By Tawanda Chenana
WE, in the village, recall vividly the horrors of the liberation struggle.
And in villages across the country, we are delighted that this year’s independence celebrations were held in one of the hotbeds of the liberation struggle, Mt Darwin.
This year’s celebrations were heartwarming, showing us a proud and patriotic citizenry.
They came in their numbers, from all over the country, and got to experience the land that hosted, sheltered and supported some of the finest among us — brave sons and daughters of the soil.
As Zimbabweans, we should not allow anyone to compromise our beliefs and culture in order to fit into their system.
I cannot help but reflect on a very old post on social media, which read: “They said our hair is kinky, we relaxed it. They said our religions are demonic, we abandoned them.
They said our names sound funny, we now name our children after their saints. They said we are too dark and we started bleaching. How far can we go as Africans to fit in their world?”
I am happy Zimbabweans are finding their way, directed by their values seeking not to fit in foreign agendas.
Woe unto those seeking to smuggle in foreign agendas.
The Western system was never meant to serve African people.
Incidents perpetrated by the colonialists and their kith and kin, who are now rabid proponents of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ are still etched in the memories of our people.
The people in Mt Darwin will never forget how they lost loved ones, livestock and guerillas they cared for.
Forty-three years later, though some wounds remain and will never heal, we have every reason to celebrate — our successes are a balm.
Celebrating in Mt Darwin is us emphasizing that we are moving forward fully aware of where we are coming from.
Rhodesian propagandists always try to immortalise themselves by killing our heroes and prophets in their writings, while we do nothing about it.
But descending into Mt Darwin in our thousands is a message that we remember and will never forget our heroes in that particular area and everywhere else in the country.
Mt Darwin is an indisputable truth for our posterity, a citable permanent script about what happened to us.
The hundreds of bodies found at Chibondo, buried deep in mine shafts during Rhodesia’s reign of terror, is hardly mentioned when the world speaks of genocide and in books on African history.
But we remember and will never forget.
Forty-three years down the line, we celebrate but with the realisation that we still have another struggle on our hands — a fight for total economic independence.
So important is this war that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is pushing and supporting rural industrialisation.
We must now fight for the right to freely manage our own affairs from the grassroots without impediments such as the illegal economic sanctions imposed on us by the US and her allies.
We have to fight against hunger, poverty and underdevelopment and our Government is fully supporting us.
We must fight against accepting that our path has to be the second best and solutions to our problems must come from elsewhere other than us.
The gathering in Mt Darwin shows that there is nothing wrong with our motivation and focus as a people.
Zimbabweans are not just a people wanting to please the outside world; streamlining themselves to better serve international capital.
Every policy enunciated and project completed proves that we are a people focused on becoming more than servants, compliant and acquiescent junior partners in the exploitation of our human and natural resources.
We are investing our time and effort not to become a giant servant of international capital but a fully self-determining people.
The most quoted passage from the US Declaration of Independence reads:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
As we celebrate our own independence and ongoing development efforts, it will be remiss of me not to mention that though Americans declare there is a God who gave each person rights that included life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they are frustrating our quest for the same.
Apparently blacks, Indians and to some extent their poor and womenfolk are not classified as ‘men’, considering how they are treated, up to now.
And our 43rd Independence Anniversary can teach the Americans one or two things with regards to leaving no-one and no place behind.
Men might be created equal, but the US government has denied them that equality and it is not the rights of all that are guaranteed and protected, but the rights of the wealthy few.
In Zimbabwe, we all have been given the opportunity to thrive; the Second Republic has been increasingly responsive to the public interest, not special interests.
