhodesian is holding an African baby as if it’s a toy.
It captures the cruelty of the Rhodesians which our young seem to be so oblivious of as evidenced in their sometimes reluctance to credit the story of Zimbabwe, the story of our struggle.
Nhoroondo dzehondo yeChimurenga are not there primarily to glorify any particular individuals, but to glorify the love and sacrifice that ended something so evil, an ideology that condemned us to never be a people, but the hunted and destitute in the land of our birth.
Sometimes our young, the post liberation generations those who are now in their mid-30s and below, when they hear about the armed struggle, their reaction is: “zvakapfuura let’s move on with our lives.
“Vanoda kunamatwa here macomrades?
“After all it was a voluntary sacrifice, vanoda kutendwa kusvika rini?”
There are a few things that need to be clarified for our young so that they can have a correct perception on this whole issue:
For the Rhodesians to massacre thousands of people, at Chimoio, Nyadzonia, Mukushi and other places in and outside Zimbabwe, they were protecting something crucial to them.
Their kith and kin in Europe and South Africa supplied them with military hardware.
French Mirage jets bombed fighters, mothers, fathers, grandparents and children alike, napalm bombs cooked the flesh of the victims in temperatures 10 times the boiling point of water, 1 000 Celsius.
They wanted to ensure that the resources of Zimbabwe would be at their disposal in perpetuity.
For this they were prepared to commit genocide.
To them it was best if there were no people in this rich beautiful land, it was most desirable, but unfortunately for them, the divine designated this land for a particular people, we Zimbabweans, and no-one else, from the Zambezi to the Limpopo, it was no accident nor was it incidental.
This is what it was all about, the British coveted this rich beautiful land and had no compunctions about taking it and keeping it by committing mass murders from 1890 to 1979.
The people of this land claimed what was theirs and this presented problems to the looters, the British fortune hunters and so they were killed in their thousands, for what was indisputably theirs.
To purport that this history can be swept under the carpet, is to commit to walk blind folded, the result; you fall off the cliff and perish.
Had they had their way, they would have annihilated us as a people.
Now that is not a small matter.
Our young people have to understand this.
If they say leave us alone to carry on with their lives; which lives?
There is no life without Zimbabwe.
How can you have a life when you don’t own that which sustains life?
The Rhodesians massacred so many people in order to keep the land and minerals of Zimbabwe in their ownership.
Now for our young to walk away from this and say ‘leave us alone to live our lives’, we want to ask again, which lives?
If you leave your former oppressor in charge of your wealth, do you think he will share it with you or he will be generous to you?
Is that not why he was prepared to commit genocide?
The land and wealth of Zimbabwe are a matter of life and death.
The British did not surrender because of a change of heart, they were booted out and the process was harsh and cruel, they shed the blood of so many Zimbabweans.
Because they did not surrender because of change of heart, but were defeated, it means the struggle continues, but the lion is wounded, beware!
The illegal sanctions which were imposed on us by the British and their allies because we took back our land is ample proof that our ownership of our resources is a matter of life and death.
They imposed these sanctions so that the majority of Zimbabweans should suffer and or die because they dared repossess what was theirs and that which their sons and daughters had already suffered and died for in the war of liberation.
Can injustice have an uglier or more cruel face?
The history of our armed struggle is not a search for personal glory for certain individuals, it is a lesson in what it means to be a people.
You cannot be a people without your own space on the globe, it is not possible.
Without this you have no rights, you have no means of survival even, you are a permanent refugee.
That is why thousands of Zimbabweans from the days of King Lobengula, Mbuya Nehanda to the Second Chimurenga gave up their lives; to preserve their exclusive right to their own space on the globe; that special space and everything in it.
If others were ready to die for this, is it such a small matter then?
They deferred marriage, school, jobs, all the comforts of life, they gave the ultimate sacrifice, then why does it seem so easy for you to walk away?
We teach you about our heroes because it is the only way you can understand what it means to be Zimbabwean.
Zimbabweans are no slaves of any nation, they are a fiercely sovereign people, endowed with an indomitable will which nothing can cow, resplendent with all the values that make a great people, courage, bravery; principled self-sacrificing patriots who can never hesitate to give their lives for their land.
They are a special people.
This is the essence of our heroes, they exuded this special incandescence that is why we honour them.
If our young relegate this priceless jewel to the dustbin, the wolf which is prowling around the homestead scratching the walls and huff-puffing will enter the house once again and will feast on Zimbabwe’s wealth to the exclusion of Zimbabweans; only please don’t allow their bulldozers to overrun our sacred shrines so that your grandchildren may be reminded of the ‘Story of Zimbabwe’ and one day resurrect the Great House of Stone, ‘nokuti mapfupa edu haangarovi zvachose.’
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.