By Davet Muzwidzwa

THE national liberation agenda was consummated between 1890 when the Union Jack was raised at Harava and 1897 when Mbuya Charwe, the medium of the spirit of Nehanda, was brutally murdered by the settlers accused of killing Pollard the Native Commissioner.
This period is the First Chimurenga period which was very successful in a number of ways.
First, it united all the inhabitants and tribes of the beautiful land of Zimbabwe in the process, identifying one common enemy.
Secondly, the First Chimurenga showed that no enemy was greater than the national cause and that winning the battle was not winning the war.
Finally the First Chimurenga war was handed over to future generations as an inheritance of the unfinished business from the outgoing generation.
Zimbabweans present and those to come inherited among other things a war in which a battle was lost with the passing on of Mbuya Charwe, the spirit medium of Nehanda.
Key issues were to be addressed by the coming generations.
Top of the list was the restoration of the land in the hands of the rightful owners.
Second, there was the task of growing the nation into a formidable economic hub taking a leaf from Munhumutapa’s foreign trade policies and strategies that brought the Arabs, the Portuguese and other Asiatics into the Kingdom.
Third, there was a task to convert Zimbabwe from a Kingdom into a Republic with a unique democracy that respected the sanctity of life, self determination and to distribute the national wealth equitably among its citizens.
These three points became the cardinals of the First Chimurenga that were handed over to future generations.
The reawakening of bones began to take place in the 1940s with the formation of mild resistance to white rule.
When conciliatory talks yielded nothing, Zimbabweans in pursuit of the First Chimurenga agenda hardened the position preferring to do exactly what Mbuya Nehanda had handed over at her death, demanding what is rightfully ours.
The First Chimurenga spirit brought in a breed of men and women who were ready to pay the highest price in pursuit of the First Chimurenga grievances.
The resistance that was defeated in battle in 1897, the youth that threw stones in the 1950s and the nationalists most of whom languished in jails and the boys and girls that ran incessant battles in a military campaign against the settlers, the united liberation forces that forged a new dispensation in 1987 all had one thing in common.
They remained focused on the original grievances of 1890-1897.
No new grievances evolved from the ones that were soaked in Mbuya Nehanda’s blood and the rest of the First Chimurenga heroes.
Now that ZANU PF is going to its congress early December, what business is ideal for such a meeting point of the sons and daughters of the land who have remained true and a pride to Nehanda?
In my opinion, at this congress ZANU PF should craft an agenda like the one crafted by Nehanda in 1897.
How much have we consolidated the land in the hands of the rightful owners?
How much have we empowered our citizens economically?
What nature and form are the counter revolutionary forces taking?
How much have we prepared the coming generations to continue the struggle?
ZANU PF needs to review its structures where the provincial structure is the one tasked with managing structures at the grassroots.
First a provincial structure has no capacity to be everywhere in the province at all times.
As a result some areas will not receive adequate attention.
The provincial organ will resort to begging for resources.
Sometimes they end up begging for resources from incompatible sources like the stories we read from Mashonaland West.
In order to execute its revolutionary programmes well, ZANU PF needs to assess the fluidity of its structures removing bottlenecks.
Between the provincial structure and the party district, there is a missing structure.
If the District Coordinating Committees had challenges, it was the right thing to disband them.
However, leaving a vacuum to be filled by the opposition and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is not benefitting the party in any way.
No party structure is available to monitor the activities of NGOs and opposition in administrative districts and wards.
It will be very important for ZANU PF not to allow succession issues to tear the party apart.
Where succession issues have to be discussed, they must never be in such a way that the outgoing feels insecure from his or her compatriots as is the case where there is alleged under-hands in the party.
An incoming leader will one day be an outgoing leader.
It will be a good thing in ZANU PF if a culture of celebrating the works of the outgoing as well as wishing well the incoming is perpetuated.
ZANU PF should have a culture of celebrating its heroes dead or alive.
Would it not be a landmark resolution if the congress resolves that the next generation of Zimbabwe Dollar should immortalise our fallen heroes starting with Mbuya Charwe, Lobengula to this day.
This ZANU PF Congress is no different from the one that took place in a shuttle way among all Zimbabweans when they resolved to resist hut tax and a whole range of punitive regulations against the Africans by the settler government resulting in the First Chimurenga.
People focused on key challenges and made resolutions against those.
A message to ZANU PF
The issues of 1890 have not changed.
They remain the key issues today with some forces wanting Zimbabwe to retain the colonial set-up where the European is the source of knowledge and wealth, where favoured Africans survive on handouts that give them false wealth. ZANU PF needs to realise that the agenda remains the same, land, economic empowerment and self determination.
Nothing is new at all.
All the detractors of this nation do is to bring in new actors and players in the same match.
When this –player is limping of injuries in the match, they bring in a substitute. Sometimes they substitute the entire team in their resolve to reverse the gains of the revolution.
To the contrary, ZANU PF must never allow to be told to substitute their players by the rival team.
ZANU PF team players must not be seen to take bribes for match fixing as that will amount to betraying the revolution.
Nehanda’s pride is in all of us fulfilling the declaration, “Mapfupa angu achamuka.”
ZANU PF is Nehanda’s declaration yesterday, today and the future.