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Cde Kanengoni

Lovemore Ranga Mataire Senior Writer
Mudhara Gora Alexander Kanengoni you are not dead. How can you be dead when just two weeks ago I met you with Amai — your wife, at Montagu Shopping Centre in the Avenues in Harare and you promised to look at my manuscript? How can you be dead when you had promised that we were

together going to see the old man David Todhlana in Mazowe?

How can you be gone when you had told me that The Patriot newspaper, of which you were the Deputy Editor, was planning to run a special on the war veterans’ indaba?

You always exhibited that infectious wry smile that was your trademark. When you laughed, your whole body shook with reckless abandon.

As I write, I see those piercing eyes that burnt the candle all night long as you poured your heart out on paper crafting numerous war novels that touched the hearts of many.

Only a few months ago, I had the singular honour of inviting you to the University of Zimbabwe English Department Creative Writing/Press Club where you were once a student and you delivered one of the most enthralling lectures as you recounted “Echoing Silences”, one of your enduring texts that focuses on the harrowing experiences of war.

You were initially hesitant but when I visited your office and handed the invite, I knew when I saw that wry trademark smile that you felt guilty turning me down.

Very few people know your passionate love for literature. Very few people know that you were an adept story teller — able to effortlessly criss-cross between English and Shona.

You made the English language come to life and everything you touched created a whole new perspective.

It was thus an unforgettable afternoon at the Education Lecture Theatre Room as you reminisced on Munashe Mungate, the fictional protagonist whose life parallel yours in many ways, the difference being that Munashe dies and you are still not dead.

I remember your friendly candid exchanges with Dr Ruby Magosvongwe who queried why you killed Munashe. The whole audience erupted into spontaneous laughter as you insisted that you did not kill Munashe but “he dies in the text.”

I could tell from your animated posture that “Echoing Silences” was no more fiction. Memory Chirere tried to pin you down on the general pessimistic and foreboding tone that pervades the whole text of “Echoing Sciences” arguing that readers may interpret this as some kind of doubt about the whole essence of the war.

With your typical witticism and that affable smile, you wriggled out of Chirere’s question arguing that the book was your attempt to realistically recreate the war with all its inconvenient idiosyncrasies.

“War is war, it is not a picnic. I wanted to show the dehuminising effect of the war especially its impact on the fighters,” you said as you shrugged your shoulders not in resignation but saying ndozvazviri.

You talked about the fakeness of some contemporary post-colonial Zimbabwean writers always quick to sell their souls for a case of wine. You said there was nothing wrong in telling the truth but one must not lie about his/her country. “These people are fakes, always singing for their supper.”

You talked about how the Zimbabwean story was hijacked during the so called lost decade.

“I have no problem with people coming up with their own alternative narratives about Zimbabwe but please don’t lie,” those were your words in reference to the late Chenjerai Hove, Yvonne Vera, No Violet Bulawayo and Petina Gappah.

You enthralled us all as you kind of went into a trance and recounted life in Rhodesia and how the system pushed so many of your generation to join the liberation struggle and how you led that demonstration for fair treatment in Ruwa and your subsequent brief arrest by mabhurakwacha.

How can you be dead Mudhara Gora when these photos taken with students at the University of Zimbabwe speak to me of life — a life you were willing to share with all and sundry . . . old and young. You somehow seemed frustrated at the slow pace of mental decolonisation afflicting many of your countrymen.

How can you be dead when barely a week ago you proudly and jokingly said you had a divisi as you were expecting a good harvest at a time the nation is grappling with the El Nino-induced drought? Indeed, how can you be dead when you were working on another book project of an autobiographical nature? You can’t be dead for your work is still in progress?

I am not the only one with that lingering hunger for your autobiographical book, which I am sure would tie up the loose ends of your participation in the struggle. We needed no more plastic balls but the candid truth about your experiences in war.

Cde Gora you can‘t be dead because you are again listed as one of our guests for the University of Zimbabwe Creative Writing/Press Club this semester calendar. You can’t be dead as you had consented to once again deliver another lecture on your other books — “Vicious Circle” and “When The Rainbird Cries”.

Just like you articulated in “Echoing Silences,” one is never entirely at peace as long as those demons continue haunting your soul.

How can you be dead when only yesterday you left the comfort of your teaching job in Mufakose and left for the liberation struggle? How can you be dead when the unity of the country and the revolutionary ZANU PF party you strived for seems to be shaky? No, you can’t be dead Cde Gora when your London-based mukuwasha Tafadzwa Mugwagwa, who married your youngest daughter Josie had just arrived from England with his family to see you? You can’t be dead when just yesterday you were playing with your muzukuru taunting him about his crooked tongue which can barely utter a properly constructed Shona word?

Indeed, how can you be dead when your office at The Patriot is still the way you left it last Friday? No, Cde Gora you are not dead.

It is just one big nightmare. You can’t be gone when your own phone WhatsApp indicates that you were online just a few hours before your youngest son Tinashe called to say you were not waking up?

I know you are in a deep slumber whereupon you shall wake up to launch your acidic perspective that will again illuminate the broader dynamics that outplayed in the liberation struggle.

No, Mudhara Gora, you not dead!