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Gibson Nyikadzino-Correspondent
THERE are observations producing historical evidence pointing to a grand heist the white man did to distort the legacy of the Black race.
After the physical subjugation of the black man through slavery and colonialism, efforts continue to be put in place to subjugate people of black-African extraction psychologically and intellectually.
Black history has been redacted to elevate Caucasians.
Historical conquests featuring the prominence of blacks have been kept obscured and remain untold to give positive narratives about the ‘superior adventures’ of the whites.
Surprisingly, white history informs us of some skewed facts.
Thomas Edison has on many occasions been praised as the man who pioneered the light bulb invention and nothing has been said about one black man, Lewis Howard Latimer.
Latimer has more historical relevance than Edison. Latimer is the one who invented a carbon filament that made the light bulb continuously give out its shining prowess.
On the other hand, Edison made a “paper filament” that quickly dimmed and never gave any light. The history presented today is set to serve the convenience of the white man.
Contemporary estimates of the world’s wealthiest men have fronted people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg as the world’s richest.
But it is by consultation that the richest man by historical and contemporary measure remains a black African.
It is Mansa Musa, the king of the ancient empire of Mali in West Africa.
It is in Mali that we also have Timbuktu libraries that house over 20 000 manuscripts that cover every aspect of humanity’s endeavour dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
By admission, the richest libraries are not in Europe, but in Africa.
That many people in learning institutions are unaware of these remarkable historical victories is a symbol on the need to have proper consciousness by restructuring how history is perceived.
We live in a society that has many aspects operationalised by white people with the black man not in control of his narratives and stories.
There is nothing more important than history.
It is not only the study of past events. It is a study into the future by getting instructions from the past and learning how to think and make claims on the best available evidence, to construct persuasive arguments and navigate the present moment.
September 12 reminds Zimbabweans of the beginning of the process of dehumanisation of its forebearers and heroes by what students learn in school as the “Pioneer Column.”
On that day in 1890, a group of would-be invaders and war criminals from previous European wars hoisted the Union Jack in Zimbabwe.
The biggest imperative out of this is for authorities to rethink and reconstruct how history is taught in schools.
The biggest stride towards such emancipation is to ideologise our learning, media and government institutions to think pro-actively in consultation with history.
To study black history and civilisation teaches Africans to think in the present for history is not just a recounting of things of the past.
History helps draw conclusions on what needs to be done.
A shift has emerged in global education structures in which countries are digressing from teaching ideas that do not relate to their values.
In China, for example, officials have embarked on a campaign to elevate their educational values against that of the west.
Venerating western knowledge systems in African learning institutions amounts to ‘academic genocide’ where the continent risks losing a generation of future intellectuals having drank from a poisoned well.
There is no heroism in children disliking their history. Often, their dislike is because they find the textbooks too thick and most of the content too remote for their experience – a catalogue of names, places and dates that have nothing to do with them.
But history is not just an issue of what is in the book, but a continuum to the present that has effects which are permanent if people turn a blind eye to it.
The world currently has so much praise of people studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
While STEM subjects are important, but unlike history, they do not help people navigate the tumultuous debates that happen today.
STEM subjects can help humanity to understand the tumultuous nature of the environmental problems we have today, but their shortfall is a lack of explanation on how we got there.
They are magnificent disciplines that cannot tell us why nations, politicians, class struggle and class consciousness are what they are today.
These disciplines have little to make us understand why Africa was colonised, why people fought for independence, why the government of Zimbabwe is engaging and re-engaging the world or opening the country up for business.
Historical education is important unless the black man is happy and wants to continue living the present with the way things are.
There is need to understand and appreciate that the genesis of these problems are in the dehumanisation of the black race.
The Black man has to study history to have an idea of what the world is all about for without it they are blind.
Historians are clairvoyants with critical flights of imagination. History is the most important and infinite subject that learners should not even desire or opt to drop.
It makes people look more objectively to information and making them more resistant to super biased news. This is the reason why the young and old should read history.
It is time blacks need to rethink how history is taught and presented. There is need to recontextualise history for it to speak directly to the blacks. If blacks do not consciously keep their historical guard, there is no consciousness that can be built from that.
As blacks thrive to get their stories told, the biggest hindrance that will be told in this struggle towards consciousness is that enemies will likely say “get over it” because it happened a long time ago. NO!
Blacks cannot and should not get over things like the dehumanisation of an entire race because society has not gotten over such.
Only correcting and controlling black narratives will ensure a decolonised and progressive consciousness.
Online Reporter