Charles Dube
IN last week’s article we summarised challenges faced by guerrillas in training camps. Many comrades of the struggle lost their lives due to diseases and enemy attacks. Thousands lost their lives proving beyond doubt that it was tough out there. We would not have done justice if we pass over this without showing how Benjamin was emotionally affected.
We saw him receive a “tortured” reception at the war front . . .” and suffers his first emotional blow when his new love-to-be, refugee camp school teacher Ropa, dies, alongside thousands of others in the bombings by the Rhodesians.” The moving part which haunts Benjamin is when he discovers the dead Ropa clutching a child in each arm and the grisly incident in which he is later called on to execute punishment on an alleged traitor, Mai Tawanda at a pungwe.
Benjamin is distraught when he finds Ropa dead, after all he is human. He yells hysterically: “Bastards! Bastards! Blari Bastards!” In the thickness of problems in the training camp, Benjamin thinks of his mother back home. No matter the circumstances of how he left home he writes an imaginary letter to his mother. In the reflective soliloquy reveals his feelings about his departure from home. He thinks his mother could be worrying about him.
He does not feel he belongs to anything other than the soil on which he sleeps. He is aware that the Rhodesian forces could have given his mother trouble after they found he had gone to join the guerrillas. He thinks his mother is fine and worries about him, but, he advises her not to. He assures his mother that he is not afraid and gives her the real picture of the true realities of war. He makes it graphically clear in the following words:
“If you saw those little children dead under the trees with their arms eaten away and those naked mothers running through the bush you’d know. If you saw those fires and the gaping graves maybe you’d stop chiding. If you saw her lying with her eyes open like glass, clutching a child in each arm, you’d know there’s no other way but this.”
Although all this is contained in an imaginary letter, it shows the resolve Benjamin has made — to pursue the struggle to its end no matter the circumstances. To him there is no going back. He believes his mother remained chiding him for leaving her and coming to join the liberation war fighters, but he is of the view that he did the correct thing especially when faced with such massacres of women and children.
Benjamin is determined to fight and avenge all these killings by the enemy. The next time we meet Benjamin, together with his colleagues are in the battle front. They have entered the country (Rhodesia) now Zimbabwe from the training camps in Mozambique. They have come to fight Ian Smith’s racist forces. It was risk in the war front hence they had to plan before executing their mission. They are readying themselves to have a third contact with the enemy.
They have already suffered a setback as they lost three comrades crossing the river in the last week. For three nights they have had two pungwes in the village to conscientise them about the war. Among their first targets Benjamin and his group was to terminate the racist farmer, J M P Mellecker, who has been harassing the villagers and confiscating their beasts, at his farmhouse. We see one of his workers, Msindo, pleading with him to return the confiscated cattle to the villagers.
Farmer Mellecker refuses saying their skinny infested beasts strayed into his farm to graze on his grass, and the villagers should pay a fine to have them back declaring that it is his land.
True to the comrades’ word, farmer Mellecker is terminated. His worker Msindo who told one of the guerrillas, Mabunu, of his whereabouts, proving that he is human too, cries out admitting that he has sold out his boss Mellecker. He regrets why he has done that and looks for a bough from which to hang himself. Human life is sacred and cannot just be terminated, that is the reason Msindo regrets having sold out Mellecker to be killed and cries out to his God.
The same applies to Benjamin who was instructed by his commander Baas Die to teach the so called traitor Mai Tawanda, a lesson she will never forget. Benjamin (Pasi NemaSellout) was to bear the agony of killing Mai Tawanda whether truly guilty or not. Baas Die ominously told the villagers that there was a traitor in that village. A sell-out. That was the reason why they all got beaten up and tortured by the Rhodies.
He added that the sell-out had been passing information to the mupuruveya about their plans and movements. On that day she had fed poisonous mushrooms to one of their comrades who nearly died. They searched her bedroom and found a walkie-talkie. Mai Tawanda stepped in front of Baas Die. To cut the long story short she was not forgiven despite her pleas and those of the headman. Benjamin was ordered to teach her an unforgettable lesson.
This was not an easy task for Benjamin as he was bewildered, hesitant and nervously brandished a thick stick. At the end we are told that he hesitated again, stepped forward and struck three quick blows at the woman’s head. The woman twitched and died. But, this was not over with Benjamin as we find Benjamin taking Baas Die to task for making him slaughter that woman, Mai Tawanda, like a beast! He committed the act but his humanitarian nature did not abandon him.
Book review: Harvest of Thorns Classic: A play by Shimmer Chinodya. For views link with charlesdube14058@gmail.com or sms to 0772113207.