WHEN we boast that we come from Borrowdale suburb, what is the source of our pride?
Borrowdale was one of the farms pegged by a member of Cecil John Rhodes’ notorious Pioneer Column.
So were all the pegged farms after which Harare suburbs are named.
These names are painful reminders of the cruel dispossession of our forebears of their God-given resource, land!
The whiteman, through force of arms, stamped his authority and asserted his claim and ownership by naming the stolen lands after his own ancestors and great heroes.
The colonial names of our city suburbs are testimony of the physical occupation and subjugation of our forefathers.
The colonial names speak to the wanton rape of our land by the white invading colonialists.
The names boast of the power of white conquest.
The names represent the arrogance of the colonisers.
And yet here we are in Zimbabwe, in Harare, Bulawayo, Kwekwe and Mutare, among other places we have taken over!
To assert and affirm our occupation and ownership of same, we must now give them our own names.
And Cecil John Rhodes’ pioneers pegged these farms now turned into residential suburbs such as Marlborough, Avondale, Belvedere, Queensdale or Belgavia, all English names, all attesting to the fact that Europeans were in charge.
Is it not legitimate for us Africans to rename every nook and cranny of this our once stolen land to re-assert our restored ownership of what whites called Rhodesia?
While the whites gave English place names we should restore the African names to reflect our ownership.
The name changes made by the British colonialists were meant to consolidate the whiteman’s control of the land!
And after fighting and dying in their thousands to free this great land of Zimbabwe from the white colonisers, what did the comrades of ZANLA and ZIPRA and their povo do?
When they turned the tables on the white invaders after Second Chimurenga , the comrades made a few cosmetic name changes.
The country’s name changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.
The capital changed name from Salisbury to Harare and a few streets with European names were given names of great African leaders and some of our own Chimurenga heroes.
And it was felt that was enough!
As if to acknowledge that the Africans were reluctant to overturn the white order, virtually all street European names in the various cities and towns have been retained. While whites had changed all but very few of the country’s African place names, the comrades did the opposite.
They retained and cherished the colonial names, the very obvious symbols of African colonial subjugation.
Today the comrades love to live in Borrowdale, Gunhill and Mount Pleasant.
They see no contradiction in keeping intact the English names that symbolise the black man’s subjugation.
Those Africans living in former all-white suburbs look down on their compatriots living in suburbs with African names such as Kuwadzana, Makokoba and Dangamvura.
And most shockingly, Zimbabweans are giving English names to newly created suburbs. Examples are numerous: Cowdray Park, Bloomingdale, Westlea, Southlea Park, Crowhill and many others.
Even in small towns, new suburbs with English names are being developed.
The appetite for English suburb names is very big!
I have been pondering the reasons for this appetite for things and names English.
You see, all those considered to be educated have passed five Ordinary Level subjects, including English language.
With so much English in their hearts and minds, surely the environment must be appropriately labelled in English.
Most are itching to show off their English language skills.
Remember the education system has until now denigrated African languages and culture.
Graduates of Zimbabwe’s colonially-inherited education system pride themselves in their ability to speak English.
Bureaucrats, politicians and technocrats will address illiterate villagers in English even if the audience will not include their former white masters.
Parents have been known to teach their children English to the exclusion of local indigenous languages.
The army of Anglicised Africans seems to feel more comfortable in ‘English’ environments.
So if the English place name is already there, as is the case in most Zimbabwean localities, that name is retained with great enthusiasm and even ‘pride’.
If a new residential suburb is developed, the ‘Anglicised’ Africans quickly find an ‘appropriate’ English name.
Readers may recall the great controversy that attended the naming of what is now Westlea Suburb along the Bulawayo Road where the black residents were vehemently opposed to an ‘African’ name for their suburb.
To mimic Eastlea, they proposed and adopted the name Westlea.
When, Comrades, will we exorcise the ghosts of white colonialism from within our living spaces?
These colonial ghosts hover around our homes, schools, farms and neighbourhoods every day because we call their names every day.
We, black Zimbabweans, are essentially ‘outsiders’ in these English-named schools, farms and residential suburbs right in the middle of our motherland.
By refusing to give native language names to our local spaces, we have surrendered them to our erstwhile colonisers.
And yet we must legitimise the recovery of our previously stolen land by assigning appropriate local language names to all our institutions and localities.
And so we ask again this critical question: What’s in a name?
Our culture, our religion, our very honour; yes our very African identity!
Have we not identified ourselves yet? Why are we still keeping non-African names? Surely 37 years after freeing ourselves from British colonial bondage, we must have discovered that indeed we are Africans!
How come we still shelter under the shadow of the British flag?
These hard questions must be interrogated if Africa is to reclaim its identity and assume its rightful place among the nations on this planet.
We must interrogate what appears to be a debilitating inferiority complex among many Africans evidenced by a curious reluctance to claim a unique identity.
That should not be too difficult for Zimbabweans as we have defeated our white colonisers in battle before. But it will require political will on the part of African governments to build strong assertive nations that claim their own space in the global village.
What went wrong with Zimbabwe’s struggle for full emancipation? Did the long colonial period (longer than most African countries) leave us permanently imprinted with English colonial mentalities?
Has the colonial hangover failed to dissipate 37 years after uhuru? Or was it not uhuru?
The struggle to reclaim our African identity continues!
And restoring our African identity is critical for success.