The Sunday News
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu
Mqabuko and the Making of the Nation
The decolonisation of Zimbabwe cannot be discussed without acknowledging the centrifugal role played by Dr Joshua Nkomo. His iconic and towering role as a nation-builder resides at the apex of our national liberation and the entirety of our post-independence politics. Therefore, my humble contribution to the freedom of Zimbabwe is directly linked to the African nationalist trajectory which was conceived and put into action by the Late Father Zimbabwe and former Vice-President Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo.
His role as the founder of African nationalism in Zimbabwe, his short-lived political demise in the face post-independence disturbances and later, his political resurgence as a beacon of national unity depicts the fluidity of his illustrious political career. In all this in Rhodesia, Dr Nkomo had spent more than a decade in political detention and after independence he was in exile. The colonialists who once victimised him temporarily protected him after independence.
To this day, the same imperialists have authenticated their conveniently borrowed monopoly over Dr Nkomo’s legacy. Today, we have even seen how some scholars who once facilitated Dr Nkomo’s marginalisation from national history gravitating towards the illumination of his political victimhood to buttress polarisation agendas. The recent fashionable turn to Zapu/ZPRA memorialisation by imperialist opportunists has been used to delegitimise Dr Nkomo’s efforts of national unity.
Through the mirror of Dr Nkomo’s political journey, it is easy to locate the path we have traversed as a nation in search of our liberation — its pitfalls the prospects it wields for nation-building. It is also through Dr Nkomo’s giant nationalist steps, in the face of his entanglement in race and ethnic schisms of national belonging from which we can evaluate the achievements of pan-African nationalism in Zimbabwe. The “Father Zimbabwe” title which he earned benchmarks the authenticity of his credentials in contributing to the birth of Zimbabwe.
In locating my role in the power dynamics of Zimbabwe, I cannot avoid expressing how my passion for the liberation of Zimbabwe is directly intertwined to the ideological personhood of Father Zimbabwe. To this end, I am forever appreciative to him for the inspiration which his life (sacrificed for the liberation of this country) remains a perennial sanctuary for my political existence. My involvement in the struggle for liberation was directly inspired by the foundation which Dr Nkomo had set the establishment of the SRANC right up to radicalisation of the fight against colonialism when I joined the armed struggle in 1967 as a member of both Zapu and ZPRA. Mqabuko presided over these two liberation institutions.
A Champion of Social Justice and a Nationalist
In socio-economic and political terms, Dr Nkomo was a product of an oppressive and dispossessing colonial system. His family just like many other African families were victims of marginal agrarian policies which triggered the fight for freedom. As also indicated in earlier, my father’s family was equally displaced from the Lower Gwelo in any area otherwise known as Mayindibulala.
Therefore, when Dr Nkomo rose to speak against the oppression of over people all over the country, his message resonated with the existing conditions of colonial repression. In the same vein, nationalist mobilisation was grounded on the tenacity to undo colonial domination. The quest for equality between the oppressed majority and the ruling minority became the rallying point for the political reform which Dr Nkomo was advocating for.
The colonial administration remained ignorant of his calls for political reform to a point which resulted in Dr Nkomo taking leading front in labour grievances of the Rhodesian Railway workers. His continued fight against the disenfranchisement of the African workers accelerated his sphere of political influence. After meeting with Thompson Samukange in the 1950s resulting in his full membership to the SRANC, Dr Nkomo rose to prominence as the president of this political organisation in 1957.
Dr Nkomo was deputised by Robert Dambaza Chikerema who was the President of the Harare City Youth League. Chikerema advocated for the amalgamation of both SRANC and the Harare City Youth League. With Ghana having attained independence in 1957, Dr Nkomo’s social advocacy transfigured. Under the banner of the SRANC, Dr Nkomo began calling for the one man, one vote system. It was at this point that the nationalist movement was beginning to assert its political existence. Southern-Rhodesia also reasserted its sovereignty.
After the formation NDP and its intensified call for democratisation and constitutional reform to pave way for inclusive participation of the African nationalists. In 1961 Dr Nkomo was engaged by the settler regime to negotiate his proposed tenets if constitutional reform. After a series of discussion at the British Constitutional Conference, it was resolved that the regime will open up 15 seats for occupation by the nationalists. This arrangement compromised the possibilities of fast-tracking majority rule.
Dr Nkomo’s inner circle was offended by this decision, but his action was based on his futuristic ambitions for inclusive participation of the nationalist movement in decision. Britain also made it a point that it would not intervene in the internal political dynamics of Southern-Rhodesia. With the United Nations being engaged to resolve the democratic crisis stalemate in Southern-Rhodesia, Britain made declared that it would remain distant from the internal affairs of Southern-Rhodesia.
After the famous riots which led to Dr Nkomo’s arrests and other nationalists, the People’s Caretakers Council was formed to replace Zapu. While in incarceration, Dr Nkomo never kept his hopes high that the country was going to be free from colonial rule. The time I joined the liberation struggle to train in Zambia in 1967, Dr Nkomo had been long imprisoned in 1964. The mobilisation on the ground and the ongoing military operations at the time prove that Dr Nkomo led the armed struggle from prison. For 11 years Zapu’s faith in Dr Nkomo was not lost. After his release from prison, in 1974, DrNkomo was adamant to seeing our people becoming masters of their destiny.
Coming to know Umdala Wethu
The stride set by Dr Nkomo in the fight against colonialism made him at hero to both my generation and that of our parents. We grow up knowing of this great liberator and due to the praise he attracted. In my entire childhood, Dr Nkomo posed as a bulwark symbol of the oppressed. He was an endeared character, not only to my community, but his name was mentioned with our household which on its own had produced National Democratic Party card holding members. Like any other African born in Rhodesia, my political socialisation was grounded on the racist designed oppression.
By the time I was mature to read between good and evil, the only existing institution which was opposed to the racist regime was Zapu. It was in the values of Zapu where I initially came face to face with the vision which Dr Nkomo had for a free Zimbabwe. My second encounter with Dr Nkomo –the idea was when I joined ZPRA, the Zapu military wing. In ZPRA I was taught patriotism, vigilance and loyalty to principle. It was in ZPRA where my ideological resolve was established and cemented. To this day, I remain an enemy to any form of oppression of one human by another. It was in the struggle, where I was humanised and equally found the need to rehumanise my people whose existence was relegated below that of animals.
I was taught the cardinal principle of reclaiming the stolen. For our land had been looted, mineral wealth plundered and our humanity desecrated to ensure that we only perceived ourselves as objects of labour for colonial capital. We were also reduced to subjects of colonial cultures and beliefs systems at the expense of our God-given norms and cultural values.
At the level of Black rehumanisation agenda, Dr Nkomo’s Zapu and ZPRA became ideological agents of deracialising humanity. Therefore, to me Dr Nkomo and the entirety of the struggle for liberation signified the re-ordering of society towards equality and challenging the racially defined terms of being. The creed of the struggle as defined by Dr Nkomo and envisioned in his vision for a free Zimbabwe entailed the eliminating the racial degeneracies and the privileges of the racist regime.
Beyond my first one on one with Dr Nkomo during the Victoria-Falls Talks of 1975, I can safely say I had encountered Dr Nkomo philosophically. Meeting him in person in 1975 at this most decisive point of our struggle was quite fulfilling to my journey which had begun in 1967. In the August of 1975 when the Victoria Falls Peace Talks started I was among the cadres who were afforded the opportunity to meet up with him. This critical point of peace negotiation was the initial roadmap to the détente period. During the Victoria-Falls Peace Talks was comprised of key Zapu, Zanu, Frolizi stakeholders, Abel Muzorewa’s United African National Congress was represented. The Late Rhodesian leader Ian Smith was the head of this political dialogue coalition.
The talks at finding a middle ground for the nationalists. While there was no reached settlement from these negotiation forum what was most important to me was seeing Dr Nkomo and being part of the individuals who witnessed this historic turn of the protracted war for liberation. It was fulfilling to see the man who had driven many us to fight for the liberation of our country. The opportunity was quite divine considering the magnitude of Dr Nkomo’s mythical construction in public discussion.
The author, Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is Zanu-PF’s Secretary for Administration for Administration in the Politburo. This article is extracted from Dr Mpofu’s autobiography, On the Shoulders of Struggle: Memoirs of a Political Insider.
