There was a carnival atmosphere; people wore caps and t-shirts bearing the face of the new prime minister, Robert Mugabe. At midnight, the green, gold and black flag of Zimbabwe, with the African fish eagle, replaced the Union Flag. A 32-year-old Prince Charles stood and saluted as the Union Flag came down for the last time in Africa.
People crushed into the stadium as Marley took to the stage. The police panicked and fired teargas into the crowd. Back-up singers Marcia Griffiths and Rita Marley, the wife of the lead singer, were the first band members to get a whiff of teargas and they ran backstage. When it cleared, they went back. “Bob was still in his element, he didn’t realize what was happening around him,” said Rita in a documentary years later. “So when we got back on stage, this is what Bob said to us: ‘Now I know who the true revolutionary is.’”
“It was a poignant moment; Bob Marley takes a celebratory stance at the front stage, calling out ‘Viva Zimbabwe!’ Each time eliciting a greater response from the audience,” says Zindi. “It is a moment pregnant with possibilities. Rastafari in our father’s land. A realization of the inherent unity in black culture, as emotional for the audience as it is for the band. Homecoming.”
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“Bob Marley was at his height and that alone attracted a lot people’s attention to Zimbabwe,” says Gutto. “It was an historic moment of the liberation of Zimbabwe where the white arrogant people declared independence and so on. It was a moment when I and the other progressive intellectuals went to Zimbabwe. It was a special period. It captured the imagination of the world. You can’t hold Marley responsible for what Robert Mugabe did after that.”
One of the things that Mugabe did was to declare law lecturer Gutto persona non grata, on unspecified national security grounds, in 1988, and deported him. One of the many Zimbabweans turned away on independence night by police outside Rufaro stadium was 21-year-old Enos Nyarenda, an activist who had just returned from exile.