FREEDOM must be felt not told; freedom is the act of doing
any activity without fear of being arrested. Can we really say we are free today? The whites heavily oppressed the black
majority and our fore fathers fought and brought back Zimbabwe to us and for
that we say salute to all the heroes and heroines’ who fought tirelessly
for you and me to ask another question today are we really free?
Our politicians have worked tirelessly to create a free
society equally to all a free country where everyone can enjoy together in
harmony but has the oppression ended? 2008 saw the collapse of our economy
where the prices of basic commodities escalating, people spending nights
without a meal fathers in long queues in banks waiting for the our own currency
as a pay cheque. The money which could not reach the homes , the money that
could not afford to purchase a 10kg roller meal ,the money that could not buy
children school uniforms the money that was for transport fare only.
Zimbabwe has been up and down ,the economy fluctuating,
child mortality rate dwindling and women and child abuse being the order of the
day. Is this our forefathers fought for? I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.
Parents flee to the whites man land to look for greener pastures, siblings ran
to the south of Africa where the grass is thought to be greener,not until you
arrive there, Africans kill each other because of the situation where everyone
wants to survive.
This is my journey in the heart of Zimbabwe I did travel to
every corner of my beautiful country so as I could get a clear picture of how
people survive as they face each day of the year. The main core of a country
are its industries, Bulawayo used to be the hub of industrial activity, as I
travel am greeted by high rise ghost buildings signifying the once presence of
industrial activity. Hustling is the order of the day. The streets are abuzz with
small scale back yard source of income; some have opened their own schools,
tuck-shop’s all in the name of survival.
A 12 year old child prepares their musika on the
nearby road, are they born free? Living in a peaceful country is it freedom?
Being born in a free independent country is that freedom? Freedom! Freedom! Are
we born free?
After 2009 inclusive government everyone had their hopes of
living in a free society a free environment for all. Diasporas’ came back to
our native land as things were well, we got to see our uncles our father our
mothers who had long gone to meet the greener land that is said to never run
dry. A healthy educated society became possible. I avidly remember my form 4
days I never met this fellow called a textbook, I always saw him or her from
afar held by the teacher. Things were not as they seem during those days,
growing up in the dusty streets of Bulawayo seeing the rainbow nation with
different people of different backgrounds encouraged me and shaped the person I
am today.
I don’t come from a rich family neither do I possess
supernatural powers that can make Zimsec give straight As but greater is the
man I wake with – the creator of man and everything that surrounds it.
Going to school each morning and afternoon on an empty
stomach, using the candle as a source of light in case electricity was cut,
this has been my culture for 4 years in my secondary education. Songs echo in
my spirit as I go through this book “safa saphela isizwe ooh safa isizwe
sabansundu” .Each year my country celebrates independence day to celebrate the
heroes who made it possible for you and I to have what we have today but I ask
myself as I grew in this situation am I really independent ? Am I really free?
Am I really born free as they say? Is Independence Day for others or is it for
everyone in the country?
Zimbabwe is a country rich in minerals, each year we export
a lot of minerals to different countries, Zimbabwe has the rich savannah soils
for farming, and Zimbabwe’s climate is good for the keeping of wildlife. Year
in year out tourists visit our national monuments to see what we have. I took
my journey to some of the biggest national parks in Zimbabwe recently and I was
the only black person besides the cleaners, rangers and animal feeders. The
place was abuzz with white men and women from other countries I stood and
pondered where this foreign currency is much talked about in my heyday in a
Geography class going. Are we still born free?
Visiting some schools recently in our very own primate city
Harare, the school has high white population the teachers are whites and the
principal is a white lady. There are few black pupils, Do you think the black
young man in this school has the opportunity to be a head boy I wonder yet he
is born free.
Am taken back to my higher education where I stayed in some
rural areas. I used to wake up each day in the wee hours of the morning around
4 am to prepare and embark on a journey that took me 3 hours to complete. I
would wake up and gather firewood and water and off on my way to school. I used
to carry slippers on my way to school to swop and change when am around the
school. Is this the life of a born free I always hear about on my stereo?
During the summers sweating was the biggest challenge and
during winter cold was my biggest fear. In all this I tried my best to look the
part and be on time. On my journey in the green forests cows and donkeys knew
my name as I passed there early in the morning and came back later in the
evening. All this did not take me down it made me a stronger person today. Each
day I covered 12km to school and 12km back home. Am I free? I did not get the
chance to have a girlfriend like my fellow counter parts as my days were spent
on the journey. I survived that and continued because I knew I had a purpose in
this country, god had a plan for me, I kept on walking regardless of the
difficulties that I was facing. The bible says in psalms 139; 16 ‘ your eyes
saw my uniformed body all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to me’ this kept me going.
Three months later I was chosen to be a prefect at school
among the top children who came from rich families who were with me in the same
school though there were boarders. I excelled in my school work and was chosen
to be the best student in my ARTS subjects and the smartest school kid. Now I
saw the work of the lord and his hand shine upon me. My mother worked
tirelessly to raise money to pay for my school fees and I got a sponsor to put
me at a boarding school. This was
at a later stage of my advanced level and I excelled.
The coming of iron during the stone age period is said to
have brought a system of classes with the rich and the poor but I beg to differ
the man who came with money brought more harm than good in our native land. As
I sit here having a cup of coffee I see young children meandering around asking
for help from any person passing by I see young children who should be at
school wearing torn tattered clothes moving up and down looking for their next
meal. Is this the equality our forefathers fought for? Are all human beings
equally?
Workers endure months of unpaid salaries, while the top
ranked people get away with lump some money. Children became fatherless because
their parents have gone to look for money and have never dared to come back.
There is high teenage pregnancy of our so called born frees because at home
they cannot provide their needs and they hope the young boy might be their
source to the good life. Are we born free?
I sit at my favourite place city hall in Bulawayo ,I ponder
to myself what happened to Bulawayo the hub of industrial zone. As I sit people
start running for their lives, everything is out of place like a Mazda 323
wheels on a tractor. A blue uniformed force of the Bulawayo city council starts
to collect all the vendors’ items which were sold throwing them in their lorry.
How must people survive I ask myself. Is this the black economic empowerment I
always hear about? Is this the freedom we want ?
I wake up every morning to try and make a living and raise
money for my university. This is back door facility in my community ,trying to
raise money for my education and make Zimbabwe have the best results. Am not
free at all as I hustle hard to make this a better place for you and our sons
and daughters. Gone are the days when Christmas was a time of giving a time to
spend with family , families are divided because of the plight of my Zimbabwe.
Parents divorce day and night all because of the economical situation ,
children are left homeless as families fight for inheritance in order to
survive. Company owners exploit workers and they lie to their workers come pay
day as they come up with different stories about money and they all blame it on
the government. Educated or not it is the same.
I sit with a young lady as I embark on my journey as I
write this about my country and ask questions to the fellow citizens of our
native land. Are they really free? She utters a heart throbbing story on how
she lost both her parents in a tragic road accident all in the name of putting
food on the table. This is at Gweru town and she says she is doing a marketing
degree and she looks after her siblings who are at a primary school. During the
day she plaits people’s hair and she gets money for her tuition and her
siblings. At home her aunt and uncle are fighting for every property their
parents owned. She has tried to seek help from the local police and elders of
the community all her efforts are fruitless. I pause a question to you my
reader. These children were born in a democratic country, a country that
celebrates its independence each year but are they born free?
Is freedom to do with being able to vote when you above 16?
Is freedom being allowed to marry at the consenting age? Is freedom about how I
see things? Is freedom bought or sold? Are you born free? What is a born free?
Does it have to do with the conditions you were born under? Kaziqunywe
amakhanda ziyekwe so goes the Ndebele adage. I have toiled and worked all my
life to be the next better man in my family, community, country and continent
all for what! To sit down every morning and decide where I am going to look for
money, I have received quality education got my diploma got my degree but here
I am sitting and watching birds of the air making noise and flying from one
point to another,am still seated listening to the twittering sounds of leaves
aimlessly and wandering when will my applications be replied. As I sit here I
listen to the croaking sounds of frogs in the nearby fish ponds asking myself
am I really born free. I spent years shaping lives of others but when will my
breakthrough come and finally sit in an air-conditioned office and swing on
that wheeled cosy chair and say THANK YOU LORD? Earlier in my life I had the
chance to work with one fellow brother I grew to admire in life, he opened a
college and asked me to assist to teach one of the best subjects I agreed
because I had to survive in this hardship economic situation not knowing the
devil was holding a candle. Days followed another and made a month, months
greeted each other goodbye and hello and I loved teaching and everything was
well. The brother got married and all was well then out of nothing tension
sparked. He began to exploit me, I taught a lot of people and my pocket shrunk.
I continued to pray to God to give me the power to hold on and give me wisdom
to teach. My students passed with flying colours and we celebrated and thanked
God. I then began to see the colours of the chameleon changing slowly before my
eyes. This is not a stranger but a nearby family brother who had known my
mother for a couple of years.
“You are fired “he bellowed one day with his eyes wide open
like a dog that has just seen a fleshy bone. I stood akimbo and baffled. I
asked myself has the situation got bad that even the people that you thought
you knew would do this to each other. Using the power and the wisdom given to
me by God I spoke to him everything went back to normal. A year later a meeting
was called, the guy was furious and breathing fire and chewing nails. The guy
would wake up each day with different characters to just cause a rift from any
conversation. I was exploited, heavily punished and always threatened of being
fired. Is this the life of a born free I ask again? Now the question of my
freedom had sunk in deeply in my veins and arteries. I asked myself is this
position I have worth fighting for, am I really worth it and I heard a voice
saying do whatever you do for my people who have their destiny vested upon your
hands.
People enjoyed being taught by me, older women and men came
and sat as they listened to this short boy teach and they loved every moment of
it. The guy would give me my pay check 10 days after the month has ended
,sometimes I would be summoned at his house and be told this month there is no
money ,this month I have bought this so there is no money ,this month I have
paid this ,that and the other. Remember I used to wake up every day in the wee
hours and prepare for my lessons and invite God to walk with me. Yes I was
doing this physical but God kept me through held my hand and I did my best to
teach. Each month before I used my salary I would remove 10% of the whole
salary as my tithe. I invested my money in some other companies and continued
with my education.
Week after week I was summoned by the brother about new
rules new laws concerning my salary. Many times I could have given up but I
always heard this voice it is well, this is a stage you are being refined to be
the next better person I kept on going.
As I pen down this piece of work am working on my masters
degree under these economic hardship, God has a reason for this in our country
it is a stage that we going through all economic hiccups it shall be well. I
have traveled to the north of Zimbabwe to find the answer of my title
I have sailed across rivers looking for one answer ,I have flew from the
second largest city to the capital city to get the answer to my question. I
have had lunch on the Nyanga Mountains with youths and elders; my question is
not yet answered. I have dinned with the man of the cloth to reveal the hidden
word concerning freedom. I have watched our leader’s embezzle funds
for the poor, the elderly and the orphans. I have sat and walked on these
pavements and seen corruption and oppression. What should be done for people to
be totally liberated? Where did we miss it?
Travelling to every office in my city Bulawayo I have
experienced racial discrimination, doors have been shut in my face. The people
whom I admired and I thought had answers to my questions have actually folded
their arms and called the security just like they do in the movies. My first
time looking for a proper job was in 2013 where I was first asked about my
surname, really what does the job have to do with my surname? My curriculum
vitae prove that am more than qualified for the job but my surname says it all-
unqualified. I have booked meetings with the most influential people in my city
all hope was lost when I was looked by the secretary from my head to toe and
finally after a long time of waiting “the manager cannot see you find a proper
dress code “ .am I really born free ? Am judged by a secretary am more than
qualified than by my dressing. Is this the society we want to leave for our
children?
Travelling to our neighbouring country Botswana still
looking for answers as my own native land has failed to do so. Immigration
officer after immigration officer wants to search my small back carrying my
notepad while white men in front of me pass without being searched. These
people colonised our country, these people made us to suffer as slaves in our
own country. The Portuguese made our Mutapa forefathers to pay salt and hut
tax. They made our grandmothers to be concubines in our own land and sold them
to Brazil. Today black immigration officers prefer to treat them at a different
level as compared to me the true son of the soil. Am I really born free? People
are not liberated when whites continue to detect how life should be lived.
Still today I never had the chance to sit down with my grandfather and listen
to his folktales and teach us how to hunt and be a man. My grandfather traveled to
Mozambique with other guerrillas am told he never returned till this
day. Efforts were fruitless to find him and his family welcomed it and
lived with the fact that he had been assassinated in Mozambique. Today I
receive racial treatment when my own grandfather fought against this.
I live to see the day where my email will flood with
answers on are we born frees? Black majority oppress one another like we are
enemies. George Owell once penned a book entitled “Animal Farm” in his book
animals are the characters and he says “All animals are equally but some are
more equally than others” I leave you to ask yourself which animals are more
superior than others. George Mujajati also penned a book titled ‘The Wretched
ones’ in this book he reveals the plight of Zimbabwe squatters which they face
everyday where the rich exploit the poor and even control our judiciary system.
Is this freedom? The greatest man Adolf Hitler tried to create one state, so
did Napoleon .Mussolini tried to promote child birth in Italy. Cecil john
Rhodes wanted to built his cape to Cairo empire by having colonies all over.
All these men never tried to find to stop oppression by one another.
As I sit here am actually singing to Lovemore Majaivana
song