The Sunday News
Mthabisi Tshuma, Sunday Life Correspondent
FOR over a decade, Midlands State University (MSU) has lived up to billing by upholding cultural diversity in the institution that is home to over five different nationalities.
Running under the theme, “Creating it in our own image: Intersections of culture, Innovation and African Development”, Director of National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) Nicholas Moyo hailed the event which coincided with the Culture Week celebrations nationwide.
This year’s Culture Week was officially launched last week by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a move which shows the desire by the Second Republic to uplift the arts sector.
Not only is MSU home to the Ndebele, Shona, Tonga, Sotho, Kalanga and Nambya language speaking students but also has the Tshiluba which is spoke in DRC, Oshiwambo in Namibia, Dinka in South Sudan, Portuguese in Mozambique and Swahili in Uganda.
“We are here celebrating the International Cultural Diversity Carnival but I am addressing the audience using English. If I had to speak in Ndebele I am sure half of us would not understand my presentation. As Africans this is what has killed us. Look at the Chinese, when they are here they would not substitute their language in their conversations whereas for us Africans even if we had to travel to Europe we would speak in English even for conversations we are only familiar with,” said Moyo.
“The only way to work out this is if there is an appreciation and valuing of each culture which derives unity and leads to economic prosperity as said by President Mnangagwa in launching the week of embracing cultural diversity,” he added.
He went on to lash at the young generation who have lost touch in culture and are not fully embracing it.
MSU Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Kadmiel Wekwete said as an institution they will continue to ensure that they embrace the diversity of African cultures.
“Indeed we are a cultural melting pot and it is important for us to engender harmonious relations by promoting mutual understanding among our different communities. We seek to produce graduates sensitive to cultural pluralism. As a university we are an ethnically and linguistically diverse community. Our curriculum is attuned to the promotion and celebration of cultural diversity,” he said.
