In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice: A Memoir

G. Msipa

• Publisher: Weaver Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781779223814
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

As I look back, I am happy that I have lived for so long. It is a happiness shared by many: family members, friends and colleagues. Cephas Msipas memoirs take us back to his birth in Zvishavane in 1931, and they reflect a life dedicated to the welfare of others and the development of his country. Following secondary education at Dadaya Mission, he worked as a teacher in Zvishavane and Kwekwe, where he was active in the Rhodesian African Teachers Association, before moving to Harare in 1958. It was a time of rising nationalism in the capital, and following the banning of the African National Congresss and its successor, the National Democratic Party, Msipa was a founding member of ZAPU, the Zimbabwean African Peoples Union. Thus began an engagement with national politics that would last until he was in his late seventies, furthering his education as a political detainee and, after independence had been won, serving as a deputy minister, minister and provincial governor. The narrative of his life follows the arc of Zimbabwes history, and embraces the people and events that have shaped it. Beyond that, it is the story of a gentle, humorous, committed man who enjoyed a long and loving marriage and continues to fill his retirement with philanthropy and wide-ranging friendships.

1

My Early Years

I was born on 7 July, 1931, the first born in a family of ten children, in Shabani district in the Midlands Province under Chief Masunda. Of the ten, seven were boys and three girls. At the time of writing, four boys and one girl have left us. Those remaining are very close and we meet as family members from time to time. Our own children have maintained that relationship as well. All in all, I have eight children, thirty-one grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

As I look back, I am happy that I have lived for so long. Many of my friends including those I was incarcerated with in detention camps and prisons are gone. May their souls rest in peace. I suffered with them, but we also had moments of joy as we celebrated our freedom and independence on 18 April, 1980. It is a pity they missed one big celebration, that was on 3 December, 2009 when Midlands State University honoured me. It is a day I shall never forget. It was a most humbling experience, a great honour indeed. The citation read, “Doctor of Commerce in Strategic Management and Corporate Governance Honoris Causa” and the President of Zimbabwe and Chancellor of the Midlands State University, capped me.

I said to myself then, what a pity some of my closest friends had been taken away from this world, including my parents who had worked so hard to have me educated when they themselves were not. Among these friends were Ariston Chambati, formerly Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Germany and research officer in the International Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, and Willie Musarurwa, the first African editor of The Sunday Mail and former Secretary for Publicity for PF ZAPU. These two and I, together with George Kahari, formerly a headmaster, now Professor of African Languages and Literature at the University of Zimbabwe, used to be called “the Big Four” in PF ZAPU, the party we belonged to. Death has separated me and George from Ariston and Willie, and that is the law of nature. We don’t choose when to go. The Almighty keeps that power for Himself.

My parents were poor peasants, but hardworking and diligent. My father, Elijah, was born in Belingwe district in 1909 and died in early 1972. When he was only three years old, his mother died, leaving him and his young brother, Jeremiah, who was two months old. My grandfather had several wives and my grandmother was the youngest. She was born and bred in Insiza District, Matabeleland South. In accordance with our culture, after her death my maternal grandparents were invited to take their daughter’s two sons and look after them. My father and his brother were looked after by their aunt as orphans in Insiza. At this tender age, they were cut off from their blood relatives in Belingwe and went to live in a new environment. Their aunt was a teenager, and how she nurtured them, particularly Jeremiah, was a wonder. A crisis arose when their aunt decided to get married. She said there was no way she could take the two kids to her new husband. No one can explain to me why my father and brother could not go back to Belingwe. Instead they were handed over to their uncle, their mother’s brother-in-law, in Shabani. Life was a serious struggle for the two orphans. When I was born, there were four of us, my father and his brother, and my mother, Anne, and me. From time to time my father and his brother used to go to Mahlebadza in Belingwe and a number of our relatives there used to visit us. Even now, they call on us and regard me as one of them. In Belingwe, most of our relatives, including my Gumbo brothers, Joram and Rugare, use the Shona surname, Gumbo (leg), which is Msipa (muscle/ligament) in Ndebele. As a matter of fact, Mnene Hospital in the district was named after my great-grandfather who welcomed the Lutheran church and allowed them to establish a mission in Belingwe in 1908. His name was Mnenegwa Gumbo but the missionaries shortened it to Mnene in appreciation of his granting them permission to establish a church, school and hospital. My mother grew up in Chibi in Victoria Province. We did not have much contact with her side of the family. However, she used to go with me to Insiza nearly every year to visit my grandmother whom she regarded as her mother-in-law. The relationship was very warm and strong. My father and his brother were orphans in the true sense. From early ages they learned what it was to have no permanent home. The experience taught them to be resilient and to get along in this world.

Although my parents were very poor, having come from humble beginnings, they had a clear vision for their children. I will always remember and admire them for that. Both of them were hardworking and as a result we never went hungry. They had many friends. You could not tell that my father grew up in Matabeleland South and my mother in Chibi in Masvingo Province, as usually people who come from other districts are considered foreigners and are not easily adopted into local society. What I learnt from my parents is humility and generosity and, above all, respect for others, especially those who were older than they were. We were inundated with visitors, mostly from Belingwe. My father, a popular figure and influential farmer in the area, had many friends, including Chief Masunda and the well-known political figure, Benjamin Burombo, from Bulawayo. Each time he was in Shabani, he would spend two or three days at our home.

Burombo’s mission was very clear; he was vehemently opposed to the forced removal of Africans from their homes. He formed an organisation called the British African National Voice Association. He addressed meetings throughout the country. He appealed to the British to stop the white Rhodesian government from taking from the black people their God-given right to land, but to no avail.

When Burombo was in Shabani, my father used to accompany him to these meetings and at night they would review their successes and failures. Here was a nationally important man, sleeping on the hard floor in the same hut with my father and being satisfied with whatever my mother cooked. I was young then, but I heard Burombo and my father talk with emotion and anger. Burombo was a man of the people, and a true nationalist. I hope that some day his role is recognised and that he be re-buried at Heroes Acre, the shrine in Harare for those declared heroes of the liberation struggle. I learnt a lot from him and he was my political mentor. He had little education but his passion for downtrodden people endeared him to thousands of black people. Had the white minority Rhodesian government listened to Benjamin Burombo, we would not have experienced the years of war and struggle, on both sides, that came as a consequence of blacks being denied their rights. In many ways, what white commercial farmers have been experiencing since 2000 under President Mugabe’s seizures of white-owned land, is what blacks experienced in the late 1940s under the Land Apportionment Act.1 I am glad I got involved in the resettlement programme after 2000. When I was governor in the Midlands, I supported the aspirations of the indigenous people of Zimbabwe without violence, and those like Benjamin Burombo must be smiling in their graves.

My father took up farming very seriously and was one of the first in Shabani to be awarded a Master Farmer’s certificate in recognition of his knowledge and practice of modern farming methods. To get the certificate, he went through a rigorous test, which included proving that he followed crop rotation, constructed contour ridges, made use of fertilizers and planted his crops on time. In addition to farming, he was buying and selling chickens to butcheries in Shabani town. This earned him the nickname, Madendere, “the carrier of chicken nests” in Shona. He was also a small-scale businessman in his own right. From what he told me and what I saw, life for him and his young brother Jeremiah was a real struggle, a struggle for shelter, food and life itself. He inherited nothing because he was an orphan. He managed to succeed through hard work.

My father was an extremely kind man; it was no wonder he had so many friends. He beat me only once in his life. I think he had no choice. I once pretended I was going to school, but I just went halfway and waited for others to come back after school and joined them. One day my father followed me and found me asleep. It was around 10 a.m. I had never known my father to be so angry. I hated going to school, particularly during the first two years, but I changed my attitude towards schooling after that. For my earliest education, I had enrolled at Siboza Primary School, a satellite school established by Dadaya Mission, and then completed primary education at Dadaya Mission itself, which was under the New Zealand Churches of Christ. I did my primary, secondary and teacher training at Dadaya. Siboza was a day school but managed to be very famous for its quality of education. Some students came from as far as Mhondoro in Mashonaland West to attend, and my parents looked after them. The headmaster, Wenning Moraka, was my father’s friend and he managed to persuade my parents to give board and lodging to the boys to whom he had offered places. The headmaster ended up in one of the few seats reserved for blacks in the Southern Rhodesian parliament. He was clever and influential and mentored me in the early years of my teaching career.

I took a break from Dadaya in 1950 when I was forced to do temporary teaching to raise school fees for my sister Hlale, who was doing Standard 6 there. A year later she was employed as an untrained temporary teacher and made a contribution towards my school fees before she also went back to school to become a qualified teacher.

Dadaya was about 12 miles from my home but on the other side of Dadaya Mountain. We walked to the Mission carrying our luggage – including a trunk, bedding and mats – on our heads, because there was no transport. It catered mostly for children from poor families. Sir Garfield Todd and his wife, Lady Grace, started the school on their ranch, Hokonui, in Shabani in 1934.

Looking back, I can’t help being mindful of the fact that I became what I am because of Dadaya Mission under the Todds. The school moved with the times. I came across missionaries from New Zealand and Australia who, in addition to general teaching, emphasised the importance of moral values. I learnt to live happily with students from all over Zimbabwe. This called for understanding, tolerance and respect of other people. The influence of the Todds has continued throughout my life. Sir Garfield was knighted by the Queen of England in recognition of his services to Africa and New Zealand. The Todds ran the school on their own for many years before other missionaries joined them. Lady Grace was an educationist whose influence was felt throughout the country because of her “Dadaya Schemes”, which laid out in detail the work to be covered day by day and week by week throughout the school year.

Sir Garfield rose from the position of school principal to become prime minister of Southern Rhodesia during the days of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. As head of the school during the Second World War, he used to tell us in school assembly why the rest of the world was fighting Adolf Hitler, and that racism was evil. He updated us on the progress of the forces fighting against the Nazis. In the process we learnt to appreciate democratic values. Sir Garfield was far ahead of most other whites, politically and socially, and in turn they considered him a threat to their lifestyles. Before long, his Cabinet and white voters accused him of advancing black people “too quickly”. His Cabinet revolted against him and the white electorate voted him out in 1958. In Shabani, Africans mourned and prayed on hearing of his ouster. They loved him dearly and considered him their man as he lived with them, even assisting mothers to deliver their babies. He identified completely with blacks and was a friend and advisor to nationalists, including Joshua Nkomo. Smith’s Rhodesian Front party treated him brutally, in the same way they treated African nationalists. He underwent detention without trial and was treated as a traitor. But he joined us at the Lancaster House Conference and after independence in 1980 was appointed a senator in Zimbabwe’s first black majority parliament.

In January 1972, Sir Garfield was detained in Gatooma Prison for five weeks and was subsequently restricted to his farm. His daughter, Judy, spent a similar period of imprisonment in Marandallas, also followed by house arrest; she left the country in July, but was still regarded as a detainee, and only returned in February 1980, when all detention orders were revoked by Lord Soames, the last British governor.

I think he deserved more from us, considering the suffering he underwent. Had PF ZAPU, Joshua Nkomo’s party to which I belonged, won the 1980 elections, we would have appointed him a minister, I believe. At his funeral at Dadaya, I described his contribution to the country as “immeasurable”. He was a man of great vision.

I am very proud of having been educated at Dadaya. It has produced many outstanding leaders and administrators, including Ndabaningi Sithole, the first leader of ZANU, Misheck Sibanda, the permanent secretary in the President’s office, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, the long-serving minister of foreign affairs, and Charles Hungwe, a judge in the High Court. I have been chairman of the Dadaya school board of governors for 24 years and only recently stepped down. The school’s motto is “Education for Life”, a message we have tried to instill in all those who pass through our hands. We attend to their spiritual, physical, and intellectual needs – the soul, the spirit, the body and the mind are all taken care of. This is what Sir Garfield wanted.

The school curriculum includes not only academic subjects but also practical subjects, like building and carpentry for boys and sewing and cooking for girls.

The land on which the school is built was donated by the Todds. In appreciation of the contribution these two people made to the development of Dadaya Mission in particular, and to African education generally, we built and named the administration block the “Todd Building”.

As Sir Garfield grew into old age, he approached me as chairman and asked to be allowed to dig two graves, one for his wife and the other one for himself. I put it to the Board amd we agreed. Sir Garfield and Lady Grace are buried in the Dadadaya Mission cemetery. They worked at the school they loved for many years. We shall always remember them.

***

My first teaching post was in 1953 at Msipani primary school in Shabani which was under the supervision of Dadaya, and where I raised the number of classes to Standard 4. The following year I was returned to Siboza School of my childhood so I could teach closer to home before moving to urban schools. Teaching in the rural areas was a real challenge, but was also most rewarding. School children walked long distances and were poorly clothed. There were no textbooks. Classrooms were built by parents, but were of poor quality. The children were hungry but eager to learn. Accommodation for teachers consisted of thatched mud huts which leaked during the rainy season. Despite the poor environment, many students made it in life and ended up as nurses and teachers. While teaching at Msipani, I did my Senior Certificate, which was equivalent to A-level, by correspondence. I was literally studying by candlelight. Each time I visit these two schools now, I feel nostalgia when I see some of the classrooms in whose construction I participated. They are still in use. But to my very serious regret, the streams that used to flow throughout the year, which were our source of water for gardening, are dry, and so are the springs. Teachers can no longer teach gardening like we used to. Soil erosion has taken its toll.

While still at Dadaya, I was among a group of students who were given an extraordinary opportunity. In 1946, Sir Garfield and Lady Grace gave those of us who had passed Standard 4 with distinctions the chance to write Standard 5 examinations immediately afterwards, instead of at the end of the year. When we turned up for Standard 6 the next year, we were told that we were going to Form 1 – we skipped two years, and were surprised and excited by the big leap from Standard 4 to Form 1. The teachers, on the other hand, were sceptical. The Ministry of African Education tried to resist our rapid promotion, but the Todds went ahead. This was their way of advancing young Africans.

That year, in 1947, we found ourselves sitting for two examinations, Standard 6 as required by the Ministry and Form 1. It was a disaster for the majority of us but I and a few others passed both examinations. I saved my parents the problem of paying fees for Standards 5 and 6 but I don’t think that they understood how well I had done. If they did, they showed no reaction or excitement – indeed, no appreciation at all. However, I was not discouraged because I knew they did not understand what my promotion meant. For me, it was a great relief, considering that during the school holidays I used to work at Sir Garfield’s farm for my school fees.

***

In 2004, as my mother was growing very old, and a few months before she passed on, I asked how far she had gone with her schooling, and why she was so determined to make sure that we were all educated. She said, “I don’t know for how long I was in school, perhaps a year or two.

“But as to your second question, your father and I watched how your uncle Joram, who was a building instructor at Dadaya, lived, and we agreed that the best thing we could do for our children was to have them educated.” He had been educated and as a result was better-off in later life. I thanked her most sincerely. My parents had worked hard and made sacrifices to put all ten of us through school, to the point where others laughed at them for depriving themselves of so many things. But as a family, we led the way in education. My parents were torch-bearers and all my brothers and sisters will always remember them for this great heritage.

My mother was full of compassion and she showed love for all her children, and for her grandchildren as well. Alhough she spent her last days in bed, she followed what was happening, particularly with the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the unpre...