Heroes Day: Let’s start creating others

I then asked myself if the Umvukela/ Chimurenga ended and I discovered that we would be lying to ourselves if we think we won the war what we won was a battle a battle of Black man leadership

with much more battles yet to be fought.

It is evident of the Third Umvukela/ Chimurenga, another battle we won with repossession of our land. Ignore the criticism, focus on the principle behind it and the normative it achieved — we won that Umvukela/Chimurenga we have land now.

Be that as it may, it was led by survivors of the Second Umvukela/Chimurenga with those who were still teething in the 2nd battle becoming sponsored critics of it, sadly, being used is being abused they were enemies of progress like some of the men spoken of in history who after enjoying the white man’s coffee decided to take peanut treaty and were easily disposed by the same white man, Some of them “vakatongwa nevanhu” (judged by the masses), through the ballot box of course. The sequence of our battles lost and won affirmed that we have Imvukela/ Zvimurenga a multiplicity of battles for liberations.

Be that as it may, today we face the Fourth Umvukela/Chimurenga the battle of knowledge, commerce, religion and culture. Our liberation from the white man in 1980 is arguably an administrative emancipation where we expelled all white systems of national administration and its follies. We succeeded in de-constructing a management hegemony which created racial socialisation which was premised on Black subjectivity and submissiveness. It is the Black administrators who today have repeatedly chanted a total emancipation from all forms of “whiteness” but to no avail from the subjects of this clarion call.

Us, the liberated have been pilgrims of white monopoly in all our systems and behaviours. We are still religious to ordinances of white knowledge, culture, religion and commerce. At one point I wrote about the hegemony and racism of knowledge — how our institutions of higher learning are distant learning fraternities of Harvard and how complicit and complacent we are to that battle. Well, this is not the article to remind you of that, but my argument is that we have young people who are now fighting that battle and they will win — just like those who fought in the Second and Third Umvukela/Chimurenga.

I strongly believe that they are all heroes worth a mention in the placards of our beautiful nation. I am also convinced that everyone who contributes immensely to any of our Imvukela/Zvimurenga is a hero and one day in our Heroes day memoir we shall mention and document them.

With the current battle undergoing, this year’s Heroes Day, to me and believably, to all of us marked the need to create and remind ourselves that there are more heroes to emerge. At one point, later in life we shall ask ourselves: The champions of the 2nd battle are remembered, what of those who sacrificed their lives in the Third and Fourth Umvukela/ Chimurenga, where are their graves, who are they and when do we mourn or commemorate them? This is the truth and everyone, regardless of your political affiliation will ask themselves and our children will demand answers we cannot give how shaming it will be.

In our quest to build Zimbabwe, let us not forget that we cannot evade the inevitable-death. It is only a fool which thinks that it can buy life with two cups of gaari to satisfy the eternal hunger. They also say, he who thinks death is folklore is like a tortoise which thinks it can sprint — fate will catch up with all of you reading this and you will cease to exist - the existing infrastructure will be full of us and where will our children be? Are we saying they won’t have heroes or they won’t be qualified enough to defend the interests which were created by those before us and by us? What have we done or are doing to inculcate the spirit of resonating with our national interest and identities such that they are not swayed like reeds on a windy day?

Who will be to blame when they fail to defend the fruits of the revolution? Aren’t we to? Should we not create tomorrow’s heroes today; then when? The battle we fight today is commercial, religious, intellectual and cultural and its weapons are different from the 2nd’s and probably the 3rd’s and definitely we have a new set of soldiers, some we will never know their names but some should be documented and they should also have their space which resembles their indelible contribution to yet another won battle Imvukela/Zvimurenga continues. Aluta Continua . . . Follow@mhlanga_micheal