Canaan Sodindo Banana: To Err is Human But to Forgive is Divine!

Oh how so much time flies! Today it was exactly eight years since he passed away. Canaan Sodindo Banana died on 10th November 2003. He was 67 years old at that time, having been born on 5th March 1936.

As we might all know by the time he passed away, he was by then regarded as one of the most controversial political leaders in Zimbabwean history! In fact I can also dare say that he was by then so discredited by the political establishment as a disgraceful villain.

To emphasise his very incredible fall from grace, he was denied any form of State recognition for his lifelong contribution to the people of Zimbabwe. Indeed was accompanied in his last journey by a very few of his comrades whom he had spent most of his adult life rubbing shoulders with while shaping our national discourse.

While I accept that he was not a perfect man. While I also accept he made some very serious mistakes. I cannot and will never accept the way his legacy to the people of Zimbabwe has been undermined and taken for granted.

I refuse to label Banana as a lonely forgotten hero. I also refuse to ignore what he did for my country. But i choose to appreciate him and also celebrate all that he did for Zimbabwe.

Specifically, one of his biggest contributions was his mediatory role in ending the selfish political fracas between (PF) Zapu and Zanu (PF). I choose to fondly remember that fateful night on 22nd December 1987 when he stood at the centre of the two fighting giants, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe.

On that night when he was not a referee but a mediator of the national Unity Accord that ended more than five years of senseless loss of thousands of civilian life in both Midlands and Matabeleland. On the very same night that through his patient but determined mediation, the terror filled years of the Gukurahundi genocide ended officially.

I do recall that as a child when I was growing up in the coal mining town of Hwange, I used to be fascinated by a message written in a barbershop that I used to get my hair cuts at. It read thus, ‘When I do well no one remembers but when I do wrong, no one forgets!’

That saying aptly sums up how we as the people of Zimbabwe have treated the Banana legacy. We have clearly applied a selective memory when it comes to the need to appreciate his true value to our national development.

We have chosen to conveniently forget all the good things that Banana did for us but fully remember the mistakes that he made. Yet we all know that no one can ever be perfect. Indeed we all know that to err is human and to forgive is divine.

And so I take this opportunity to apologise for all the mistakes that Canaan made in his life but also to celebrate all the good things that he did for our country.

I pray for the day when a balanced view of Banana’s true legacy will be given to our posterity. I continue to pray for that day when the people of Zimbabwe will accept that while he may not have been a saint, he was no doubt a patriotic son of the soil. May that day dawn sooner than later!