Zimpapers Logo

The Herald, August 11, 1981

ZIMBABWEANS must beware of betraying the sacrifices and deaths of thousands of heroes that gave it liberation, the Prime Minister, Mr Mugabe, warned last night.

In an address to the nation to mark the solemn celebration of today and tomorrow as Heroes Days, he described those who fought and died for independence as, “truly men of high integrity and discipline “, who worked only for the nation, not for themselves.

The Prime Minister asked: “Are we like them, or are we reckless, immoral and irresponsible characters who live for drink, women and pleasure and lack of awareness of duty and sense of responsibility?”

All Zimbabweans must ask themselves whether “in word or deed we are working to consolidate the freedom and independence” the fallen heroes and heroines had brought us.

“Are we showing the great degree of selflessness our heroes showed?”

Did Zimbabweans subordinate individualism to collective interest “… or are they taking advantage of our independence to improve our individual positions, forgetting our social obligations?”

Fallen heroes, he said, like Mr Herbert Chitepo, who would be buried at Heroes Acre today, alongside General Josiah Tongogara and Mr Jason Moyo, represented many thousands of Zimbabwean heroes who made similar sacrifices and died for the cause. They died for the nation and not for a single tribe, region or race.

“We have to ask ourselves, therefore, whether our own views and attitudes and our own actions and the role we play in society are promotive of national unity and thus conform to the sacred principles of our heroes have shown us.”

The Government was committed to the principles and objectives that guided the people and liberation movements. 

It was pursuing programmes to ensure a non-racial society and follow a path of socialism.

“We fought to achieve political power for the masses of Zimbabwe and that is why we have proceeded to give power to the people at all levels of our society.

“We have fought to place our wealth and economic resources in the hands of the people and this why we have plans for the redistribution of wealth and the collective participation of the people and by the State in our economy.”

 The Government would always stress the role of the workers and the peasantry.  

“This in fact is the basis of our socialism, which rejects the individualism of capitalism as a selfish and immoral philosophy.”

Mr Mugabe said: “We also fought for the survival of our culture, which we are doing all we can within our power to revive, at the same time as we accept the positive aspects of other cultures.”

Zimbabwe could not succeed in isolation and must maintain the bond of solidarity and friendship with other African states and socialist and progressive countries and organisations.

An important aspect of the nation’s foreign policy was the commitment to the total liberation of Namibia and South Africa.

LESSONS FOR TODAY 

• Independence, Heroes Day and Defence Forces Day are days when the nation should come together in unity to pay respect to the sons and daughters of the soil that fought for freedom and democracy.

• They are days when the echo of “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again”, should ring loud and clear around the globe.

• As a people, we can agree and disagree on how to move forward, but the disagreements should never give room to yesterday’s colonisers to come back and treat us as second class citizens.

• The only way we can avoid betraying the ideals of the living and departed heroes and heroines is to ensure that we consolidate the gains of the hard won independence.

• One solution is to ensure that there are well capacitated research institutes that will research and write about the various aspects of the liberation struggle, and the men and women who waged that struggle.

• Curriculum in schools and colleges must incorporate Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. Biographies and autobiographies should be a major part of the studies.

• The failure to immortalise the liberation struggle has led some people to think that by the time that history is written, there will be a lot of revisionism. Revisionist history betrays the memories of the living and fallen heroes.