War Veterans League Choir rearing to go

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2 years ago admin

By Margaret Kamba

Choir rehearsals charecterised the beginning of this week with the War Veterans League scheduled to take delegates back to the time when revolutionary songs boosted their morale.

It is a journey back in time when they witnessed many of their counterparts maimed and killed as they fought to bring the freedom we enjoy today.

Most of these songs are known by some of us through file tapes played on the National Broadcaster, ZBC. The songs some of which are played during the death of a gallant son or daughter of the soil or during Heroes day celebrations remind many of the sacrifices of many fallen and still living heroes and heroines of Zimbabwe.

What is unique about this particular choir is that it is made up of men and women who braved the war of liberation and saw to the freedom which we are taking for granted.

These men and women re-live the past of being poisoned, dogging bullets, being bitten by fleas and days without meals among other issues.

It was not easy and when they say this country was born out of their sacrifices, they mean exactly that. It is something that today’s youths are not ready to do.

To them this conference which has culminated in their incorporation into the ruling ZANU PF Party is a something they have long waited for.

Many of us do not understand and cannot begin to imagine what many of these comrades went through and what drove them to take up the gun risking their lives for the good of generations to come. It is hard to understand how one can give up school or work and go to a land unknown knowing very well that it is taking a chance with their life. It was a do or die as many would want to call it. They knew the chances of coming back were next to none but still journeyed miles away to receive training in order to come back and fight the colonial regime.

Reliving those memories is now when singing these revolutionary songs takes centre stage during the conference. This is their conference. It is the Inaugural War Veterans League Conference.