Established 1930 Masvingo poorer without heroines
THE month of August in Zimbabwe is a heroes’ month. The country takes this time to pay tribute to the country’s heroes and heroines, both departed and alive. This year however, the month got a bit too harsh as death became the unpredictable savage it has always been. The country was robbed of three imposing national figures who were all instrumental in shaping the destiny of the country before and after independence.
The country lost Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs Senator Shuvai Ben Mahofa last week and she was laid to rest at the National Shrine last Sunday.
It also lost Cde George Rutanhire who was buried yesterday at the National Heroes Acre. And just as it was grieving at the loss with tears yet to dry, it was plunged into mourning again.
Death had struck again. This time it was Mbuya Maud Muzenda, widow to the late Vice-President Dr Simon Vengai Muzenda whose moniker at death was Soul of the Nation who was also interred at the National Heroes Acre.
She passed on at the Avenues Clinic in the capital last Tuesday after battling illhealth for some time. She was declared a national heroine and was also buried yesterday at the National Heroes Acre. She was 88.
Both Senator Mahofa and Mbuya Muzenda were from Masvingo Province’s Gutu district and it is in this light that we grieve with the nation and the people of Masvingo Province in particular who continue to lose their political luminaries.
Indeed President Mugabe’s description of Mbuya Muzenda as an epitome of African motherhood was apt. She was a cistern of wisdom to both the young and old generation and politicians alike having been hardened by the trials and tribulations of single handedly raising a family when her husband was in the nationalistic political front. She had become a mother to the province, to the nation. A humble woman of virtue who despite her political influence remained quite lowly and almost unnoticed.
She was described as strong, inspirational, humble, prayerful and loving among other superlatives. Mbuya Muzenda kept her family intact during the thick of things when her husband was arrested by the settler regime for championing resistance to their rule. Her story can therefore be aptly summed up with the phrase, “the hot war and a warm heart.”
Such a task exposed her to a lot of harassment and sometimes torture which she endured with a determined spirit.
It is evident that the colonial regime in its desperation to break the spirit of the comrades would go for the soft targets such as their wives and children and Mbuya Muzenda was one of them but she refused to dither no matter how strong, brutal and ruthless the forces were.
This showed her strong character and her determination that was derived from appreciating the importance of fighting for freedom. Like the late Cde Sally Mugabe, the late Mama Mafuyane — widow to Cde Joshua Nkomo, the late Cde Victoria Chitepo — who was widow to Cde Hebert Chitepo, Cde Julia Zvobgo who was widow to Cde Eddison Zvobgo, Mbuya Muzenda deserves not only mention but recognition in the league of heroines who spurred the struggle forward through courage and a determined spirit which the colonial regime never succeeded in breaking.
The cruel angel of death has continued to decimate the province’s political elders with reckless abandon making it poorer. The province used to boast of political heavy weights whose wit and intellectualism was a marvel to many.
It used to have the humorous and intellectual political figure in the late Cde Eddison Zvobgo whose wit bordered on his educational exploits and the value of education in general. He was gifted with a razor-sharp mind that was admired across the political divide. He was an electrifying public speaker whose words were contagious.
Then it had the Vice-President Dr Muzenda who like Cde Joseph Chinotimba was the subject of funny political and social jokes. He was a joker himself, easy going, and a father figure who never “took life too seriously” despite his political influence as one of the second-in-charge to the real pinnacle of national political power matrix.
The humility in him was contagious as it also defined his wife’s character. The rural life in him was very stubborn. He liked it and it just refused to go even after subjection and exposure to the world’s ever changing political and technological advancements.
He remained humble and never showed he belonged to the fraternal elite league. His connection with the rural folk where, according to his son Cde Tongai, he would go and buy mice, was just unparalleled.
Another intellectual incarnation of Dr Zvobgo who was more aggressive, scholarly and quite eloquent, ruthless in fact with his mastery of the Queen’s language was historian Dr Stansilus Mudenge who was Foreign Affairs Minister and later Higher and Tertiary Education Minister.
The province also boasted of two senior military men in the late Cde Vitalis Zvinavashe Gava who was the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and the late Air Marshal Cde Josiah Tungamirai as well as former Minister of Finance, the late Dr Samuel Mumbengegwi.
Although a new generation of politicians are emerging in the province as in the country in general, it is all too clear that it will never be the same again after losing the above crop of politicians.