The Sunday News
Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them . . . Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay . . . Without memory, there is no culture.” (Writer unknown)
The above statements aptly summarise what the Heroes Day and the Defence Forces Day stand for. The Heroes holidays, set for Monday and Tuesday is meant to honour and celebrate the sons and daughters of this country who sacrificed a lot so that we have an independent Zimbabwe. The holiday also pays homage to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces who are also doing a sterling job to ensure peace and stability, key ingredients for economic and social prosperity.
It is important that as we celebrate our independence, we always take time to reflect on the path and road traversed by our liberation heroes. It was never an easy road, and many died in the trenches while fighting to free our country from colonial bondage. It is thus important that we hold dearly our independence, as well as the peace, unity and stability that was passed on to us by the Founding Fathers of our liberation.
The Heroes holidays occupy a special place in our history and development as a nation as we remember and pay tribute to our dear countrymen and women who paid the supreme sacrifice for the liberation of our country.
Last year, on the occasion to mark the country’s 40th Heroes Day anniversary, President Mnangagwa said; “Our position is clear; a firm foundation has been laid and continues to be strengthened for a thriving constitutional democracy, and a just, open, accountable and prosperous society. With unfaltering determination, and emboldened by the experiences of the unrelenting attacks on our country in the past two decades, we know that the future is bright. Our success is inevitable.
The divisive falsehoods and concoctions by renegades and supremacists who want to pounce on our natural resources will never win the day. Truth shall triumph over lies, and good over evil.”
This year’s anniversary comes after the mounting of the statue of Mbuya Nehanda in Harare, which has immortalised the supreme sacrifice that was paid by the forebears of our liberation struggle. The location of this statue carries added historical meaning because the intersection of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way is the spot where Mbuya Nehanda used to rest and drink water from a river that flowed at the site.
Moreover, Government has said more heroes and heroines from the early wars of resistance will also be honoured in a similar manner. Among them is General Mtshane Khumalo who commanded the Imbizo Regiment, under King Lobengula, that defeated the Allan Wilson Patrol at the Battle of Pupu on 10 December, 1893.
As we honour our gallant heroes, we also have to make sure that we preach the gospel of peace, unity and prosperity. Without peace, there is no development.
“Peace is a pre-requisite for development as a whole because it creates an enabling environment for the fundamentals of a society’s progress: human capital formation, infrastructure development, markets subject to the rule of law, and so on. In the absence of peace, education and health structures break down, systems to provide infrastructure disintegrate, and legal commerce is crippled.
Critically, peace also frees up resources, both financial and human, that would otherwise be diverted to controlling violence. Intuitively, we have long known that peace and development go hand in hand — generally speaking, the more peaceful a society, the more prosperous and stable,” said writers, Roshan Paul and Sarah Jefferson in an article titled Peace as a pre-requisite for development.
