The Sunday Mail
Wallace Ruzvidzo
YOUTHS should emulate the role played by the country’s heroes and heroines in bringing Zimbabwe’s Independence, ZANU PF Secretary for Administration, Cde Obert Mpofu has said.
Tomorrow, Zimbabwe will celebrate Heroes’ Day, in remembrance of gallant fighters who liberated the country.
In an interview, Cde Mpofu said the day reminds the country of concerted efforts made by fighters of the liberation struggle in emancipating indigenous people from colonial rule.
He said young people at that time played an active role in ensuring Independence hence today’s youths should guard the sovereignty they enjoy and not be sell-outs.
“This is a very important day as it reminds us and the entire country about where we are coming from and what the nationalist revolutionary struggle produced following a very concerted revolutionary struggle to emancipate ourselves from colonial rule.
“We have to contend with issues that have to do with the youth who seem to think this country just evolved from nowhere. That is not correct, it came through shedding of blood and most of us were youths at the time when we were fighting for the country. We want the youth to carry on with that revolutionary spirit in leading this country,” said Cde Mpofu.
He said President Mnangagwa and the Second Republic were at the forefront of inculcating a revolutionary spirit in the youth.
“You will notice that President Mnangagwa has been at the forefront of supervising and leading the nation into a fully-independent country with an empowered population that is clear-minded on where the country is coming from and where it is going.
“We were under a vicious colonial system which barred us from being treated as human beings but now young people have the sky as their limit. There were very few schools during the colonial period. Now we have got schools, hospitals, clinics dotted all over the country and roads are being built daily and the President is at the forefront of these developments as a result of recognising what our people fought for,” said Cde Mpofu.
He added that the youth should not be used as tools for neo-colonialism but revolutionary progress.
“The youths need to be taught and in doing so it needs to be a concerted programme by Government or by the party to ensure that young people understand that this country was liberated mostly by youths,” said Dr Mpofu.
The ruling party’s director for administration Dr Henry Mushonga said it was imperative that the curriculum in primary schools comprehensively includes the liberation struggle to instill patriotism at a young age.
“This is akin to all the leading developed countries for instance China has made it mandatory for liberation education to be taught at an elementary and formative stage for all their schools. It is therefore incumbent upon our colossal party to ensure that the ideological liberation underpins are taught at ECD levels,” he said.
