| The Herald |  |  |  |
| Wednesday, 05 October 2011 00:00 | ||
By Caesar Zvayi
A friend of mine always quips, after the burial of each national hero, ‘‘once again another chapter of our history is gone, to lie dead and buried.'' I asked him what he meant the first time he made that remark and he said one of his lecturers at Midlands State University, whose name I can't recall, always likened the passing on of an elder in any community to the loss of a library on account of the wealth of information the deceased take to the grave. Unless one would have passed on the information through orature, one takes it to the grave where it will lie buried and lost to the world for good. This over-reliance on orature explains why we, a people who had thriving civilisations at a time the barbarians in what is now Europe were swinging from trees and clubbing each other to death, are today told ‘‘the history of the Blackman is the history of the Whiteman in Africa'', and we believe it. We have long since forgotten that we are the Egyptians who built those imposing pyramids in what is now considered the Arab north. Kemet (Ancient Egypt) was a 100 percent African built and ruled civilisation, despite efforts by Eurocentric supremacists to claim otherwise, some of whom went to the extent of defacing the Sphinx at the Pyramid of Giza so we would not recognise its Negroid features. We had thriving civilisations at Great Zimbabwe, Timbuktu, you name it. Because we allowed ourselves to be divested of our greatness, to be masters who became slaves, today some of us do not know our worth. This explains why some among us lack self belief and believe we cannot do anything without the erstwhile coloniser. That we can't run our own countries without a white chaperone, that we cannot own factories, own farms let alone farm. That only the white man can run our countries on our behalf, that only a Caucasian can own the factories, farm on our behalf, while we get meaningless titles, salaries and/wages in their firms, company cars, company houses and at the end of it all a company-assisted burial that does nothing for the future of our children or their children's children, let alone creating a genuine, wealth-creating middle-class for our countries. Such are the pitfalls of national consciousness that Frantz Fanon decries. Many a time, we have been portrayed as a child race that needs to be policed by the erstwhile coloniser who believes he has a "white man's burden to civilise" us. Our continent has been disparaged as a dark continent that cannot breed innovation. It's said we lag economically because we lack the ability to be creative. We have been led to believe that all important discoveries were made by whites yet many of them stole them from the slaves who had to innovate to lighten the toil, and quickly patented them. We have censored ourselves as a people. The books that should tell our children about this rich history we shun. Our bookshelves are full of works of fiction, the Mills and Boons, spy thrillers by the likes of Jeffrey Archer and Robert Ludlum, nothing much of substance. The books that were banned by colonial regimes who feared they would open our eyes to the great trick settlers played on us, we still shun to this day though we have the power to even put them in the school curriculum. Anyway, my point today is, I would like to congratulate Morgan Tsvangirai on his book, "Morgan Tsvangirai at the Deep End", however, distorted the account therein may be. It's his duty to sell himself, even if he lacks the stature or aptitude for national leadership no one can stop him from acting like Chinua Achebe's proverbial lizard, the one that fell from the high Iroko tree and vowed to resort to self-praise since no one had applauded its feat. I haven't gone through Tsvangirai's aptly titled book yet, for he sure is out of his depth, but from flipping through, I spotted a number of distortions, revisionism, a blatant attempt to distort our history to abet the cause of regime change, that should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves. This brings me to my main point today. It pertains to our heroes and heroines, those venerated men and women who refused to swallow the doctrine of white supremacy, who survived the gruelling 14-year war against the Smith regime to win us the independence and freedom that allow us to determine our destiny today. What are you doing about capturing your heroic exploits for posterity? What's holding you back? What's preventing you from putting pen to paper? Why are you abetting the loss of history, condoning national amnesia? I have a bone to chew with you comrades. You have more to tell, much more than the dwarfish Tsvangirai who today struts in giant robes, robes bestowed by Albion. You were men of men as he toiled in the bowels of Trojan Nickel Mine in Bindura. Who will tell our children this history that you, one by one, are taking to the grave? Where are your biographies? Where are your memoirs? Where are the books about your experiences in the bush? Wilfred "Dzino" Mhanda has written his, from his perspective and to promote his objective or mission. "Two-boy" Tekere also left his account. Rex Nhongo, VPs Muzenda and Msika and many other heroes and heroines went with theirs. No matter your misgivings about their portrayal of some events, the fact is these books are now in print, future generations will glean them to find out who they are, where they came from. In the absence of your accounts and if you remain adamant that you take your experiences with you, do not cry foul when the likes of Heidi Holland of the Dinner with Mugabe fame, tell our children bed time stories because that will be the history at their disposal. Unless you do something, many years from now, they will swallow everything in Morgan Tsvangirai at the Deep End, hook, line and sinker. The reactionaries are busy. Go through OR Tambo International Airport and you will see row upon row of their views on our history, our country, our leadership. Our children risk being told about Robert Mugabe by White men who hardly know him. Or if they do, will never acknowledge his brilliance, for to them he will always be a precocious native, the type they used to publicly lynch as an example to others. My people perish from a lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4: 6 (KJV)), help us reclaim our glory. We are a great people. |
