The birth of a nationalist leader
Last week, we published excerpts of Professor Ngwabi Bhebhe’s biography of National Hero Dr Simon Muzenda, focusing on the late Vice-President’s early life. Below is the second part of that biography which The Sunday Mail is serialising as part of commemorations to mark the 13th anniversary of Dr Muzenda’s death.
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MUZENDA returned home from South Africa in December 1949 to start a family and to make a lasting contribution to the raising of African political consciousness.
At the age of 27 years, Muzenda was old enough to get married and his travels that had taken him to South Africa had sufficiently exposed him to life’s usual and perhaps unusual temptation to provide him with a solid basis for making a life commitment to one girl.
The woman was Maud Matsikidze, with whom he had fallen in love at Gokomere School.
She was now employed at Kadoma hospital as a qualified nurse and at all times the two lovers had kept their love burning through letters.
Just before he left South Africa, Muzenda advised Maud to resign her job in preparation for their marriage. Muzenda sent his uncle to pay marovoro (bride price).
Apparently, the approach taken by the Muzendas did not comply with Maud’s father’s Methodist practices and therefore upset their in-law, who then initially refused to have anything to do with them.
The Muzendas, rather confused by the reaction, interpreted the strange behaviour of their in-law to-be to mean that since he was wellto-do, as he owned a farm, and as they were of humble means, he was probably opposed to the proposed match.
Maud’s uncles and younger brothers of her father, who were themselves not Methodist but DRC members, interceded, pointing out that the Muzendas had followed what was considered normal in the Dutch Reformed Church.
With the clash of religious traditions resolved, the next problem to be solved was the amount of the marovoro.
The colonial government’s regulations stipulated that the marovoro should not exceed four head of cattle or 20 pounds.
But the Matsikidzes demanded 10 head of cattle or their equivalent of 50 pounds.
The transaction had to receive the white marriage officer’s approval.
The magistrate, who was the marriage officer, advised Muzenda that he was free to pay, but should remember that, should the marriage fail, he could only claim back from his in-law 20 pounds or four head of cattle.
Muzenda, who was deeply in love with his sweetheart, readily accepted the conditions and paid the 50 pounds.
They received their civil marriage certificate and celebrated their union with a Christian wedding at Gokomere, their old school, in January 1950.
They followed this with a colourful celebration and reception at Simon’s father’s home at Zvavahera.
After the wedding, the young couple shocked the rustic community when Simon asked his bride to dress up in his long trousers and shirt (like a man) and they walked down to the local river hand in hand!
Clearly, Muzenda was signalling his advent as the one come to destroy old Rhodesia and its outmoded way of life and to build on its ashes new Zimbabwe.
It would not take him the biblical metaphor of three days, but from 1950, it would take him three decades!
Throughout the protracted marriage negotiations, Simon and Maud remained together in Gutu.
Once they tied the knot, the husband left his wife for three months to go and look for a job in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s then commercial and industrial hub.
Being a well-known communist sympathiser and participant in other anti-colonialist associations whilst in Cape Town and Durban, Muzenda avoided government jobs.
He secured a job with Modern Furnitures, before moving to Plywood Products.
By the time he left Bulawayo in 1955, he had established himself as an independent entrepreneur with his own carpentry work in Barbourfields.
His wife joined him in April 1950, and since they still did not have accommodation of their own, they lived with his brother Davison and his wife, also a nurse, in Barbourfields.
Simon and Maud eventually got their own house, Number 11 Barbourfields.
Others who were in the same township were Joseph Msika, the future Vice President of Zimbabwe and then a budding nationalist, renting at Number 64 Barbourfields; and Alick Tikili, a political ally of Muzenda during those days at Number 16 Barbourfields.
Muzenda made his political debut in 1951 when he was elevated to the post of the Secretary General of the British African National Voice Association, whose Organising Secretary was the redoubtable and legendary Benjamin Burombo.
The Voice was a national political and economic pressure group, claiming to have 44 branches throughout the country. However, it was strongest in Bulawayo itself, Matabeleland, Midlands and parts of Masvingo.
After the 1948 national strike, during which Burombo played a leading role, the Voice Association began losing influence in the urban areas, including Bulawayo.
But it seemed to grow in strength in the rural areas, where it opposed the mass relocations of peasants, who were being forcibly removed from their lands in order to make way for demobilised British war veterans of World War II.
On March 24 to 26 1951, the association invited chiefs, headmen and representatives of its 44 branches in Bulawayo for a Congress to discuss, among other things, African rural and urban grievances, to also elect office bearers and to draw up a petition to the British Governor of Southern Rhodesia.
The petition was to ask the Governor to restrain the Minister of Native Affairs and his haughty and arrogant officials “from unnecessary interference with the African people” in regard to their land, livestock and other matters “affecting the daily lives of the people.
It was at this Congress that Muzenda was elected the Secretary General of the Voice Association.
To be considered for the post of Secretary General, aspirants had to enter into a competition which involved the writing of minutes, and the person who h had the best set of minutes would be considered for the post.
In the event, Muzenda competed with George Nyandoro, another budding and fiery nationalist, and another young man from Zaka.
Muzenda’s minutes were voted the best and he made it for the post.
George Nyandoro was his deputy and Patrick Makoni, an independent transport operator, became the president.
As Muzenda admits, the political approach of the organisation was reformist, pleading with the white rulers to minimise their oppressive practices and measures.
They pleaded with the white rulers to stop the massive de-stocking of African cattle, to stop compelling people to construct contour ridges for soil conservation, and to stop mass removals of people from their lands to make way for white war veterans.
Participation in the politics and leadership of the Voice Association was only one of Muzenda’s initiatives in Bulawayo.
Yet another line he pursued with a large measure of success was the urban politics of Bulawayo through the Advisory Board
The history of the Advisory Board in Bulawayo dated back to 1940 when the City Council decided to constitute an advisory board in Makokoba or the Old Location.
The election of Muzenda to the Advisory Board, in addition to his influential position of Secretary General of the Voice Association, one of the biggest African organisations in the country, made him one of the most influential African leaders in the city and in the country at the time.
In the Advisory Board, he was in the company of Bulawayo socialites and of the “more prosperous section of the urban African community”, people who shaped African public opinion in Bulawayo, if not the country.
Thus one of the lasting contributions to the raising of the Bulawayo African residents’ conscious- ness was Muzenda’s spearheading and launching of the Rent Payers Association.
That he was at the core of its formation was in no doubt.
For its launching immediately brought him into a confrontation with the supercilious and notorious Native Commissioner du Plessis, who had been one of the ringleaders in the fraudulent robbery of Muzenda’s people’s cattle in Gutu in 1938.
(Muzenda remembered) how the Native Commissioner hauled him over hot coals for not obtaining prior permission before forming the association and how stubbornly he stood his ground.
As Muzenda recalled: “At that time Africans were not free to form associations and whenever they needed to do so they had to apply for permission from the Native Commissioner. But I decided to form the Bulawayo Tenants’ Association. “I just went ahead... “I was summoned by the NC to his office for questioning. I went in a pair of short trousers and when I got to his office he demanded to know, ‘Are you Simon Muzenda?’ and I said, ‘Yes’.
‘Are you the one causing problems here?’ I replied that I wasn’t causing any problems. Then he asked, ‘Who gave you the permission to form this Barbourfields Tenants Association?’
“I replied that I did not need anyone’s permission, but what I might have needed to do, I told him, was to inform him about our existence as an association. But in the event I found it unnecessary because it was published all over the newspapers. He insisted, ‘You should get permission from us.’
“I told him that there was
no
such regulation. In the end no action was taken against me and that gave courage to other people to form their own associations. Barbourfields Tenants Association grew rapidly thereafter. ”
Muzenda made further lasting contributions to the City of Bulawayo as a conscientious member of the Advisory Board.
The first item Muzenda contributed to the agenda concerned the social and economic interests of the well-to-do residents of the townships.
He wanted the City Council to provide the necessary facilities for Africans to start businesses and he wanted members of the Advisory Board exempted from some provisions of the Urban Areas Act.
In his second item on the agenda, Muzenda called on the City Council to give bursaries to at least 10 township children who got the best results in their Standard VI final year examinations.
Muzenda had been one of the two best students at Domboshava, but had been frustrated in his passion to pursue higher education by lack of money, to the extent of giving up his academic studies at Mariannhill. He did not want that to happen to more bright African children.
Indeed, the Chairman of the Board, Councillor McDonald, replied that the Council had no authority to grant bursaries to any- body, but that it might consider raising such funds from African Beer sales.
In the November 1952 meeting, just before the Board adjourned for elections, Muzenda again returned to his theme of bursaries for African children.
He now asked Council to come up with 10 bursaries for African children.
After some discussion, the Board resolved to go along with Muzenda’s motion that the Council be asked to provide 10 bursaries for Bulawayo children to pursue approved post-Standard VI studies, including industrial training.
The Bulawayo bursary scheme was perhaps Muzenda’s greatest contribution to the development of that City’s social conscience and it emanated from someone who was deeply aware of the anguish of being denied an education because of poverty. Over the years, many a child, including grown-ups, some of whom have risen to prominence in Zimbabwe, have benefited from the fruits of Muzenda’s far-sightedness.
But Muzenda was less successful in the second aspect of his passion, the building of schools, which was also his third item on the February 1952 Board meeting’s agenda.
He urged the Council to build schools for Africans, but was told that the Council had no such authority.
Muzenda relocated to Mvuma in the Midlands in 1955.
By then the Muzendas had been blessed with three children.
The first were girl twins, Tsitsi Muchapedzei and Tariro Virginia, who were born on October 17, 1950.
Their next sister, Tendayi Victoria, followed them on March 19, 1953. The twins were born prematurely and it was fortunate that Mrs Muzenda was then a nurse at Mpilo General Hospital.
She was able to nurse them in the hospital for three months until they were ready to survive normally and outside incubators.
In terms of achievements, Muzenda could look back to the Bulawayo City Council’s bursary scheme, the Nguboyenja Post Office, the Social Centre, the Rent Payers’ Association, the Chamber of African Traders, and many other developments, as things he had spearheaded or helped to bring about through or outside the Advisory Board.
All these things he had achieved when he was just turning 30.
When Muzenda left Bulawayo in 1955, he was not as yet a nationalist leader, but he had demonstrated to his colleagues his great potential to become one.