Mothers of the Revolution

Mothers of the Revolution is one of the most remarkable
chronicles to emerge from the Zimbabwean liberation war (1967-1980).
Here are first-hand accounts from rural women living in all parts of the
country who stayed behind during the war; the women whose sons and
daughters secretly left home to join the liberation armies and sometimes
never returned; the women who single-handedly, not only had to keep
their homes, but who fed the freedom fighters; women, who as the war
intensified, were often caught in the crossfire.

“People
said that when the war comes, we are going to fight so that everyone
will be rich and the schools will be free … and there’ll be lots of
jobs. So, we were looking forward to the war, so that when it was over,
we could go to school freely and get jobs very easily.”

“If
our affairs were now to be decided on how each of us had fought, I can
tell you that all the homes would not belong to the women. Men just went
away to town and left their women to suffer alone … they were afraid of
being killed. The women stayed whether it meant death or life … so I
say all over Zimbabwe women are heroes.”

“It makes me
very happy that our stories would now be told for the people of
Zimbabwe, as well as those of other nations, to know what our
contributions to the struggle as wives and mothers of the freedom
fighters were.”