The ManicaPost
Freedom Mutanda
Post Correspondent
“WE are not a people of yesterday!”
This quotation is from one of Africa’s greatest writers, Ayi Kwei Armah. The Ghanaian writer’s “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” informed the world that Africans’ roots separate them from other nations.
Zimbabwe was not born yesterday and its spirituality is not 100 or so years old.
Legend has it that Murenga Pfumojena Sororenzou, son to Mambiri, head of two villages in Guruuswa, was an excellent military leader and is the progenitor of the Shona and Venda tribes.
It is his name, meaning resistor, which inspired two wars of liberation in Zimbabwe, namely the First and Second Chimurenga.
In 1896, the Mwari religion elicited positive responses from both the Ndebeles and Shonas as it sought to evict the erstwhile colonisers, the whites, who had colonised the country between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers by 1893.
Spirit mediums from most regions in the country spread the message that only the eviction of the whites would bring to an end all the curses bedevilling the country.
These spirit mediums included Nehanda, Kaguvi and Mkwati.
Inspired by these “pockets” or “homwe”, the indigenous people took up arms against the British, although ultimately they were vanquished.
However, the defeat did not signal an end to their resistance (Chimurenga).
It was a calm before a full deluge which would come in the 1960s, culminating in victory in 1980.
Mbuya Nehanda is said to have told the executioners that her bones would rise one day and that time, victory would be certain.
National grievances piled up and that gave an impetus to the nationalism that pervaded colonial Rhodesia, giving rise to the formation of political parties, with ZAPU and ZANU being the leading lights.
Land, inferior education facilities and the general ill-treatment of Africans spurred the exodus of young men and women to join the great track to Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Mozambique in preparation of the liberation war which would later on yield independence.
From the merger of the old ANC in Bulawayo with the City Youth League in 1957, nationalism had been transformed into a movement whose goal was nothing short of a one-man-one-vote, resulting in majority rule.
According to a Chipinge centurion, Mr Tsukumwa Chijokwe (101), nationalist leaders had to seek guidance from the spiritual world during the liberation war.
The late Father Zimbabwe, Dr Joshua Nkmo, visited the Njelele Shrine in the Matopos, which was the headquarters of the Mwari religion.
On the other hand, the late national hero, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, visited Chief Mutema and had a lengthy talk with a spirit medium of Mwakopa, the tenth chief of the Mutema Dynasty founded by Shiriyedenga, who is reputed to have left the headquarters of the Rozvi Kingdom in the 16th century.
Mr Chijokwe said Reverend Sithole and his entourage were asked to perform rituals which would compel every family to send representatives to fight the white man.
Mutape Bvaranga chipped in and said the combatants and their leaders had to follow spiritual protocols.
In the north east of Zimbabwe, freedom fighters liaised with the spirit medium of Mbuya Nehanda and she had to be carried from her home as the liberation war intensified.
Blessings from the spirit world in all parts of the country sweetened the armed struggle for justice.
Cde Fay Chung wrote about “Vanasekuru” who were an ever present phenomenon at all ZANLA camps.
These were spirit mediums who were not afraid to speak the truth to power and against any form of abuse on female fighters.
When top commanders tried to belittle them and cow them into submission, they did not wither away, but stood firm.
It was a spiritual war.
War veterans said they had this overpowering force that drove them towards training camps or transit camps in Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique.
Despite the fact that they knew they were going to fight a formidable army, they soldiered on and victory was achieved.
A Zanu PF member, Cde Mutape Bvaranga said: “In the spirit world, there is need for all spirit mediums to have a bira which has a national character. This country’s spiritual ancestors cannot be messed with,” he said in an interview last year.
All veterans will attest to the fact that in every area they were deployed to fight, they first had meetings with traditional leaders and spirit mediums.
They were then given guidelines for the successful execution of the war. Resultantly, wild animals like baboons, elephants, lions and birds acted as early warnings to the freedom fighters if there was impending doom.
Indeed, spirituality cannot be divorced from the liberation of Zimbabwe.
