The Sunday News
Thandekile Moyo
ONCE upon a time, several migrating groups of people came upon the land we now call Zimbabwe and decided to settle there. The country is beautiful; but I do wonder what made them decide to end their migration here. Could it have been the fertile lands found in what we now know as Region 1? Was it the beautiful mountains found in the area our evil colonisers named the Eastern Highlands? Could it have been that their spirits found peace in the sacred Matopo Hills? Did the mighty Limpopo and Zambezi rivers offer them the promise of endless supplies of water and all the good things water comes with?
I sometimes wonder if it was the Victoria Falls that sealed the deal. The one place in Zimbabwe where I went and felt wow! There must be a God out there; for from where else could such a tranquil place have come? Was it the gods who led them to this rich country, exodus style; because they wanted their people to have access to the gold in Gwanda; the rare deposits of acid and heat-resistant platinum needed by industries worldwide, the asbestos and chrome in Mashava; the famous Chiadzwa diamonds? Did we just stumble upon the Great Dyke and all the wonderful treasures hidden in it or was this their Canaan? Is this the “promised land”?
Our ancestors settled upon a land bursting with riches, giving us a natural heritage superseded by no other. They did not just stop there, over the years they struggled and fought to find ways to possess that natural heritage and developed it to make it habitable and useful to us. They developed tools from stones in the Stone Age and iron in the Iron Age. With these tools they built us monuments which we boast of today. The amazing Great
Zimbabwe whose secrets we have never bothered to discover. The Khami Ruins, the beautiful paintings in the caves that tell us the story of their endeavours and adventures.
When they discovered that the resources they had stumbled upon had the potential to be depleted they devised conservation methods to ensure their availability for generations to come. I am awed by the fact that way before modern education, they had grasped the concept of sustainable development. People were not allowed to mine willy-nilly, there were ceremonies to be performed before any harvesting of minerals and rules to be adhered to. Through the totem system that banned everyone from eating meat from the animal their totem represented, they balanced out demand and supply of meat. The Eastern Highlands remain almost “untouched’ because laws were put in place to prevent deforestation, extinction of wildlife and to preserve the sanctity, beauty and the aura of peace the place holds.
In 1890 a group of terrorists calling themselves the Pioneer Column descended upon our country with one aim only, to take over and control our national heritage. From then until 1979, generations of our ancestors from Lobengula to Josiah Tongogara fought to their death to prevent these evil invaders from taking over their children’s heritage. They absolutely refused to let anyone take away from them what they were saving and developing for their descendants.
When Mbuya Nehanda was hung in 1898 her last words were “my bones will rise”. What this means to me is that she had no doubt in her mind that her descendants would continue the fight until the bandits left. Her confidence and faith in her people touches me, humbles me, saddens me, but most of all it angers me. True to her words, in 1966 the second Chimurenga war broke out and by 1979, we had regained our Independence.
This is the source of my sadness over Mbuya Nehanda’s confidence in us: With our Independence, came the end of our heritage as we knew it. Heritage Studies, is the study of a nation’s development. It is the study of inheritance, what each generation inherited, what they did with their inheritance and what inheritance each generation left for future generations. Heritage, which I will use synonymously with development, looks at the natural heritage, which is our land, everything in and on it and the state in which all generations of inhabitants found it and left it. It is a study of the evolution of development.
The state in which they left the land is a documentation and representation of their efforts to develop or lack of effort to do so. It is the study of how different generations have conserved resources or how they have failed to do so. Our ancestors went overboard in this field for not only did they conserve, they went on to protect our resources from the greedy bandits who tried to rob them and enslave them in their own home.
Their military efforts, evidenced by the wars, their civilisation efforts, evidenced by the Great Zimbabwe and their Industrialisation efforts evidenced by the Wedza mines; are a clear indication that our ancestors were pro-development, pro-civilisation and they were advancing. They also left us rich languages which not only passed on their culture to us; but also held secret codes on how to tackle different situations embedded in idioms.
There is a need for each and every one of us to look inside ourselves and ask what we have contributed to Zimbabwe’s heritage. What have we contributed to our nation’s development? Most of us will cry and claim the economy does not permit but I ask, did the economy permit when our ancestors extracted gold from underground using tools made of stone? Did the economy permit when they laid stone upon stone to build an entire city with no machinery, no cement and not a cent to their name.
Some will say the socio-political environment does not permit and I ask you this: did the socio-political environment permit when a hate filled, greedy, cannon brandishing Cecil John Rhodes attacked your great- grandfather who only had home-made weapons in the Anglo-Ndebele War of 1893-4? Did the political environment permit when they fought the second Chimurenga war which murdered the highest number of white men in all of Africa?
We are afraid to die. We are afraid to work. We are afraid to be cultural and ethical. We are afraid of all the ingredients necessary for sustainable development, conservation and identity. We have been colonised to the point of refusing to understand our history, refusing to embrace our culture and refusing to identify with anything that links us to our heritage. We embrace Christianity with open arms so that we seem to our oppressors as righteous and civilised as possible. We embrace the English language with such ferocity and competitiveness so that we can be as “white” and feel as superior to our peers and ancestors as possible. We would literally rather die than be “caught dead” being treated with traditional medicines, unless of course they are packaged in fancy capsules or sold to you as “aloe vera gel”.
Heritage Studies, is a development studies course, which each and every one of us must undertake. It showcases all the things we should be proud of as a people. It points out those things we should never do again. It highlights all our successes and failures. It shows us what it is about us we should be proud of and what we should be ashamed of.
We engage in development so that future generations do not always have to start from scratch. We invent technology so that our manipulation of the natural environment is more efficient and more sustainable. We leave certain areas untouched so their beauty can be experienced by our descendants.
Unfortunately, heritage is only passed on as inventions, skills and knowledge. What we buy, such as imported technology is not heritage. Heritage is what we create, what we develop and what we learn along the way. The ex-Japanese cars we import remain Japan’s heritage even when we leave them for our children. The computers, cellphones and the internet remain the heritage of the countries that invented them no matter whose hands they land in.
The IMF Natural Resources Index rates Zimbabwe as the richest country in terms of natural resources. In America’s stockpile of Lithium, used to build rocket propellers, 30 percent comes from Bikita. Between the 7th century and the 19th century, the world produced 2 100 tonnes of gold and Zimbabwe produced more than 700 of those tonnes. By the time we were colonised, Zimbabwe was working on more than 4 000 gold mines.
This is what Heritage Studies 101 will teach in the Chapter 1979-2020: The Redundant Generation: They discovered diamonds in Chiadzwa and finished them overnight. They fought the liberation war under the guidance of their spirits and abandoned them at Independence. They opened universities that never did any research on traditional medicines, African philosophies and Zimbabwean identity. They gave mining rights to anyone with money. They totally disassociated themselves with their culture and traditions.
They never fought for anything, instead they neglected everything the liberation war fought for. They embraced the religion used to colonise them.
They sold wild animals. They abandoned their languages and with that, their culture. They hated their looks, hated their hair and were ashamed of their skin colour. They left a heritage of tribalism, corruption, laziness, greed, over-mining and fake prophets! They were the failed generation.
Because we have failed as a generation, but have grasped the importance of education; we need to teach our children about their heritage so that they avoid the mistakes that we made. So that they pick up from where we were before 1859 when the missionaries entered our country and our development ended. My hope is in the generation of children who will run the show, 20 years from now. The future is not bleak. The first step towards Black empowerment is Heritage Studies for all!
