×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Shamuyarira hero of the times

Opinion & Analysis
In June last year, when I wrote an obituary-like piece on Zanu PF MP Edward Chindori-Chininga following his tragic death in a car accident,

In June last year, when I wrote an obituary-like piece on Zanu PF MP Edward Chindori-Chininga following his tragic death in a car accident, this drove mad someone calling themselves sender52.

CONWAY TUTANI ECHOES

Wrote sender52 on the NewsDay website: “Typical Conway Tutani’s opportunistic journalism. Every time a Zanu PF official dies, Tutani writes a hagiography of the person. There is no one in Zanu PF who is principled — they are all scum.

Why did Chindori-Chininga remain in a party which is as evil as Zanu PF if he was not part of the scum?

Or was he better scum for want of a better phrase? If you read what Conway is saying, you would think Chininga was being forced to be a member of Zanu PF. Or that his body was Zanu PF, but his head was MDC!”

Obviously we see things differently, but not necessarily opportunistically, as sender52 would have it. And I don’t write a hagiography every time a Zanu PF official dies. While sender52 was quite witty, he also grossly misrepresented.

Indeed, people should be wary of clever nothings. Readers need to go deeper and decipher the truth for themselves, especially in this polarised political atmosphere where there is hardly any middle ground whereas in real life, the truth always lies somewhere in the middle, not at extremes.

And so it was last week when journalism doyen and veteran nationalist Nathan Shamuyarira was declared a national hero following his death at the age of 85. Nathan Shamuyarira was one of the few distinguished names I heard of very early in my life.

First, my father used to constantly mention Shamuyarira among his illustrious schoolmates at Waddilove Institute in Marondera like Ndabaningi Sithole, Enock Dumbutshena and national hero Josiah Chinamano.

When I had just started primary school, my parents used to send me almost every day to buy the African Daily News, which Shamuyarira edited, and his courageous, direct, questioning and erudite style really opened my eyes — young as I was — to the Rhodesian situation — or aberration — where almost everything was viewed via a racial prism. This was a time of discovery for 7-year-old me. That’s when I had first stirrings of political consciousness.

I became an avid reader of the paper and my learning curve rose steeply — thanks to the African Daily News and the man behind it — Shamuyarira. I got addicted to the paper and was almost inconsolable when Rhodesia’s Law and Order minister, the infamous Desmond Lardner-Burke, banned the paper in 1964 along with the Sithole-led Zanu and the Joshua Nkomo-led Zapu.

My second “encounter” with Shamuyarira was when I was summoned to the then Salisbury (now Harare) Central Police Station in the late 1970s.

By then, I was a university undergraduate student. I went there in the belief that they wanted me to be a State witness in a purely criminal case because that is what had been indicated to me and I knew about the case.

I was shunted into an office and left there sitting on my own. Pasted on the office walls were mugshots of prominent nationalists — including Shamuyarira, Sithole, Nkomo and Robert Mugabe — and above the pictures was typed in bold letters: “WANTED PERSONS”.

As my anxiety was rising, a detective called Masiye suddenly burst into the room and from the expression on his face, I knew that I was in for a torrid time. He suddenly said so-and-so I knew were police informers and I should do likewise or the criminal case would be turned against me.

I did not say yes or no because I was thoroughly shocked. Maybe he saw through me that I was not by nature the manipulative, deceptive type and, thus, would not be of any use to them — so he abruptly and rudely ordered me out of the office. That was the first and last I heard from Masiye.

That was when I realised that Shamuyarira was very much under the radar of the Ian Smith regime a long 10 years after he had left the country. For the regime to go to that extent, it showed Shamuyarira was committed to his cause.

My third encounter with Shamuyarira was up close and personal. This was after I joined the congregation at Trinity Methodist Church in the city centre in 2000, where Shamuyarira and his wife Dorothy (his ever constant companion) were regulars at the morning service.

I found Shamuyarira affable. He went about with dignity, but did not take himself too seriously like some self-absorbed public figures who demand their presence and status to be acknowledged even without saying as much in words.

He did not allow erudition to separate him from the ordinary person. He was at home among common people; this was genuine, not for appearances like many politicians who ride on people’s backs.

Another thing: Shamuyarira was not corrupt when those surrounding him were enriching themselves through their monopolistic and privileged access to State resources.

Zanu PF, like all political parties, has different tendencies, from moderates to extremists. And has officials and supporters who could even be more moderate on some issues than some in the opposition; who see something in Zanu PF that others don’t; who support the party for deeply personal reasons — such as those who had family members brutalised and slaughtered by agents of the Smith regime.

Saying “they are all scum” is presumptuous and illogical.

Both the biggest football teams in this country — Dynamos and Highlanders — have a section of rabidly violent fans, but it doesn’t make all their supporters scumbags.

We can have competing visions of Zimbabwe, but that should not necessarily make them mutually exclusive and inimical.

That said, for not being tainted by corruption when everyone around him was taking advantage of public office and helping themselves to national resources and assets at the expense of the people, Shamuyarira is a true hero.

In these times of officially-sanctioned greed, what’s more heroic than resisting corruption?