ZIMBABWE today commemorates Heroes Day, honouring fallen and living heroes who sacrificed for the country's liberation and majority rule.
Held under the theme Lest We Forget, the commemorations are meant to remind the nation of the price paid for self-determination. The main ceremony will be held at the National Heroes Acre, with similar events at provincial heroes' acres across the country.
Heroes Day must never become just another date on Zimbabwe's crowded political calendar — one where politicians deliver stirring speeches, wreaths are laid, flags are raised and citizens return home to the same old problems.
It should be an uncomfortable national reckoning. Zimbabweans must ask a simple but profound question: what exactly did our heroes die for?
Not so that a privileged few could monopolise power while millions struggle to make ends meet. Not so that corruption could flourish, public institutions decay and State resources be looted with impunity. Not so that hospitals would run short of medicines, schools would struggle to provide basic services and citizens would spend hours searching for water and electricity. And certainly not so that future elections could be curtailed — the liberation struggle was, at its core, a fight for political participation and the principle of one person, one vote.
The heroes fought for a Zimbabwe where opportunity would be open to all, regardless of political affiliation, ethnicity or social standing — a country where young people could see a future at home, rather than one that thousands feel compelled to leave. Others, with nowhere to turn, have been lost to drug and substance abuse. An entire generation risks being lost with them.
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The greatest insult to the fallen is not criticism of their legacy — it is failure to build the country for which they sacrificed. Heroes Day should be about more than remembering the dead. It should be about confronting the living.
Those entrusted with public office must be reminded that power is not a personal inheritance; it is a public trust. The liberation struggle was fought against injustice, racial discrimination, political exclusion, and economic domination. Post-independence Zimbabwe must not reproduce these under different political colours.
There can be no meaningful celebration of liberation while citizens are afraid to speak freely, corruption allegations are buried instead of being investigated, checks and balances are weakened and political loyalty matters more than competence and accountability. The heroes fought for a country where Zimbabweans would determine their own destiny. That principle must remain sacred.
But responsibility does not rest with politicians alone. Citizens, too, must refuse to let the sacrifices of the liberation generation become political theatre. We must demand accountability from those we elect, challenge corruption rather than normalise it and defend public institutions rather than allow them to be captured. We must reject the politics of personality in favour of policies that improve livelihoods — and resist the temptation to romanticise the past while ignoring the present.
A liberation legacy is not measured by how often politicians invoke the names of fallen heroes, but by the quality of life enjoyed by the people for whom those heroes sacrificed themselves. Can a mother afford to send her children to school? Can a young graduate find meaningful work or build a business at home? Can citizens turn on a tap and expect clean water or access functioning hospitals and municipal services?
These are the questions that should define Heroes Day. What holds the country back is not a shortage of heroes, but a shortage of accountability, institutional integrity, economic opportunity and political courage.
The dead cannot demand the Zimbabwe they envisioned. The living must.
Heroes Day must become a day of national recommitment, not simply remembrance. We owe the fallen a Zimbabwe worth having died for. They must not have died in vain.