Exorcising Rhodes’ ghost Part 1
IN MY attempt to start a new subject, I have been challenged to proceed with the discourse of changing the political culture we have.
This, I have been alerted by one of my readers who shares the same thoughts with me that we don’t own anything as Zimbabweans, particularly politics. There are powers still controlling how we behave daily and if we do not deconstruct that famous wall of conformity, we are doomed to be slaves of systems we poetically praise that we conquered yet we are proliferating en masse. To advance that discourse I have decided to trace where it all begins so that we do not repeat the same mistake. This series will specifically zone on Zimbabwe and her unique challenges and how we all have appeased Rhode’s’ ghost which resides among us.
We have failed to change and the former as “colonial collaborators or stooges”. Democracy played no part in the recruitment or creation of either type of leaders. The colonial government identified the collaborators and imposed them on the people — just like they want to do today by legitimising electoral results in a sovereign Zimbabwe when their preferred candidate wins.
In most cases these differences were so profound and seemingly insoluble that hostility and war-like atmosphere was created between the two types of leaders. Each regarded the other as the enemy or obstacles to the real interests and welfare of the people. They called each other names: snakes and hyenas. There was very little co-operation between them other than the one that was occasionally forced upon them by the colonial government; and this was often done in support of the colonial interests. Each leader was more inclined to trust the colonial authorities than anyone in the other group — this was our case of negotiating in the colonial land — Lancaster is a curse to us — Thank God we did away with their document. Did they know what they were doing
anyway? Born and bred under colonial rule, the first generation of Zimbabwean leaders was acutely conscious of racial domination, oppression and discrimination, and their impacts on our self-esteem and selfconfidence. Once Independence was achieved these leaders were determined to ensure that the succeeding generations of Zimbabweans should not suffer the same fate as they did, But Alas!! We are submerged in perhaps the worst forms of racial domination, sometimes praised and exerted by those we expect to destroy it in the coming years — indeed the protracted racial oppression and discrimination won’t stop when the level of consciousness is contesting with a drool of flying to America or staying at a hotel or a meagre grant meant for the poor yet you twirl it into bride price. Hypocrites, Hypocrites oh! they
should have shame! Europe lies to us and tells us that our leaders have been total failures. They have successfully turned our brothers and sisters into remote speakers, advocates of their malice, absurdly vocal on petty things in the name of freedom of expression yet when you express your freedom on white hegemony they are quick to flash the globalisation and tranquillity card, yes, they tell you to forget the past, pray to the one above reciting the line “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”, even Helen Zille confirmed what white people think of our oppression, Donald Trump might as well get married to her, they can make a perfect white family.
Europe and her “black” proselytes should be reminded that the first generation of our leaders were most successful in the provision and extension of social services, particularly education and health facilities. They built schools, colleges and universities where none existed before. They increased in multiple folds the entrance to the schools and colleges.
They built hospitals, dispensaries, and health stations of various sizes, and trained doctors, nurses and all kinds of hospital support.
They raised the levels of adult literacy, and gave pride and self-respect to those that for the first time in their lives could read the newspapers for themselves, or write replies to the letters they received from their families. They brought piped water to isolated towns, and improved the quality of drinking water to the villagers. They extended electric power to a much wider circle than was the case during the colonial period.
They built impressive transport and communication net work. They improved the postal services. In their enthusiasms to serve their people, post-colonial Zimbabwe moved into manufacturing and the supply of basic consumer goods, like soft drinks, beer, textile, detergents, cereals; and so onalthough not what we exactly want, it is still a stunning success, the ghost of Rhodes is not happy with it.
The first decade of independence was in many ways exhilarating; partly because independence itself was a novelty and partly because there were many things we could now have or do which in the colonial period they could not — like walking in pavements in town and even residing in Khumalo or Parddonhurst.
Nation-building and economic developments were the major preoccupations of the first generation of our political leaders.
They were obsessed with the fears of ethnic and racial conflicts and the loss of the mobilisation momentum achieved during the anti-colonial struggles. In the process; and due to various other factors, many problems were created. By then the novelty of independence had worn off, the crudities and hardships of the real world, magnanimous challenges manifested and coloniality still resided.
To be continued... follow@mhlanga_micheal