Marupi calls for more books documenting liberation war history

Deputy Information Minister Omphile Marupi has called for more books documenting Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle, saying first-hand accounts must be recorded before they are lost.

Speaking in Bulawayo on Thursday at the launch of three books about the life and experiences of liberation war veteran Moffat Linda Hadebe, Marupi said the accounts would help future generations understand the country’s history.

He said more effort was needed to document the experiences of people who participated in the liberation struggle, particularly those whose stories had never been written down.

“We should write books about our history, which talk about what happened during the war. In those books, there should be a point of reference because such information can only be collected through face-to-face interviews,” he said.

Marupi said many accounts of the war remained undocumented, despite some surviving participants having first-hand knowledge of significant events.

He used an analogy to explain why people who witnessed historical events should be given the opportunity to tell their own stories.

“The story of a lion being a good hunter can only be told by the lion and not the cheetah because the cheetah will talk about its speed,” he said.

Marupi said existing accounts of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) reflected the information that had been recorded, but more experiences needed to be documented.

“What we write and what is being talked about when it comes to the history of ZANLA and what they did is correct, and we cannot blame those people who write about it because most of the stories from that time are not talked about or written down,” he said.

He cited accounts of events at Mkushi, a site associated with the liberation struggle, as examples of stories that needed to be recorded.

Marupi said some people could provide more detailed accounts of specific events, including rescues, but their experiences had not been formally documented.

“In some instances, you will meet people who tell you that there is this person who can tell you a better history of what happened in the past. Some will tell you that this person has a better history of what happened at a place called Mkushi. This person would have rescued people on this day, but it is not written down,” he said.

He added that he had personally met people with significant accounts of the liberation struggle whose experiences deserved to be preserved.

He cited the example of a man from Mashonaland who told him that his group was among the first to travel to China for military training.

“I met a person called Mr Ngwenya from Mashonaland, and he said that they were the first group who went to train in China, but I don’t know when the Ngwenya family is going to write about his history,” Marupi said.

He said his interest in preserving the country’s liberation war history was also influenced by his own family’s experience during the war.

“My interest in this is because my father also ran away and went to war. When he was crossing the river while running away, he actually met up with the white people who were looking for him. Since they did not know what he looked like, he directed them in a different direction,” he said.

Marupi said his father later returned from the war and died in 1999. He further stressed the importance of oral history, particularly in rural communities, where family histories and identities were often passed down from one generation to another.

He said some of these accounts could become distorted over time if they were not properly recorded.

“Even in rural areas, you will find that a woman will marry into the Nyathi family and she will be a Moyo, but the residents around the area end up naming where she stays the household of the Moyo, yet the father of the house is a Nyathi,” Marupi said.

Marupi also raised concern over the lack of documentation of the experiences of members of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), saying some former combatants were reluctant to share their stories.

“Currently, the stories about ZIPRA are not there because most of the people don’t want to tell us about their history. Preserving such accounts was essential to ensuring that the contributions and experiences of liberation war veterans were not forgotten,” he said.