Let’s preserve our national identity

It is a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterises a society, an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social values. National identity is not to be viewed as the act of imparting the intellectual and moral faculties especially by instant education. But is considered to be a group-specific behaviour that is acquired, at least in part, from social influences over a period of time and often by birth or inheritance.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making him the fruit of his identity. As Zimbabweans our identity is birthed from hard work, hospitality, the struggle for freedom, the extended family and patriotism. We are to remain proud and true sons and daughters of the soil. Part of our identity is protecting our heritage, history, culture, uniqueness, protecting our ethics, respect for humanity and the sovereignty of our nation. Though an identity can be modelled, these so-called culture models have been changing over time as a consequence of human creativity, and external influences. Therefore different societies around the world are experiencing “patterns of culture contrast” as a way of highlighting different ways of being human. Culture changes or identity fragmentation is taking place around the world in the following order, a new pattern of behaviour “identity” is invented or an existing one is modified, the innovator transmits this pattern to another, the form of the pattern is consistent within and across performers, perhaps even in terms of recognisable stylistic features.

The one who acquires the pattern retains the ability to perform it long after having acquired it and that the pattern spreads across social units in a population. These social units may be families, clans, friends, or may be bound by religion or a common cause thus the pattern endures across generations.
In light of these influential identity meltdowns we need not to lose our identity and compromise our core values as Zimbabweans. Practices such as granting gay rights, street sex workers, abortions, cross dressers, same sex marriages are unethical habits manufactured by western cultures and hence are unacceptable and have no space in our own society.

Why should we inherit western culture, “identity”? When in the US and various European countries, “identity trends” are not based on sound national values and ethical principles but focuses largely on “popular culture”, that is, the social meanings of “mass-produced” and or “public approved” or endorsements by prominent personalities and celebrities.
This traditional practice has been compared to one of a melting pot where all the immigrant cultures are mixed and amalgamated without state intervention and reference to strong ethical, moral and religious guiding principles. These behaviours cannot be allowed to take root among us.

Lest we forget as Zimbabweans we have a legacy to protect, sanity to safeguard and a future to build and preserve. The shared language of a community is the most essential carrier of their common identity and culture. As Zimbabweans our language should be that which stand against unethical behaviours and habits that the so-called First World countries are trying to dump onto our continent.
As we embrace Multi-culturalism: A policy that immigrants should preserve their cultures and interact peacefully with locals in our nation, is a noble idea but I believe the best idea is that minorities can have an identity of their own. They should at least respect the core concepts of the culture on which our Zimbabwean society is based. We will not just stand and allow our culture to be defiled by external influences; it is our

mandate to safeguard our heritage and identity.

Our youthful society cannot be participants of this madness. This global cultural melt down where people are caught up in enjoying “pleasure without conscience”. Our days of youth are critical to making sound decisions. We cannot afford to spend them without a sense of what’s wrong and what’s right. We have to hold fast to our ethics as a people, a family as Zimbabweans.
Much as we are citizens of a free and liberated country we cannot be seen to express “Freedom without control”. At some point we need to demonstrate some level of direction into our lives, we need to learn the art

of reaping the fruits of our independence and it’s not in abusing it but in being in charge of our own lives and taking the initiative to be better.
We cannot spoil ourselves into a culture of claiming “Wealth without work”, we have got to learn how to work up early, start small and work our way to the top one step at a time. We have to become responsible and work to earn the profit of our sweat. Even though with the majority of our young people having been privileged and having been able to acquire a university education and are now knowledgeable in a number of disciplines we cannot exhibit a culture of “Knowledge without character”.

We have to learn how to protect our moral values. It doesn’t matter how educated we can become we cannot jeopardise our identity, even in practising science we cannot exhibit “Science without humanity” like what the rest of the world is trying to achieve in the name of scientific advancement. Take for example the breast implants confusion currently going on in Europe. Seriously we need to give the idea of protecting our own identity a second thought.