BCC dishonours Lookout Masuku - Centre for Public Engagement

It has been reported that Bulawayo City councillors were divided on the issue of renaming a stadium after Lookout Masuku. Debating issues including disagreeing is not only healthy and encouraged in a democracy but very necessary in that it allows all possible angles to be scrutinized. Unfortunately, the sentiments of some councillors and the general spirit and attitude towards honouring Lookout Masuku leaves a sour taste, to say the least. Even if BCC were to honour this foremost icon of the armed struggle by renaming either any stadium or school or suburb or even a street as disparagingly suggested, it would no longer have any celebratory value but exactly the opposite. To even suggest that rather 'colonial' symbols be conserved than memorializing the country's liberation legacy is not only to dishonour Lookout Masuku and his gallant comrades, both fallen and living but is in essence insulting to all Zimbabweans whose sweat, tears and blood paid for this liberty.

When a section of civil society mooted the idea of recognizing heroes and icons be they from politics, education, sports, or from any field for that matter little did they anticipate such negativity especially from BCC. It has become customary, weird though, that a hero/heroine status is granted after one's death. As civil society we have raised concern on the sometimes partisan and stratification of hero status as district, province and national. Zimbabweans have not supported the apparent localizing of heroes to their villages and districts of origin when in life one would have contributed to the whole country.

In requesting BCC to ensure that Bulawayo takes a lead in constructing memory sites for legends like Lookout Masuku, the petitioners had considered the matter seriously. Surely, there is no doubt that the capital city Harare should follow suit in renaming something after Lookout Masuku and some liberation war commanders. Actually if all Zimbabwean cities and towns could have street names of Masuku, Mujuru, Mangena, Zvinavashe, Ndangana, etc would it not be befitting? With only Tongogara street one may get the wrong impression that General Tongo had no equally deserving military colleagues. But Bulawayo had to set the tone for two reasons mainly. First, Masuku was buried in Bulawayo, then under unpalatable circumstances but a well deserved honour for Bulawayo. That funeral alone was historic and must be in the annals of the very BCC that feigns ignorance on Masuku's liberation and nation building record.

Secondly and most importantly is that fate placed the honour on Masuku to oversee the hoisting of our own flag in Bulawayo to symbolize Zimbabwe's freedom and independence. Almost a century earlier the British South African Company mercenaries had hoisted their Union Jack in smouldering Bulawayo to mark military conquest and colonization of Matabeleland following that unprovoked aggression. Masuku and colleagues fought a protracted war of liberation to reverse racism, colonial domination and achieved the right for citizens to freely elect councillors like those at BCC. Councillors who apparently want us to believe that since national hero Lookout Masuku was not a soccer player therefore a soccer stadium cannot be renamed after him. One wonders what they have to say of Joshua Nkomo Airport, OR Tambo Airport, Kenyatta Airport and many such named airports after icons who were not pilots.    

Understandably, civil society petitioners did not ask BCC to do Lookout Masuku or any other liberation hero a favour. The city leaders were requested to merely fulfil a public wish. As Joshua Nkomo (12/4/1996) said at the funeral of this liberation doyen that 'You don't give a man the status of a hero. All you can do is recognise it. It is his....Yes, he can be forgotten temporarily .... But the young people who do research will one day unveil what Lookout has done.' Nkomo was not a prophet but he was simply stating the inevitability of historical truth.  In their infinite wisdom and perhaps coupled with political expediency, the current councillors may have thwarted the will of the people but surely Bulawayo would never forget this humiliation and insult. There is no doubt that the name of Lookout Masuku shall forever remain emblazoned in the hearts of the toiling masses with or without stadia or street names.

Also for the record, no one ever raised the race or ethnicity of Barbour. In any event, a whole suburb would still have remained Barbourfields. Attempts by some councillors to racialize the renaming of a stadium smack of uncanny pretence and is simply out of taste with Bulawayo community ethos. Masuku helped liberate Zimbabwe so that today Bulawayo has both black and white councillors and legislators. To give the impression that those who vote white councillors and legislators would at the same time change names simply because they belong to either a European or an Asian is pretentiousness taken rather too far. It actually gives credence to those who allege that BCC suffers from institutional capture and has surreptitiously become a haven and bastion of self serving barons bent on undermining the shared cultural heritage and values that define Bulawayo.

What is nauseating is that BCC elected to ignore the very choice of BF stadium and the reason for Lookout Masuku. Since petitioners were pursuing peace building and forgiveness at community level Lookout Masuku stands out as an exemplar and a paragon of peace building and epitome of patriotism under very extreme provocation. Ironically, while Masuku was falsely accused and humiliated BCC itself was not spared either. For example, after 1985 elections more than 200 BCC employees including municipal police, ambulance drivers, garbage collectors, etc were similarly detained. Are we to believe that today the same BCC has suddenly forgotten the price for peace building and justice that this stalwart of the liberation struggle paid? Lookout Masuku remains a larger than life colossus in Zimbabwean history and memory. Indeed it is a tragic twist of fate that it should be BCC as crusaders in the deheroization of Lookout Masuku!

Voltaire memorably said that to the living we owe respect, to the dead we owe only the truth. Lieutenant-General Masuku belonged to that remarkable generation of unswerving leaders on whom history placed a whole nation's destiny. Masuku's exceptional service to Zimbabwe remains legendary. As a military leader, he fought with distinction and as a peace maker he sacrificed his very own life to save Zimbabweans from the scourge of civil war. It is resoluteness, selflessness and discipline that future generations need for continuity and rootedness in history. It is the rare qualities of bravery, determination, sacrifice and patriotism that we desperately need as a people and which the memory of Lookout Masuku exudes abundantly. It is this historical memory that our city fathers refuse to acknowledge even at the humble request of communities that they purport to represent. In actual effect, they have dismembered and desecrated that sacred memory and shared heritage. In any event, Lookout Masuku's name is very secure in history and no amount of sacrilege and revisionism can change that. Woe to those who masquerade as community leaders and make a mockery of a determined people's chronicle of their memory for history will judge them harshly!