Black history month important

Freedom Mutanda
THIS is Black history month in the United States of America and the world over, it is a time of introspection for many blacks that are littered all over the world. They are proud to be blacks and they are not ashamed of their race. Some racist whites are unashamedly discriminatory and have a condescending attitude towards the dark race. They base their arguments from the bible.

Some churches used the Noah and his son, ham, debacle to say the blacks will never amount to anything in life as they were cursed by the patriarch Noah many years ago after the great deluge.

Blacks have always been in the thick of things in building empires and for that, they ought to be proud of themselves. We have heard of Hannibal who conquered Spain and came within reach of Turkey on his way from North Africa. He is a son of the soil whose exploits are not revered as much as they deserve.

Shaka changed the face of Southern Africa as empires were built in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia, Malawi and Tanganyika where Zwangendaba’s Ngoni finally set up base. While Alexander the Great is viewed with awe by many European contemporary historians, they look at Shaka as a butcher whose insatiable desire for blood was beyond redemption.

Shaka is a celebrated pacesetter in nation building and expansion and his legacy must be seen in a positive light.

This tendency of focusing on negatives about humans must be a thing of the past. We ought to concentrate on the positives and we can build empires today.

In “Two thousand seasons,’’ the iconic African writer, AyiKweiArmah, a Ghanaian, says whites are fond of taking and taking and never indulge in the politics of reciprocity. He equates them to the desert that revels in taking and taking. Rivers don’t go to the desert because it is the epitome of death.

Africans, thus, have ubuntu/unhu which makes them to be generous and treat the extended family as an important aspect of a person’s value system. These people are the blacks who respect reciprocity more than any other group.

Zimbabwe is home to ancient buildings that were built without mortar and for some centuries, the truth about the builders was obscure to many indigenous people as the archaeologists contended that the Shona could not have built that behemoth as if the blacks don’t have the capacity to be innovative. Years later, many historians and archaeologists are convinced the native people in the form of the Shona built the Great Zimbabwe although there could be problems in identifying the names of the real builders’ names.

As we celebrate Black History month, isn’t it good to think about the so-called Zimbabwe Ruins and marvel at the geometry and artistry exhibited by the Shona who built it.

Along the road to Golgotha, Simon of Cyrene was forced to help Jesus Christ who had been lampooned, beaten up and spat at by the white Roman soldiers. He had to carry the pole Jesus had been impelled to and carry it until he arrived at the place the Son of Man was going to be executed. Why was it that God chose Simon, a black, to carry out the arduous task? He loves the blacks for their ubuntu/unhu that make them to feel for others.

Isn’t it wonderful that blacks are put in a good light in the bible unlike some present day Christians who are afraid of where they come from? Indeed, it is well that Oliver Mtukudzi lamented that some people have run away consistently from their shadows. Can you really run away from your shadow, Mr Man? It is remotely possible to outsprint your shadow in a race? No, it is not.

King Solomon was enchanted and bewitched by the extraordinary beauty of the Queen of Sheba, reputed to be present day Ethiopia so much we are indebted to him for the Davidic dynasty that had Menelik as an emperor and Haile Selasse who is one of the founders of the League of Nations in the aftermath of the ruinous World War One. The Queen of Sheba was black. For the record, it is the Ethiopians who defeated Italian soldiers at Adowa and escaped colonisation by a whisker whilst lending credence to the fact that Ethiopia was never colonised by a European power save for the ten or so years she was under Mussolini’s Italy in the mid 1930’s and early 1940’s up to the end of World War 2.

Indeed, in the black history month, we celebrate the exploits of the brave Ethiopian soldiers who made Italian soldiers scurry for cover at Adowa yet they had spears and a few guns during the battle.

This is not reverse racism. No. in this global village, we have to repeat Martin Luther King Jnr’s sentiment that he dreamt of a day when a white child and a black child would sit side by side. A dream that would see people being colour blind in political, social and economic circles with the result that they could vote for a black President in the form of Barack Obama.

Eight years ago, the world awoke to the news that a black man would lead the world’s superpower in a unipolar world after the demise of the Soviet Union although China is fast filling that gap.

As blacks, when history is made, notwithstanding the fact that during his tenure, Obama had not advanced the black man’s cause to a large extent, we still feel he is one of our own. Thus, during the Black History month, we are gratified to note that the occupant of the White House is black.

The writer remembers reading a political novel whereby a Speaker of the United States of America who was black, Douglas Dilman, was made the President owing to the deaths of other occupants of offices higher than his such as the Minister of State, the Deputy President and the President. From fiction to the actual election of a President, one from the Democratic Party is cause for celebration among the blacks although blacks in the USA continue to be persecuted by the police and other arms of state.

Closer home, we have President Mugabe, whose Pan-Africanist ideology is revered the world over is a son of the soil who is remembered every time the black history month is celebrated. This week, he celebrates his 92nd birthday. He looks sprightly like a young man in spite of his advanced years and he attributes that to his being a teetotaller.

In various fora, President Mugabe has always talked about the emancipation of the black race from what Robert Nesta Marley calls ‘’mental slavery.’’ It is this mental slavery that some blacks ape the way whites dress, walk, talks and even the way they think. Black history month is a celebration of African identity. Blacks must not be afraid to stand up and fight for their rights.

During the Slave Trade, Africans betrayed each other and helped whites take their fellow Africans prisoner and shipped to the Americas. Money is the root of all evil. People can sell their mother because of money. Accordingly, Africans are urged to be their brothers and sisters’ keeper by constantly preaching and applying Ubuntu/Unhu/humanism ideals.

Looking at inter-regional trade, one can see that it is minimal. Many African countries have trade skewed in favour of the metropolitan countries such as Britain, USA, Germany, Japan and many others. Is it because we are not industrialised or it is a general lack of trust for African goods? One economic observer said African countries import tooth picks, pencils and other simple goods from countries from outside Africa and you wonder why foreign currency is wasted on such goods bearing in mind that we export raw timber to those countries.

Mutare Polytechnic has a BTech degree in Wood Technology and we continue to export raw wood. Therein lies the problem. We talk at length about beneficiation in Zim-Asset, but do we walk the talk. Some time ago, a pencil factory was established in Mutare and it closed hardly a decade later and then we began to import HB Pencils from other countries. Isn’t it ironic that every year Zimsec spends millions of scarce foreign currency to buy products that can easily be bought here in Zimbabwe? As blacks, it is time to look ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves if we don’t suffer from an inferiority complex which makes thousands of engineering graduates roam the streets in expectation of employment when they could easily be inventors themselves and become entrepreneurs. The Dangotes and Masiyiwas of this world did not look down upon themselves but went on to become global entrepreneurs.

Still on our golden boy, Mr Strive Masiyiwa, perhaps, it is time he makes sure his profits come to his native country and help in the resuscitation of the moribund economy. I am not saying he is not doing that but when his voice is raised, we are sure to see some windfalls in the economy. As a matter of fact, multinational companies enrich their original companies and we expect to get a sizeable chunk of his profits as dividends. I am no economist but this FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) thing must come in to complement what the sons of the soil are doing to rescue their country from the economic cesspool that it finds itself in.

Of course, Government is doing its part to lure investment. It should find ways and means of tapping into the people out there in the diaspora to transform their love for this country into tangible investment portfolios that would kick-start the economy.

Black history month is a time to celebrate our blackness and take pride in what we are. No amount of bleaching would make us white.