The Sunday Mail
After all, what is the purpose of an autobiography if it fails to answer such crucial episodes in one’s personal life?
Lovemore Ranga Mataire
FAR from the celebratory sycophantic eulogies by several reviewers, Cephas George Msipa’s memoir — “In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice”, offers very little illumination on the life of an individual whose main claim to fame is that of being the main catalyst in the consummation of the 1987 Unity Accord.
Surely, the fact that Zimbabwe is hungry for multiple narratives of the liberation struggle cannot be a license for some reviewers and writers to harangue readers into accepting mediocrity as credible alternative history.
For a man of Msipa’s stature, the 185 page book is not only lean in size but also deficient in detail.
There are several defining episodes in Msipa’s narration that are left hazy, hanging, unfulfilled and yearning for further detail and yet are given a cursory treatment that raises a lot of questions for any discerning reader.
Here are examples that cast a dreary irritant on the reader.
On page 2, Msipa writes that his paternal grandmother died three years after the birth of his father.
Msipa’s mother was born and bred in Insiza District in Matabeleland South. Msipa then makes a startling sweeping statement, which is difficult to trace its origins and validity when he writes:
“In accordance with our culture, after her death my maternal grandparents were invited to take care of their daughter’s two sons and look after them.”
Since his father was born in Shabani under Chief Masunda, the reader assumes that his father was Shona while his grandmother, born in Insiza, was Ndebele.
So whose culture is Msipa referring to when he says ‘our culture’?
Is he referring to his maternal or paternal culture?
I may not be familiar with the Ndebele culture but where I come from, a child is not forfeited to his or her maternal relatives after the death of their mother, more so in Msipa’s case where the grandfather was a polygamist.
Another glaring gaucheness is exemplified by the author’s cursory reference to the origins of his surname- Msipa.
Since the author’s father was born under Chief Masunda in Shabani, the reader is curious to know how he got a Ndebele surname but this is not explained at all. Rather he says:
“In Belingwe, most of our relatives, including my Gumbo brothers, Joram and Rugare, use the Shona surname, Gumbo (leg), which is Msipa (muscle/ligament) in Ndebele.
As a matter of fact, Mnene Hospital in the district was named after my great-grandfather who welcomed the Lutheran Church and allowed them to establish a mission in Belingwe in 1980.
His name was Mnenengwa Gumbo but the missionaries shortened it to Mnene in appreciation of his granting them permission to establish a church, school and hospital.”
Was it not necessary for Msipa to explain to the reader how the name Msipa came about?
Who coined the name and for what purpose?
Why did his father abandon the Gumbo surname/totem, in favour of Msipa?
This is a crucial point that Msipa needed to settle.
After all, what is the purpose of an autobiography if it fails to answer such crucial episodes in one’s personal life?
The yawning gaps are just too many. Any reader will find it nauseating that another critical episode in Msipa’s life is just flung in the text without actual dates and other nuances.
His first encounter with Joshua Nkomo, then a textbook salesman, is typical.
Msipa narrates how he met Nkomo who impressed him with his size and jovial personality.
“He was travelling with his friend, Scooting Chingatie, who was of Malawian origin. Little did I know that three years later, Nkomo would be back with a new role and clear mission – as a politician and president of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress.” (Page 15)
Is it not given that readers are also crucially interested in the year in which he met Nkomo before he became a national figure?
There is the obvious need to add more detail to Nkomo’s demeanour, character, behaviour and general outlook of life well before he became a nationalist.
Nothing of the sort is given to a man who was to become the leader of ZAPU, a party that Msipa was to become an active prominent member of.
As if this is not enough, he erroneously refers to the late nationalist Leopold Takawira as the “bull of Chirumanzi” when everyone knows that the man was widely referred to as “the lion of Chirumhanzu”.
Any reader will find it hard to accept such an erroneous reference as a simple error.
It’s indicative of a serious lackadaisical approach to a narrative that was meant to add value to the canon of literature on the country’s struggle for independence.
Msipa’s short stint at Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp and his subsequent daring escape is surely one of the major milestones in his trajectory but also very contentious as he fails to shed light on a number of issues.
Although he dedicates some pages on the journey from Gonakudzingwa to Malipati after his escape, he dismally fails to illuminate on the intricate planning details.
Escaping from a detention centre is surely stuff for the movies.
Who paid for their escape, including their guide?
Of course, he refers to Didymus Mutasa of Cold Comfort Farm as the mastermind of the whole plan but the episode is so murky.
Msipa does not even explain why he defied Joshua Nkomo’s advice not to escape from detention.
For the benefit of those not in the know, Gonakudzingwa Restriction Camp was located in Gonarezhou National Park near Sango Border Post in Chiredzi and was specifically set up for political prisoners. It was closed in 1979.
African nationalists detained there include Josiah and Ruth Chinamano, Joshua Nkomo, Joseph Msika, Naison Ndlovu, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Charakupadenga Hunda, Kissmore Benjamin Kaenda, Jane Lungile Ngwenya and Tumburai Matshalaga.
Detainees were only allowed to walk four miles west of the camp towards the cleared land and two miles eastwards towards the uncleared game land.
There was always the menace of lions and elephants that roamed the reserve and very few dared escape.
Most of the detainees were ferried to the restriction camp by train while others were ferried by a plane known as Dakota (Douglas DC-3).
One peculiar aspect of the conditions at the camp, which is glaringly invisible in Msipa’s narrative, is that detainees were most of the time in leg irons.
Obviously, as a former inmate, Msipa has finer details of the goings on there and it is shocking that he decided to leave out such details in his book.
After reading the book three times and also having the opportunity to chat with the author, my lingering sense of unfulfilment was vindicated when the author confessed that the text was indeed a rushed product and highly deficient in critical detail which he hoped to include in his planned second edition.
He said in his own words, “I wrote; no, I rather recorded myself at a time when I was sick. I was on sick bed for over a month and I had five doctors attending to me every day.
I was given a Dictaphone which I used to record myself in the evening and I would give the recording to my muroora the following day.
I was afraid I was going to die before finishing the book.”
Lo and behold! How many readers were aware that “In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice-A Memoir” is a product of verbal narration, not the actual physical writing process?
How many people were aware that this book is a product of the author speaking to himself during the night while on sick bed?
Was such detail not necessary to include, probably in the introduction? Who else was behind pushing Msipa to hastily put something to print, regardless of quality?
Can this explain the apparent and pervading sloppiness accounting for more than 12 typographical errors?
While some reviewers have hailed the book’s simple diction and narrative mode, some have found it very dreary and the kind of run-off the mill stuff that is typical of high school compositions.
While I regard “Dzino-Memoirs of Freedom Fighter” by Dzinashe Machingura as nothing but the lamentations of a bitter man, there are several “Aha” moments in his narration that are backed up by a lot of intricate details,anecdotes and footnotes.
The same cannot be said of Msipa’s book, which is somehow shocking given his background as an educationist. It is a jamboree of data flung about in a gobbledygook manner.
A mumbo jumbo kind of thing that seriously calls into question the competence thereof of all the hands that passed through it.
One also gets the sense that the writer is overly sympathetic to whites, describing Sir Garfield Todd as “totally colour-blind” and absolving himself of any violent take-over of land, and shockingly describing land occupations as “land seizures”.
In a desperate attempt to appear rationale and ‘civilised’, Msipa claims to have amicably negotiated with the owner of the farm he currently owns and emphasized that he personally paid for all developments on the farm before the owner left for Australia.
Whites seem to have been a permanent feature of his trajectory, always coming to his rescue whenever in distress.
It is also difficult to locate Msipa’s ideological standing, that is if he has any; for he says he was a teacher by choice but a politician by circumstances.
Although he dedicates more than four pages describing his relationship with President Mugabe when he hosted him for some months in 1960 at his number 4144 Highfield Canaan house, he fails to give any real insights about the man different from what is commonplace.
In reality, “In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice- A Memoir,” is nothing more than just a ‘nice book’ from a ‘nice’ old man grateful that he has lived long.
The book is nothing but a sleeping tablet and needs to be re-written. Maybe this kind of narrative will jolt Msipa’s contemporaries to write their own narratives.
As a reader and a literary critique, I personally feel cheated and will forever be troubled by so many unanswered questions.
Is Msipa a revolutionary or a mere black liberal nationalist?
I will leave that to other readers. But one thing is clear, this book does not offer anything in terms of illuminating the broader dynamics within the liberation struggle.
