Heroes’ Acre

People at this conference are from at least a dozen countries, and many are from different national governments. Today the government of Zimbabwe laid on a sightseeing tour of Harare, so a group of us boarded a coach to see what the city had to offer.

It was interesting. We were first taken to the Mbare district of Harare, one of the oldest areas, where we heard about the tenement accommodation that used to house ‘bachelors’ coming to work in Harare, including in the days when it was known as Salisbury. In Mbare there is a landmark known as Stodart Hall, operating as a community centre and named after a Brit who ‘championed the betterment’ of black Zimbabweans.

It is believed that most of the countries bordering South Africa didn’t have official segregation but in fact forms of apartheid existed. People could be banned from walking in the city centre whilst in another suburb they were given access to certain services. Depriving people of rights whilst simultaneously acting as benevolent givers of charity was very much the British way in the places it colonised. It was such a patronising and unfair form of governing, rooted in notions of superiority. This week I’ve picked up the feeling that many Zimbabweans are not great fans of the British. For understandable reasons.

We drove around the city centre itself, which has colonial vibes and is very orderly and with a prosperous feeling. This is particularly felt at the well-tended main square, which was renamed from Cecil (Rhodes) to Unity Square. Some countries purposely dismantled the physical legacy of colonialism but independent Zimbabwe has retained it whilst seeking restitution for historical wrongs and injustices.

We visited the National Heroes’ Acre, a monument designed in the layout of an AK47 to commemorate the fighters for independence in the Rhodesian Bush War and others dedicated to liberation. After this we went to the Museum of African Liberation, a ambitious project under construction that aims to represent the struggle for independence by all African countries. The curators have started collecting and housing items from all over the continent and the museum carries a strong message about the oppression meted out by the former colonising countries.