Liberation heroes
According to the Herald of the Friday, 1 October 2010, President Mugabe clarified a position that people have for long been struggling to understand. He made it clear that the idea of the National Hero’s Acre has every link to the liberation war and nowhere else.
Quoting the herald, the president said,
“…Nharaunda ino… inharaunda yevanenge vakaone-kwa kuti ava ndivo vakaisvogonesesa pahu-tungamiriri hwavo, pabasa ravo reChimurenga, rekurwira nyika. Saka inharaunda yevarwi veChimurenga….Haisi nharaunda yevanhu vanongonzi vatsvene. Vakawanda vatsvene, vakawandisisa vanobatsira vanhu . . . Asi pano patiri panodiwa veChimurenga saka kana tava kuda vatsvene vamwe vanogona zvakatikuti, tada magamba orudzi urworwo totsvagawo rimwe gomo ndipo potoisawo vatsvene verudzi irworwo. Pano ndepevemutupo weChimurenga ndozvatakaitira nzvimbo ino.”
Translated, the above quotation means,
“This place is a place of those that will have been proved to have done well in their leadership during the liberation struggle, so it is a place for the freedom fighters. This is not a place of any other people, there are so many good people who help others…But on this place we need people of the Liberation struggle, so if we want any other forms of heroes we have to choose another hill to lay such people. This place is for those of the Chimurenga totem.”
Over the past thirty years, this clarification was only enshrined in the closed quarters of the politburo, which deliberates on who to call a hero. This might mean that there are several day-to-day words and questions, at the political front whose definitions and answers are yet to be made public. Such words might include: · Who should be the president of the country? · Who should contribute to the constitution making process? · Who should get the largest share of land or part of the national cake?
Just as has been the case with that term “hero”, people attach some general meanings yet events position these questions in some predictable contexts, and no public clarification has been or will ever be issued.
It is therefore essential for political players and the public to be aware that some meanings that we reluctantly attach to some words and phrases in the political sphere are not necessarily the same as ones held by those in power.