The problem with admiring Rhodesia is
many-fold but I will single out two major ones.
One, that many people think the
Rhodesian regime was defeated by President Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF
alone, which is wrong because it was a collective. It's only that
Mugabe and Zanu-PF have usurped the role of the liberator ahead of
other individuals and parties who also played vital roles in
defeating the Rhodesian regime.
It is true that Zanu-PF has destroyed
the country because of various reasons and especially because they
have claimed the liberation struggle as theirs. It is the liberators'
card which they raise every time things go wrong.
The country does not need going back by
means of admiring Rhodesia. The past does not change the present
neither does it make the future any brighter.
In short, a man who cannot find
solutions to problems but wishes for the past, thinks like an old
woman. (sorry to the feminists).
In which case, Morgan Tsvangirai's
'Rhodesia was better' talk is the worst a man who was enjoying at the
mine while others were dying can say.
The year Tsvangirai talks about –
1975 – was the year when Herbert Chitepo lost his life for the
struggle in Zambia. Maybe, on the morning Chitepo was assassinated,
Tsvangirai was waking up in some single-mother's bed, his throat dry
with hangover from some cheap beer.
It was also at the time when most of
the cadres were in detention across the country. Some were at Khami
prison while others were at Gonakudzingwa at the middle of nowhere in
the game reserve. They had left their families for the struggle while
Tsvangirai had nothing to do but drink and lose himself in the good
that was Rhodesia.
That Zanu-PF has failed does not make
the liberation struggle a non-event. It also does not make Rhodesia a
paradise.
And for a man who is dying to be the
president of a country that won independence through the blood of
genuine cadres most of whom did not have the opportunity to enjoy the
freedom to admire a system that cared for a few is not only
unfortunate but childish.
While the majority of the cadres still
alive and in government today have messed up, the like of Dzinashe
Machingura (Wilfred Mhanda) did not waver from the policies and
principles of the struggle.
Two, admiring Rhodesia now would imply
that all the genuine cadres – dead and alive – did not know what
they were doing by giving up themselves to liberate the country. That
they had no idea of how 'better' life at the mines was when some
people would drink and get drunk cheaply.
Although I was a small boy in 1975 when
Morgan Tsvangirai was enjoying life at the mines, I was aware of the
war because in my area – Chiweshe – we were in protected areas or
keeps. The grinding mills, the stores and the clinics were closed.
There was also a time when schools were closed.
Even before that in 1973, I recall very
well how the district commissioner from Concession sent lorries and
soldiers into the area to take away cattle because they argued that
the grazing was not enough.
They came early one morning and
selected the fattest oxen and cows. These were loaded and then taken
away. I have no doubt that at that time too, Tsvangirai was also
enjoying himself in the good of Rhodesia.
Later, as small boys we were forced to
view the bodies of dead guerrillas who were killed one morning during
an ambush. Their bodies were tied to land rovers and then dragged
along on the ground.
That's how Rhodesia was like but of
course as a mine worker, Tsvangirai does not know all this because he
was busy enjoying the good that was Rhodesia – cheap beer and
women.
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