Contradictions Explain Paralysis
As Zimbabwe and South Africa begin repatriation of the remains of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe combatants who died north of the Limpopo River during the liberation, historical relations between Zanu PF and the ANC, in the contemparary context, and their guerrillas movements, have come under renewed scrutiny once again.
Remains of about 16 former South African freedom fighters, who were buried in Zimbabwe during the struggle against apartheid, were repatriated on Wednesday, 25 September 2024.
Exhumation at Warren Hills Cemetery in Harare and Athlone Cemetery in Bulawayo, which started early this month, marked a significant, yet controversial and contentious, revisit of history, its narratives and relations of liberation movements in Southern Africa.
While it is common cause the ANC and MK had great relations with Zapu and Zipra – and they fought together at the landmark Wankie and Sipolilo battles in Rhodesia in 1967 and 1968, the South Africans had an uneasy relationship with Zanu and Zanla.
The relations were influenced by dynamics of the struggle; alliances, regional alignments and ideological positions, as well as geopolitics and geoethnic considerations.
ANC and Zanu political leaders claim they worked together and collaborated well in the anti-apartheid struggle, but Zapu and Zipra leading lights and historians pour cold water on that assertion, saying the relationship was uneasy and sometimes openly hostile due to the interface and dynamics of alliances across the liberation movements.
South African political leaders, particularly former president Thabo Mbeki, say Zanu and its leaders, under the late former president Robert Mugabe, helped them a lot during the struggle after Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, but the politico-military aristocracy in Zapu and ANC say that is revisionist history.
They insist that while there were areas of cooperation and collaboration, truth should be told as it is and not become a casualty of politically correct historical accounts, tropes and narratives as that obfuscate where people are coming from and should be going in terms of regional relations, interactions and integration for a better, shared future.
The ANC and Zanu PF are not genuine and sincere allies, but uneasy bedfellows who often cover each other’s back for political survival in a marriage of convenience, hence unable to tell each other the truth about current issues in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Whenever they try to fix critical issues of mutual interest, for instance the protracted crisis in Zimbabwe, the vulnerability of their tenuous ties is exposed, with deep historical cleavages showing.
As Peter Fabricius explains in this article first published in the Daily Maverick after Mugabe’s death, the reality was much more complex and complicated than what politicians make it appear through sugar-coating history.
The background and shadow of those unsaid things linger on.
