President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe being sworn in for a sixth term after a landslide victory over the western-backed opposition MDC-T party on June 27, 2008. The ceremony was held on June 29, 2008 in Harare. a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Sunday, 27 February 2011 10:51
Opinion
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail
By Itai Mazire
ACCORDING to Numerology 369.com — a website that denotes the symbolic meaning of numbers and how they mirror the qualities of people — the number 87 signifies “people who are happy in love, attractive, passionate, artistic and skilful at manual jobs”.
The above aptly describes President Mugabe, the life he has lived with the people of Zimbabwe and other African counterparts before and after the country gained Independence in 1980.
President Mugabe turned 87 last Monday and his birthday on February 21 has become a celebrated national event countrywide after the founding of 21st February Movement in 1986. Early in that year, the Zanu-PF Youth League decided to have an educational and cultural movement of children whose tender age disqualified them from joining the League.
The League tasked Cde Webster Shamu and the late Cde Mike Munyati to research on how such movements were constituted in other countries like Cuba, Angola and Mozambique.
After a comprehensive and thorough research the two comrades later submitted a document to the Zanu-PF central committee which they adopted with minor amendments. After consultations with relevant parties, it was agreed that the children of this country (aged between five and 14) should be taught to emulate the selfless life of President Mugabe.
They were to be nurtured to grow up endowed with President Mugabe’s enduring spirit of sacrifice to the nation. It was then resolved that President Mugabe’s birthday should be celebrated by Zimbabwe’s children.
The 21st February Movement works closely with the Child Survival and Development Foundation while the Ministry of Education, Art, Sport and Culture closely guides the 21st Movement in its programmes.
For the greater part of his life President Mugabe has preached the need for love, peace and unity. A distinguished intellectual and former teacher, President Mugabe always chooses the occasion of his birthday to emphasize the need for youths to be educated.
He began his own education at Kutama Mission in Zvimba under Jesuit priests and soon proved an able student under the guidance of Father O’Hea.
For nine years he taught in various schools while he also continued to study privately for his matriculation certificate before going on to the University of Fort Hare in South Africa where he received a Bachelor of Arts in English and History degree in 1951.
He returned to teach in Southern Rhodesia, obtaining his Bachelor of Education degree by correspondence in 1953. Two years later he moved to Chalimbana Training College in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where he taught for nearly four years while also studying for a Bachelor of Science in Economics by correspondence from the University of London.
In 1958 he completed that degree in Ghana, where he taught at St Mary’s Teacher Training College. President Mugabe expressed his great love in freeing the people of Zimbabwe from the Smith regime in 1960 when he returned home on leave and became caught up in the African nationalist struggle against Britain and the settler regime.
He quit his job in Ghana and joined the National Democratic Party as secretary for publicity. The President proved a capable organiser and he quickly built the youth wing of the party into a powerful force.
His determination to achieve racial and social justice in Zimbabwe made him a respected and an important voice in the party becoming one of the principal opponents of the 1961 constitutional compromise offering black Africans token representation in a still white-dominated government. After the banishment of the NDP and Zapu in 1962 and 1963 respectively, President Mugabe and other nationalist leaders were detained for almost a decade but they continued with the struggle while behind bars.
In prison, he furthered his studies, obtaining a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Administration degree from the University of London and also tutored fellow inmates.
He later fled the country to go to the war trenches in Mozambique to lead the fight against the Smith regime.
After independence in 1980, President Mugabe became the country’s first black Prime Minster and by January 1, 1981, he called for free primary education for all pupils and guaranteed admission to secondary schools for all those who qualified.
In the same year, he introduced free medical care for those with low incomes.
The president’s love for an educated Zimbabwe saw him launching the Presidential Scholarship Fund in 1994 and to date, over 3 000 people have acquired various degrees since its commencement.
Under his Government, over 6 000 schools have been built countrywide with the country now boasting the highest literacy rate in Africa.
Peace
“If yesterday I fought as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself. If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you.
“If ever we look to the past, let us do so for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and racism are inequities that must never again find scope in our political and social system. It could never be a correct justification that because whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power. An evil remains an evil whether practiced by white against black or by black against white.
“On Independence Day, our integrated security forces will, in spite of their having only recently fought each other, be marching in step together to herald the new era of national unity and togetherness. Let this be an example for us all to follow. Indeed, let this enjoin the whole of our nation to march in perfect unison from year to year and decade to decade towards its destiny,” reads some of the paragraphs from
President Mugabe speech on April 17, 1980.
To live in peace has been a great concern of the country’s revered leader.
Soon after Independence President Mugabe the then Prime Minister of Zimbabwe implored his fellow countrymen to live in peace and harmony with their former oppressors of the Smith regime.
He urged both parties to live in peace and craft ways that would bring development and economic progress.
Since Independence, President Mugabe has been fighting for peace around Africa and the international community that has seen him deploy security personnel around the globe for the restoration of peace in war torn states.
In the 1980s and 1990’s President Mugabe deployed the country's military forces to a troubled Mozambique that was being torn apart by a civil war.
Under the rule of President Mugabe, the country’s forces have been deployed to Angola the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda on peacekeeping missions.
Unity
When the country gained independence in 1980, the then Prime Minister Mugabe preached unity amongst his countrymen.
He said unity amongst Zimbabweans was a key objective that would bring unprecedented levels of development around the country. On December 22, 1987, President Mugabe and the late nationalist Dr Joshua Nkomo joined hands and signed an agreement to unite the country after post-independence disturbances in the Matabeleland and Midlands areas.
The Unity Accord signed by two of the country's most eminent nationalists brought the nation together and the signing of the agreement has been commemorated every year for the past 24 years.
Yesterday President Mugabe celebrated 87 years of Love, Peace and
Unity and most Zimbabweans feel priviledged to be under his wise leadership.-The Sunday Mail
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