Zimpapers Logo

Nkrumah, Steve Bike, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda and many others have never been our own.
Africa despises its own political thinkers preferring the works of various European and American philosophers. It is this ignorance of African political thought that has retarded Africa’s political, economic and social development.

These great men saw it all and wrote extensively to warn future African generations about European treachery in its raw form. However, most of their brilliant works have been stored in archives never to be seen in African bookshops.

We are really a pathetic lot when it comes to defending our own political, economic and social space. We use European thought to defend African space. Beatrice Mtetwa stands before the black race boasting that she is a defender and champion of human rights. No one bothers to ask her whose rights she is defending. Are they white or black rights? Which ontology is she using to define those rights? Is it African or European? Such is the disease that has befallen many a Blackman in Africa.

We need to suffocate the white man in every one of us. We can no longer be mere spectators on issues that concern us politically, socially and economically, leaving the white world to think and decide for us as if we are a continent populated by ignoramuses.

It’s disheartening when some Africans form political parties which are bent on removing nationalist or liberation movements from power to replace them with bogus democrats whose sole purpose is to defend European and American interests on the African continent.

Did America and West Europe ever give African liberation movements weapons to fight against white oppression?

Did they ever call for the removal of white oppressive regimes all over Africa? Why is it that the very Western countries which refused to assist our guerrilla fighters to dislodge white oppression are the very countries which now fund most opposition political parties all over Africa?

Is it that as Africans we have totally forgotten about the atrocities the Western world perpetrated on our ancestors? Are we really that dull? Are we white-washed idiots? What are we really? Are we fools, maybe brainless, or rather forgetful or mere imbeciles?

At times we shudder to think about the future of the continent especially with some people in our midst who still think that the white man is a god. Independence becomes hollow. The reason for fighting a protracted war against white dominance turns out to be meaningless.

If the ones interred at Chimoio are at times heard singing revolutionary songs – what about us, the living – should we be ignorant of our history that the spirits of the dead have to take human form once more in order to remind us of the sacrifices they made to liberate the country from colonial rule as well as to warn us of the treachery of the white world? Are we really normal? Are we sane? Aren’t we the worst idiots on earth?

The white man’s flawed democracy is left to triumph over our own political, social and economic beliefs, hopes and aspirations.

Opposition political party leaders prefer European/American solutions to African problems. In their silly dreams they want to be like Europe yet most of Europe is what it is today because of the benefits accrued through the exploitation of Africa.

How can you be like Europe when its development comes from ill-gotten wealth from its former colonies? Any African leader should know that it is through dedication, commitment and a strong belief in the continent’s people that genuine development can take place. You cannot put the future of Africa in Western hands. Africans themselves are quite capable of shaping their own future.

Kwame Nkrumah cautioned us years ago to know the enemy. He pointed out that if the liberation movement is firmly established, the colonial power invariably resorts to a “containment” policy in order to stop any further progress, and to deaden its impact. To achieve this objective, the colonial power uses its arsenal of alliances, its network of military bases, economic devices such as corruption, sabotage, and blackmail, and equally insidious, the psychological weapon of propaganda with a view to impressing on the masses a number of imperialist dogmas.

Africa lives as if these Western strategies highlighted by Nkrumah are non-existent. We quickly forget what the Western world did to Gaddaffi, Gbagbo, Mutharika and are currently trying to do to Zimbabwe.

Nkrumah further warned us that: Local agents, selected by the colonial power as “worthy representatives”, are presented to the people as the champions of democracy, and are immediately given all the superficial attributes of power: a puppet government has been formed. Doesn’t this sound familiar to most Zimbabweans? Don’t we have such people in our midst? Nkrumah had long warned us of such elements amongst us.

Nkrumah also forewarned us that neo-colonialism could even set up a bogus “progressive” party or organisation using local agents and maintain an artificial liberation movement which serves both as a worthy partner for negotiations and as an intelligence/ or repression agency against the genuine liberation movement supported by the oppressed masses.

Haven’t we heard these fake liberators saying they will reverse the whole indigenisation programme in order to create employment through Western assistance?

Julius Nyerere, another African political thinker, foresaw that a Second Scramble for Africa would be conducted in a different manner from the first, but its purpose would be the same – to get control of the African continent.

He made us aware that: this time we will not be subject to military invasions from countries outside our continent; foreign powers have no intention of fighting each other in this Second Scramble. They will incite African to fight African, but always in their interests. The imperialists, old and new, will exploit the differences among African nations and between African nations. Dear reader, the DRC crisis quickly comes to mind.

There are Africans in our midst that have been so brainwashed or simply whitewashed that they see nothing good in their fellow men. Their world is so blinkered and distorted that they would rather for the rest of their lives fight tooth and nail to be closer to the white world than to serve their own African people.

Such warped thinking makes others see Europe and America as the saviours and liberators of the African continent. They earnestly believe that without the Europeans and Americans, Africa’s future is doomed. It is quite disheartening and yet an undeniable fact that the African continent in this 21st century still has quite a number of such idiots.

In this century, Africa’s whole education system is still heavily biased towards Euro-centric values, norms and beliefs. It is a system that alienates the African student from his or her immediate environment.

Kenneth Kaunda saw that the only way for African people to be proud of what they really are is through a sound education system that promotes African values and beliefs.

He says young people must be the special target for the encouragement of patriotic sentiment. Kaunda notes that: a generation is now arising which has only the dimmest memory of colonialism, and soon the freedom struggle will be a matter for the history books. Hence we must in school instill into them a degree of national sentiments.

We should make them proud to be citizens of Zambia/Africa. Without becoming parochial and isolationist in our approach to education, we must put such emphasis upon our own history, geography, customs and arts as will make them conscious of the land to which they belong.(Young Zimbabweans really need to be conscientised on the importance of land)

Kaunda goes on to say: “I am always intense in mood when I see the children of a little village school in some remote part of the country drawn up under the flagpole, raising the flag and singing the national anthem as their first act of the day. With any luck, this generation will think of itself not in tribal terms as Bemba, Lozi, or Tonga but as Zambians. This is the only guarantee of our future stability. As Africans, we have let issues of ethnicity divide us. We hate each other merely because we come from different ethnic groups. The white world has capitalized on this weakness to divide us even more.”

Kaunda is totally in support of an education system that has a strong bias towards African values and beliefs. He says: “I know that there is a great abhorrence in certain circles in Britain and elsewhere of what is called the ‘indoctrination’ of school children. Such critics, besides their ignorance of the problems faced by African states, must also have the dimmest memories of their own childhood.”

We have seen over the years how Africa lacks a history of its own. Kaunda then poses a very interesting question: “What is history to the British or Americans but the long and glorious tale of their great heroes, mighty battles, and outstanding achievements? No true patriot could teach history without, however unconsciously, glorifying his own kith and kin. All education is indoctrination – selection of certain themes and ideas from amongst the limitless accumulation of human knowledge which reflects certain truths that the educators regard as important. We make no apology for the fact that we intend to indoctrinate our children in the glories of Zambia and the privileges of being citizens of Africa.” (Zimbabwe should not hesitate to teach the youth about its liberation struggle). Africa should inculcate African values on the millions of its youths rather than let them to be swallowed by foreign or alien Western culture.

We believe that African learning institutions should not be ashamed of politically socialising students with the norms, values, beliefs and ethos of African societies.

It is quite disheartening that much of the time, our institutions of higher learning are merely preparing graduates to earn a descend income after college. Yet, when it comes to instilling true standards, codes of conduct and right morals into the minds of these students, our universities are by and large, incompetent.

The African students have completely lost their identities. The development of personality and initiative has been largely sacrificed in most of our institutions of higher learning.

African universities should inculcate a high degree of community discipline in students that, in turn, contributes to an individual self-discipline which creates an orderly citizen within the community, nation and continent. A well-disciplined university graduate is an asset towards the development of his nation and community.

We are absolutely nothing without the wisdom of the founding fathers. Africa should follow its own path, it should carry its own bags and it should also occupy its own political, social and economic space.

We are totally opposed to the likes of the treacherous individuals like Savimbi, Dhlakama and Tshombe who have allowed foreigners to divide us.

It is high time that as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity (now AU) we should rid the continent of Western controlled idiots, puppets, sell-outs, surrogates and nincompoops.

Bowden B C Mbanje and Darlington N Mahuku are lecturers in international relations, and peace and governance with Bindura University of Science Education