The service in Sevenoaks will be at St Thomas’ RC Church at 11.00am
Rise! Take your mat and walk! The focus this year, is on Zimbabwe.
The name Zimbabwe (derived from the Shona words dzimba dza mabwe) means ‘house of stones’ and one of Zimbabwe’s impressive historical sites is the monument of the Great Zimbabwe, stone structures of granite, built with great masonry expertise about 900 years ago. It is thought to have been the capital of the Empire which lasted from 1220 to 1450. There is evidence of a sophisticated civilisation, trading in cattle, ivory and gold. The ruler Munhumutapa was the first to trade with the first Europeans to arrive (the Portuguese).
In the 1890s Cecil John Rhodes arrived to exploit the region’s mineral wealth with his British South Africa Company. He was also responsible for colonising the area that became Southern Rhodesia. During this period there was a systematic purge of the indigenous population in order to dispossess them of their land and its rich natural resources. The independence of Zimbabwe came at a huge price as thousands of lives were lost when people rose against the colonisers. Resistance to colonial rule continued until mass nationalism began to take shape in the 1960s. In 1965 the then Prime Minister, Ian Smith, unilaterally declared independence under white minority rule, because Britain refused to grant Rhodesia independence until it introduced black majority rule. From 1960 to 1979 there were many influential nationalists including Joshua Nkomo, and Robert Mugabe. In 1979 Ian Smith formed a unity government with the African National Council, and the country was christened Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.
