Freedom Fighters example essay topic

Peter Colley Humanities 3340-03 Portfolio # 2 Summary The values demonstrated in the documents are freedom and bravery. The martyrs believed in the right to worship freely as they saw fit and were willing to die for that freedom. They demonstrated bravery in their willingness to die such a cruel death for the cause of Christ. The contemporary event that parallels that of the martyrs is the struggle for independence and freedom in my native country. The country had been colonized for hundreds of years by the British Empire and now was a free standing republic under the regime led by Ian Smith. Racial segregation was blatant and the wealth of the land was distributed in a most unequal manner.

As with any group of people that have been oppressed for a long time we began to long for freedom and began to develop the courage to fight for this freedom. The freedom that we desired was the freedom to walk about freely in our own land without having to carry a "passbook", we also desired the freedom to live where we desired and to go to the schools we desired in other words we desired equality in every sense of the word. The Europeans had created a system where 90% of the country's wealth was in the hands of 8% of the population, which was the percentage of whites in relation to blacks in my country. This system also segregated us in terms of where we lived, learned, played, and even worshiped. To this day I am still at a loss as to how it is possible for such a small group of people to oppress the entire population of a country for so long. As the saying goes "it only takes a spark to get a fire going".

A group of valiant men decided that we had been oppressed long enough and decided to begin a movement that would free the people and establish a government of the people for the people. I shall refer to these characters by their first names only to represent the thousands of people who lost their lives in this struggle for freedom. John was the charismatic leader of this movement and through negotiation was able to get audience with her Majesty the queen of England. Upon enlightening her on the plight of the people of Rhodesia she was moved to begin the process of relinquishing power to the local "natives" so that they could rule themselves.

Ian Smith who was governor of the province at the time was not too thrilled with this idea and with the help of some of his fellow politicians declared UDI. UDI is the acronym for "unilateral declaration of independence" and this meant that Rhodesia was no longer a British colony but a Republic with its own government and accountable to no one. The crown was not very happy about this but was nonetheless powerless to do anything to stop Ian Smith from carrying out his most unorthodox plan. Thus began the struggle to liberate the people of Rhodesia from the tyrannical rule of Ian Smith regime. John and a group of his fellow countrymen began to organize themselves into a resistance movement so they could fight the "Chimurenga War" or the "War for Freedom".

The core of the group was made up of six men John, Leonard, Herbert, Patricia, Nathan, and Susan. As the resistance movement grew so did the aggression of the regime at trying to quash this rebellion. The Ian Smith regime began to take note of the "gorillas" as these freedom fighters were commonly referred to in the early 1970's and the regime sought to quash this rebellion with a swiftness and ferociousness that would ensure no other insurrections in the near future. The "gorilla" began a campaign to educate the masses on a need to mobilize themselves in order to fight the oppressive government and force them to treat locals with dignity and most of all allow us to vote. A large percentage of the local population was based in the rural part of the country and subsisted on agricultural products, so the gorillas began to go to these remote tribal lands and enlist the help and support of these local people. By starting what was known as a grass roots campaign the freedom fighters hoped to enlist young men and women in this fight for liberation.

Despite all this plotting and scheming by the gorillas, the Smith regime was able to track their movements and subsequently some of the gorillas were captured and sent to prison. When I say they were sent to prison I am not referring to a local jail, I am in fact talking about torture camps where the political prisoners were subjected to extremely inhumane conditions. The most popular form of torture was the electrocution of the prisoners using a current of 220 volts. This torture was administered by using the human body to complete an electric circuit such that electric current would flow through the body causing an excruciating amount of pain.

When the "mabhunus" or predominantly white military police wanted to be unusually cruel they would apply the electric current to a victim's testicles causing so much pain that the victims frequently fainted from the pain. Sleep deprivation was also used to demoralize the freedom fighters along with solitary confinement. A lot of the involuntary guests to these torture camps died as a result of this treatment and many of those who survived were never able to procreate again. The torture described above was just the welcome party and was done prior to being sent to trial. The trials were a mere farce or a mockery at justice and the freedom fighters would be promptly sentenced to death for high treason. A lot of these death sentences were carried out by way of a firing squad and the bodies were buried in mass graves because the government would not release the bodies to the families for decent burial.

All this cruelty was done to deter any would be freedom fighters from joining the struggle and to demoralize those already engaged in the struggle. I don't believe that the fighters who were executed fancied themselves to be martyrs nor did they go to their execution sing songs of triumph, in fact these fighters did not want to die and many of them sobbed at as they were led to their death. I feel that these fighters demonstrated the value of bravery because it was no secret that capture by the government almost meant certain death or at least a very long and painful prison sentence, but these young people risked and even gave up their lives for this freedom. As the war became more intense the number of freedom fighters increased and the pressure on the government to do something decisive to win this escalating was also increased.

The government then began a campaign to weed out these rebels by attacking the rebellion at the grass roots level. A large number of troops were deployed to the rural part of the country where gorilla activity was most rife. It had become apparent to the government that these rebels were being supported and sustained by the local populace, so why not deal with these passive supporters in order to smoke out the rebels. Thus began a terrible time where villagers were subjected to untold torture and pain. The government planted spies who would alert them to any village that provided sustenance to the rebels and woe to that village for they would be beaten and terribly humiliated by the government soldiers for their treason. Eye witness accounts have been given of local village chiefs being stripped naked and tied to trees in front of the entire village and being beaten to death.

Such was the horror that the people were subjected but the freedom fighters still continued to fight for their freedom, and the local populaces continued to support and sustain them. On April 18, 1980 the people of Rhodesia achieved independence and the nation of Zimbabwe was born. With their blood and tears and for the love of freedom the people had persevered and overcome the oppressor.