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 Today, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe is the subject of many pop songs that celebrate his life as the country’s youths chronicle the achievements of the revolutionary icon.
There is one day on the calendar that is set aside to celebrate the life of President Mugabe and suffuse his qualities of patriotism and leadership within the youth.
This is known as the 21st February Movement.
February 21 is the birthday of President Mugabe who was born in 1924 at Kutama Mission in Zvimba, Mashonaland West Province.
But the 21st February Movement celebrations, observed annually since 1986, are more than a birthday celebration.
The Movement was established in order to create an opportunity for the youth of Zimbabwe ? and indeed across Africa and the Third World ? to draw lessons from President Mugabe’s illustrious life of sacrifice and public service.
Besides suffusing the youth with the spirit of patriotism and Pan-Africanism, the Movement also has an operational trust fund that caters for youth activities throughout the year.
Early in 1986, the Youth League of the ZANU-PF party that President Mugabe leads decided to have an educational and cultural movement of children whose tender age disqualified them from joining the ranks of this wing of the party. The League tasked Webster Shamu (now Minister of Media, Information and Publicity) and the late Mike Munyati to research on how such movements were constituted in sister republics like Cuba, Angola and Mozambique.
After comprehensive and thorough research, the two comrades submitted a document to ZANU-PF’s central committee and this was adopted with minor amendments.
After consultations with relevant stakeholders, it was agreed that children aged between five and 14 should be taught to emulate the selfless life of President Mugabe.
They were to be nurtured to grow up endowed with President Mugabe’s enduring spirit of sacrifice to the nation.
It was then resolved that President Mugabe’s birthday would be the rallying point for all these efforts.
The 21st February Movement works closely with the Child Survival and Development Foundation.
Further to that, the Ministry of Education, Arts, Sport and Culture closely guides the 21st February Movement in its national programmes.
The 21st February Movement celebrations are held across the country and this year the main celebration will be in the eastern border city of Mutare.
President Mugabe’s life is as ordinary in its simplicity and honesty as it is inspiring.
His father was a carpenter and his mother a housewife.
He grew up herding cattle and was educated at Kutama Mission in Zvimba under the Roman Catholic Church through the Marist Brothers.
After completing his secondary education, he taught in various schools for nine years while he also continued to study privately for his matriculation certificate.
This allowed him to get a place at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and History degree in 1951.
He returned to teach in the then Southern Rhodesia, obtaining his Bachelor of Education degree by correspondence in 1953.
Two years later he moved to Chalimbana Training College in Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia, where he taught for nearly four years while also studying for a Bachelor of Science in Economics degree by correspondence from the University of London.
In 1958, he completed that degree and by then he had moved to Ghana, where he taught at St Mary’s Teacher Training College.
It was in Ghana that his revolutionary fires were really stoked by the ideas and African development efforts of Kwame Nkrumah.
President Mugabe returned home in 1960 while on leave from his job, and immediately decided to put to practice what he had learnt and observed in Ghana and thus set Zimbabwe on the path to independence, along with a host of other nationalist and Pan-African revolutionaries.
He quit his job in Ghana and joined the National Democratic Party as secretary for publicity. After the banning of the NDP and another major nationalist party, ZAPU, in 1962 and 1963 respectively, President Mugabe and other black leaders were detained for almost a decade.
This did not deter them as they continued to mobilise the masses, even while locked up. In prison, President Mugabe furthered his studies, obtaining Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Administration degrees from the University of London.
He also took time to tutor fellow inmates. On release from prison, President Mugabe crossed the border into Mozambique with other comrades to lead the fight against the Ian Smith regime in Southern Rhodesia.
At independence in 1980, President Mugabe became the country’s first black Prime Minister.
From his great reconciliation speech in which he extended an olive branch to the racist and recalcitrant Rhodesians, urging erstwhile foes to turn swords into ploughshares, President Mugabe has been exemplary in many regards.
He has led developments in various sectors that include education, health and the economy.
Again, he demonstrated his statesmanship in 1987 when he signed the Unity Accord with ZAPU leader, Dr Joshua Nkomo.
This was after ZAPU and ZANU had been engaged in hostilities (the Matabeleland disturbances) soon after independence.
President Mugabe became President and Dr Nkomo assumed the mantle of Vice President in the unified administration.
Interestingly, years later in 2009, President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF embraced the two opposition MDC formations in a coalition government.
The 21st February Movement provides the youth of Zimbabwe and Africa the opportunity to revisit the life of this Pan-Africanist and reflect on how they too can contribute to the development of their respective countries and the entire continent. - Tichaona Zindoga
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