Coffee With Heroes Lost and Present
If you were having coffee with me, I would be happy you visited my tangle of words. It feels like a Monday today after a two day public holiday in honour of heroes and defence forces day.
The holiday is observed from the second Monday of August in celebration of the declared and undeclared fallen heroes of the liberation struggle. When I was younger, I could have sworn the holiday was observed on fixed dates which later got changed to the second Monday and Tuesday of August ensuring it would conveniently be a long weekend.
I cannot find any concrete evidence of this happening, which would either mean those of us who remember it being on any other day have some mass delusion or the change happened so quietly and undocumented, that mass amnesia erased any other recollection… The internet so far hasn’t turned up any conclusive evidence I might have to dig up old calendars….
If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you how history has a way of fading out and events only holding significance in the minds of those who remember them…
As a so-called born free who never witnessed the vagaries of the liberation war, the full impact of the holiday’s significance is lost on me, replaced by a feeling of being guilt tripped into a debt of honour to those who paid with their lives. It doesn’t help matters that there are those who wield the guilt like a tool, manipulating people into unquestioning subservience so as not to reverse the gains of our hard won independence. At least we has continuous electricity.
If you were having coffee with me, I would ask you what makes a person a hero…
If a country has been in a state of peace and stability would it mean that there would be no more heroes. I sometimes wonder who would be buried at the National Heroes Acre years down the line when all those from the generation who witnessed the liberation struggle had breathed their last and only the born-frees remained…
For this year’s Heroes Day, I was impressed to see them recognise some ordinary people who behaved extraordinarily, like Mr Sirizani Butau, a hero who pulled out people from a burning wreckage of bus that had collided with a fuel tanker in December 2021; Peace (aged 12) and Luckmore Magaya (aged 9) who rescued their grandmother from a crocodile attack earlier in the year….
Most times true heroes are just ordinary people who step up… Olympic athletes for example could get recognition for simply participating at the most grand sporting stage, before we even factor in medals and records…. Tebogo who won the gold medal for Botsawana in the men’s 200m had a public half day declared in his honour so people could celebrate… He returned home to a hero’s welcome…
Team Zimbabwe had seven athletes who participated in the Olympics while known brought back medals they gave it their all, broke their personal bests and represented their country well.. While waiting to see what sort of heroes welcome we would roll out for them, I discovered how most of them are not based in Zimbabwe… It highlights the harsh reality of how opportunities are limited in the teapot shaped country and why for many the Zimbabwean dream is to leave Zimbabwe….
If you are having coffee with me, I would tell you how some people talk about change, demanding it even, quoting philosophies about how one never gets change by asking for it from their oppressors, but rather by taking it… The irony is that the most vocal are those who have pursued their Zimbabwean dream, sending their solidarity and hashtags from the comfort and safety of distant lands…
An interesting parallel to our struggle for independence is how those who survived the war and became our leaders were mostly out of the country during the height of the struggle, as for the others, well we honour their sacrifice….
Reminds of a quote I read…
“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”
Anyway whats been happening in your neck of the woods.
~B
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