Book revolution in the offing

in Bulawayo.
Coming after the armed revolution that brought independence, and hot on the heels of the agrarian revolution and of the indigenisation and empowerment revolution now under way to democratise Zimbabwe’s economy, the Nust-driven revolution should decolonise Zimbabwean minds still hurting under a backlash of alien cultural values super imposed by our colonial rulers with the printed word from the so-called centre of knowledge and wisdom in the West.
Long after independence, 32 years ago next month, books published by Western multinational companies with branches in this country are still regarded by many Zimbabweans as the literature of first choice even in Zimbabwean schools.
This means that since books that tell the Zimbabwean story in the Zimbabwean idiom are fewer, even frowned upon by Zimbabweans suffering from an inferiority complex, children particularly in pre-schools are socialised on fairy tales in books written by foreigners and with no relevance whatsoever to Zimbabwean culture.
But more Zimbabweans eventually ruling the roost in the publishing industry will own the content of what they publish through their editorial policies so that Zimbabweans their name in the books published, and nothing can revolutionise the publishing industry more than this.
Dr Nda Dlodlo, who chairs the Department of Publishing Studies at Nust perhaps, put it more poignantly when he said the students being trained in publishing will put that industry back to its golden era in the 1990s when secondary industries sprung up due to a buoyant publishing environment.
But Dr Dlodlo, whose works in publishing as an executive with Longman Zimbabwe and also with that conglomerate in South Africa spanned many decades, put a proviso to glory days in publishing returning to this country, saying this would be contingent upon revived economic conditions and a continued tenure at the top most office in the land by a good leader who took care of other people first not vice-versa, was futuristic and ensured political stability in the country.
The first lot of 11 out of 12 students taught by Mr Dlodlo and two assistants graduated last year with Bachelor of Science Honours Degrees in Publishing, with the remaining student expected to complete his studies this year.
Efforts are now being made to send the graduates for higher degrees abroad so they can come back to teach at the university. Dr Dlodlo said the degree programme had been redesigned for students to be taught how to write book reviews, produce magazines and write articles for publication, in addition to publishing.
This will obviously produce a cadre of literate men and women with hands-on experience.  Dr Dlodlo also founded an academic press at Nust with a South African company, Media 24, as a partner.  The Nust press has now bought out the South African company and is expected to play a vital role producing Mathematical books and other reading materials badly needed in schools in this country.
Dr Dlodlo, who when still at the helm at Longman Zimbabwe in Harare was mandated by his United Kingdom parent company to open Longman branches in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.
As such, the Zimbabwean students in publishing who go through his hands should give publishing a brave new future with books written by Zimbabweans in Zimbabwean languages about the joys and tribulations of Zimbabweans and about the journey the country has travelled since its colonisation by Britain in 1890 to date will give our people and the country a richer, new-historical perspective based on true rather than imagined or fabricated accounts.
What this also suggests is that Zimbabweans should migrate from the vestiges of a colonial mentality that makes some people believe that books written in English language are superior to those written in their mother language even though the former may have decadent cultural values.
It is precisely due to that colonial mentality that we have negligible numbers of classics written in siNdebele or Shona, Tonga, or Venda or in other minority languages. As a result our children grow up with a shocking grasp of their mother language which carries their cultural values and instead feel proud and educated to be heard speaking in English, even broken English for that matter.
This situation is made worse by parents who smile in admiration when their young children speak to them in English, instead of their mother language. And it is not a shame that even Zimbabwean adults, a majority of them hardly complete a sentence in a conversation with interlocutors without throwing in an English word or two to the rescue after running out of appropriate words in their mother language to motivate their discussions. Therefore a publishing industry that perpetuates the dominance of foreign languages in books written for Zimbabweans should be regarded as anathema.
When editorial policy in publishing emanates from within the country, the content of books published must mirror the Zimbabwean social economic and political perspectives, be they ugly or beautiful.
l Stephen Mpofu is the former editor of Chronicle.