Freedom Nyamubaya

Freedom Nyamubaya (1958? – 5 July 2015) was a poet, dancer, farmer, feminist, and revolutionary from Zimbabwe. She is known as one of Zimbabwe's celebrated "guerilla fighter-poets", with two published collections of her poems. During the Rhodesian Bush War, she served as one of the few female field operation commanders. In 1979, she was elected Secretary for Education at the first conference of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) Women’s League. Quotes Once upon a time A boy and girl were Forced to leave their home By armed robbers. The boy was Independence The girl was Freedom. While fighting back, they got married. A poem on a mysterious marriage Independence is now a senior bachelor. Some people still talk about him, Others take no notice. A lot still say it was a fake marriage. You can’t be a husband without a wife. Fruitless and barren, Independence staggers to old age. Leaving her shadow behind, Freedom has never returned. "A poem on a mysterious marriage Some people loved this country so much That they died for it Their skeletons are scattered all over Zimbabwe The skeletons are still dying for this country As they turn into useful manure The survivors do not seem to love this country at all Now Zimbabwe is dying On their behalf Who loves Zimbabwe to save it from dying for us? I don’t think every woman who went to war is liberated like I am. If you were liberated then you were supposed to be the ones who were, in Shona we’d call them, ‘vane msikanzwa’ because you are asking too much and you are questioning what is right and what is wrong. A lot of women who went into the war are very much inside themselves. They don’t want to be reminded or they are scared or they don’t want anyone to know about it. It’s also got to do with the way we came back. When we came back, the men were heroes, but the women were not heroines. We were called prostitutes and mischievous people. From an individual perspective you should be a person who has got goals for your life. Any girl or woman should start to think about her life before she thinks about getting involved with another person. In that process you are liberating yourself. You know who you are. If anyone wants to be in your life then you will tell him or her your terms and they will tell you their terms. External links