Let’s create war museum for memories of struggle

liberation struggle.
It is pertinent that we collate a memory bank of visual images, history and discourse on the armed struggle.
In a previous instalment of Art Zone, this writer alluded to “. . . the importance of a multimedia visual arts repository for images of the war . . .” And for creating a War Memorial Gallery as a way of preserving an authentic history of our struggle for independence, thus decolonising the African memory and exalting the blood and soil values of nationalism and liberation for posterity.
In light of recent calls from MOZAST – Memories of the Zimbabwean Armed Struggle Trust – now is the perfect time for this proposal to be manifested as a tangible reality.
What constitutes a war museum gallery? The purpose is not intended to open up new wounds, but to heal them. To be both a catharsis and a canapoly.
What are the benefits of a war museum in Zimbabwe at this point in time?
l A war museum would promote social and civil cohesion and integration amongst all Zimbabweans;
l Promote a recognition of Zimbabwe’s military achievements and the socio-cultural and historical achievements;
l Expand existing horizons of critical thinking and analysis of what it means to be Zimbabwean;
l It should subscribe to international standards of exhibition and display and even surpass them;
l Help to understand the conflicting forces that created the society we live in today;
l It is important to develop and assess the true history of our people and culture collectively as Zimbabweans;
l It is a reminder of the follies of war – that wars are futile, war is a crime against humanity.
Government should play a central and leading role in the creation of sustainable employment of our people, especially the war veterans through the establishment of war museums in all the main provinces of the country.
A war museum is the appropriate repository for such education. Communal, collective knowledge of where we came from is the most effective way to combat alienation, divisions and neo-colonialism.
In recent times, due to increased media accessibility, visual arts have become a battlefield and an arena for colonial ownership and authority over African culture, intelligence and memory. “Culture wars” pertaining for the ownership of information and history, especially that of Africa, are a real and tangible part of our world society.
This new threat is real and ever-present in the field of art discourse, where the history, culture and socio-political perceptions of Africa are often subjected to the legacy of Western museums and the neo-colonial parochial opinions of Western scholars.
It is in this light, therefore, that it is important to recreate our own record of our past, according to our indigenous perceptions, memory and knowledge.
An understanding of ourselves and our past is a crucial part of self-awareness and empowerment, as is the true object of liberal African education – that of de-colonising the mind, our knowledge, our history, culture and memory, and regain power over the language of words and images.
Several art exhibitions concerned with “Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa” have ironically already taken place in Europe and America, known as “The Short Century”. This is a misnomer, given the period of African suffering and subjugation was not as short as was recorded.
Historians now know that the period of oppression in Africa was much longer than “a short century” – marking close to 500 years of colonial dominance and oppression of the African continent.
The protracted process of political decolonisation was agonisingly slow; recorded as beginning with the liberation of Ghana in 1957, and ending with the end of apartheid and the liberation of South Africa in April 1994.
However, throughout Africa, between 1650, and the beginning of the 20th century via the Atlantic slave trade, over 60 million Africans were eliminated. Further genocide resulted from the 150 years of colonial imperialist wars which took 90 years for Zimbabwe to regain independence (1890-1980).
Within this history are images, words, scripts and songs that bear testimony to African struggles for independence.
We need to set high standards of excellence when creating a war museum that need not necessarily imitate those of Western institutes. We need to treasure our memories for posterity, education and self-reflection.
l Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art Theory and Philosophy and a Doctorate in Business Administration DBA, in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a practising artist, author, critic and lecturer.