Mugabe deviates from Nkomo speech

At the official opening of Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport in Bulawayo yesterday, 89-year-old President Robert Mugabe said the late Dr Nkomo's principles were instrumental in setting the pace for land negotiations at the Lancaster House talks.

Deviating from his prepared speech, the President said: "[Nkomo's] thinking was; you are ignorant, to be educated is not always to be knowledgeable. You are an ignorant people if you do not realise that these people you call uneducated, dirty, are above you in reasoning."

"They have established that this country is theirs. They have established that this country does not belong to the British. They have established that the Africans of this country must unite and fight.

"You may have a degree or degrees, what do they matter if you are going to be a coward?" asked President Mugabe, drawing thunderous applause from the crowd.

He said between 1955 and 1957, the youth league and ANC led by Dr Nkomo, came together to form a formidable liberation movement.

"There were no other graduates (in the group except Nkomo) but there were graduates teaching elsewhere. They must have said Nkomo is doing what Kaunda across the Zambezi is doing, but Kaunda did not go to any university, we went to university.

"And that's the language they were taught. He (Nkomo) led them, Nyandoro, Chikerema, Nyagumbo and the people followed. I only came in 1960 from Ghana," said the President.

"I remember when I went to Ghana with JZ Moyo, he became my best man when I got married. Uncle Williams was saying 'the problem with Ghana is that we are being led by uneducated men. Nkrumah and all those who follow him are uneducated people. You are in love with my niece, here. Before you do politics, listen to me, you must read Plato, Aristotle and Socrates.

"'Plato likened the country and the people to the parts of the body. The arms represented the soldiers who should fight. The stomach those who should work and produce food in agriculture. The head, those who should think and here in Ghana, we do not have those who should think'," said President Mugabe.

He said those who thought they were too educated to get themselves dirty in fighting for independence later joined the so-called uneducated after the settler regime did not spare them imprisonment.

Said President Mugabe, "Today, we need to impress on our young people going to tertiary institutions that if there is no realisation in them that they are inheritors of the struggle that was fought for them to be able top go to those universities, then we will have missed out on a very important piece of knowledge."

He said he was disappointed that the country's universities shied away from imparting political knowledge so young Zimbabweans could better appreciate their country's past, present and future.

"This does not necessarily mean being a solider, it means having the faith in you that Zimbabwe is your country and you can speak about it to others that you meet and boast about it. You should not feel shy to be a Zimbabwean, you don't feel shy to talk about your country, even if you visit Britain, you should be able to say yes you do not want our leader, you do not like our leader, but I am a Zimbabwean. That is the legacy that we were left by those who left," said the President.

He said Dr Nkomo left a legacy of unity, nation-building and tolerance that needed to be perpetuated for the good of the country.