By Takura Zhangazha*
I will start with cde Freedom Nyamubaya. A war veteran of repute. She would tell us at the now closed iconic Quill Club that we are 'small boys'. And that we did not understand the viccisitudes of the liberation struggle. What she went through and what she endured post-independence.
Then there was Cde Dzino (Dzinashe Machingura) and his commitment to 'dialectical materialism' even as he worked to invent the chemical make-up of the now famous Zambezi larger! He was to remain one of my primary political mentors for another ten years until his sad passimg. And he is yet to be declared a national hero. (Apa vanga vari vakomana ve Mgagao!)
I also met the also still undeclared national hero Edgar Tekere in different and difficult circumstances. When he pitched up at the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) offices with Ian Smith, former Rhodesia prime minister and with the then political outfit called the Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe (CAZ).
We sort of ran away from cde Edgar Tekere that day in the late 1990's when he sort of hobnobbed with Ian Smith.
But our icon at the same time was Morgan Tsvangirai as he led the late 1990s stay aways via the historically relevant and amazing Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
And with perculiar political decisiveness formed the National Working Peoples Convention (NWPC) which in turn led to the formation of Zimbabwe's historically largest opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999 at the Chitungwiza Acquatic Complex, Harare, Zimbabwe.
There are many other cdes that are alive or have passed on.
Some of those that are still with us have lost their ideological way for materialist reasons.
Others have gone relatively quiet either out of general ideological despair (this is not ehat they envisioned).
Or because their life priorities became more individualistic.
There are however cdes that are still holding people-centered ideological fort. I cannot mention them for the sake of their privacy.
Some are in academics (teaching), quietly pulling intellectual strings for future generations.
Others are in labour unions, struggling with the important issues of fair wages and conditions.
Some remain in civil activist groups relating to human rights, social services, equitable land redistribution, medicine, greener ecological mining and agricultural practices.
As well as dealing with emerging racisms and issues of global immigration.
The key point however is that there is need for a re-galvanisation of cdes in their progressive consciousness.
In Zimbabwe and within regional, African continental and global progressive consciousness across continents.
A lot of cdes know this. They may however miss the point as written by Nelson Mandela that there is no single epiphany, just a thousand slights that firm up a renewed progressive people- centered struggle conviction. This is our new urgent revolutionary task.
Whereas we can be caught up in the trap of mimicry of the global north's false mainstream intellectualism via social media, we have to contend with our own organic intellectualism challenges.
In the words of the revolutionary Aime Cessaire and I am paraphrasing here, we must 'return to the source' of our intrinsic Pan African consciousness in order to navigate what is a very difficult future for global humanity. We have seen and lived the thousand slights. We now need to tackle them without anticipating an epiphany!
It also remains apparent that we are faced with a younger and less ideologically focused generation of Zimbabweans/Africans.
There is the urgent evident need to bridge the ideological gap beyond age and the craze of assuming education does not have a trickle down effect of knowledge ownership and control via the global north and its techno-feudalists.
Watch many films or tick tock videos and you will see a global narrative that continues to look down on us from the global south. Or promote a myth that the global north is a heaven worth dying for in the Sahel or the Medittaranean sea.
We do not need a mimicry of Eurpeoan Renaissance. I know that respected African elder statesman Thabo Mbeki has his ideological pretext of an African Renaissance.
That did not work out as planned even after the reform of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU) which he helped spearhead.
To be honest, cdes Pan African and historical consciousness is at a crossroads.
We have over-mimicked other histories, nations or states. We have over-prostrated ourselves to global capitalism to a point where our own lives are deemed collateral in wars or economic subterfuge.
We have to return to the source of our own consciousness. Not in order to differentiate ourselves from anyone.
But in order to understand the historicity as well as the future of where we are in the present.
So we salute cdes who led us to the contemporary progressive consciousness we have today.
We also now know that even that consciousness is no longer enough if it is not sustained via newer multi-media narratives that combine the past, present and the future. In our minds and in our progressive consciousness.
That is where the struggle continues.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
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