The Sunday Mail
The generation that dutifully and obligingly answered the call to free the continent from an overbearing and greedy colonial system that enslaved our forebears and haemorrhaged the continent of its valuable resources is slowly being promoted to glory.
Thursday was a particularly sad day for Zimbabwe as it received the tragic news of the passing of Zambia’s founding president Kenneth Kaunda (KK) and Roman Catholic priest Father Emmanuel Ribeiro.
The two men ministered different realms —the earthly and spiritual — but were bound by the same spirit to fight for the rights and independence of their people.
They stepped up to the plate when duty called.
What KK did for this country through providing material and moral support, including providing the territorial launchpad from which guerrillas launched vicious attacks against the settler regime, is immeasurably priceless.
He offered the same support to the ANC of South Africa in their fight against Apartheid.
But it came at a cost as Zambia was often the target of attacks by an incorrigibly racist system that was determined to stay put.
It makes KK a colossal Pan-African figure whose history straddles the region and beyond.
This is precisely the reason President Mnangagwa declared 14 days of mourning to salute this fallen African giant.
And then we have Father Ribeiro, who exhausted every ounce of his being serving God and his country.
He was a man of extraordinary talents: He was a music composer, an author, avid researcher and humble servant of the people.
Perhaps his most valuable work was through his service as a prison chaplain, which brought him in contact with distressed souls who would have been incarcerated by the ruthlessly unforgiving Rhodesian system.
This inexorably brought him into contact with many nationalists, including the President.
But it was his interactions with condemned prisoners that left a stain on his being and haunted him until he took his final breath on Thursday.
In an interview carried elsewhere in this paper, Roman Catholic Church vicar-general Fr Kennedy Muguti describes how Fr Ribeiro endured
this burden for the better part of his life.
“There was an incident that happened some years back.
“On that particular night, he was called and asked to go and pray for nine people who were supposed to be hung that night, and so he went, baptised some and prayed for some.
“When he was on his way back, he composed a song. He said in his mind he was praying for those souls,” recounted Fr Muguti.
Adding:
“When he came back, he told me he had met one of our Archbishops from back in the day and he had turned zombie by what he had encountered, completely confused, he was disoriented by what had happened and even until the time of his death, those experiences remained with him, particularly one where those nine were hung.”
He is not the only one.
Many in our middle live with the psychical, psychological and emotional scars after witnessing the underbelly of gratuitous violence and cruelty that was often visited on nationalists.
It is these sacrifices that we enjoy as freedom today, and we dare not squander it.
However, the war is not won, at least not yet.
We might have won political independence, but economic independence remains elusive.
The coronavirus pandemic has yet again reminded us the desperate conditions that we currently live in as Africans.
We have seen how we lag behind in research, healthcare systems and financial wherewithal to develop or buy life-saving vaccines.
Today, less than 1 percent of Africa’s more than a billion people is fully vaccinated.
Sad!
This is an epochal call to “arms” for the young generation of Africans to fight off neo-colonialism, which is still pervasive under one guise or the other, and materially change the future of the continent for the better.
Like the old generation of fighters and nationalists, the youths must embrace this generational call with alacrity by dominating the economic spaces.
Africa will only be regarded as free when all of her people are lifted out of poverty and enjoy relatively prosperous standards of living.
But for every struggle, there are sacrifices.
We need not fail our cause.
Aluta continua; victoria ascerta! (The struggle continues; victory is certain!)
