Today is supposed to be Independence Day;; that hallowed Uhuru day when we commemorate the gallantry of the sons and daughters of our land, especially those who lost life and limb so that the whims and aspirations of future generations could walk again.
Our independence did not come cheap and some of our gallant sons and daughters paid the ultimate price.
Today, we remember them. We salute them.
However, this year we commemorate (not celebrate) this day when the sole essence of this day is under serious threat from Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 3, whose import is to take away the right of ordinary Zimbabweans to elect their own leaders, particularly the President, itself a cardinal that lay at the very heart of the brutal armed struggle that freed our motherland.
And to aid the burgeoning national resistance to this treasonous Bill, Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom will today hold a symbolic protest at Zimbabwe’s embassy in London to patriotically express their revulsion at this tyrannical intent.
This year’s Independence Day commemorations, often a lavish affair for the chefs, are being held at Maphisa growth point in Matobo district, Matabeleland South province.
Yet the poverty in this desolate district, most of whose sons and daughters are economic refugees in South Africa and elsewhere, remains a solemn testament of 46 years of Zanu PF failure.
Today, celebratory planes will fly over the desolate landscape of Maphisa “growth” point in Matobo. A lavish ceremony will be held and the treasonous architects of CAB3 will enjoy sumptuous meals, with the weather-beaten ordinary folk watching while sitting in the scorching sun.
The people of Matobo have nothing to show for their independence and the unmitigated signs of ZANU PF failure imprinted throughout Matabeleland South province are a replica of the endemic poverty elsewhere in the country.
And yet today, the treasonous CAB 3 architects will tell them they have done a lot for the province and for the country!
Under the current gluttonous regime–which is far much worse than Mugabe at his worst—we have seen ED and his corrupt kinsmen and kinswomen pillaging the national resources while the rest of the citizenry wallows in unmitigated poverty.
In fact, ED and the ruling political elite have since finished eating the fruits of our independence. They are now eating the very tree of independence itself, including the roots bark and stem!
The war of independence was fought by an entire nation, across geography and across tribe. We were all in it together, the indigenous people of this hallowed land.
But today, across the political divide, we are all shocked by this shameful plunder of the country’s vast wealth by a few and their treasonous penchant to pilfer our right to vote for a President of our choice.
We fought the war together and sooner rather than later, there will be no party card when Zimbabweans deliver the ultimate political punishment to those stealing the country’s vast wealth, including our sovereign right to elect a leader of our choice.
We fought the war simply as a citizens’ movement demanding political, social and economic justice.
The right to vote was at the core of our brutal war of independence, which right today stands on the verge of being treasonously taken away by an avaricious political elite.
Also at the core of our struggle for independence was the issue of land. The sanctity and centrality of land to our brutal struggle is common cause.
Sadly, both our rural and urban areas remain congested because the land has been parcelled out only to the political elite and those oligarchs umbilically connected to Zanu PF, known variously either as land barons or multiple farm owners.
Today, ED has even gone further than his predecessor. He has appointed his proxy and anointed successor Kuda Tagwirei to chair a dubious Land Committee whose remit usurps the powers of a Land Commission as espoused in the country’s Constitution, which Constitution the current regime is tenaciously fighting on all fronts.
As the regime launches its vicious assault on the supreme law of the land through CAB3, we have seen the right to basic freedoms of speech, opinion and assembly being denied to those intending to exercise their democratic right to oppose this treacherous Bill.
Yet today is Independence Day. And independence without freedom is trite, vacuous and empty.
Freedom is a key ingredient of true independence and any purported independence bereft of freedom is akin to a bus without a driver, a school without students and without a head, a church without congregants and a political party without followers or supporters.
Indeed, freedom is at the epicentre of independence. But in 1980, our so-called independence came alone, unaccompanied by the requisite freedoms that ought to have given it proper import, relevance and meaning.
Today, fellow Zimbabweans, we are commemorating an empty day.
A carcass.
Today, our independence has sadly become what renowned poet Freedom T. V. Nyamubaya called a mysterious marriage; a wedding where the groom came without his bride.
Today, I will allow Nyamubaya—from whom I have borrowed the title to this piece– to poetically address you, dear readers, on the hollowness of our national independence.
Nyamubaya penned this imaginative, poetic verse that I republish here to dramatically illustrate the illusion of the day that we commemorate today:
A Mysterious Marriage
Once upon a time
there was a boy and a girl
forced to leave their home
by armed robbers
The boy was Independence
The girl was Freedom
While fighting back, they got married.
After the big war they went back home
Everybody prepared for the wedding
Drinks and food abounded,
Even the disabled felt able,
The whole village gathered waiting
Freedom and Independence,
were more popular than Jesus
Independence came
but Freedom was not there
An old woman saw Freedom’s shadow passing,
Walking though the crowd, Freedom to the gate
All the same , they celebrated for independence
Independence is now a senior bachelor
Some people still talk about him
Many others take no notice
A lot still say , it was a fake marriage
You can’t be a husband without a wife,
Fruitless and barren independence staggers to old age,
Since her shadow, Freedom, hasn’t come.
Luke Tamborinyoka, currently based in England, is a citizen born and bred in Domboshava. He is by profession a journalist and political scientist.
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