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Zim dancehall for consciousness

Zim dancehall is the foremost medium for the social diaries of the “ghetto” — a term that young people use to describe high density suburbs in Zimbabwe.

The genre, popular as it is — and sometimes notorious — has not been able to sufficiently tackle the political questions of the day.

One group, Final Warning, though, has turned the flame up to chant down “Babylon” (a reference to the western capitalist/imperialist establishment) with a series of politically-themed dancehall tunes.

Final Warning, the dancehall duo made up of brothers Prosper (Proda) and Edward (Stable) Dembedza, has become a regular feature on ZBCTv with a prolific discography, mostly set to national events.

Proda is a journalist while Stable is a soldier which probably explains the group’s exploitation of current affairs with a journalistic precision and militant approach.

The group is dropping down a sustained torrent of singles to commemorate just about every event of national significance. With the Heroes Day coming up, the group has just dropped a video titled “Usakanganwe.”

In this latest offering, Final Warning reminds Zimbabwe that the nation “haffi” give “nuff respect” to the freedom fighters whose feats on the field of conflict won the country back from settler rule.

“The forest yields to the persistent hunter/Wresting the country from white settlers was a daunting task/ They took delight in the tribulations of black people/ Till Chimurenga war phased that out,” translates the opening verse.

Final Warning’s big break came with “Peace and Unity,” a song which denounced violence and urged one love across the political divide. The tune enjoyed heavy rotation on national television in the run-up to the 2013 harmonised elections.

The duo has since come to enjoy considerable reception in dancehall circles, getting to raise the curtain for international acts like Mr Vegas, TOK and Popcaan, and securing a permanent slot at keynote national events.

Final Warning’s story begins with a speaker on the veranda at a police camp in Harare. Proda, who pens most of the duo’s tracks, opened up to The Herald about the group’s seven year journey.

“We began by riding freestyle on the latest riddims to a modest crowd of fellow youths outside our residence at Braeside Police Camp,” Proda said.

At that time there was no defined pattern for their music. Any social diary that could get the “mafia” jumping would do as long as it rhymed to the beat.

That was 2008, the dark days of an unprecedented economic downturn, largely induced by Western institutions. As Sizzla puts it in “Show More Love to the Youths,” music was the only enjoyment because there was not enough employment.

For the duo, the sunny side of the situation was that it assured a regular audience for their backyard act.

“As time went by, the crowd was growing. We began to incorporate substance into our act. We had to polish our act in line with the growing appreciation for our music,” Proda said.

“Before long, we were being pressed with requests to record. We had not anticipated that, but recommendations to record kept increasing with each of our acts. In time, we seriously considered dropping a single.

“We did not have to agonise on what to record. I had always had this national consciousness passed down to me to me by my father who is a war veteran. Although we began with social commentary we soon ventured into political lyrics” he said.

First though, the brothers had to choose a name for their group. At that time, the riddim “Final Warning,” was all the rage and that settled the group’s problem.

They would record as Final Warning.

When the opportunity presented itself, the duo dropped the track “Copacabana” which was light-hearted commentary on one of Harare’s more populous termini in 2010.

While “Copacabana” was playing to considerable reception in underground circles, the group went back to the studio, this time with a fully-fledged political ditty entitled “Bvisai Masanctions.”

“We were experiencing the bite of sanctions big time. The song came out four months before the Anti-Sanctions Petition Campaign in 2011,” Proda said.

The song was tagged along, becoming one of the media implements of the anti-sanctions campaign. In time, the track ensured the group its radio debut.

“We went to the Ministry of Information with the single. There were many submissions besides ours so that there was really no guarantee of sailing through,” Proda said.

“However, I had a conviction that our lyrics would catch the ear of the ministry. Next thing, we had our song on air. We had made it,” he said.

Proda said after that second single, most of their music had political overtones, influenced by a nationalist consciousness. The duo records at Black Diamond Studios, although they still rely on trending riddims for their tracks.

“We are reaching out with the message to fellow youths and Zimdancehall is the most popular genre at the moment so we had to use it as our medium.

“However, besides the popularity of the genre with the youths, we were at home singing in it than any other genre,” he said.

The brothers are influenced by reggae thoroughbreds Bob Marley, Sizzla and Capleton who are unrelenting in their disparagement of the Babylon system.

“Locally, Cde Chinx and the late Simon Chimbetu are our icons because they have always been there for the struggle for black empowerment,” Proda said.

Proda said he is an ardent student of history, hence his attachment to the values of the liberation struggle.

“If you notice, one of our recent tracks comes down hard on divisive elements who are brewing discord in Zanu-PF,” he said.

“There is one leader with an electoral mandate to lead Zimbabwe. The rest must help him deliver instead of jostling for power.

“After all, the ones who are busy conspiring for posts are not doing enough to implement Zim-Asset in their constituencies. And yet that should be their responsibility,” he said.

Stable, the military half of Final Warning, could not be reached for his own account of the journey.

Other notable offerings from the group include “Indigenisation/ Zim-Asset,” “Happy Birthday Gushungo,” “Carnival,” “Unity MuZanu-PF” and “Tsvimbo Kuna Officer”.

 

 

Intellectualism and the liberation struggle

Dr Enocent Msindo Correspondent
MOST of the exponents of nationalism in the 1950s were mainly products of Western missionary and university education who mixed modernity and tradition in intricate ways.

The creation by UK’s leading universities of chairs in African history led to the first academic writings by rising white Africanists who occupied academic chairs in Africa’s key universities such as Dar-es-Salaam; Makerere; Ibadan, and later on the University of Zimbabwe.

These Africanists started researches on academic African history.

This introduction of academic African history coincided with changes in British colonial policy from formal empires to informal empires, which came with decolonisation. It is little wonder that the new Africanist historians were strongly anti-colonialism.

The task of producing histories out of a colonised people that had, for decades, been persistently denied of their pasts was daunting.

Hitherto, self styled colonial historians, mostly untrained Native Commissioners had, for political reasons and administrative expediency, presented Africans as intrinsically fractured into innumerable hostile tribes.

In this context, the Africanists’ extremism in the way they depicted the African past must be understood as a direct reaction to a colonial political project.

Zimbabwe’s historian (the late) Terence Ranger initiated researches on early colonial history with his ground-breaking Revolt in Southern Rhodesia and later his The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia whose impact can not be overemphasised. Revolt, crafted within a new nationalist historiography sought to create a usable past — one in which the present would appeal to in order to justify the agenda of the day.

Ranger’s work was well received, not only within the academia but by a wide audience of young African intellectuals and the budding nationalists.

It provided them the required history of and justification for the resistance; it gave them the necessary cultural inspiration in the form of heroes of resistance; encouraged Africans to think of an alternative source of spiritual appeal (e.g. Ranger’s emphasis of the role of spirit mediums in the 1896 wars) that became important for a nationalist movement that repudiated Christianity in favour of African religions; and above all, Revolt helped coin and popularise the language of nationalism — for soon, the term Chimurenga, which Ranger used uncritically to describe early resistance to the establishment of colonial rule.

Revolt and its later sibling The African Voice did nonetheless provide strong ideological foundations and the intellectual incitement that was required by the elites to violently confront the colonisers

Ranger’s work gave impetus to the emergence of new politically connected black African academics such as Mudenge (on Mutapa and Rozvi history); Bhila, and others who were mainly part of ZANU — and others like Calistus Ndlovu and Ngwabi Bhebe who worked on aspects of Ndebele history. These new scholars of the 1970s (and early 80s) extended Zimbabwean political history into the pre-colonial past which they glorified.

They also examined aspects of Western influence in that past depicted in negative terms. The rise of this generation meant that the writing of African history had, for the first time passed into the hands of Africans themselves — and because of their political attachments, their sense of history was that it should be used as an instrument to correct political wrongs.

No wonder then that they trace Western influence as essentially negative and African culture as essentially out there, waiting to be rediscovered and re-embraced.

Because their project came in the wake of the pressing need to demonstrate that Africans had always been able to govern themselves, it made sense for them to prove that Africans had sophisticated social structures; complex political networks, military prowess and also economic relations that were unfortunately disturbed by the colonialist.

The emphasis on studying Zimbabwean empires, vast confederacies and states must therefore be understood in the context of the need to develop yet another usable past in the service of African nationalism.

This scholarship seemed to answer to the prevailing white propaganda that Africans were not yet prepared for self governance, and therefore their demands for freedom were merely frivolous.

By appealing to these pasts, the nationalist movement was not necessarily advocating that Africa return to the past, which would have rendered them useless because there would evidently be alternative claims to power especially by those known to be ‘organic’ chiefs who were deposed in favour of colonially amenable chiefs.

Instead, the new African nationalists merely wanted to use the past in a particular way that they envisaged as appealing to the people.

• Adapted from an academic paper by the author presented at a seminar in 2011.

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Cde ‘Bruno’ lives, six years on 

Political Writer
Cde Joseph Wilfred Msika, the former Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe and zanu-pf’s Vice President and second secretary, was a visionary leader and fearless founding nationalist who held firm and strong to the bitter end. He died on 5 August, 2009 at West End Hospital in Harare after a long battle against hypertension. He was 85.

Zimbabwe will forever cherish memories of the late Cde Msika as a man of principle and integrity who demonstrated commitment to the nation by getting involved in active nationalist politics at a tender age of 19. He sacrificed his own life to extricate Zimbabwe from the yoke of colonialism. Cde Msika was at various stages of his life nicknamed “BRUNO,” firstly as a fearless trade unionist and during his long stay in detention as a fearless and consistent fighter for Zimbabwe’s total emancipation. He will be remembered as an icon of frankness, candid talk and defender of justice, who remained determined to upholding the ideals of liberation principles and honest leadership.

Cde Joseph Msika was born on December 6, 1923, at Nyariri Village, under Chief Negomo, Chiweshe, Mazowe District, in Mashonaland Central Province. He attended Howard Institute, a Salvation Army Mission School as a day scholar and later, as a boarder for his primary education from 1937 until he completed Standard 6. His father was a polygamist whose first wife bore him several daughters. Joseph was the first born son to the second wife, and therefore to the family as a whole. Like so many African boys of his time, he wanted to become a teacher and his father sent him to Mount Selinda School in Chipinge, Manicaland. This school was run by the American Board Mission and he went there to train as a carpentry teacher. While pursuing the teaching training course, he also studied and passed the Junior Certificate Examination by correspondence. This spoke loudly of young Joseph’s adventitiousness.

Showing early signs of responsibility and love, the young Joseph believed that it was his duty to contribute to the upkeep of his father’s family. For this reason, during the school holiday, he took up a part time job with a transport firm in Bulawayo so as to help with the payment of school fees for the younger members of his family.

After training, he taught Woodwork at Usher Institute in Matabeleland from 1944 to 1949, a period when he also became very actively involved in nationalist politics. In 1950, he joined Bauden and Striver, a Bulawayo furniture-making company as a cabinet maker. Here, he rose to the post of supervisor before he was finally promoted to become a leading hand. Later, he joined Orkin Lingerie, a clothes selling concern.

He remained with this firm until 1953 when he was offered a better paying job with a new clothing firm whose headquarters was in Johannesburg. He later became a Clerk at the Consolidated Textile Mills, still in Bulawayo and was elevated to the post of Chief Clerk before becoming an Administrative officer.

Cde Msika was an excellent football player. At Mount Selinda, he played for the school team. Then later from Usher Institute, he used to go to Bulawayo to play football initially for Usher Institute and then for Mashonaland United now known as Zimbabwe Saints. He was so good at the game that he ended up being selected to play for the Matabeleland regional select team which was known as the “Red Army”. Cde Msika’s soccer skills improved such that in between 1960 and 1963, he played for the Rhodesia Pick (National Football Team) with the likes of Freddy “Dusty King” Gotora and Barnes “Chiwareware” Pfupajena. Football was so much in his blood that he only gave it up because of his serious involvement in nationalistic politics.

His experience at the various places where he worked, and the general injustice and oppression in the country influenced him to take up trade unionism, especially with the Textile and Allied Workers’ Union (TAWU), 1954. On the whole, Cde Msika and others used Bulawayo as a place where various trade unionists would interface. As a leader of TAWU, he was instrumental in the formation of a semi-federation of unions at a local level in Bulawayo.

This was called the Federation of Bulawayo African Workers Union (FBAWU), whose leaders had been behind the organisation of the crippling 1948 national strike. Later, FBAWU was replaced by the Federation of Southern Rhodesia and Cde Msika was its President. It was during his trade union days that he met other founders of early liberation protest movements like the late Cdes Masotsha Ndlovu, Benjamin Burombo and Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo.

Cde Msika also received a lot of inspiration from the ideas of Pan Africanists like Chief Albert Luthuli and Clement Kadali, and more importantly, the first generation of African nationalists such as Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, Malawi’s Kamuzu Banda and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah.

Cde Msika used his influence in trade unionism to launch the early African National Congress (ANC) firstly as a Branch Chairman then founding Chairman for Bulawayo in early 1957.

This Bulawayo based ANC later attracted the Salisbury Youth League to form the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) on 12 September, 1957 at Mai Musodzi Hall then, Harare Township (Mbare) with Cde Joshua Nkomo as its president and Cde Msika elected Treasurer.

In 1959, the ANC leadership including Cde Msika faced arrest and persecution. In February of the same year, he and others were detained at Khami Maximum Security Prison where he met nationalists from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It was here where he was to more deeply know people like Orton Chirwa from Nyasaland and Daudi Yamba from Selukwe (Shurugwi). Later he was detained at Selukwe (Shurugwi) and ultimately Marandellas (Marondera) Prison.

Continued on www. herald.co.zw

 

 

It was during this period that Cde Msika first met a young Zimbabwean African teacher who had returned from his teaching job in Ghana in 1959 to help lead the fight for Zimbabwe’s liberation.

That young teacher was called Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe. When Cde Msika first saw Cde Mugabe, he did not know him and was therefore surprised when he greeted him by his name saying, “Makadii vaMsika?” (“How are you Mr Msika?”) This was the beginning of a long term relationship between the two, as colleagues and comrades in struggle. This relationship was physically terminated by Cde Msika’s untimely death but, spiritually it lives on.

Chronicling his experience to his biographer, Professor Sam Moyo, Cde Msika said that in the detention camps, they were often locked up in solitary confinement as a form of punishment at the whims of the colonialist jailers. They were also subjected to electric shock treatment, indiscriminate beatings, denial of medical care and many other forms of torture.

Cde Msika further said although his initial reaction to a prison sentence was one of the shock, he gave deep thought to his situation and soon adjusted to it. He reflected that the struggle in the early stages of nationalism had been to obtain justice and equal rights for Africans in a series of individual battles but realised that with independence coming rapidly to other African countries, the real battle was now for the political control of Zimbabwe through the demand for one man one vote.

Upon his release in 1961, he was elected Councillor in the newly formed National Democratic Party (NDP), a party that had been formed whilst he was still in prison. On the formation of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) on 19 December, 1961 to replace the banned NDP, Cde Msika was elected founding Secretary for Youth Affairs. This was at a time when 365 nationalist leaders had been forbidden from entering or remaining in any African Reserve, including their own homes. Political rallies and meetings were still banned and their operations were to be under severe surveillance with threats of arrest from the police. Cde Msika’s courage and decision to take up leadership under these circumstances attested to exceptional leadership qualities.

The colonial regime banned ZAPU in September 1962 under the provision of the unlawful Organisation Amendment Act. It arrested Cde Msika and all the leadership except Cde Joshua Nkomo who was out of the country at the time. With pressure from the far right white electorate, the government went out of its way to look for reasons to ban ZAPU. Indeed, Cde Msika had been one of the major schemers of the militant protests in 1962 and this provided the regime with a reason to ban ZAPU and arrest Cde Msika and other nationalists. The regime compiled a report which blamed Cde Msika and other nationalists for all the violence in the country. The report claimed that between January and December 1962, there were 33 petrol bombings, the burning of 18 schools and 10 churches plus 27 attacks on communications infrastructure, a clear indication that the struggle was hotting up.

After ZAPU was banned, Cde Msika and others took a decision to adopt more aggressive forms of resisting the cruel and tyrannical white regime. As a result, the People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) was formed as ZAPU’s immediate replacement and not surprisingly, Cde Msika became its Secretary for External Affairs. Cde Msika and others reasoned that judging from the succession of the banning of the parties, it was futile to keep on forming these parties especially as the colonial regime followed each ban with massive detention of the leadership and confiscation of Party property. What was needed was to simply declare the people of Zimbabwe a Party and create a Council to take care of the people’s struggle. That left the regime with no formal organisation to ban unless it was foolish as to attempt to ban people. This logic led to the formation of the PCC.

Unfortunately for the nationalist cause during this period, differences emerged within ZAPU leading to the split and the subsequent formation of the Zimbabwe National African Union (ZANU) in August 1963 under the leadership of Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. During the split, Cde Msika was in Oar es Salaam, Tanzania, with other members of the ZAPU executive where they were trying to strengthen the idea of formalising the formation of a Government in Exile as a way of re-strategising in the wake of intensified harassment, arrest and detention of nationalist leaders at home. When Reverend Sithole, Morton Malianga and Leopold Takawira proposed a resolution to depose Dr. Joshua Nkomo from the leadership, Cde Msika protested by walking out of the meeting. His loyalty and allegiance to Cde Joshua Nkomo was definitely unquestionable.

From late 1963, Cde Msika organised several successful rural meeting although there had been a ban on this. They held them far from the towns usually in a cluster of trees surrounded by open ground so that they could see policeman coming from afar and either disperse or turn the discussion into cultural topics. Cde Msika was also instrumental in the creation of the Madiro party (later to be called Pungwe) which was a PCC/ZAPU innovation which took the form of a funeral gathering and was used an occasion to play, sing and dance for about three days while political organisations went on behind this cover. Cde Msika used these gatherings as effective means of political education and to raise funds for the nationalist cause. At the same time he was involved in spearheading the scheming of more violent forms of resistance involving mainly sabotage missions.

Beginning 1961, ZAPU sent people for guerilla training to Ghana, Algeria and China for military and sabotage training. Cde Msika was involved in organising a group numbering about 100 to plan and carry out acts of sabotage around the country. He believed that the only way to remove the evil system was to be through an armed struggle. He had been one of the master minds behind the changes in the strategies of the struggle’s execution from urban and rural unrest to the burning of buildings and vehicles and pelting police with stones and bottles. He started recruiting young people, the majority of whom were already members of ZAPU, for military training. He tasked James Chikerema, who was Head of Department of Special Affairs to deal with this recruitment. The Department of Special Affairs was established to deal with issues of the armed struggle. This particular group of cadres went through Zambia and Tanzania to the Eastern block countries. Of particular significance is the fact that on more than one occasion Cde Msika sacrificed his very life by personally being in charge of operations that smuggled in arms of war for the liberation fighters across the border from Zambia.

The PCC was banned in August 1964 and ZAPU resurfaced with Cde Msika still as part of the leadership. He was however re-arrested at the late Cde Josiah Chinamano’s house in Highfield, Harare and taken to Buffalo Range Prison before being detained at Gonakudzingwa Detention Camp for one year. On his release in 1965, he enjoyed only two weeks of relative freedom in Salisbury and was arrested again. He was re-admitted at Gonakudzingwa Detention Camp for another three more years and at some point shared the same cell with Cde Joshua Nkomo. He was later transferred to Buffalo Range Prison in 1974, the same year he would be released. All in all, after his arrest and detention in 1964, he was to spend most of the next decade in prisons and detention camps around the country. Throughout his incarceration, what kept Cde Msika’s spirit strong was his belief not only in his innocence but in the need to free Zimbabwe from colonial rule. Indeed he would recall that period of abuse, torture and incarceration by asserting his innocence and conviction saying, “As an innocent man, I had not committed any crime. My conscience was clear. I had been imprisoned for my political views. Our party was not fighting the white man, but we were fighting the very unjust and inhuman racist system”.

To show that he was preparing for a productive role in a free Zimbabwe, which he believed would one day be realised, Cde Msika utilised his period of detention wisely by furthering his education. This enabled him to attain his Ordinary and Advanced Level qualifications. He later registered with the University of South Africa (UNISA) where he studied Political Science, Public Administration, Constitutional Law and Economics among other disciplines. This formed the basis for his belief in the importance of education as a major tool in the development of Zimbabwe. As Central Committee Member, Cde Msika together with other ANC leaders flew to meet Front Line States’ leaders in Zambia to participate in the ill-fated Victoria Falls Bridge Conference in 1974. This conference ended in a deadlock and as such, the liberation war had to continue. Following the breakdown of another attempt to find a solution through the Smith-Nkomo talks in March 1976, Cde Msika went to London to release the contents of what had transpired. He told reporters’ that; “The ANC might consider whether there is anything to be gained by sitting down with Ian Smith again. But this will not be negotiation. The time for that is long past. It would be to discuss only mechanics of the immediate transfer of power to majority”. Through Cde Msika’s statement, the ANC was signaling its resolve to resort to more militant forms in the struggle.

Disagreements in the ANC however, led to the formation of the United African National Council (UANC) led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa and when Muzorewa and others refused to attend the Unification Congress among other things, ZAPU went ahead and held its own Congress at which Cde Msika was elected Secretary General of the Party. With a greater focus on intensifying the prosecution of the struggle, Cde Msika was instrumental in the formation of the Patriotic Front in 1976 and was a delegate to the subsequent conferences that were held in Geneva, Lusaka, Dar es Salaam, Malta and the last one at Lancaster house, London, formally leading to Zimbabwe’s Independence.

At Independence in 1980, Cde Msika was elected Senator and in the same year, he was appointed Minister of Natural Resources and Water Development, a post he held until differences arose in the fledging united government. The 1978 ZAPU Congress saw him being elected The Vice President of the Party following the death of Cde Josiah Chinamano. During this period, Cde Msika, who still believed in the importance of national unity and was a member of the four-man Unity Committee, devoted his time and energy towards the creation of unity among Zimbabwean people, a dream that was realised on 22 December 1987 with the signing of the Unity Accord that gave birth to the unified ZANU-PF.

On the back of the Unity Agreement, Cde Msika was appointed Senior Minister of Public Construction and National Housing in January 1988 and in April of the same year became Minister of Local Government and Urban Development, a post he held until 1995. During this period, he was ZANU-PF National Chairman and also a member of the Politburo, Central Committee and National Consultative Assembly. After the 1995 general Elections, he was appointed a full time worker at the ZANU-PF Headquarters where he was tasked with the re-structuring and re-organisation of the Party. Following the death of Vice President Joshua Nkomo, Cde Msika was unanimously elected Second Secretary and Vice President of ZANU-PF at the 3rd ZANU-PF’s People’s Congress held on 17 December, 1999 in Harare. On 23 December, 1990 he was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s Vice President by His Excellency of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde R.G. Mugabe. With the launch of the 3rd Chimurenga for Land Reform, Cde Msika was the Chairman of the Land Acquisition Committee which spearheaded the Land Reform Programme. His wish was to see all landless Zimbabweans regardless of status, getting land in total fulfilment of the wartime vision.

In 2003, Cde Msika was appointed Patron of the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) taking over from the late Vice President Simon Muzenda. This was of significance given his great love for football. It was proper for the football fraternity to make him “a father and trustee” of the association and its “controller and asset manager”. He was also a great fund raiser for the Zimbabwe National Football team, the “Warriors”. Among other soccer related activities, Cde Msika officially opened the ZIFA Village and the artificial turf at Rufaro Stadium.

Cde Msika was also a leader with great heart and compassion. Some of the humanitarian activities that he worked on included the construction of the Ekusileni Medical Center in Bulawayo which is a state of the art hospital initiated by the late Vice President Nkomo and Chikombedzi Hospital after he came across a patient being ferried in a scotch cart to a hospital 20 kilometers during one of his rallies. Cde Msika had managed to acquire an ambulance for Chikombedzi Hospital but due to sickness and his untimely death, had not handed it over to the hospital authorities. Cde Msika also took care of orphans and disadvantaged people at his Ndire Farm in Glendale where he fed and clothed them. He also sourced maize seed and fertilizers for the disadvantage people of Chiweshe. Cde Msika spent most of his time with youths at his houses and around the country where he taught them about the struggle for independence and the need for land reforms. He emphasized to them the need to uphold the principles of sovereignty and black empowerment. Cde Msika was also Chairman of the Development Trust of Zimbabwe (DTZ) after taking over from the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo. The Trust spearheads farming activities in the country.

Given his illustrious nationalist career and sacrifices and undoubted patriotism, the ZANU-PF Politburo unanimously agreed to confer the National Hero Status upon Cde Joseph Msika. On delivering his message of condolence, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe described the late Vice President as a man of high stature and a fearless freedom fighter. Consoling the Msika family, he urged it to “derive comfort and solace from the tributes sure to flow in abundance and in diverse forms from the nation that he helped liberate and found”.

Cde Joseph Wilfred Msika was survived by his wife, Maria, three children, Lucia, Shelton and Taguma, and grandchildren.

*Adapted from A Guide to Heroes Acre

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How word of mouth drove the struggle

Emmanuel Chiwome
Although much colonial scholarship has claimed an absence or inferiority of African aesthetics and historical knowledge before the advent of white settlers, Zimbabwean oral traditions emerged during the second Chimurenga (uprising) to play a leftist revolutionary role in the history of the country.

The colonisation of Zimbabwe by whites had led to the First Shona Chimurenga of 1896, in which the Shona were defeated and colonised for nearly 90 years.

The Second Chimurenga started in the 1960s and ended in 1979 with the attainment of majority rule.

During the second Chimurenga, oral traditions manifested themselves as part of the ideology of liberation from colonialism. Today they stand as a record of the people’s participation in the creation of a nation.

They are part of the war that humanised a dehumanised people.

As a collective form, art integrated the fragmented oppressed society. As the medium of national philosophy, oral tradition gave people food for reflection both before they engaged in activism and as they fought.

One manner in which oral tradition carried the narrative of the liberation struggle was through song.

Many political occasions incorporated singing as part of the armed struggle against the white minority regime.

They were sung in rural political seminars by both peasants and freedom fighters and in cities, towns and modern settlements by modern and traditional artists.

External radio stations in Zambia and Mozambique broadcasted some revolutionary songs. Based on indigenous music and aesthetics, all these songs fall into the category of oral traditions.

They were occasional in nature since they were precipitated by colonial oppression. Their form, content and context were consistent with the leftist definition of tradition, which emphasised the dynamism and resilience of traditional creativity as a process of selection, exclusion and innovation.

Zimbabweans have a history of protest music that dates back to pre-colonial times when music was used to exercise checks and balances on authority figures, such as chiefs, elders and mothers-in-law.

The second Chimurenga songs followed in the same vein and acted as a medium of invective aimed at the white oppressors long before the beginning of the Second Chimurenga.

Alec Pongweni summarises the functions of these songs as follows;

“To raise the consciousness of oppressed Africans by contrasting their golden age with the colonial era; to express moods such as defiance, hope, fear, joy and sorrow, all of which were precipitated by the war; to record the history of radical social transformation; and to exhort fighters to be in a combative mood, much as the hunting and war songs did in the days of old.’’

Even more importantly, the songs had a cathartic function. They helped people to cope with grief arising from unbearable war conditions. They also extolled the virtues without which the war could not have been won: selflessness, unity, and solidarity of the masses and Zanu and Zapu, the vanguard parties that deployed the guerrillas.

Because of the primacy of these neo-traditional songs in the struggle for national independence, Pongweni calls them “songs that won the liberation war.”

Another aspect to consider is that the people’s oral narratives, often intertwined with legends and myths, recorded the history of the advent of the whites, the subjugation of the blacks, and the subsequent declaration of war against colonialism.

Freedom fighters and peasants derived hope for winning the war from the narratives, and heroic figures of the pre-colonial past played key roles in sharpening people’s awareness of the dialectical relationship between colonialism and nationalism.

The first heroic figure, Chaminuka, was nicknamed Mufemberi (clairvoyant/prophet) because he foretold the coming of the whites into Zimbabwe. Chaminuka, who is said to have descended from Murenga, Tovela and Mambiri, travelled in spirit form from around Lake Tanganyika (in Guruuswa) to Zimbabwe during the Eighth Century A.D.

Chaminuka is said to have possessed many mediums over the centuries, among them the Chitungwiza-based Pasipamire, through whom he performed such miracles as nailing the hide of an ox on a flat rock using wooden nails; dancing to mbira music while his whole body, except the head, was underground; dancing while standing upright on the tip of a spear; creating mist to confuse his adversaries; and allowing enemy soldiers to stab him with spears that failed to pierce his skin.

Chaminuka is the symbol of revival and liberation, guide and intercessor, the symbol of the strength of the Shona. The freedom fighters took him as a politico-religious figure to be their guide as well as their model of invincibility.

Nehanda, the first Shona politico-religious leader to be executed for trying to oust the whites, is another historical and legendary figure. The most memorable hero of the First Chimurenga, she is said to be one of the daughters of Murenga Sororenzou Pfumojena, a progenitor of the Shona from whom the name Chimurenga is derived.

Her spirit came to Mazoe Valley from Dande with Nyamita. Tradition has it that her spirit possessed Charwe, whose nickname was Nyakasikana, the Chiweshe spirit medium who, together with Kagubi, was executed by the whites in April 1898 for organising the Shona against white settlement.

It is said that the spirit of Nehanda lived on until the Second Chimurenga, in which it was often the guide of guerrillas operating from the Mozambique bases.

Before her execution, Nehanda is said to have foretold the coming of the Second Chimurenga in the well-known phrase “mapfupa angu achamuka (my bones will reincarnate)’’. She also symbolises the indomitable spirit of the oppressed people.

These two figures made the fighters optimistic that victory was certain since, by the spiritual presence of Chaminuka and Nehanda, the fighters were by proxy the reincarnation of the 1896 fighters. The religious significance of the legendary figures created greater conviction in the cause of the war than rationality alone could build.

The notorious history of forced labour and other colonial machinations was thus orally transmitted from one generation to the next through reminiscences.

When the guerrillas of the second Chimurenga infiltrated the rural areas, the legacy of politico-religious heroes of the first Chimurenga was essential in their winning over the minds of the peasants whose support they needed for victory. The guerrillas’ link with legendary figures augmented by esoteric strategies of guerrilla warfare against the formidable minority regime soldiers, caused peasants to regard them in legendary proportions. In the Mount Darwin area in the early 1970s, a guerrilla with the Chimurenga name “Kid Marongorongo” was believed to vanish before enemy soldiers. He was also reputed to be able to use his firearm in an unusual style.

There were many similar figures in other areas: for instance, Mabhunusimukai, who was popular around Buhera, Gutu and Mvuma; and Gondoharishari, Dust Kasiyapfumbi Mhanduyavarungu and Kushatakunengekuora, who were popular around Rusape.

These figures recalled the ethnic heroes depicted in the traditional Shona panegyric, such as Kaguvi Gumboreshumba. The Chimurenga names were typical awe and fear-inspiring boast names that also embodied general anti-colonial attitudes and military virtues.

Living legendary figures would also sometimes make claims to immortality. In the early days of the war, peasants often took such claims literally, although their intent was to counter belief in the invincibility of the white men who had superior fire-power in the First Chimurenga.

The role of oral tradition during the Shona Chimurenga of the 1960s and 1970s clearly refutes the common notion that oral history and oratory are inferior to their written counterparts.

In this case, oral tradition proved to be more useful and more widely applicable to the needs of a dynamic society than published works, which tend to be less accessible to the oppressed semi-literate and non-literate majority.

Adapted from: The Role of Oral Traditions in the War of National Liberation in Zimbabwe: Preliminary Observations.

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Liberation and the Shona novel

David Mutasa and Willie Chigidi
The Second War of Liberation that the indigenous people of Zimbabwe waged against settler occupation and colonial rule was an event of monumental proportions that had far-reaching effects for the country, the region and perhaps the rest of the world.

It affected and changed the lives of many people in many ways.

Thousands of people died, hundreds were permanently maimed, others rose to fame, and many got rich while others got land that they could call their own for the first time.

It was imperative that an event of this magnitude and influence should provide writers with ready-made material which they could use to write their fiction, because there is always an intrinsic relationship between literature and society.

Writers of fiction often draw their material and their inspiration from happenings in their environment. The Second War of Liberation in Zimbabwe certainly provided that kind of material and inspiration.

The armed struggle in Zimbabwe lasted for nearly thirteen years, yet throughout that entire period no single Shona novel depicting the liberation war was published. It was not possible for a work of art that did not reflect the general colonial settler ideology to be published and remain unbanned.

Any work of fiction that talked about a war in which blacks were killing whites, even though whites were also killing blacks, was not allowed to be published. The Rhodesian Literature Bureau, a department of government under the Ministry of Information under whose supervision the development and distribution of literature in indigenous languages took place, would never allow such novels to be published.

As Emmanuel Chiwome observes, “The resultant fiction was underdeveloped by avoiding politics, the root of the reality dealt with in fiction”.

To write about the war of liberation at this time was tantamount to writing politics. This is not to suggest that it is wrong to write politics. In colonial Zimbabwe, it depended largely on the perspective from which one wrote about the war. While a plethora of fictional works about Zimbabwe’s guerrilla war written by whites in English appeared during the liberation war itself, no single Shona war novel was published before 1980.

The theme of Zimbabwe’s liberation war was a political one. “Unlike the pre-independence Zimbabwean novel in English whose fate was decided in Europe, the fate of the Shona novel was determined at home,” said Chiwome.

He shows that there are several instances when manuscripts were rejected or doctored because they dealt with sensitive issues, and he gives examples of books such as Solomon Mutswairo’s Feso (1956), E.M. Zanza’s Hunde Yorufu (1971) and Mordekai Hamutyinei’s two manuscripts that were rejected in the mid-1960s.

Shona fiction depicted the guerrillas as people with a great moral authority on their side because they believed they were fighting to create democratic space that would enable them to reclaim their land and birth right, would be judged to be subversive.

Shona literature had helped to plunge an oppressed people into a war of liberation before that literature was stopped, and then it took the liberation war to in turn liberate the writer so that he could write even on politics.

Mutsvairo’s Feso (1956) allegorically painted a glorious picture of Zimbabwe’s past while at the same time painting a grim picture of the existence of Africans under colonialism.

The novel also contained a political protest poem O Nehanda Nyakasikana in which the speaker appeals to the guardian spirit of Nehanda to come and rescue her people from slavery.

Although the novel was banned and removed from the school syllabus the famous prayer to the spirit of Nehanda, was read or recited in the late 1950s and early 1960s at the beginning of the mass nationalist rallies in the townships.

The famous prayer to Nehanda fired the Zimbabwean people with aggressive national feelings and inspired many young men and women to take up arms to free their country from colonialism. The armed struggle in turn created the necessary democratic space in which writers could feel free to write about the war that liberated them.

The armed struggle in turn created the necessary democratic space in which writers could feel free to write about the war that liberated them.

The novel Feso and its allegorically political message of resistance “threw the writer into battle” as Jean-Paul Satre posited and that battle produced freedom in which the Shona war fiction writers could write about the war of liberation from the point of view of those who were fighting for that freedom.

The activity on the literary scene, the urgency and the willingness to write Shona works about the liberation war by Shona writers in the years immediately following the attainment of independence, stand in clear contrast to the inactivity and reluctance to write about the same war that characterised the liberation war years.

In the absence of political freedom the Shona war fiction writer could not hope to publish in colonial Zimbabwe works that depicted the liberation war in the manner he wanted. It was partly the advent of the new political dispensation of independence and freedom that allowed the Shona war fiction writer to glorify the liberation war and present it as a historic and heroic struggle of the oppressed indigenous people against white minority rule.

Adapted from: Black Writers’ Shona novels of the liberation war in Zimbabwe: an art that tells the truth of its day.

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How Rhodesia met grief north, south. . . Zim, Zambia divergent paths to freedom

The next year showed Nkomo that constitutional negotiation, as had occurred in Zambia, would not be possible in the Rhodesian state and thus armed conflict was going to be the only alternative to remaining under colonial control. However, as the struggle intensified, the cooperation between Zanu and Zapu became increasingly fractured and contentious, most likely spurred on by the Rhodesian intelligence services.

“IN great contrast to the Zambian movement, the guerilla war in Rhodesia was ‘geared to achieving nationalist goals through the barrel of a gun’” Alex Laverty

The Northern Rhodesia “fight” for independence culminated in the formation of the Republic of Zambia on October 24 1964.

There is a significant difference how the two Rhodesias attained independence.

Through a complicated election scheme devised by the British and Northern Rhodesian governments, power was successfully and peacefully transferred to the majority of Zambians.

The eventual prime minister, Kenneth Kaunda, persuaded the white electorate in the run-up to the election that bringing black rule to the country would not result in the collapse of the nation as had occurred in other places on the continent.

After the election was held, Kaunda successfully put together a coalition government with the other African party, Nkumbula’s party that held a significant number of seats.

In the end, after another election of the African majority with greater non-African support, it was a straightforward change towards universal suffrage and single-member constituencies that brought about majority rule in Zambia, an important difference when compared to the end results in Zimbabwe.

Joshua Nkomo led the early substantial nationalist movement, the National Democratic Party (NDP), in Zimbabwe beginning in 1957. This resistance movement was united and primarily run from its headquarters in Salisbury. However, in 1963 disagreements over ideology, tactics, and leadership personality led to a split within the movement.

This created two different liberation camps, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) under the initial guidance of Ndabaningi Sithole while Nkomo led the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu), formed out of the defunct NDP. Zapu had originally pinned its hopes for majority rule on British intervention like had occurred in Zambia and Malawi.

However, the Rhodesians were much more entrenched in the political structures and armed forces than any British colony in Africa.

The next year showed Nkomo that constitutional negotiation, as had occurred in Zambia, would not be possible in the Rhodesian state and thus armed conflict was going to be the only alternative to remaining under colonial control.

However, as the struggle intensified, the cooperation between Zanu and Zapu became increasingly fractured and contentious, most likely spurred on by the Rhodesian intelligence services.

The fact that these two groups had split over ethnic lines did not help in terms of coordination and cooperation. Zapu was generally Ndebele and Zanu primarily made up of the Shona.

This ethnic division in itself caused a major setback against the settlers, as the movement lost those Africans that wished to only participate in a passive fashion.

Thus the movement, being drawn along ethnic lines, required a full commitment.

These two organisations also drew in support from different international bodies.

The Soviet bloc supported Zapu, while China supported Zanu.

The OAU was unsure over which side to back and in the end backed both of the moments but their contributions were not as significant because of the financial capability they lacked when compared to the socialist states.

At this time in the late 1950s Black Nationalism “never presented a military threat to the federal establishment” that had united Nyasaland, and the two Rhodesias.

However, the political impact was immense. In Zambia the opposition was strong, and by 1963 the federation had collapsed and Malawi and the Republic of Zambia emerged.

The white government in Rhodesia also expected to gain independence from the United Kingdom at this time. However, the colony continued under a self-rule policy from Britain that followed the 1961 constitution that was theoretically colour-blind.

Property and educational qualifications were put in place to vote for the ‘A’ role of 50 parliamentarians, while most of the African population voted for the ‘B’ role of 15 seats. The qualifications allowed for an increasing number of blacks to vote for the ‘A’ role positions, though only very slowly.

While Rhodesia could effectively govern how it saw fit, there was a fear that the new Labour Government in the United Kingdom would force a change in the constitution to allow more African say in the election of parliament. Thus in 1965 the new Prime Minister, Ian Smith, issued his Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Britain at first did nothing, thinking that Rhodesia would eventually come back to the crown or float towards disaster.

Resistance towards the government continued to grow after the UDI as a greater number of Africans became educated but still faced unemployment. Social constraints still faced the majority of the black population even when they had reached a financial level on par with some of the whites.

Additionally, white farmers were reluctant to give up any of the land on their farms. Thus this unemployed constituency turned to the liberation movement.

Though for a time after the UDI the Rhodesian police was more than capable of dealing with the unrest that had begun under Federation in the late 1950s.

This slow start to a liberation movement when compared to that in Zambia is because of the harsh reactionary steps taken by the Rhodesian government, but also because the NDP made a mistake in assuming that the tactics that proved successful in Zambia would also be successful in Rhodesia. The change over in Zambia had much to do with British intervention and pressure on the white colonial government.

In reality Britain had little control over Rhodesia, and the 1961 constitution that was negotiated between Britain, Rhodesia, and black leaders fell far short of the NDP’s desires and they renounced it.

Faced with a growing insurgency, the settlers also did away with the 1961 constitution, bringing the Rhodesian Front into political power.

Armed struggle seemed to pose a stumbling bloc for the dual movements because of a lack of boisterous support from the local population. Before the parties were banned by the state, crowds swelled at the rallies held in major population centres. However, the population’s eagerness to support a guerilla campaign were quite tempered in comparison, perhaps because of Prime Minister Ian Smith’s campaign to bribe, harass, and intimidate the population into not offering their support. Smith’s success caused the movements and their backers to question their own methods in confronting the state.

Calls for unity eventually came from all outside forces, and reluctantly Zanu and Zapu came to an understanding that would allow them to concentrate their resources on the Rhodesian government rather than each other.

In great contrast to the Zambian movement, the guerilla war in Rhodesia was “geared to achieving nationalist goals through the barrel of a gun”. The major strategy of the war was to target the transport system of Rhodesia. As African neighbours were slowly closing off Rhodesia, most of their links became southward looking.

These lifelines to South Africa became a primary target for the guerillas.

This included disrupting the land communication links around the country through roadside ambushes and mining the roads. This tactic was especially employed in those areas deemed operational zones.

Finally, the last goal of the war was to disrupt the agriculture, the country’s primary foreign income earner. This also would achieve the aim of scaring white farmers off their farms. This was seen to be a crucial step in breaking the moral of the whites.

Reading from the Mao tse Tung play book on peasant revolutions, Zanla concentrated a great deal of energy on winning over the masses in the rural areas. Attacks were planned and carried out on African collaborators, and just like the government. Mao teachings also influenced battle tactics of the Zimbabwean liberation movement. The strategy of fighting first in the countryside in order to surround the cities is a classic Maoist tactic.

As the war intensified and more encounters with the Rhodesian security forces resulted in the deaths of white soldiers there was an escalating struggle within the nationalist movement. This was due to the transition from a political body to a military one. Nkomo, having failed in his talks with Smith in the 1970s, was thought to be on the immediate decline but those predictions turned out to be false.

This eventually led to Nkomo declaring that black Rhodesians would have to decide between Zapu and Zanu.

He claimed that his African National Congress, Zapu, was the only legitimate liberation movement as it had been recognised by the OAU.

The uneasy alliance that had been briefly fostered between Zanu, now led by Robert Mugabe, and Nkomo was finally over.

While the Second Chimurenga war was under way, by 1976 the nationalist liberation movement was firmly divided both militarily and politically.

On the side of the Smith government, the toil of war was beginning to take its toll on the nation. Tourism in 1976 was at an all time low. Income from tourism was important since the UDI, and this loss contributed to the worsening economic situation as more and more young white men were forced into the military and combating the ‘terrorists’.

On the military front, other than the Special Air Service of the Rhodesian special forces, the military was responding on basically a reactionary strategy thus eliminating their superior firepower and air superiority from the equation.

Rather the military had to engage in pre-emptive strikes across international borders attempting to hit the camps that guerillas had established in the independent Zambia and Frelimo controlled Mozambique.

However, these strikes had little impact on the war as a whole, but as the guerilla forces in the country increased, these strikes became essential to the war effort.

As the end of the 1970s approached it was obvious that neither side had an upper hand in the conflict. Attacking across borders was causing massive casualties to the guerrillas and costing the aide-giving countries hundreds of millions of dollars per year because of the border embargo placed on Rhodesia.

Lewis Gann terms these so-called front line states as “front-line trenches in Salisbury’s all-out war on their territory”.

On the guerilla side, Nkomo’s Zapu had a well-stocked armoury while Zanu continued to bicker among itself for leadership control.

When the Conservative Party came to power in 1979 in the United Kingdom, it offered both sides a way to end the war.

The Rhodesians realised that no other British government would give them a more favourable deal than the Tories.

The guerillas on the other hand were increasingly losing manpower while internal discord and morale problems plagued their backlines.

Negotiations took place at the Lancaster House in London in 1979, and after tense and shaky talks, a deal was brokered to allow Rhodesia to temporarily return to the control of the crown while new elections were being arranged.

It was after these talks that Mugabe shifted his tough nationalist talk to an election campaign of reconciliation and peace.

Mugabe’s strategy worked brilliantly as he and his Zanu party were understood to be the only party capable of fulfilling their election promises.

Thus support from both the middle and lower classes poured in for Mugabe.

The new Zimbabwean government, in contrast to the Zambian, brought in leaders from all of the primary parties.

Nkomo received a position in the cabinet as well as two white Members of Parliament.

The glaring difference in the liberation movements of Zambia and Zimbabwe is the loss of life incurred on the settlers and the African nationalists.

From the onset of Zambian nationalism, a policy of non-violence was implemented.

While not always followed precisely, the level of violence never reached even a tenth of what would occur in Rhodesia.

Thus UNIP and Kaunda relied on protest and the eventual intervention of the British Colonial Office when it came to achieving their aims of majority rule.

Zanu and Zapu did not have that luxury when confronting the settler state in Rhodesia.

Only after a long and bloody struggle did the Smith government give in to international and internal pressure to negotiate their Rhodesian Front party out of power. Thus Mugabe and his government had a major issue of reconciling the scars of a beleaguered nation, while in Zambia the African government got straight to governing.

The measures taken by Mugabe to integrate the different parties into his government seemed to be an unprecedented and highly enlightened move to make sure that his country would enter the international scene as a beacon of hope for the changeover to majority rule across the continent of Africa.

Abridged from theafricanfile.com

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The Church and the struggle for Zim

Robert Matikiti
IT must be stated from the onset that the London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Jesuits (SJ), who had accepted large portions of land from Cecil John Rhodes, were tied to the scheme of the white settlers’ political agenda to dominate politics in southern Rhodesia.

Formed in 1903, the Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference was the first interdenominational body in the country with its main concern for church-state relations affecting African education, health and social welfare.

The missionaries’ stance during the initial stage of colonialism was one of complicity; their mission was linked to politics. In an interview with Mr D. Mafinyani, the General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches stated the following: “The missionaries connived with exploiters — the colonisers — in the marginalisation of the indigenous people. There are two sides to the church. This was the bad side.

Remember Lobengula did not want to sign “the X of approval” for Rhodes to rule Matabeleland. He was forced by a missionary Robert Moffat to do so. In good faith he signed, only to realise that he had lost control of his territory. This Moffat approach is still in existence today. The missionaries were part and parcel of the colonisation process.

The other side is that of a few missionaries like Skeleton who worked for democracy and majority rule. (Interview with Mafinyani at the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, May 2 2008.)

Indeed, during the 90 years of colonial occupation, in which a small minority ruled the country to the total exclusion of over 95 percent of the population, only a few missionaries were on the side of good governance and multi-party democracy.

The Unilateral Declaration

of Independence

Laakso (2002:327) points out that the Rhodesian Front (RF) “created the strongest party machinery ever known in the country.” The major aim of the RF was to promote

European interests and to defy domestic and international pressures for change in the minority governance of Southern Rhodesia. In 1965, the Smith government declared a state of emergency in order to allow the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) to take place.

Other laws were enacted, such as the Emergency Powers (Maintenance Law and Order) Regulations, which allowed for detention without trial, banning of public meetings and curtailment of political activity. After the declaration of UDI on November 11 1965, the Christian Council of Southern Rhodesia issued a statement condemning UDI. The Council and Government were antagonistic over the issue of multi-party democracy.

Meredith (1979) argues that the struggle in Southern Rhodesia was no longer confined to a matter of individual rights but involved the wider issue of political power.

After the introduction of UDI, the church and government increasingly found themselves on a collision course.

The church was now caught between the UDI regime and a nationalist movement that increasingly intensified guerrilla warfare.

The church in Southern Rhodesia became one of the strongest bastions of resistance to the government; with church mission schools across the country providing the only education for Africans, therefore offering opportunity for generations of African nationalists.

Until 1963 there was one main political movement known as the Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Union (Zapu).

The party split for many reasons. A new party was called Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) was formed. The major leaders of the nationalist movement, whatever their ethnic and political differences, had a church background.

Ndabaningi Sithole was a minister in the American Board Mission Congregational Church, while Abel Muzorewa was a bishop of the United Methodist Church. Joshua Nkomo was a lay preacher in the British-based branch of the Methodist Church, while Robert Mugabe was a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

As conflict between white and black communities deepened, the nationalists looked to the church as a welcome ally.

Church sympathy for the nationalist cause aroused strong resentment among white congregations as well as the government. Priests were frequently told that their duty was to preach the gospel and not meddle in politics.

The churches steadily raised the volume of their criticism of the government’s racial policies the only effect was to increase the gap between the church hierarchy and their white members.

Banana (1996a) argues that colonial rule was a dominant force that decreased the churches’ response; the typhoon of colonial rule overwhelmed churches.

The undisguised behaviour of the dominant class led by Ian Smith’s Rhodesian Front government was to perpetuate a policy of overt racial division. Banana further argued that through all the subjugation and poverty, the church and its servants never ceased to tirelessly work towards the attainment of a truly democratic society.

Several nationalist leaders and politically conscious ministers of the Methodist Church spoke against the unilateral act of defiance by the Smith regime.

Banana (1996a:86) postulates that “the UDI represented a travesty of justice, bastardisation of civilisation and an irreclaimable erosion of Christian values and traditions and its only claim to fame was that it opened the way for purportedly legitimate exploitation of the already oppressed African.”

A Catholic priest, Bishop Donal Lamont, an extremely conservative and outspoken critic of the Southern Rhodesian government, worked continuously to promote majority rule and multi-party democracy. He produced joint pastoral letters, with his fellow churchmen, denouncing racial injustice. In his view, the church had to move into politics only when the government passed laws that infringed upon the rights of man as handed down through the gospel.

The 1969 Constitution

The churches’ entry into politics came largely with their opposition to the 1969 Constitution that entrenched white rule and further strengthened segregation.

Bishop Lamont saw it as a move by the state into the Church’s sphere of influence, for the new laws prevented the churches from carrying out their duty.

The Land Tenure Act, introduced at the same time as the new constitution, made it illegal for either race to enter another’s area without applying for permission from the government. The churches refused to register under the new act or apply for permits to hold land and threatened to close down their schools and hospitals.

After months of argument, they forced a concession from the government; an amendment was issued without the churches needing to apply.

Meredith (1979: 232) states: “Bishop Lamont was the most vociferous critic of the 1969 Constitution”. In Lamont’s view, the constitution amounted to moral violence and terrorism. The Southern Rhodesian government would prepare the way for communism by creating conditions which made communist ideology attractive. Supporting African aspirations through missionary work, the Catholics were the dominant church in the fight against the constitution.

Even the Anglicans and Methodists, with larger white congregations and fewer ties in the vast rural areas, were prepared to join in condemning government policies. Methodist leader Muzorewa urged Africans to set their sights high, warning against apathy and despair, advising them to fight for their political rights.

Some government officials considered the churches to be more a political force than religious organizations. However, their criticism against the Anglicans and Methodists was conducted in a less aggressive manner than against the Catholic hierarchy.

Bishop Lamont lambasted the Southern Rhodesian racial ideology as being in essence the same as that of Nazi Germany, differing from it only in degree of application (Meredith 1979:234). He condemned the government for summary arrest and restriction of political opponents.

Ministers in the Rhodesia Front retaliated by accusing some priests as being partisan and being agents of nationalist movements. As the conflict spread, the guerrillas turned to remote mission stations for food and medical supplies.

 Adapted from an academic paper in the book “The Role of the Church in the Struggle for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe”