The power of knowing one’s history

INFORMATION is power. Power equips one with tools to navigate the vagaries and contours of life. Power is knowledge and nothing beats an empowered individual. Knowledge keeps one grounded in times of crisis.

Canadian scholar, Gary Puckering quotes the futurist, Alvin Toffler, who in his seminal text entitled “Powershift- Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the edge of the 21st Century”, writes of three types of power: force (physical power), wealth (economic power) and knowledge (the power of information).

Toffler observes that throughout history, the power of force reigned supreme.

However, after World War II and the rapid developments in communication, wealth — as the primary source of power — was transformed from being predominantly land-based to more generalised “capital”, held by individuals and companies.

The new information age requires individuals to have a solid base of knowledge of who they are; their history and how they ought to relate with other beings within their sphere of locality and beyond.

As predicted by Toffler in 1990, information has become the predominant source of power in society today.

I was reminded of the importance of information, particularly information that relates to a people’s heritage when I encountered a refreshingly unique magazine titled “Africa in Fact,” an October-December 2019 issue featuring discussions on the history of African history, the age of revolutions, how heritage can divide and cattle - our African odyssey.

It’s a concise journal with an array of contributors from varying countries and backgrounds.

In his introductory remarks, Lloyd Coutts argues that to understand the present, one needs to understand the past.

He asks a seemingly rhetorical but pertinent question: Do those of us who seek a prosperous future for the continent have a sufficiently common understanding of how we got to where we are?”

Many among us frown upon any lineage to our history and are mainly concerned with the“now”even when it’s obvious that the “now” is a product of the then.

The paradox confronting Africa and Zimbabwe in particular is that our history has failed to unite us, with our discourse always emphasising on non-pluralism when reality is, in fact, pluralistic and deeply nuanced.

The advent of social media poses a serious danger in that it celebrates“ind entitylessness” and euphemistically refers to individuals as global citizens.

Borders and sovereignty are contemptuously trashed as limiting freedom.

Sadly, the so-called African global citizen is never at home in the Western hemisphere. In most cases, the African is always looking backwards. And like a Sankofa bird, flies looking backwards.

These are some of the issues tackled in the “Africa in Fact” journal.

The journal centres on how epochs are so overwhelmingly iconic and in the case of slavery, for example — our attempts to interpret it is coloured by our own biases and distortions that easily misdirect our attempts to navigate the future.

Extend that to our pre-history, our ancient civilisation, our colonial history and uhuru. Yes, no history is monolithic or a tapestry of monologues but conflicting claims of our past must never cloud our judgment of ourselves as an authentic race with an authentic rich heritage.

We must strive to prune any ambiguities about our heroic heritage.

A fuzzy understanding of our past is a recipe for disaster. It prunes our identity and makes us vulnerable to distorted images of ourselves and what we stand for.

In an article titled ,“Examining our Sense of Identity and Who We Are”(2009), Michael J. Formica asserts that every human being has grappled with the idea of who he is or who she is.

Formica posits that in these uncertain times, asking who you are is an imperative consideration, especially when things are seemingly out of control and the centre has been lost, “when we find ourselves having to give up the people and things that we love for a time or forever, there is a place within ourselves to which we must return.” And what is that place?

We all have a centre, a place that grounds us. When we lose sight of that centre, we find ourselves adrift, which often-times can only serve to magnify our general sense of uncertainty and, by association, fear and anxiety.

When everything looks uncertain, it is our consciousness of history or our past that keeps us grounded.

The challenge is therefore not in recognising the source, but in recognising that we have lost it or, worse yet, consciously or unconsciously given it up.

How many times have you heard someone casting aspersions to the founding ethos that gave birth to our nation Zimbabwe because of the current challenges?

Many are unconscious that it is the business of others to propagate debilitating narratives that make us doubt our value.

They create confusion among us so that we become a non-cohesive entity easy to manipulate.