By Dr Tony Monda

FOR a country that has had a colourful and rather painful past: two bloody Chimurenga wars, Zimbabwe stands out for its cultured people, natural beauty and unique heavenly-bequeathed natural resources.
The country is suited for national heritage studies as a central subject for our school curriculum.
However, given heritage studies is now part of international academic discourse, it is essential the Zimbabwe Government and relevant ministries of education and culture consider heritage studies as a stand-alone subject with its own well-articulated primary and secondary education syllabi.
Every citizen is entitled to understand his/her heritage.
Given the absence of our aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers in our latter-day urban African nucleus families, the responsibility of understanding and articulating our heritage falls entirely on the shoulders of our guardians, parents, teachers and lecturers in learning institutions.
What are the components and merits of heritage studies?
Heritage studies are designed to examine and expound on the largely untold narrative of the historic events, spaces, natural assets, places and people that define us as a nation.
The understanding, conservation and stewardship of our natural resources and lessons of our times in archaic and recent history, inform our individual cultural and societal endeavours to live more sustainably, knowledgeably and fulfillingly.
Given Zimbabwe’s alliances to international cultural heritage policy and international sustainability practices, our primary and secondary education syllabi must contain a comprehensive introduction to the evolution of African heritage conservation theories and practices as well as heritage management at an international level, particularly focusing on sustainability and the stewardship and future development of rural spaces, natural forests and urban environments.
Heritage studies should also explore and examine how we observe and preserve indigenous and occidental laws, public policies and cultural attitudes that shape how we conserve our cultures, land, inherited spaces, indigenous heirlooms, natural heritage, monuments and the built environment.
The cultural construction of memory is another important component of heritage studies as manifested in both tangible and intangible heritage.
Our discourse on heritage studies should explore the culture of memory in our traditional, personal, religious, national, social, visual and literary heritage – from ancient to contemporary Zimbabwe.
Here, we must inquire to what extent memory is transmitted through individuals and to what extent it is socio-culturally produced.
This broadly inter-disciplinary field combines history and heritage in the fields of sociology, cultural, natural heritage studies, visual arts, archaeology, forensic archaeology, visual heritage, music, theatre, dance, ritual and performance, orature as well as literary theory and practice, botanical and environmental heritages.
The development of a Euro-centric medieval sense of heritage must not be applied to Zimbabwean heritage syllabus.
On the contrary, our heritage is linked to transitions in the experiences of the indigene and their space and place should thus explore African-centred developments in the heritage concept.
These, no doubt must relate to societal changes associated with our antiquity prior to colonisation and our post-colonial experiences and, in Zimbabwe’s case, our pre and post-Chimurenga era heritage.
This deeper understanding of historically-reliant and entrenched nature of heritage will allow Zimbabwe to go beyond treating heritage simply as a set of socio-cultural and environmental manifestations but allow us to engage in debates regarding the construction of identity and authority throughout society.
Zimbabwean heritage courses should offer opportunities to expand our understanding of theories and practice of heritage management in its traditional application to the management, interpretation and design of culturally significant landscapes, including archaeological landscapes, cultural and historic sites as well as sacred landscapes in Zimbabwe and Africa.
Students must be cognisant of African conservation, archeology, folklore, orature, historic preservation, and the visual arts, especially in times of increasing globalisation and digital communication.
Heritage studies should inculcate the theory and concepts of African memory.
The studies ought to examine the ways historical and war traumas are remembered.
It is important to point out and explain who controlled our antiquity and narrative in the past in order for us to understand the present.
Students will need to understand how the perception of collective memory can be politically or culturally created and manipulated.
They must be empowered to understand and own their Zimbabwean birthright and heritage.
Amid the ‘memory sites’ that are part of our official history are the Chimurengas oral testimonies and memoirs, monuments and days of remembrance.
Perhaps we need to include Chimoio Day, Nyadzonia Day, Chibondo Day and Mukwerera Days in our contemporary heritage calendar as part of our own cultural and historic recollections and memories.
Cultural heritage is a centre of significant conflict and controversy in the context of the socio-economic and political processes often referred to as ‘globalisation’ – which is a Western construct.
We need to re-examine European origins of contemporary Western understandings of heritage and the institutionalisation of its ideas and techniques within national and international legislation, charters and organisations.
We certainly need to pay particular attention to the main intellectual and academic current in African heritage studies, including the work of critical African historians of nationalism, the key heritage debates in Africa and the rise of critical African heritage discourse and seek to reclaim exclusive legality over our distinct brand of heritage.
The identification, understanding, documentation, legal aspects and policy implications of cultural landscapes, heritage and the copyright of our natural heritage is a major cause for concern and an important factor for African heritage studies.
Focus on heritage studies is vital in the newly proposed Zimbabwean education curriculum review.
Heritage studies programmes create patriotic citizens with the knowledge, skills and critical thinking which are demanded in today’s cultural sector.
Perhaps Zimbabwe needs further consultations on a national heritage syllabus, prior to its formal inclusion in the national schools curriculum.
The destiny of our nation lies in the knowledge of our heritage because without a past, there can be no future.

Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, musician, art critic, practising artist and Corporate Image Consultant. He is also a specialist Art Consultant, Post-Colonial Scholar, Zimbabwean Socio-Economic analyst and researcher.