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Culture not a one off event

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IN all corners of the country last week people celebrated culture week.
It was marked by celebrations of all kinds from dress to food.
Some even marched in the streets resplendent in the so-called African attire.
Others danced showcasing various traditional dances.
But these events rather leave me sad.
The frenzy, the excitement, the realisation of the beauty of our culture, its value and importance seem to die with the ending of the week of celebrations.
Now we go back to the Western ways that we are now accustomed to.
We conveniently forget our ways of doing things and remember them again on the next edition of culture week.
Our culture has become an edition on the calendar.
This is a travesty of the worst kind.
It is imperative for Zimbabweans not to forget who they are and to everyday celebrate and be proud of who we are.
Our culture is made up of our languages, proverbs, customs, folklore and history that is at the centre of our humanity and thus must treasure.
We are the custodians of our own identities and celebrating our culture on a daily basis is critical to our growth as a nation.
All our efforts at transforming our economy will be in vain if we lose our identity, what will it benefit us to gain everything and lose our essence as a people.
The older among us have a duty, an obligation to guide, direct and support the younger generations through explaining our values and ideologies to them that they may be nurtured into real patriots who believe in their own country.
It is only logical for Zimbabweans, especially the youths to celebrate and cherish their country’s heritage and culture for who else do they want to become.
Aping the British or Americans will not make them Britons or Yankees.
A week is not sufficient to promote and instill hunhu/ubuntu that must be entrenched in our hearts.
We should recover the lost among us who believe in other nations and salute other flags.
We should recover the lost generation of youths who believe in other nations more than theirs.
Due to no fault of their own, our young have lost their way chasing the mirages of the Western world.
We have a rich heritage and culture, we can recover our lost identities, let us see through
the colonial hypocrisy.
Again I go back to the issues of names and naming, these are integral in our culture.
The streets we walk and institutions we operate in have the names of vauyi.
And renaming should be seen as an act of redrawing our ideological and cultural spaces that were brutally erased by the coloniser.
The removal of indigenous names was an act of a supposedly ‘dominant’ culture imposing itself upon existing ones.
As part of celebrating our culture, let us embrace our names.
The name, every indigenous name carries with it a package of meanings, assumptions, myths and legends that narrate our endeavours.
For example, as I have stated in the past, Dzivaresekwa, Mbire, Dande and many other place names in Zimbabwe are not mere narrations of topographical features, but carry a history, culture and tradition with them.
They are national metaphors, a name is a social beacon, an anchor that places a person or an entity in some cultural or historical context.

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