Let’s immortalise the African story

IN modern times museums have ceased to be mere spaces where art and science products are displayed for the sake of it. They have graduated to be citadels of keeping treasures of the past, informal educational areas and also tools for communicating mass culture.

We are glad that the strategic importance of museums has not been lost in us as a nation as on Thursday last week we saw President Mnangagwa officiating at the ground breaking ceremony for the continental museum in Harare, which has been named the Museum of African Liberation. The iconic museum, a continental project hosted in Harare is meant to document, preserve, protect and promote the continent’s liberation legacy.

The setting up of such a strategic project calls for mass celebrations as it is indicative enough that Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa are ready to break new ground in their quest to immortalise and preserve the revolutionary sacrifices that were made by the founding fathers and liberation veterans who took part in our decoloniality journey. It was an arduous and torturous journey whose results was the dismantling of colonialism on the continent. Therefore, it is prudent for us to find ways of immortalising such memories.

Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony, President Mnangagwa eloquently spelt out the objectives of the museum, saying the facility was an important infrastructural project, which will go a long way towards immortalising and preserving the resistance, acts of patriotism and sacrifices made by the founding fathers and other stalwarts of the liberation struggle.

“Their determination to liberate Africa from the yokes of colonial bondage must embolden present and future generations to achieve greater exploits. Zimbabwe dedicate this piece of land to the preservation of the rich liberation war heritage of our great African continent,” said President Mnangagwa.

“Building from the Africa Fact Book, this project will see the documentation of African liberation war stories from across the entire continent, told by our actors and participants. The pendulum has surely shifted and the story will now be told first and foremost from the vantage point of Africa and by us, Africans.”

We totally agree with the sentiments of the President as the museum would come handy in telling the African story and consign to the dustbin the systematic falsehoods that were developed by our erstwhile colonisers to erase Africa’s memories. Time to ride on the narrative of projecting the African continent as a place of darkness is over as we move towards preserving the African liberation values.

The design of the museum is also mouth-watering as the facility set to be a great piece of architecture would have four facilities: the museum itself, inspired by African art, philosophy and ideology, premises for meetings, events and conferencing and an amusement park to help lead visitors through the continental history.

We would not have asked for more as we move with the rest of the continent in addressing the information imbalances that we as African people were subjected to. It is our hope that the facility would be embraced by everyone as it would be a source of knowledge where we can retrace and store our important history. The museum would also become a Mecca for those in the academic world from all corners of the globe as they are likely to come in droves to dig information on our rich history. We are also alive to the fact that its importance is laced with economic benefits for the country as it would become a big drawcard for our tourism sector.

With such facilities Zimbabwe is marching towards stardom. As a country we have added another feather on our nest.