The Sun Will Rise Again

I HEAR the echoes of Joseph Takundwa’s words from last week. Here is a man who fails to recognise his potential as a person. Here is a man resigned to fate. Remember fate is a force over which human beings have no control. According to Takundwa the status quo should remain as it is. Blacks are destined to submit themselves to the whites. Black people should always work for white people, not vice versa. Takundwa says: “A black man ruling a white man? Never!”

He uses an emphatic never to show helplessness. He does not believe that blacks can extricate themselves from the jaws of suppression. Whatever the whites say goes. It is a fact that, “we were born black and we will die black”. None denies this clear reality but that should not be used as a passport to give in to subjugation as stated last week. Takundwa misunderstands himself when he says, “We would never change to become white. Never!”

Fighting for independence did not mean that people wanted to change the colour of their skin to white. This is shallow understanding of independence. This is an artificial point of view of independence. Selfdetermination and freeing oneself from the knuckles of oppression does not call for physical transformation from one person to another. This is thinking to the extreme and it shows foolishness of the worst kind. Of course, Joseph Takundwa lived in a world of dreams.