The Sunday Mail
Garikai Mazara recently in Nyadzonia and Chimoio
Zimbabweans enjoy an extended weekend at about this time of the year every year.
Many families use the extended weekend to perform rituals, mostly tombstone-unveiling ceremonies. Those without tombstones to unveil use the retreat to reconnect with rural folk and to close ranks on family disputes.
Then there is the other lot that uses the time to visit scenic destinations around the country. Given the money an average family has to expend, these excursions could be seen as a preserve of the well-heeled.
Then there are thousands others who will throng the different Heroes’ Acres around Zimbabwe to celebrate the heroes of our Chimurenga. But will the family at the tombstone-unveiling in Buhera, or those in a houseboat on Lake Kariba, bother to reflect on Nyadzonia, Chimoio, Mukushi, Tembwe and Chifombo?
In fact, do any of these places ring a bell to them? Would it occur to the family in that Kariba houseboat that a certain family never made it alive to Independent Zimbabwe?
Would those at the Heroes’ Acre tomorrow reflect on the thousands in unmarked graves who sacrificed their lives to free Zimbabwe from colonial rule?
An eight-year-old who perished at Nyadzonia would have turned 49 this year, but never got to see a houseboat on Kariba.
That young Zimbabwean died without knowledge of what a houseboat is. Yet today, someone is enjoying leisure without regard to how and why Zimbabwe is what it is today; that Zimbabwe was shaped by the Battle of Chinhoyi.
What does Altena Farm mean to our Independent nation? Why was Nyadzonia attacked? Why can’t Chimoio be deleted from the country’s collective memory?
These are the prime questions that should occupy us today.
But then again, should we talk, remember and visit Chimoio, Nyadzonia and Mukushi only when Heroes’ Day beckons? Shouldn’t the discourse of the liberation struggle be an every day diet?
The horrors of Nyadzonia, Chimoio and Mukushi should embolden us everyday, guide us, give us hope and direction, remind us of how we came to be what we are: that Zimbabwe was not delivered on a platter, that many souls perished for us to be what we are today.
There are two sets of bones at Chimoio Museum.
These bones were unearthed by Chimoio communal farmers early this year as they were tilling their land.
No one knows their identity, no one knows where they came from. Do we not owe them something?
As you wine and dine this long weekend, maybe at that holiday home in the Eastern Highlands, remember these two, unknown and their spirits wandering.
So, how do honour these souls and the thousands of others? How do we show that we are aware of our debt to them?
It is simple: By being and remaining Zimbabwean; by loving our country, cherishing our freedom; by doing our utmost to defend these; and by working hard to develop this nation.
It may sound simplistic, but being Zimbabwean is what drove so many sons and daughters of the soil to take up arms and put their lives on the line. They saw a new Zimbabwe in their dreams and knew that a new Zimbabwe would come one day.
Ours is to defend our hard-won independence.
Only then can the spirits of the thousands who perished at Nyadzonia, Chimoio, Tembwe and Mukushi rest in peace.
