Blessing Taona Denhere

By Blessing Taona Denhere Accordingly, Eureka Eureka album is the apt metaphor of protest music crafted in the rebellious tradition of provoking and spotlighting the socioeconomic and the socio-political ills within our society. It follows in the tradition of protest albums such as Hokoyo, Chimurenga Explosion and Chimurenga Rebel by Thomas Mapfumo and also Hodho by Leonard Zhakata and many others. The two songs which have ignited the most debate due to their politically charged and socially conscientizing lyrics are Ibotso and Dzimba Dzemabwe.

Blessing Taona Denhere: "It is a well documented historical fact that, whenever ZANU PF is faced with a formidable political and electoral opponent, it resorts to its tried and tested tactics of scorched earth obscene violence, terror and brutality."

Blessing Taona Denhere: "The British left wing scholar activist Owen Jones in his seminal work “The Establishment '', opined that '' Politicians are stripped naked and with no warning, shoved onto stage. The audience gasps: someone familiar stands before them, but now, under the unforgiving glare of the spotlights, the character is finally exposed for who it really is. Yet, as suddenly as the figure appears, it is covered up again and taken back to where it belongs: offstage”.

By Blessing Taona Denhere However, since 1987, successive ZANU PF governments have shown no genuine and serious inclination and efforts to address the long festering untreated traumatic wound of Gukurahundi genocide. Suffice it to say that, the current ZANU PF government led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa contains Gukurahundi denialists. Who through their commission and omissions continues to deny and try to downplay the genocidal atrocities of gukurahundi. This explains why the Bhalagwe memorials continue to be desecrated and pulverized each time they are installed. Thus, within the two years period three successive Bhalagwe Gukurahundi memorials have been desecrated and destroyed each time they are installed. The last one which happened on the 4th of January 2022, had a degree of military precision to it. That is it involved the use of explosive materials that pulverize it to pieces. This is very tragic and disheartening that the victims of Gukurahundi even in their mass graves at Bhalagwe continue to suffer from militarized violence.

By Blessing Taona Denhere Frantz Fanon in his seminal and immortal text; “The Wretched of The Earth” prophetically and provocatively said that “Each generation must out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it”. At that particular moment Fanon was throwing a generational gauntlet during the height and fever period of anti colonial struggles in Africa and the colonized world. However, this prophetic text has become transcendental and inter-generational. As such, it has become a reference and rallying point for the youths in post colonial Africa to derive ideological satnav and radical thought process in their quest to chart their own generational political course and mandate. Accordingly, Makomborero Haruzivishe, who has been considered the latest prisoner of conscience within Zimbabwe, is the apt metaphor of the generation that is fulfilling its generational mission.