Declaration of national hero status needs to be reformed

The news that former Speaker of Parliament, Cyril Ndebele has only been granted a State-assisted funeral and not declared a national hero is shocking in the least and those that claim that the system of declaring heroes is broken and needs to be fixed have been vindicated.

Source: Declaration of national hero status needs to be reformed – NewsDay Zimbabwe October 12, 2016

Comment: NewsDay Editor

Anyone with an interest in Zimbabwean history and politics would no doubt have thought Ndebele’s declaration as a hero was automatic, as lesser people have been awarded that status.

We do not want to believe that President Robert Mugabe is petty, but if speculation that Ndebele missed out on hero’s status because of a tiff following former minister, Dzikamai Mavhaire’s statements that “Mugabe must go”, is true, then we are doomed as a country because we hold unnecessary grudges.

Failure to accord Ndebele the national hero’s status also fits in snuggly with conspiracy theorists, who have always complained that the awarding of the status is regionally and tribally skewed, with former Zapu cadres routinely missing out, while the process seems smoother for their former Zanu colleagues.

It is difficult to argue against such when there seems to be a clear pattern of a long string of former Zapu luminaries being overlooked.

Ndebele joins people like Thenjiwe Lesabe, who were not considered good enough for the national shrine.
Others such as Swazini Ndlovu, Isaac Nyathi and Welshman Mabhena were also not buried at the National Heroes’ Acre, in spite of their heroic deeds.

Masala Sibanda, a former Zipra high command member, was only declared a national hero two days after his burial at Lady Stanley Cemetery in Bulawayo, and the sceptical among us will argue that this was deliberate.

Then there is the perpetual injustice served on former Zipra commander, Lookout Masuku, who is also buried at Lady Stanley and was only declared a hero long after his death.

Previously, Mugabe has declared that what is supposed to be a national shrine is a Zanu PF cemetery, yet when someone like Ndebele misses out, this really beggars belief.

Declaration of heroes needs to be reformed as a matter of urgency, before it reduces the whole thing into a charade dismissed by the generality of the population.

To paraphrase the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo’s words at Masuku’s burial almost three decades ago, Ndebele is not being buried at the heroes’ acre, but they cannot take away his status as a hero.

“You don’t give a man the status of a hero. All you can do is recognise it. It is his.”

Ndebele deserved to be at the heroes’ acre and failure to accord him that status says more of the people that denied him that privilege than it does about him.

Back to Home page