Opinion / Columnist
Spirit yechihure will not triumph over the spirit of Comradeship
13 Oct 2017 at 19:15hrs | Views
Grace, the people you are tormenting today went to war, staying in the bush with fellow comrades in close-knit teams of ZANLA and ZIPRA forces, refugees, and civilian leadership. It did not matter what capacity one served in; it was dangerous, highly stressful, exhausting non-stop work. Multitudes were killed in Rhodesian army raids, each death a staggering gut-punch to the others.
Most comrades came back home physically, emotionally and mentally spent. Most of them do not have access to go for counselling, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tests, or any rehabilitation efforts; they fend for themselves and deserve our respect—they brought us the freedom we are enjoying. Most who perished could simply not function in the society: I remember comrade Chisano at Zunga Secondary School dishing out his demobilization package; the disabled rotting in Ruwa with all empty promises of good jobs. Simply the comrades were ashamed of themselves and to some extend are still ashamed of themselves.
It is disheartening to listen to Grace Mugabe denigrate comrades who went through the soul-battering experience of war. These comrades were exposed to trauma that needed more than just visits to the clinics; they needed assessment for traumatic brain injury (TBI), depression, substance abuse and sometimes suicide. Can Grace produce concise statistics about comrades' mental health, injuries from combat service, short-term memory loss, headaches, and insomnia, anger or numbness diagnoses? Is it not common sense that some of these conditions can result into highly disruptive behaviors on the job and within the family? Could it be that for the fortunate ones, hard work temporarily masked these symptoms?
Does Grace understand the long term effects of untreated trauma? For some of us, products of war, we understand that we are carrying the traumatic after-effects longer and deeper than we appreciate. It only gets worse with age. No one including Mugabe got out unaffected.
A civilian society that is largely disconnected from military service is very dangerous. What Grace is doing is unprecedented and dangerous. The comrades are running for cover but with their experiences at war, they will never be silenced.
Spirit yechihure will not triumph over the spirit of comradeship. Grace, akuruma nzeve ndewako, all these associations of convenience will soon come home to roost, you can't win this war against magandanga, you are wasting your time and you will be lucky to be alive a day after Mugabe dies.
Most comrades came back home physically, emotionally and mentally spent. Most of them do not have access to go for counselling, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tests, or any rehabilitation efforts; they fend for themselves and deserve our respect—they brought us the freedom we are enjoying. Most who perished could simply not function in the society: I remember comrade Chisano at Zunga Secondary School dishing out his demobilization package; the disabled rotting in Ruwa with all empty promises of good jobs. Simply the comrades were ashamed of themselves and to some extend are still ashamed of themselves.
It is disheartening to listen to Grace Mugabe denigrate comrades who went through the soul-battering experience of war. These comrades were exposed to trauma that needed more than just visits to the clinics; they needed assessment for traumatic brain injury (TBI), depression, substance abuse and sometimes suicide. Can Grace produce concise statistics about comrades' mental health, injuries from combat service, short-term memory loss, headaches, and insomnia, anger or numbness diagnoses? Is it not common sense that some of these conditions can result into highly disruptive behaviors on the job and within the family? Could it be that for the fortunate ones, hard work temporarily masked these symptoms?
A civilian society that is largely disconnected from military service is very dangerous. What Grace is doing is unprecedented and dangerous. The comrades are running for cover but with their experiences at war, they will never be silenced.
Spirit yechihure will not triumph over the spirit of comradeship. Grace, akuruma nzeve ndewako, all these associations of convenience will soon come home to roost, you can't win this war against magandanga, you are wasting your time and you will be lucky to be alive a day after Mugabe dies.
Source - Sam Wezhira
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