Young Zimbabweans losing intellectual wars, late VP Msika
TZG/TSM reporters
Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:37:00 +0000
THE late VP Joseph Msika who died last week said Zimbabwean youths were losing "intellectual wars" as they are not taking advantage of the new media and the opportunities that it offers.
In a film documentary that has not yet been aired, the late VP Msika urged the youths “not to let us down”. VP Msika said after realising that the intellectual war in the field of information was being lost, “the old guard” came back to “fight the media battle for you.”
Asked whether he thought the younger generation was ready to fight and defend their country, VP Msika said: “The youngsters of today are letting the country down. The old guard fought the colonialists physically and won Independence, after which we invested a lot in educating the nation, but that education has gone to waste.
“In times of a different kind of war, war fought intellectually in the information fields the youngsters have failed to articulate the Zimbabwe story. Once again the old guard had to come back to fight this media battle for you.”
He added: “ History belongs to those who write it. For example the history of Zimbabwe starts with the coming of the British negating more than 300 years of African interaction with the Europeans in the form of the Portuguese and also the Arabs.
“Moreso the public’s understanding of what has been happening in the country over the past decade is very much distorted if not very thin. I have heard quite a number of young people arguing that these veterans want to take us to the past. How misguided?”
He emphasised that historical events are not only important but stand as the building blocks to the modern world.
“In Zimbabwe our history is young and shouldn’t be a problem to understand even to the young. But in the context of what has been happening politically since 1999 there have been various attempts to revise the history of this young country. And that danger still exists. That’s why it is important to track down all the living veterans and document our history.
“The struggle in Zimbabwe was and is not about a hatred of other races but the destruction of institutions of segregation and supremacy. You should trace the history of colonialism and inequality in Africa. Africa should write its own history”.
Asked what it was like living in Rhodesia, he said: “The whiteman regarded the black man as sub-human and themselves a super human beings hence their introduction of oppressive and dehumanising legislation in the whole of Africa including Rhodesia.
“We were forced to live as rural people under the so-called Land Apportionment Act which demarcated our land into Tribal Trust Lands and that land was designated as European land.
“Under this racially divisive piece of legislation, black people were relegated to those areas with very poor soils and relatively low rainfall. Blacks living in the areas with fertile arable land were forcibly removed and taken to barren areas whilst this rich land with plenty of water was left exclusively to the white people.
“This policy allowed the few whites in the country’s population to occupy vast tracts of fertile land at the expense of blacks who were confined to reserves where they were forced to eke out a living from the barest of resources and were therefore barely able to sustain themselves.
“Another piece of vicious legislation, the Land Husbandry Act allowed the blacks in the so-called reserves to keep a limited number of cattle under the process of forced de-stocking. Cattle that were at the time regarded by blacks as a form of wealth were taken away from our forefathers using this piece of repressive legislation.
“Compensation was not paid to the black farmer. And where an attempt to do so was done the colonialists determined the price. The African wealth was being destroyed and poverty being introduced, by force.
“The empowered farmer of today would be glad to know that the cattle and other animals they saw and admired on former white farmers were stolen from their forefathers.
“In urban areas, mines and European farms, blacks were allowed to live there as a form of temporary cheap labour only providing labour to their white “master”. They were not allowed to live with their families, and set foot on what were designated as white areas.
“In places like Harare and Bulawayo, blacks were not allowed to walk on pavements and were served from the specially created “windows” when making purchases from certain shops.
“Recreation areas like parks, sports grounds, libraries, swimming pools, racing courses and entertainment halls/theatres had sign posts at their entrances indicating that dogs and blacks were not allowed, for example, Cecil Square now Africa Unity Square in Harare. Policemen meted out harsh and inhuman treatment to those deemed as offender under the repressive Law and Order Maintenance Act.”
VP Msika said Government schools were exclusively reserved for whites while blacks went to the few missionary schools.
“In over 50 years of colonial rule in Southern Rhodesia, Goromonzi was the only secondary school built for blacks. Blacks were also forced to go through a curriculum, which prepared them to work as policemen, teachers and nurses or servile servants of white settlers on completing their education.
“This approach to education was meant for the black person to be exposed to Christian values of forgiveness and non-violence.
“And also to instil an inferiority complex, all the characters of superior disposition in the Bible were foreign (white) to the local people. This was to destroy the black man’s culture and self belief,” said VP Msika.
On his first meeting with President Mugabe, the late VP Musika gave a historical perspective, “I recall meeting President Mugabe for the first time in 1959 when he visited us (the detainees) at Marandellas prison. President Mugabe’s visit was announced to us by a Superintendent Parch.
“I did not know Mugabe but was surprised when he greeted me by name and introduced himself as Mugabe from Zvimba TTLs (Tribal Trust Lands).
“Cde Mugabe informed me that he had attended some of our meetings in Bulawayo accompanied by Tennyson Hlabangana and Cde Rubatika when he was still teaching at Hope Fountain. The President indicated to me that he was at that time teaching in Ghana and that “Mutinhimira wezvamurikuita wanzwikwa”.
“Cde Mugabe’s resolve to join the struggle was very apparent and he has resolutely maintained his dedication to fight for our independence and freedom up to date,” said Cde Musika.
He said they were in jail because “our crime was the simple fact that we had started agitating for equal rights rights as a prelude to universal suffrage and access to our heritage, the land”.
On what type of freedom they were fighting for he said: “The total emancipation we sought was premised on social and economic justice, and resource ownership.
“Social and economic justice can only be realised by empowering all Zimbabweans so that they own the resources (land) and partake in its development”.
Minister of Information and Publicity Webster Shamu added that many young people who trained as journalists in Zimbabwe had opted to work for organisations that spread falsehoods and half-truths about Zimbabwe.
He said that each and every Zimbabwean had the opportunity to go to school and contribute positively to their country, but some of these professionals had opted to engage in the "war against Zimbabwe" by opting to work for pirate radio stations and websites that reported falsehoods about Zimbabwe.
"We urge all our young people to look in the mirror and take a proper audit. They should ask themselves the relevant question: 'Am I contributing to the success or failure of my own country," said Shamu.
A University of Zimbabwe political science professor who refused to be named said the Government had no capacity to absorb all graduates from that and other institutions and offer them jobs; "but that is no reason to work for organisations that condemn your own government and country."
"I wonder how some of these people sleep at night knowing that they are lying to themselves, their families, friends and their country," he added.
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