Nathan Shamuyarira, a well-respected — but equally loathed in some societal sections of Zimbabwe — Zanu PF political guru who died last Wednesday in Harare, belonged to a very small and rare crop of politicians that has managed to live a clean and uncorrupted public life.
By Tangai Chipangura
Quiet and reserved as he was, his private life remained away from the media lenses, making it unavailable for scrutiny therefore.
Apart from his own few political “moments of madness” where his mouth may have run ahead of natural logic by recklessly saying there was no need to apologise for the Gukurahundi massacres, Shamuyarira managed to steer clear of controversy and political infamy all the 85 years of his life.
He belonged to that rare crop of African politicians who strived to live exemplary public lives where, like the few of his moral peers like Maurice Nyagumbo, who found the slightest public besmirching of reputation and integrity was so shameful it was better to die.
Nyagumbo took poison to end his life after he was implicated in the infamous Willogate scandal involving taking bribes to facilitate the acquisition of vehicles.
Much later in 2001, then Education minister Edmund Garwe resigned from his post and later also committed suicide after his child was implicated in an examination leakage scam.
But, up till his death, Shamuyarira, who held several cabinet posts which he could have easily abused to get rich quick, was satisfied with the modest life that he lived and managed to maintain a squeaky clean personality up to his grave.
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A good number of his peers from the independence war era, who got into government as ministers along with him — are still in office one and a half decades after Shamuyarira realised the sense in calling it quits — have come to be known more for the filthy wealth they have corruptly amassed and their contribution to the death of the national economy, than anything else.
His contribution to Zimbabwe during his tenure as minister can be testified by journalists that were around when he held the Information portfolio and also by the diplomatic position Zimbabwe sat on the international map during his time as Foreign Affairs minister.
Authors Robert Cary Robert Cary and Diana Mitchell wrote quite illustratively about the late Shamuyarira in their Who’s Who book of biographies: African Nationalists Leaders in Rhodesia. Below are edited excerpts from the lengthy biography.
l Nathan Shamuyarira was born in 1929, the son of an evangelist in the Methodist Church.
l For eight years, he attended Waddilove Institute and qualified there as a primary school teacher. After leaving Waddilove he taught at various local schools, using his spare time to complete his secondary education by correspondence.
l He then taught for a time at Tegwani Secondary School near Plumtree. From 1950 until early 1953 he taught animal husbandry at Domboshawa. Arriving in Salisbury on May 5 1953 he obtained a job as a cub reporter with African Newspapers Ltd.
He rose steadily in the company, becoming the first editor of the African Daily News in 1956.
From July 1959 until September 1962 he was Editor-in-Chief of African Newspapers Ltd, a post from which he resigned over various policy issues. In 1953 he joined the Inter-Racial Association where his sense of humour and balanced attitude towards the problems of a mixed society made a deep impression on the white members.
In 1956, in his capacity as a reporter, he attended the Capricorn Africa Society convention at Salima, Nyasaland (now Malawi).
As a bright and personable journalist, opportunities to travel came his way on several occasions. In January 1959 he was invited to take part in a six-week tour of Britain as a member of a group of Commonwealth journalists.
In September of the following year he left Salisbury on a three-month tour of the United States.
In 1962 he was persuaded by Dr Tichafa Stephen Parirenyatwa to join Zapu which was at that time making a determined effort to recruit intellectual Africans into its ranks.
Shamuyarira’s action was symptomatic of the mood of that era — the rush to independence throughout Africa, coupled with the clearly impending demise of the Central African Federation, was making the inter-racial attempts of the 1950s seem outmoded and futile.
In September 1962 Zapu was banned and Shamuyarira’s house was searched by the police. In the following month (although not an office-bearer in the movement) he was chosen by Joshua Nkomo to accompany him when he travelled to New York to appear as a petitioner before the United Nations.
On his return to Southern Rhodesia Shamuyarira was given an appointment as Lecturer in Adult Education at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in Salisbury.
During the months after his return from New York he had been steadily becoming more critical of the leadership of Joshua Nkomo and in July 1963 he joined forces with those who “denounced” him at the meeting of the executive in Dar-es-Salaam.
He joined the break-away party, Zanu, on its foundation in August 1963 . . .Despite his academic duties, however, he maintained a close involvement in nationalist politics, being appointed Zanu Secretary for External Affairs in 1968.
Two years later he was consulted by James Dambaza Chikerema on the chances of unifying the Zanu and Zapu elements in Lusaka within a single body.
Shamuyarira welcomed this move and when Frolizi was formed, late in 1971, he became its Treasurer. This necessitated his resignation from the University of Dar-es-Salaam.
In 1973 Shamuyarira became dissatisfied with the way Frolizi was being run — in particular with the methods of Herbert Chitepo “who was not as democratic as I would have wished”.
In mid-1973 he resigned as Treasurer and resumed his former post with the University of Dar-es-Salaam.
Shamuyarira still supported the ideal of unity under the banner of an enlarged ANC. As a full-time academic he could not undertake a great deal of active work for the movement but his commitment to the “liberation of Zimbabwe” remained as strong as ever.
Shamuyarira was very conscious of the fact that his involvement in the nationalist cause hampered his progress in an academic career. On the other hand, he felt that his experiences in East Africa gave him a close insight into the best way of “transforming a colonial society into a socialist one”.
At the same time he was not dogmatic on the question of what kind of government should be introduced into Rhodesia.
“There should be a referendum,” he said — but his own beliefs lay in the direction of a synthesis of the best of both capitalism and socialism.
He was married to Dorothy Mandimika, a nursing sister who came originally from Mutare.
There are no children from the marriage.
