The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Post Correspondent
All Zimbabweans with a passion for Literature and the Languages have lost a father-figure in writing. ‘Things have fallen apart,’ Chinua Achebe would say. They (things) are no longer at ease and will never be the same again. Cry The Beloved Country!
Charles Mungoshi is no more! He died after ten painful years of suffering in and out of hospital.
A laureate poet, playwright, essayist and novelist with literary footprints unmatched, Dr Charles Mungoshi has left a gap impossible to fill. Hardly before tears have dried up after the nation was robbed of one of its most illustrious sons in music, Dr Oliver Mtukudzi, yet another legend has passed on; this time a laureate writer.
It is not only his family and friends and loved ones to whom the sun has finally set. Many Zimbabweans in various walks of life have lost a source of inspiration. Education has lost an asset.
Mungoshi’s plays, poems, short stories and novels were a staple menu in the makeup of school curricula and syllabi. He fed into the Literature and Languages until the name Charles Mungoshi was a household name. This illustrated how much of a versatile and prolific writer he was; sometimes a bit Bohemian like his friend and colleague….Dambudzo Marechera with whom he shared a glorious St Augustine’s past. A prolific writer and near literary-demigod of Shakespearean or Dickensian size in Zimbabwean literature and education, Mungoshi, like Dambudzo Marechera, sometimes treaded on the toes of establishment and what some commentators occasionally saw as verging too close to the brinks of literary activism. Certainly another story for another day for those who are interested in that side of Mungoshi!
Now that Mungoshi is no more, people have, as usual, poured in obituaries and tributes praising the departed Literature guru as a hero and legend. Certainly he was and his footprints are unmatched.
But what did the prolific writer gain from his sharp and erudite pen? He did so much for Education; what did Education do for him? Honour and flowers! Do heroes eat honour and flowers? What are titles in life? Food for thought!
Zimbabweans must be ashamed of and grow out of the habit of waiting for heroes to die poor, miserable, destitute, and then sing heroes’ hymns at their grave side. Support heroes within their lifetimes. Make them enjoy their achievements in life and not in their tombs. Sometimes and oftentimes, the very people who cry louder than the bereaved and bestow honour on them are the same people who remained silent when they saw them being abused and rubbished left, right and centre. They are the same people who stood aside and watched their ‘prophets’ killed but did nothing.
What would have stopped Mungoshi to die a multi-millionaire after writing so much and doing so much for Education? How does a man die penniless after writing so many books that benefitted so many people? Armchair critics, what he (Mungoshi) would call intellectuals without intelligence, would be quick to say, “Naiye muridzi achirongekawo” and then cite over-drinking…womanising and all sorts of matrimonial accidents. Fair enough; every human being must demonstrate a sense of economic and moral responsibility during their lifetime…politician, teacher, doctor, nurse, musician, film actor or actress…whatever and whoever! But critics must not forget how organised corruption…institutional putrefaction…, rubbishes other people’s efforts and condemns them to vagaries of destitution.
It has become common place in Zimbabwe for people to eulogise empty legacies at heroes’ retirements… narrating empty stories of heroes and heroines who did so much yet the speakers did naught to reward them. They did absolutely nothing for those who made them money and other forms of success.
It is painful to hear a slave master speak so well about a slave he for years gave and paid nothing. Now he can openly bestow honour and dignity on his slave because he is retiring or is dead.
We are talking about Charles Mungoshi. Now he can be called a doctor. He dies a doctor but lived like a pauper right there in the eyes of those who are honouring him with a doctorate degree. He lived in misery but now he goes away organised in an expensive coffin shrouded in pretty flowers. They saw him suffer but did nothing. Instead they photocopied his books and filled their libraries, thus drying up every potential stream of income towards him. Today they stand at his graveside bravely eulogising a hero and legend who wrote more and better than everybody else. Yet dies poorer than all of them put together! What level of hypocrisy will make us sorry about our own double standards?
Those who made great musicians die poor by gross piracy of their work are not different from those who made writers die rats struggling to become mice.
That includes schools that unilaterally stole their works through mega-size photocopiers that copied their books for free and subjected their authors to poverty. All of them speak loudest and most eloquently about heroes and legends that did so much in their lifetimes…that wrote so much, yet gave them nothing but kept them Publishers speak for publishers.
Book-sellers speak for book-sellers. No one speaks for the writer! Catch me on my email address [email protected] or call me on 0773 883 293. We are doing this for all writers and authors… dead or alive! Even for unborn authors! Long Live Charles Mungoshi! Rest in eternal peace! economically downtrodden.
