Some events define history. Some will forever seek to turn the wheels of history anti-clock wise. Whichever way the events of 6 February 2009, which led to the fatal car accident of the premiership along the Harare Masvingo road, have redefined Zimbabwe’s body polity.
This is the day when the Prime Minister’s wife, Susan Tsvangirai’s (main picture) voice came out the last. It was the defining moment when she took her last breath, blinking her eyes for the last stroll which waved good bye to mother earth, her husband, children and the country which she so loved much.
I lastly met and spoke to the PM’s wife two weeks before the 29 March 2008 elections in which his husband was contesting Robert Mugabe and Simba Makoni for the country’s top post. We arrived at the couple’s residency as they were preparing to take the route which later on claimed Susan’s life a year later. Susan stroke me as a very humble and receptive person. An emblem of a down to earth mother figure strongly found on the African cultural fundamentals of reception to both the people she new and strangers like myself and a friend of mine who had graced their residency at her husband’s benevolence.
She spoke highly of how his husband was psyched up for the plebiscite and how the family was raring to go. She introduced myself to her daughter and argued that she was very blessed that she had grown up to see her children taking the huddles of life and conquering them with their support.
When I had of the saddening news – a lump of thickening blood grew on my neck as if to say I was about to be struck by a blot of stroke.
The news broke out when I was making the rounding phases of the Harare Press Club election where I contesting for the post of general secretary which was scheduled to take place the same day and time we were informed of the passing on of the mother figure of the movement and of the nation. When a phone call rung and had the other side of the receiver informing me that Mrs. Tsvangirai failed to make it, a pulse race was triggered in my mind – Life is not fear, I said to myself loudly in silence – here is a rock foundation of a family, a husband, a nation who saw it all in the past decade of the struggle for a people to be freed from the tyranny of Robert Mugabe, poverty, disease, violence, hunger, corruption and collapse of democracy.
She was there in 1989 when the husband was being incarcerated for speaking out against the harassment of students who were protesting against the corruption which was spreading in the government’s systems like a viral infection.
She saw it all during the trials and tribulations of the husband’s tenure as the Secretary General calling for national strikes protesting against the massive tax hikes, during the 1997/8 food riots which led to state operative invading the ZCTU offices and attempting to end Tsvangirai’s life by throwing him through the window from the 9th follow before beating him up leaving him with head injuries.
She maintained the faith when the husband’s party won elections from 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2008 but instead of power transfer, they got baton sticks blatantly dissenting on them, incarcerations, abductions, killings and rape – she kept the faith that one day Zimbabwe would be free.
She braved the weeks’ incarceration of his husband during the final push campaign which saw Morgan being held at remand prison and being exposed on national television in prison attire.
She was there to absorb the psychological trauma of her husband being charged with treason which attracts a death sentence.
She refused to waver her faith when his husband along side with the save Zimbabwe campaigners where tortured in police detention, leading to a swollen head and eye and a fractured arm – but she refused to allow her heart to be broken. She believed in the ultimate price of revolutions and kept her strength as a pillar of the husband’s resilience.
She was there when the husband, was called to the fore to take the oaths of loyalty to the country he so loves much as the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe after a decade of persecution and victimization. She was there when the fundamentalists and extremists in Zanu PF swallowed their pride and embraced the person they spend a life time denouncing as an appendage of the west.
Sadly she couldn’t leave longer to see what the movement and herself suffered for was going to end up like.
But today, I say, she saw it all. She have lived and left in and from both sides of the worlds – I hope her soul will be received through the gates of eternity. History will capture you role of a mother figure in the struggle for democracy in ZImbabwe
