LAST week on October 28 2015, an illustrious son of Zimbabwe unveiled his gift to Zimbabwe, something he has been working on for several years.
Rtd Brigadier-General Dr Felix Ngwarati Muchemwa presented us with his book The Struggle for Land in Zimbabwe 1890 – 2010, the last nail in the coffin of white intransigence and their black lackeys who lie about and denigrate the reason for the First, Second and Third Chimurenga.
The story of his life, from the time he joined the liberation struggle in 1977, spells an incredible ethos, the ethos yevanhu vakada Zimbabwe, kudakara simba rapera mukufa.
It is a strange ethos to many today, an ethos they would rather put aside and pretend never happened.
The reason: it is the ethos that threatened Rhodesia and exploded it, sending the once arrogant white brigands scrambling for cover and begging for a forum to craft dignified terms of surrender.
It is a very ‘strange’ ethos, an unwelcome one, because it threatens the self-aggrandisement that takes place in so many public and private sectors today, the greed and grabbing that goes on oblivious of the truth that everything Zimbabwe has belongs to all its people equally and that this truth was underwritten by the sacrifice, suffering and death of thousands.
It is an unwelcome ethos because it is the unwritten code of conduct not just for the leaders, but for all Zimbabweans who love their country and honour the sacrifice of the liberation struggle.
Because this unwritten code spells out that it is immoral and unethical to benefit far above everyone else, so many people are upset with the liberation struggle.
It makes them so angry because it is an indictment against their refusal to live a life that serves the people of Zimbabwe, a life of humility and self-sacrifice in honour of the ideals people suffered and died for.
They are so angry, they try so hard to trash the liberation struggle.
Some say it never brought Zimbabwe, we should be grateful to the Lancaster House negotiations.
Others say they were rogues who brutalised the masses and others say they were good-for-nothing rapists.
They say schoolchildren never volunteered, they were abducted and some have concluded they were not freedom fighters at all, but terrorists.
But these lies, this defamation melts faster than dew when the sun that is the life of such an illustrious son of Zimbabwe, Cde Felix Muchemwa, hits the horizon, the life of the 32-year-old, who after qualifying as a medical doctor at Birmingham University in England, and having been subsequently appointed lecturer at the same institution and being married for only three weeks, abandoned all to answer the call to be part of the armed struggle for Zimbabwe’s liberation.
People tell you today, “not to over romanticise the struggle”.
Can anything be more romantic than the story of this 32-year-old medic who left all the luxury of life as an elite in England, to face abject poverty in the struggle, to stare death in the face for the sake of his country?
This is the ultimate!
Young Muchemwa followed in the footsteps of Herbert Chitepo, our first ever African lawyer, and Tichafa Parirenyatwa, our first ever medical doctor who gave it all up for the struggle and paid the ultimate price.
They were both murdered by the Rhodesian bandits who knew the two embodied their nemesis, the indestructible ethos of dying for others.
Cde Muchemwa too could have died.
At Chimoio, a Rhodesian bomb struck the ambulance he had been in a minute after he had disembarked.
We shall say providence had other tasks for him, this book too: The Struggle for Land in Zimbabwe 1890 – 2010.
It is a strange ethos that riles so many because it challenges the notion that life is a search for power and privilege.
It is an ethos which says life is about love and sacrifice for others.
It is the ethos of all those who gave themselves up as sacrificial lambs for Zimbabwe.
And because of this ethos, after liberation, the combatants did not say: Let us distribute among ourselves the millions of hectares which the whites took since it is us who wielded the gun that defeated them.
They never said: Now all the mines should belong to us, all the gold claims should be ours because we are the fighters who defeated the white robbers.
They never said: All the jobs should be ours, neither did they say all the ministerial posts should be ours.
They came home and they are at peace living humble lives.
It was never about ‘me’, it was for others, for Zimbabwe.
It is a strange ethos indeed.
When they finally championed the Third Chimurenga, it was not for self-aggrandisement.
It was to complete the war they had fought and this opened the door to nearly half a million Zimbabwean families to own their land.
This ethos threatens the very heart of capitalism because it embraces everybody.
This is why there is a vicious struggle to ensure that this ethos is not given a place in our schools curriculum.
It is an extremely dangerous ethos.
The potential of Zimbabwe would be magnified a trillion times if we taught our youngsters to be loving of and dedicated to Zimbabwe, in the footsteps of Muchemwa, Chitepo, Parirenyatwa, Robert Mugabe and others.
There is nothing we wouldn’t achieve.
Zimbabwe would be light miles away from where we are today.
The truth is that it is not about money.
The popular excuse in Zimbabwe today is that there is no money.
Is there no money, or there is no love, no caring?
So few achieved so much with so little.
The comrades had nothing, but like the Biblical widow who gave her all, they gave their everything.
The Mozambicans who hosted us (ZANLA) had very little, but they gave us their love which made them share the little they had with us even before they had completed the liberation of their own country.
They accepted to be vulnerable because of us.
It is a ‘strange’ ethos but it is the most potent of all because it is indestructible, it does not fear death, it shields what it loves with its very life.
Fear of death did not deter Mbuya Nehanda, neither did death destroy her.
Thousands others followed in her footsteps, and this most auspicious day, October 28 2015, one of these chronicles the armed robbery of the land she was murdered for.
You have run the mile Cde Muchemwa.
Thank you for embodying this ‘strange’ ethos, the most potent of all.
Aluta continua!
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.