FORTY-SIX years after the raising of the national flag, Zimbabweans are still compelled to ask themselves a question that should long have been settled: have we truly arrived, or have we merely changed the scenery of our struggle?
Independence was supposed to be the dawn of dignity, the recovery of land, voice and destiny.
It was meant to be the moment when the child of the soil stood upright at last, no longer bending before colonial power, no longer reduced to a subject in his own country.
And yet, when one listens carefully to the cries rising from the streets, the queues, the empty wallets, the collapsing services and the restless youth, one begins to wonder whether the promise of 1980 has been fulfilled or postponed by history’s cruel hand.
What does it mean to be independent if the majority still live as if they are trapped in a state of emergency?
What is liberation if the citizen must battle every morning for transport, mealie-meal, medication, employment and electricity?
What is sovereignty if the economy answers not to the people’s needs but to the whims of a small political and economic elite?
We were told that the liberation struggle would end the humiliation of dependency. Yet, here we are, decades later, still speaking of survival, still speaking of hustle, still speaking of citizens who have no choice but to improvise life itself.
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Is this the freedom for which so many crossed borders, went into the bush and placed their bodies between gunfire and the dream of tomorrow?
It is impossible to speak honestly about Zimbabwe’s independence without confronting the painful irony that freedom in the political sense has not always translated to freedom in the lived sense.
The flag changed, the anthem changed, the rulers changed, but for many ordinary Zimbabweans, the burden of daily existence has only deepened.
The dream of a nation where work would be abundant, where the young would inherit opportunity and where the dignity of labour would be rewarded has instead given way to an economy of desperation.
Informality has become the employer of last resort. The street corner, the roadside stall, the bus terminus, the flea market, the WhatsApp order, the border run — these have become the archives of Zimbabwean resilience.
But should resilience be mistaken for success? Should survival be celebrated as a national achievement?
And what of the veterans, those whose sacrifices are invoked with great solemnity every April, yet whose material condition often tells a different story?
If they truly fought for the liberation of the nation, why must they age in hardship while the children of the powerful parade in comfort?
Why is it that the very men and women who endured the forests, the exile, the prisons and the pain are so often remembered in speeches but neglected in substance?
Why do we treat liberation as a ritual of remembrance rather than a covenant of justice? If the struggle was meant to restore human dignity, how can the nation be at peace with a system where those who bled for the country are reduced to petitioners at the feet of those who inherited its spoils?
These are not comfortable questions, but independence was never supposed to be a comfortable slogan.
It was supposed to be a moral contract. It was supposed to mean that the wealth of the nation would serve the nation, that public office would be a trust and not a trough, that power would be exercised in the name of the many and not preserved for the benefit of the few.
Yet the Zimbabwe that too many citizens describe today is one of corruption, exclusion, broken infrastructure and an economy that seems to reward proximity to power more than productivity or merit.
In such a country, can we honestly speak of independence as a completed journey? Or must we admit that political emancipation without economic justice is a shell, a proud shell perhaps, but a shell nonetheless?
One often hears that Zimbabwe is peaceful, that the roads are being repaired in some places, that buildings are rising, and that development is visible beyond the capital.
These may be real gains and no honest observer should deny them. But the deeper question remains: development for whom, and at what cost?
A nation does not become independent because a few roads are tarred or a few structures renovated.
Independence is measured by whether the ordinary citizen can live without fear of hunger, humiliation, joblessness, arbitrary power and perpetual uncertainty. It is measured by whether a young person can dream without first calculating how to survive.
It is measured by whether the elderly can retire with dignity and whether the brave are honoured not with crumbs but with justice.
We must also ask whether the national story we tell ourselves has become too sentimental to be truthful.
We celebrate liberation, as we must, but do we interrogate what liberation has become?
Have the ideals of the struggle been preserved or have they been gradually auctioned off in the name of political convenience?
Have we protected the promise of majority rule or have we merely replaced one hierarchy with another?
Have we built a nation of citizens, or a nation of dependants who must constantly appeal to power for survival?
When leaders speak of sovereignty, do they mean the sovereignty of the people, or the sovereignty of their continued rule?
The question of Uhuru, therefore, cannot be answered by ceremony alone. It must be answered in the lived truth of the people.
And the lived truth, for many Zimbabweans, is that independence remains incomplete. It is incomplete when the young graduate wanders jobless.
It is incomplete when hospitals lack medicine. It is incomplete when salaries cannot keep pace with prices.
It is incomplete when corruption becomes normal and honesty becomes foolishness. It is incomplete when the sons and daughters of the politically-connected enjoy the finest luxuries while the veterans of the struggle count coins. It is incomplete when the nation speaks proudly of freedom but leaves too many of its people unfree from poverty, fear and neglect.
So yes, Zimbabwe is independent in the constitutional sense. The flag is ours. The anthem is ours.
The land, at least in principle, is ours. But the harder and more urgent question is whether independence has been deepened into justice.
Have we transformed freedom to food, dignity, opportunity and accountability? Have we turned sacrifice into a future worth living in? Or have we become a nation that remembers its liberation more vividly than it honours its liberation’s purpose?
Perhaps that is the challenge of this moment: not merely to celebrate independence, but to reclaim it.
Not merely to wave the flag, but to ask whether the country beneath it belongs, in any meaningful sense, to its people.
Until Zimbabwe can answer that question with honesty, until its veterans, youths, workers and ordinary families can point to the tangible fruits of the struggle, the word Uhuru will remain a noble promise still waiting to be fully born.
- Lawrence Makamanzi is an independent researcher and analyst, passionately sharing his insights in a personal capacity.
