Let’s celebrate our heroes, living and dead
ZIMBABWE today remembers its national heroes and heroines who selflessly contributed their lives, limbs or properties for the liberation of their fatherland, which is now in the hands of the African people like all other African countries.
The occasion is held annually and appropriate Government officials organise public meetings at selected venues to honour known and unknown, officially recognised as well as what we may term less publicised heroes and heroines of Zimbabwe.
Heroes and heroines are men and women, boys and girls admired for their courage. The words also mean people of outstanding achievements, some of which may be scientific, educational or cultural.
Zimbabwe’s Heroes’ Day is, however, associated exclusively with politico-military achievements associated with the struggle to free the country from colonial oppression.
What we call Zimbabwe today is an African land that according to the 188485 Berlin Conference fell within the British sphere of influence and colonisation. That decision was not based on any moral consideration, historic, ethnic or any other anthropological factor whatsoever.
It was motivated by sheer avarice and racialism to the exclusion of everything that is decent and humane. It was meant to achieve the passionate aspirations of imperialists at their highest level.
That was what the British South Africa Company (BSAC) of Cecil John Rhodes did when it hoisted the Union Jack on Harari Hill on September 12, 1890.
What followed were well calculated measures to expand and consolidate British imperialism in this part of Africa.
Restoring this land to its rightful owners, the Africans, required mammoth courage coupled with unyielding commitment and massive organisational skills.
Having met military setbacks on two occasions, first in 1893 when Rhodes and his British allies defeated King Lobengula by means of better military weapons rather than courage, and, second, in 1896-97, by means of mainly hunger that faced the black people, it became vital for them to employ military tactics that would enable them to choose the best type of weapons to use in a terrain best suited for a war that could be won in their social, cultural, economic and political environment.
That meant a guerrilla war, that is a war whose terrain, battle ground, weaponry, time of conflict are chosen virtually by the guerrilla forces. A guerrilla can pose as a peasant or a pastor at a time of his or her choice, and a deadly armed combatant at some other time that is suitable to him or her.
That is how the country was liberated, by a concerted guerrilla war by both Zipra and Zanla. Zipra was a Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu) military wing, and Zanla that of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu).
It is usually the former guerrilla members of those two political party conflicts that we refer to as heroes or heroines.
We tend to forget at times that a guerrilla army operates successfully only when it is in a supportive community that gives it information about the enemy, shelter from the enemy and inclement weather conditions, gives it food, medicines, clothing, transport, guides it through dangerous geographical localities, advises guerrilla fighters about community members who should not be trusted.
Some members of the community ran risks to help guerrilla fighters, and thus exposed themselves completely unarmed to the enemy. They were untrained people who helped the armed freedom — fighters in one way or another because of their love for their country.
That is what prominent guerrilla warfare experts such as Mao Tse-tung meant when they said ordinary people are to guerrillas what water is to fish.
Guerrillas are the fish and the people are the water.
Many of those ordinary people paid the ultimate price, and deserve public recognition by the nation for which they died. We owe them immeasurable thanks especially because they were not militarily trained and were thus much more vulnerable than trained guerrillas.
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