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Elita Chikwati-Senior Reporter 

Zimbabweans have been urged to love and appreciate their history to be able to move forward and be better generations, a senior official has said.

Speaking after touring some monuments and historical sites in Bulawayo, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said it was important for people to appreciate their past as this has a bearing on their future.

She said there was nothing wrong with the erection of Mbuya Nehanda’s statue as the heroine had played a pivotal role in fighting for the liberation of Zimbabweans.

“Young Zimbabweans need to know about this, they cannot continue to learn about Christopher Columbus and all these other historians in Europe and all over the place without knowing their own history. We can’t run away from our own history. We need to know where we came from to chat our way forward.

“As the Minister of Information, our main job is to make sure that we remove that polarisation among our populace. Secondly we make sure Zimbabweans are united. 

“It is a pleasure working under President ED Mnangagwa of the Second Republic because his main job has been to unite the whole Zimbabweans in the 10 provinces,” she said.

Minister Mutsvangwa said the President’s visit to Bulawayo was testimony of the unity among the people of Zimbabwe.

“The President ‘s visit to Bulawayo is very important in that there is no Shona, there is no Ndebele, there is no Xosa, there are Zimbabweans. We are Zimbabweans and we are one. As we move together, knowing the cultures and knowing the values and principles which cultures stand for, we can appreciate each other better.

 “We are one Zimbabwe and with unity, peace we will certainly develop because he (President Mnangagwa) is working hard not just on the economic side but on the social side.

“This is what he is doing to make sure the people of this country remember who they are. We can only chat the way forward when we know where we are coming from,” she said.

 She said Zimbabweans should appreciate Zimbabwe did not come on a silver platter as thousands of sons and daughters sacrificed their lives for the the freedom being enjoyed today.

“It is important for Zimbabweans to know that there are people who suffered for us to have the enjoyment of independence which we have today and Mbuya Nehanda even coming after 40 years its better later than never.

“We need to celebrate that. I have spent 12 years in diplomacy and lived in America with statues of the heroes and heroines in UK, Brussels all over the world and in this country you got to Victoria Falls you see David Livingstone and that does not ring out who we are as Zimbabweans,” she said.

Minister Mutsvangwa expressed gratitude to the President for recognising women and erecting the statue of Mbuya Nehanda.

“We, especially in my case, I was in the war and as a female war combatant, we feel very close to the spirit of Mbuya Nehanda that ‘mapfupa angu achamuka’, that kept us going. And we said ‘yes, Mbuya Nehanda said it’. “Just today the President was on the tour of the cultural heritage to make sure that you mix with everyone. He went to the Cathedral Basilica, we went to a place where we have this tree where the colonisers, the settlers were hanging our forefathers and we went to the natural heritage museum that is bringing and touching everybody’s life. We visited Joshua Mqabuko museum.

“The President is saying ‘I am a President of all of you, we need to move together as one because when we move together as one like that song’: unity brings jobs, unity brings development unity is all what we want to get where we want to go,” she said.