admin
Dr Masimba Mavaza
Last month the world joined The Queen of England and her people in mourning the departure of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.
The Duke passed on peacefully in the traditional Royal Castle called Windsor Castle. May His Soul Rest in Peace.
The Duke’s funeral was the very traditional and it got me thinking. It was ceremonial. Prince Phillip’s body is now resting in the royal vault under quire.
The process saw only blood relatives witnessing the burial. The queen as the head of the family struck a lone figure as tradition demands. I saw the casket being lowered in a vault in a church as the Duke was interred. The other point I noted was that the Duke will not rest in that place forever. He will be exhumed and buried near the queen should the Queen depart. This is a rich tradition which has not been explained but it shows a dip custom of the royal family.
The queen is the head of the Church of England and this burial was both religious and traditional.
The burial took place with full military honours while a Zimbabwean hero is displayed and humiliated at the museum. Have we lost our culture have we lost our custom have we lost our traditions? Are we even there are we listening are we seeing?
Looking at all this on the round a very sad feeling cuts through my head. Africans have lost their tradition and embraced the Western religion. To make things worse they have embraced the Western religion in a very wrong way.
We do understand that the traditional African religions or traditional practices are a set of highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions.
Generally, these traditions are oral rather than written down and passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs and festivals. They include beliefs in an amount of higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme creator or force, veneration of the dead and use of African medicine.
Most religions can be described as animistic with various polytheistic and pantheistic aspects. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonising nature with the supernatural.
The painful thing about our African religions is that we contributed to its destruction.
Traditional African religions have faced persecution from the proponents of different ideologies and from the Africans itself. Adherents of these religions have been forcefully converted to Islam and Christianity, demonised and marginalised. The atrocities include killings, waging war, destroying of sacred places, and other atrocious actions.
The Africans were made to believe that their custom is demonic devilish and satanic. Prophet after prophet tells the congregation that he is out to remove the traditions of forefathers. The African religion is best described as animism.
Animism builds the core concept of traditional African religions, this includes the worship of tutelary deities, nature worship, ancestor worship and the belief in an afterlife. This belief is not different from the beliefs in the religions which were put upon us by the colonialists. The only difference is our African beliefs are undermined.
Zimbabwean spiritualists used to pray to God (Mwari) under a tree and food will be provided. They would like Elijah pray for rains in the mountains and it will rain.
We had our spiritual leaders who would ascend on mountains to pray for rain and food and anything. They would pray for food and peace and they would come down with rules and regulations and laws from God.
My Sekuru Chikupo used to climb up Nyaungwe mountain to the peak and pray for his nation.
Sekuru Chikupo would take goats and sacrifice them up the mountain and up to today the mountain is called Dombo Rembudzi.
Mbuya Ndibvenei came from a strong African spiritual force and her prayers were heard. So like in the bible Moses would go up the mountain and pray and he will meet God up the mountain. He would bring back the ten commandments from the mountain.
Moses, like Sekuru Chikupo, would go up the mountain for prayers and he will see visions.
The greatest sacrifice to mankind was done on the mountain called Moriah. They took Jesus to the mountain of Calvary and our redemption was written in blood.
Churches up to this day remember the sacrifice by eating the human flesh symbolically though and drinking human blood during Lord’s supper Sacrament.
My father’s brother Isaac Mavaza is nicknamed Sacramente for his love of the Lord’s supper.
There were several negatives of colonialism for the Africans like resource depletion, labour exploitation, unfair taxation, lack of industrialisation, dependence on agriculture prohibition of trade, the breaking up of traditional African society and values, lack of political development, and ethnic rivals. But the worst of all was the killing of the African religion.
What led to the destruction of traditional African religious systems in the British colonies was the Africans.
They are the ones in the forefront of despising their own culture and custom.
The historical view that Africans had to become “civilised” by colonialism and Christian missionary activity contributed to the intolerance of traditional religions during the colonial period. These views culminated in some colonials rejecting that traditional African faiths were proper religions. Many Africans will shun those who believe in African religions.
The spiritual healers in the Christian churches are called prophets. The medical healers are called medical doctors, but Africans are called witch doctors.
If Africans were to establish a traditional laboratory, Africa will become a power house of treatment. If all witches are to form an organisation and put their skills together life, will be much easier.
Can you imagine a life where you will just jump on a broom and you are in England? Transport costs will be reduced. Wars will be fought in the ai,r with lightning being launched from a hut. What a blessing would the African medicine would be?
Christianity and colonialism are often closely associated with each other because Protestantism and Catholicism participated as the state religions of the European colonial powers and in many ways they acted as the “religious arms” of those powers.
According to Edward Andrews, Christian missionaries were initially portrayed as “visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery”.
However, by the time the colonial era drew to a close in the last half of the 20th century, missionaries became viewed as “ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them”.
In some areas, almost all of the colony’s population were removed from their traditional belief systems and were turned into the Christian faith, which the colonisers used to destroy other faiths, enslave the natives and exploit the lands and seas.
When the British were killing Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi and others, they forced them to become Christians. The idea was to weaken their faith and make them lose hope.
Even after colonialism, neocolonialism came. Neocolonialism is the practice of using economics, globalisation, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence a country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control (imperialism) or indirect political control (hegemony).
Neo-colonialism differs from standard globalisation and development aid in that it typically results in a relationship of dependence, subservience, or financial obligation towards the neo-colonialist nation. This may result in an undue degree of political control or spiralling debt obligations, functionally imitating the relationship of traditional colonialism.
Coined by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1956, it was first used by Kwame Nkrumah in the context of African countries undergoing decolonisation in the 1960s.
Colonialism had a huge impact on the lives of Africans. Economic policies were adopted by Europeans who destroyed the colonies, rather than help them. Africa was damaged economically, politically, culturally and in religion. Africa’s traditional lifestyles and culture were destroyed.
Africans were taught to scorn at their ancestors label them as demons who are after destroying any Person. Africans were taught that their fathers are wizards. The Europeans had no interest in traditional African culture and had no concern for the Africans. There were several negative effects of colonialism that became evident after many African nations became independent. Even to this day, many Africans look at their beliefs as a source of all their troubles.
First of all, colonial governments took over much of Africa’s land for their own personal use, like mining or commercial farming. They were selective in choosing land and took only the best and called it their own. Belgium and Britain were mostly responsible for taking the land. The Belgians took land in the Congo and the British conquered land in Kenya and South Africa. Central, East, and South Africa had nice climates and fertile soil, attracting the British and Belgians to settle these areas.
Once European nations began creating farms and mining companies in Africa, they needed people to work. They started using Africans as cheap labour. Africans who lived in this area either lost their land to Europeans or were unable to live off their land. They moved to the towns, farms, or mines started by Europeans. Working conditions were terrible, with corporal punishment and low wages. They were paid in cash and food rations.
Europeans needed money to run their overseas governments and services for settler communities. “Mother” countries usually provided little to their colony, so colonial governments began taxing local Africans.
This especially became a problem after World War II when European countries were financially devastated. Europeans began taking advantage of Africans, forcing them to work to pay their taxes, without giving them any other compensation.
Forced labour increased and many African men were separated from their families, since only men were recruited to work on farms and mines. African villages lost their manpower for food production, leading to famine. Traditional African villages started to decline
The economic structure of African society was changed by Europeans. Cash crops were introduced to meet industrial needs of European countries. Cocoa, coffee, tea, and cotton were the main cash crops produced on a large scale. Several minerals were mined extensively.
The problem with this was cash crops were focused on instead of food for basic needs, leading to famine among many Africans. Europeans changed the economy from a model of producing foods for need to mainly the production of cash crops. All crops produced by Africans were exported and prices were set by the colonies. Africans were not allowed to grow these cash crops to benefit themselves. Trade was prohibited between Africans, so they were forced to export all cash crops produced and minerals mined.
European colonial powers did not plan to industrialise or modernise Africa. Africans were used to solely produce raw materials, export them to Europe, and then re-export them Africa as final products, sold at high prices.
The Christian religion made African spirituality simpler and took away the need for sacrifices and rituals. So the colonialists practiced their rituals and called them religion.
When they took artifices and worshipped idols, when they undermined and desecrated African holy places, they were actually weakening African religious standing.
By taking the bones of the early African resistance leaders they were actually extinguishing the fire which was already burning.
By refusing to return the remains of our early resistance leaders, the British are clinging to the power which would put Zimbabwe in a better place.
Forty one years after independence we are still writhing under the yoke of colonial paganism. Those who are empowered to bring these bones of our heroes back and are doing nothing.
How can you be proud of being a Zimbabwean and a leader yet the bones and the head of Mbuya Nehanda Chiwashira Chinhamora Kaguvi and dozen others are displayed in a museum in London?
What more humiliation do you want. We have been humiliated enough as Zimbabweans. Bring back the bones of our heroes.
Nehanda screamed as she was dragged down the stairs to be hanged.
She said “my bones will rise again”.
Her bones must be brought back home, if not for our pride, then for being Zimbabwean. Until when will our Mbuya Nehanda’s head be displayed in a museum?
Online Reporter