The Sunday Mail
On September 20, 2015 Zimbabwe commemorates the 12th anniversary of the death of Vice-President Dr Simon Muzenda, the Soul of the Nation. In the lead-up to this day, The Sunday Mail will publish riveting articles on this national icon’s life, capturing his grand fight against white supremacy and colonialism, and his remarkably everyday-man-approach to life and politics. Our Deputy News Editor Levi Mukarati spoke to Dr Muzenda’s widow, Amai Maud Muzenda, about the man she and the entire nation loved. We publish excerpts of that conversation below.
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Remembering Dr. Muzenda
“Usiku hwatosvika, nyenyedzi dzopenya, asi nyenyedzi yedu ndimi mai Maria./ Mwana wenyu anotya kufamba murima, ndizvo ndokumbirisa kuti ndione nzira.”
This short Roman Catholic hymn would precede a prayer before I went for my night shift as a nurse at Mvuma Hospital (in Midlands province).
I was aware of what my husband was into. It was difficult to leave the children alone, especially at night.
They were not just ordinary children, but the children of a politician whom authorities wanted to stop at all costs.
Even today, the hymn continues to give inspiration to the family. It drifts me back some 50 years and I get the same feel now as I did then.
Dr Simon Muzenda, my husband, was passionate about the discriminatory British rule in Zimbabwe. He swore he would go to any length to fight the system.
Such determination was not something new to me.
He had previously pestered me, through his friend Joseph, till I fell in love with him.
The determination was again to manifest when VaMuzenda got arrested for engaging in political activities, but did not give up.
At one time we failed to locate him for three months during the 1970s only to find him unconscious at a police camp in Zvishavane.
White authorities had carefully inserted two needles in his chest and left him for dead. Upon gaining consciousness, he said the ruthless action had strengthened him.
With such determination from VaMuzenda, the pain and suffering I went through became my inspiration.
Love life
Mai Muzenda
Simon and I both schooled at Gokomere Mission and were in the same class in the 1940s.
Dr Muzenda was to leave for Domboshava to do his Standard Six while I remained at Gokomere Mission doing my Standard Six.
We were already seeing each other by then. He was a young man who loved cracking jokes and had his way of convincing people.
I was a quiet and reserved person and people would ask how he managed to convince me into a relationship.
He would say “ahh kubva patakatanga kudzidza tose, ndaimuti mainini and I said to myself one day I would get married to that girl”.
Dr Muzenda would write letters proposing love, but I would ignore them.
I remember he would send one of our schoolmates named Joseph with the letters. Later, Joseph started demanding an instant reply.
Aiti you should reply uchida usingade nekuti ndanzi ndisadzoke ndisina reply. So I ended up replying and that is how I fell in love with Dr Muzenda.
After doing his Standard Six in Domboshava, Dr Muzenda went to Durban for his Carpentry course. I went to Makumbe Mission Hospital where I did my nurse training.
When he came back from South Africa, I had completed my nursing and within six months we got married in 1950 at Gokomere Mission.
After marriage we moved to Mvuma in 1955. Our marriage was blessed with eight children. It was in Mvuma that Dr Muzenda established a carpentry shop.
He used to make beautiful furniture such as sofas and beds. I remember he made a sideboard and chairs for me. Dr Muzenda was also a welder and would make scotch carts.
Dipping into politics
Dr Muzenda’s carpentry business was a political shop because people would come for training, but political talk was the order of the day.
I will not dwell much into the documented political history of Dr Muzenda, but will give a personal account of some of the things that went on with him, me and the family during that time.
Dr Muzenda was in jail, restriction or detention for a cumulative 10 years. During his absence, it was not easy to fend for the children.
He had some Swedish friends who helped with some money to pay for our children’s school fees.
The Rhodesian police were regular visitors at our home during the colonial era.
I would be taken for questioning and one day I was taken from the hospital, prompting some white doctors to follow us to the police station to negotiate my release. The police kept telling me that my husband was dreaming to think he would free the country.
When Dr Muzenda was arrested and sent to Harare Prison, it was not easy to organise a visit. I would write a letter to prison authorities notifying of my intention to see my husband.
The officers would write back giving me a visiting date and duration of the visit.
At one time we visited just after Cde (Leopard) Takawira had died inside Harare Prison in 1970. Dr Muzenda had written a note narrating how Cde Takawira died.
So when we got there with food for him as well as clothes he said he wanted to wear the clothes, but he had the intention of stuffing the note in the clothes. When he came back, he said: “I don’t need all the clothes you have brought me. I will take just a few so please go back home with the other clothes.”
The authorities were suspicious and searched the clothes leading to the recovery of the note.
I was with Tsitsti (Muzenda, now Midlands Senator) during that visit and we were arrested.
I didn’t understand what was happening, but the authorities said: “You wanted to smuggle things from prison.”
We were held in a cell for three days. In the prison, they provided three blankets and sadza which was badly cooked. It was unfortunate that we failed to read the contents of the letter. The prison officers just showed it to us, asking if we knew the handwriting on it. Even upon his release and until his death, Dr Muzenda did not want to open up on the contents of the letter.
Because of the incident, the prison officials wanted to restrict us from visiting Harare. But Dr Muzenda argued on the legality of such a move. So it was not enforced. Dr Muzenda was also held at Wha Wha and Sikombela.
There was a time in the early 1970 when he got arrested and we failed to locate him. It took us three months of searching until we were informed he was being held at a police camp in Zvishavane. We found him unconscious; I thought I was going to lose him.
We discovered that police had inserted two needles in his chest and left him for dead. We took him to the hospital, his state was bad and I was devastated.
Then there were the constant arrests of Dr Muzenda for reciting the poem “Nehanda Nyakasikana”.
At one court appearance in Mvuma over the poem, he asked the court why he was being punished for a poem that anyone could recite.
He was represented by Cde Hebert Chitepo and had been told he could face up to five years in jail if found guilty. But he just stood up in the courtroom uninvited and began reciting “Nehanda Nyakasikana”.
Fear struck me. What was he doing? I was afraid, I thought that was the end of him, but to my surprise all the blacks that were in the courtroom began to recite it together with him.
Women ululated whilst men whistled and clapped their hands.
I joined in and after the magistrate managed to restore silence, he found Dr Muzenda not guilty.
Beyond Independence
After the liberation struggle, Dr Muzenda adopted the phrase “kana munhu asingazive, mudzidzise”.
He would say it was time for blacks to engage whites and not time for revenge. It was his wish for the whites to realise that what they had been doing to blacks before Independence was wrong.
Dr Muzenda spared time for church.
He was well-known for sermons punctuated with jokes and skilful interpretations of the Bible to make people understand their problems.
Dr Muzenda was a people’s person. He wanted to hear their problems and help them find their own solutions.
As to the children, he was strict man and would invoke necessary disciplinary action if any of them misbehaved.
Our Christian background kept us going.
Whenever the going got tough we would always, and we still always, turn to the Lord for a solution.
◆ Interview and transcription by Levi Mukarati in Harare on March 31, 2015.
