Zimbabwe has attained 44 years of independence.
The milestone comes amid notable successes as well as challenges.
The major challenge continues to be that of the illegal sanctions that continue to hamper our operations and aspirations.
The sanctions, by any other name, still remain sanctions.
Ours was not a Pyrrhic victory, but a bitter one nonetheless.
At 44, have we attained the skills, experiences and means necessary for an enjoyable life?
This is a question that might send one into a tailspin.
But the simple answer, unvarnished, is that yes, we have.
Words and booming voices from some corners of the world, to be specific the West and from minions of these, will want to tell us that we are a big failure.
This 44th Independence Anniversary presents us an opportunity, in our different corners and spheres, to reflect.
Let us take a moment to do just that — reflect.
Let us introspect — re-examine our own ideas, thoughts and feelings.
Cynicism will not help us.
We have been taught, encouraged and urged to disregard our history, to disparage it even, to treat it as a non-event without a bearing on our everyday life.
One who talks of the liberation struggle today might be looked at with scorn and derision.
However, we should never forget that sacrifice, loss, pain, trauma, mental breakdown, broken limbs and scarred psyches, among others, are the lot of those who ensured we attained independence.
So brutal and protracted was the liberation struggle that some had their faith in the Creator strengthened while others totally lost it.
The late liberation war hero and prominent author Alexander ‘Gora’ Kanengoni would, at Nyadzonia, hold a little dying girl, with a gaping wound in her chest, in his arms, and see life seeping out of her.
The little girl asked him: “Cde ndinorarama here (Cde, will I survive)?”
The battle-hardened Kanengoni, who had lost friends in combat and seen untold suffering, for the first time, wept.
Post-colonial heritage studies expert Dr Tony Monda notes: “Sometimes my perception of us as a nation is of a rootless people; aimless and feverishly searching for our identity. I recognise, in us, the lack of a singular approach to our problems and the lack of a common heritage and purpose. While we may differ, according to old colonial tribal divisions of Shona, Ndebele, Tonga, Venda and Ndau, among other ethnic groups, most of the aspects of our physical existence do not differ at all.
We eat the same food, wear the same clothes and live in very similar abodes.
Even our traditional religion is the same. We worship one God, Mwari; yet somehow we lack that necessary cohesion as a nation . . . as we celebrate independence, let us reflect on our culture which embodies the tangible vision of what independence and indigenisation should mean for Zimbabwe. Independence should remind us of these symbols of hunhu/ubuntu.
Each individual must be able to stand up and say: ‘Though I am somebody, an individual soul, an important somebody, I am also part of the nation’.
Every individual must agree to be part of the nation, with his rights, privileges and corollary obligations.”
As we celebrate our 44th Independence Anniversary, what memories are carried by the survivors of the protracted war that brought the freedom we enjoy today.
