TANZIA Ex-Rhodesia leader Ian Smith dies

[Bongolander]

Mkandara, ninaelewa hisia zako na nakupata. Inawezekana kuwa nimeishi katika kipindi cha kunyanyaswa na wazungu, kwa hivyo siwezi kukulaumu naelewa mtazamo wako. Nashukuru kwa kuelezea kuwa mtazamo wangu ni baada ya miaka ya 70. Niliposema kuwa Smith sio Mungu, nilimaanisha kuwa alifanya mambo mabaya pia, kama vile kuwatukana na kuwadharau watu weusi na kuwaua wengine wengi. Hakuna mtu anayekubaliana na hayo, hata jumuiya ya kimataifa ilipinga na kuiwekea vikwazo Zimbabwe, na wengine wenye akili waliamua hata kufa na kutumia mtutu kumshikisha adabu. Lakini tukichunguza yale aliyoyafanya kwa Zimbabwe na yale anayofanya Mugabe, sioni sababu ya kumsifu Mugabe kuwa yuko bora kuliko Smith. Ndiyo, nilisema Smith si Mungu, alifanya vizuri katika uchumi na kufanya mambo mabaya katika maeneo mengine.

Nakubaliana na wewe kuwa tunahitaji kujitambua wenyewe, kujua ni nani sisi, na kujua historia yetu kutoka kwa watu kama Kinjeketile, Mang'enya, Mangungo, na hata wale walio sasa wanafanya nini. Ndipo tunaweza kuwa katika nafasi ya kusema ikiwa tunachofanya ni kitu kizuri au la.

 

[Nanguka W]

Mtu akifa anasifiwa kwa mazuri

 

[Rubabi]

KOBA na wengineo

Nyinyi kweli mna kumbukumbu fupi,enzi za Smith msijidanganye kuwa kila kitu kilikuwepo, kulikuwa na njaa, tena waafrika wengi wallishi maisha ya tabu sana huku ardhi yao waliyoishi mababu zao ilichukuliwa kinguvu na wazungu,kama hamuoni hili bila shaka mna mawazo ya kitumwa...kama wale wazanzibar wanaosema kwamba enzi za sultani zilikuwa bora..Zimbabwe kila mtu anapiga kura je ilikuwa hivi enzi za smith?,fikirieni kwanza kabla ya kutoa hoja!
Hapa chini ni hadithi ya mtu aliyeishi enzi za Mugabe na smith na hivi ndivyo anavyosema.
------------
Zimbabwean Richard Donald Munsaka, 53, told the BBC News website, via telephone from his home in the north-western town of Hwange, how he felt after hearing that the ex-Rhodesia leader Ian Smith had died.

Ian Smith was a sick old man. I don't begrudge him for what he did - I think he felt he was doing right.

He was just an old Zimbabwean man.

But life under Ian Smith wasn't better than it is now.

I have lived under a cruel regime and I am old enough to know the difference between the two.

When he was prime minister most of us [black] Africans used to live in what were then called tribal trust [communal] lands.

But my father worked on the railways so I lived in town - in the country's second city, Bulawayo.

Little change left over

In those days, things like bread, although it was there on the shelves, for us it was a luxury. Our staple food was sadza [maize meal cooked with water and a little salt]. We had a desire for bread but didn't have money to buy it.


Ian Smith died aged 88 in Cape Town on Tuesday

I remember always smelling bread if I was walking near to the area where the whites lived and shopped - I loved its smell and wished I could taste it.

But I never did for many years!

Working on the railways until 1978-79, my father's wages enabled him to buy two 50kg bags of meilie [maize] meal and have a little change left over.

My father worked as an assistant grinder - a white or a coloured [mixed race] man would weld the tracks and then my father would grind.

The most an African could aspire to be, working on the railways, was a stoker on one of the locomotives and even then that was more for coloureds.

Blacks only got the menial jobs.

But if you were an educated African you could be either a teacher or a nurse.

Blacks weren't allowed

Under Ian Smith the job that I do now - I am an operating superintendent at Hwange power station - would have been a job for a white man.


Ian Smith was said to believe his way of leadership was best

Even train drivers were white - blacks weren't allowed. People like me weren't trained to learn skills.

When my dad set off to work in the morning, my mother would follow him along the railway line to look for shrubs and any wild vegetables that were growing. She would return home and cook them - without cooking oil - so we had something to eat with our sadza.

That was the life of my mother; to make sure we had a meal on the table.

And there was no tea either because there was no money for sugar.

In those days there were many silly taxes that blacks had to pay. You had to pay a sum to be able to own a dog, even a bicycle.

Goodbye

And if you so happened to have a few cattle to your name and if a white person came along and wanted them, they could just take them.

Us Africans, we had to fend for ourselves - we were the enemy

Richard Donald Munsaka

You would just be told: "You see that bull over there, that is for the boss." That was it. Goodbye. There was nothing you could do.

I had a cousin who left in 1978 for Angola to become a fighter. He went to war because his late father's nine cattle had been taken away from him by a white cattle rancher. At independence he went and took his cattle back.

But I lost another of my uncles to that same white rancher. He was fishing with a few of my other uncles when they were used for target practice.
I was still a young man but I have never forgotten, up to this day.

My parents had to pay for our school fees. My two younger brothers lived with one of my uncles in the so-called tribal trust area so they could attend school.

War

When I visited them, I remember the soldiers - Selous Scouts and forces from the Rhodesian Light Infantry. We even knew some of the notorious ones by name.

They used to come and ask: "Where are the terrorists?"

They used to beat up the women and children if no-one answered.

I remember in 1978 there was a fight between the Rhodesian forces and the guerrillas. We all had to run and hide for a long time because the next day Ian Smith's soldiers came, as they always did, to take all the young men away.

It was war then.

I stayed and hid at an uncle's home. There were 20 of us in a three-roomed house. We survived on cabbage leaves cooked in plain water with some salt (no cooking oil or tomatoes!) and sadza when it was there.

I never actually joined the struggle as a fighter because by the time I wanted to fight, we were told to stay as it was said that there was so many in Zambia, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania.

We were the enemy

The things we see now, like the bad shortages and everything, you still can't compare.



Us Africans, we had to fend for ourselves. We were the enemy.

In those days, though, people in tribal trust lands did not suffer like those in the towns because they made sure they were self-sufficient despite that the land the blacks had to live on was not so fertile.
The whites took the best for themselves.

Then my father used to point to this land in the distance and tell me that was where our family belonged... but now since the land reform programme, our family have got a portion of our land back.

I never saw a time when I thought that Ian Smith was helping the African people.

Tough nowadays

The comparing reasons that people are making now is not right.

After 1980 and up to the 1990s, life in Zimbabwe was so good.


Britain tried to persuade Smith not to illegally declare independence

It was only after the 1980s that blacks could afford to buy cars, televisions, radios, furniture and houses. And everyone went to school, right up to university.
Right now I own a motor vehicle - a Toyota Hilux [4x4]. I live in a nice suburban house - three bedrooms, two adjoining lounges, two bathrooms each with a toilet, TV with satellite and I have the internet. You are phoning me on my mobile phone and I also have a landline.

And I although I am a Zanu-PF member, I am not an official. I have worked for everything I own. Apart from the land that was returned to my family.

I own property in Victoria Falls that I acquired myself, without a loan. I am having a house and guesthouse built but these days it is difficult. Getting building materials, even cement is a challenge.
Yes life is tough nowadays here.

But when I say that I am comparing it to life during the 1990s.

Not to the those during Smith's time because about that, there is nothing to talk about - it was oppression.

Robert Mugabe is not the best leader that we can have.
I want the president to leave - he has had his go, he has had his time.

But never will Mugabe be worse than Smith.

 

[Rubabi]

Bongolander said:

Mkandara naona unaongea kwa uchungu sana, nakupata. Inawezekana wewe uliishi kwenye kile kipindi cha kunyanyaswa na wazungu, kwa hiyo siwezi kulaumu naelewa mtizamo wako, nashukuru kwa kun'gamua kuwa na mimi mtizamo wangu ni wa post 70's. Niliposema kuwa Smith sio Mungu nilikuwa na maana kuwa yeye alifanya Mabaya vilevile, kama vile kuwatukana na kuwadharau weusi, na kuwauwa wengine wengi. Hakuna mtu yoyote anayekubaliana na hilo, kila mtu hata jumuiya ya kimataifa ilipinga na kumuwekea vikwazo, na wengine wenye akili ndio waliamua hata kukubali kufa na kutumia mtutu kumshikisha adabu. Lakini tukiangalia aliyoyafanya kwa Zimbabwe na anayofanya Mugabe, sioni sana cha kunifanya nimsifu Mugabe kuwa yuko better kuliko Smith. Ndiyo nilisema Smith was no God, alifanya vizuri kwenye uchumi na kufanya ovyo kwenye mengine.
Nakubaliana na wewe kuwa tunatakiwa tujijue vizuri sisi ni kina nani, na tujue historia yetu toka kina Kinjeketile, Mang'enya, Mangungo na tujue hata wa sasa waliopo wanafanya nini, then hapo ndio tunaweza kuwa in a position of telling whether what we are doing is crap or not.[/B]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yaani unasema enzi za Smith kulikuwa na wasomi zaidi?Je unajua wakati wa Mugabe(miaka ishirini tu) ni wazimbwabe wangapi walisoma mpaka chuo kikuu ukilinganisha na miaka zaidi ya mia moja ya utawala wa wazungu?,Je unaweza kulinganisha idadi za shule alizojenga smith na zile alizojenga Mugabe?

Ukweli ni kwamba wazungu walikuwa hawana nia ya kuwaelimisha waafrika, kwa sababu wangefanya hivyo, waafrika wangewazidi maarifa na kuwaondoa madarakani.Na uchumi ulikuwa mzuri tu kwa upande wa wazungu(kama ilivyokuwa south afrika) lakini kwa upande wa waafrika, 'uchumu' ulikuwa chini sana
Mfano Tanzania wakati wa uhuru tuklikuwa na wanasheria kama sikosei watatu tu!na hiyo baada ya miaka karibu mia moja ya Mjerumani na mwingereza je sasa miaka hamsini tuna wanasheria na madaktari wangapi.Nakushauri ndugu yangu soma statistics za kabla na baada ya uhuru.

 

[Bongolander]

Rubabi

Sina maana hiyo. Nina maana kuwa at that time waafrika wengi hawakuwa na uwezo mkubwa wa kuendesha mambo ya utawala, huenda ndiyo maana Smith alisema mamneno ya kibaguzi. Ni kweli kuwa wazimbabwe wengi sasa wanaelimu kuliko zamani, lakini pamoja na kuwa sasa hivi wana elimu zaidi kuliko zamani lakini ndiyo nchi yao inakuwa ovyo zaidi kuliko zamani.

Hata hivyo kusoma haina maana wakati wote ni kuelimika, takwimu za nani amesoma nani hajasoma zinaweza kupotosha ukweli wa mambo halisi yanayotokea.

 

[Rubabi]

Halafu msijidanganye, wakina smith walikuwa na nia ya kukaa miaka 1000 years, na isingekuwa wakina Mugabe na wenzake na international opinion,hawa jamaa wangechukua nchi yote hata kama ingewezekana kuwaua directly au indirectly wazimbabwe wote!kilichowashinda ni kwamba hawakuwa wengi.

Look what the did to the native australians and newzealanders!Waaustarlia wenye nchi sasa wanahesabika kwa vidole wapo wangapi?They are now the low of the lowest!!Ni hivyo hiyo red indians wa Marekani.

Do not make comparisons between two completely different leaders.There is no comparison there.

 

[Rubabi]

Rubabi
Sina maana hiyo. Nina maana kuwa at that time waafrika wengi hawakuwa na uwezo mkubwa wa kuendesha mambo ya utawala, huenda ndiyo maana Smith alisema mamneno ya kibaguzi. Ni kweli kuwa wazimbabwe wengi sasa wanaelimu kuliko zamani, lakini pamoja na kuwa sasa hivi wana elimu zaidi kuliko zamani lakini ndiyo nchi yao inakuwa ovyo zaidi kuliko zamani.
hata hivyo kusoma haina maana wakati wote ni kuelimika, takwimu za nani amesoma nani hajasoma zinaweza kupotosha ukweli wa mambo halisi yanayotokea.

Sasa naona unakubali kuwa Mugabe aliendeleza elimu zaidi ya hao wazungu wako.Waafrika walikuwa hawana elimu kwa kwa sababu hawakuelimishwa na wa kulaumiwa ni smith huyo huyo!

Bongolander said:
hata hivyo kusoma haina maana wakati wote ni kuelimika, takwimu za nani amesoma nani hajasoma zinaweza kupotosha ukweli wa mambo halisi yanayotokea.[/QUOTE

Now you are contradicting yourself.Miaka ya themanini na tisini zimbabwe ilikuwa na
wasomi wengi na kulikuwa na uhusiano kati ya usomi na uchumi.Uchumi wa zimbabwe ulikuwa juu sana kutokana na uhimizaji wa elimu uliofanywa na Mugabe.

Usingeweza kulinganisha utawala wa wazungu miaka yote waliyotawala zimbabwe na miaka ishirini tu ya Mwanzoni ya Mugabe.