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Obi Egbuna Jr Correspondent
For those amongst our ranks sincerely invested in the cultural and political decolonisation process, we must carefully and thoroughly evaluate the utilisation of all weapons African people have at their disposal.

What this forces us to do collectively is to address how effective we have been not only in the past and presently, but naturally looking at the immediate future and long after our inevitable departure from the physical world, when we have the chance to rub shoulders with our ancestors in a more sacred and tranquil setting. After we explore this journey through a clear analysis and narrative, courtesy of an ideological foundation that rejects all forms of capitulation and betrayal, we will recognise the immeasurable value of our historical calendar.

In 1985, the Pan African Revolutionary Socialist Party that derived from a split with the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party, created a calendar entitled Southern Africa Year Of Decisive Commitment.

The objective was to show the paramount importance of our efforts to help our comrades in Southern Africa become the last region of Mother Africa to break the crippling and monstrous shackles of settler colonialism. An even more valuable political lesson is that sometimes splits are not always counter productive and detrimental to our cause.

We are glad that Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah saw the limitations of the United Gold Coast Convention and started the Convention People’s Party.

As for the struggle for land reclamation in South Africa, every indigenous woman, man and child should go to the grave site of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe and plant a kiss on his tombstone. If Comrade Sobukwe and the leadership of the ANC Youth League didn’t break away from the ANC and start the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the situation on the ground today would have been entirely different.

The people of Zimbabwe are fully aware that the split between ZAPU and ZANU enhanced the goals of the Second Chimurenga and raised the bar for unity and political maturity on the battlefield. While millions of African families at home and abroad are huddled under Christmas trees or lining up their Kwanzaa candles, we humbly ask and request that they intellectually navigate through the month of December. What they will discover are some pivotal and significant breakthroughs in our history and struggle, as rich as the soil of Mother Africa.

The first day of December is when we commemorate the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott organised by the Montgomery Improvement Association. On the 4th, we remember how the Chicago Police Department in conjunction with the FBI ruthlessly assassinated Black Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark 50years ago.

The 5th marked the 60th anniversary of the All African Peoples Conference in Ghana, which took place in 1958, on the same day in 1935, the National Council of Negro Women is born. On the 7th, the African revolutionary known as the Bronze Titan General Antonio Maceo was born in Cuba in 1896, 29 years before the human rights icon Frederick Douglass began publishing the newspaper called the North Star.

On the 9th, the father of African history Dr Carter G. Woodson is born in 1875 and of the same day 86 years later, Tanzania gains its independence from British colonialism. On the 10th, The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola is formed in 1956, that same exact day two years prior in Namibia, dozens of women are killed and wounded during a mass protest.

On the 11th, Chief Albert Luthuli received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1981.On the 13th in 1971, 6 000 Namibian workers organised a strike in Namibia.

On the 16th, the ANC forms its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, on the 17th, five years before ZAPU is created to ignite resistance against settler colonialism. On the 17th, the heart and face of Black Consciousness Movement of Azania Steve Biko was born, on the 20th in 1852 at the Berea mountains, European Boers suffer a defeat at the hands of warriors led by Basuto. On the 23rd, the African revolutionary Henry Highland Garnet was born and on the 29th in 1923, the brilliant anthropologist Dr Cheikh Anti Diop was born. Finally, on the 31st, the great historian Dr Yosef Ben Jochannon was born in 1917 and that same day the second wife of the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born in 1895. For Zimbabweans who use the calendar for ideological training, who therefore, understand how it can Pan Africanise solidarity efforts for their Government, ruling party and people, welcome the opportunity to make some undeniable and immeasurable parallels. With a smile on their face, Zimbabweans will tell you General Maceo was born the same year Mbuya Nehanda was hung for leading the first armed rebellion against British colonial invaders.

This magnifies Cuba’s efforts in training Zimbabwean teachers at the island of youth, which resulted in Zimbabwe having a 97 percent literacy rate. This can’t be shared in isolation from Cuba bestowing its highest political honour, the Jose Marti Award, on former President Robert Gabriel Mugabe in 1985.

After sharing that connection, Zimbabweans will tell you that through the tireless and selfless efforts of late the First Lady and national heroine Amai Sally Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s opened doors to the National Council of Negro Women in 1983.

More than likely, most Zimbabweans who are extremely proud of their culture of unity, will point you to December 22, when ZANU and ZAPU formed an historic Unity Accord, that prevented a civil war and neutralised plans of a re-invasion of Zimbabwe by imperialist forces Because of the climate and framework that led to the development of that accord, it is irresponsible of Africans worldwide 31 years later, to avoid uniting our efforts to lift US-EU sanctions on Zimbabwe, especially since it is abundantly clear all neocolonialist opposition is working to maintain them at all costs. Every Zimbabwean regime change agent, who US-EU imperialism feels has earned the right to come to Washington or London and pose for a photo-op with their masters and enablers, will go to the grave knowing they will never be considered patriots by any stretch of the imagination.

The time has come for organisations at the grass roots level to create an accord exploring all possibilities to force US-EU imperialism to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe once and for all.

Obi Egbuna Jr is the US Correspondent to The Herald and external relations officer to ZICUFA(Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association) His email address is [email protected].