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My Turn with Tichaona Zindoga
“All successful nations from Britain, America, Germany, France to Israel arrived where they are by forging a resilient, patriotic national consciousness that gave them identity to work with one mind towards the achievement of their present greatness…”This is the divination of one Nigerian scholar, writing in a journal in March last year.
He explains: “Consciousness can be defined as the intangible metaphysical awareness of one’s being and necessary belongingness to the world of existence. A dead person has no consciousness. According to Robert Allen, consciousness is the state of being conscious, that is, the physical and mental state of being awake and fully aware of one’s environment, thoughts and feelings. National consciousness for me will mean the state of being awake and aware spiritually, physically and mentally of one’s environment and the necessary feeling of bonding that goes with such aware-ness.”
The scholar states that: “To be nationally conscious is to identify with the spirit and aspirations of the nation as one soul in possession of one destiny and one identity.”
He says that a nation is supposed to have one soul, one driving spirit headed towards one destiny through the same identity.
“It is the consciousness that forges the identity which in turn drives the spirit of the nation to national greatness. Consciousness binds us, welds us to the metaphysical and physical life of the nation and urges us to identify with the nation in all its travails because it is in its survival that we gain our survival.”
Unfortunately, for the writer, Godfrey O. Ozumba of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Calabar, that thing called “national consciousness” is non-existent in his country.
He mourns: “In Nigeria there is no such consciousness that identifies us with Nigeria as a nation. For many, Nigeria is nothing but a mere geographical expression, for others, it is the orphaned cow that must be milked to death, for others, it is a no-man’s-land where ethnic nationalities merely subsist in a marriage of convenience.”
The writer is very graphic, intemperate even, in his description of the problems that Nigeria faces because of the lack of national consciousness.
Nigeria is like a dead country.
It is devoid of spirit and identity.
No one is bound by, and in, its travails.
For Ozumba, that which lacks in Nigeria, would make a country “to be ready to swim or sink with our nation, to work for its holistic survival and its continuous progress” and “see every component unit of our nation as inalienable, and integral to our holistic well-being.”
Now, I am no expert in Nigerian affairs, and wouldn’t venture to elaborate on what is wrong with that vast African country, not least because the people of that country, proud as they are, may be quick to anger.
But this Nigerian malaise – disease – according to Ozumba, looks pretty much like something I know.
It afflicts my country, Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe, which is only shy of its 35th birthday, is veritably a country lacking in national consciousness as it does not have any national identity and, most of all, that quality which would make people resolve to “sink or swim” with the nation and strive for its survival and greatness.
Polarisation
“Polarisation” is the word that has come to identify Zimbabwe in the areas of media and politics.
In short, it is describing the state of affairs in which the country’s citizens see things from two, contending poles or positions.
This may have peaked with the advent at the turn of the century of a foreign- sponsored opposition, marking the country into two distinct ideological camps: the one following the revolutionary ethos and the other the imported and neo-liberal politics.
(Not that the country’s history began in 1999. There are significant events predating 1999.)
The rural areas stood separate from the urban areas; the “educated” elite versus the “uneducated” peasants; parents versus children; the revolutionary versus the sellouts; and so on.
It would be bloody, too, sometimes.
National discourse would be polarised and national programmes would suffer the same binaries.
Land reform suffered.
Zimbabwe suffered sanctions.
The economy collapsed.
Zimbabweans would not speak with one voice.
The economy has not fully recovered and is somewhere precarious – like teetering on the brink – yet Zimbabweans have not united to arrest further decline.
That is, even when the acrimonious period of elections is over.
Did we not hear some defeated quarters pronouncing some dubious policy called “tongai tione”, which referenced the same losing politicians washing hands off the national project of building Zimbabwe and actually wishing to see the victors fail.
No esprit de corps there.
No identification “with the spirit and aspirations of the nation as one soul in possession of one destiny and one identity”, as Ozumba would love it.
Zimbabwe is dead, with no consciousness.
Not bonded by coins
Forgive the pun, but look at the current national attitude towards the introduction of the bond coins by the fiscal and monetary authorities in this country.
The coins were meant to ease transactions that are largely being done using the medium of foreign currencies.
The authorities hoped that this would bring prices of goods down as retailers would not peg prices to the nearest dollar or worse still, force people to take sweets and chocolates or any small things one has no use for.
Incrementally, this would also help alleviate the so-called liquidity crisis in the country by injecting some kind of cash – and this is money backed by bonds held in a bank.
One would expect Zimbabweans to applaud and support this, or at least take time to understand the concept of bond coins which are by no means a rarity of history or modern economics.
What do we do?
These very measures receive lukewarm response at best and, at worst, are treated with contempt and derision.
You hear a mere bus conductor or a vendor deride the bond coins as though they were made by some madman somewhere.
Some would shudder at the touch of the coins as though the coins were afflicted with some pestilence.
Jokes about bond coins circulate on social media.
It is the same fate that befell other programmes, and lately, Zim-Asset, where one may refer to some part of a well-built woman as “Zim-Asset”.
Should anyone be blamed?
The bottom line is that national consciousness is just lacking in the people of Zimbabwe, and it is sad.
Zimbabwe, thus lacking in the same is like some Tower of Babel. One can also quickly call to mind the “mixed multitude” that joined the Exodus of Israelites.
The country simply won’t be able to progress and develop amidst the confusion and lack of unity, much less become a great like the countries that Ozumba names above.
And look at the discourses in the social and mainstream media today where people are now increasingly talking from tribal and regional viewpoints on national issues such as the appointment of the country’s vice presidents!
There is something rather unsettling about the present generation, which has done well and truly to remove the consciousness of previous eons.
The liberation struggle, from the 1890s through the 1950s to 1980 was executed with the singleness of purpose, even when there were sellouts, that is not evident today.
Even if the disturbances of the 1980s took tribal outlook, the fact that December 22 came and has not suffered any major shocks to date speaks volumes of the purposiveness and national consciousness.
Which, by the way, explains why a September 15 could not dislodge the historic December 22 off the pedestal of national consciousness, as representing national unity.
Online Reporter