THIS week, elsewhere in the paper, we pay tribute to Professor emeritus Jan Vansina.
The good professor has passed on to join many of those who have championed the African cause.
Vansina’s work on African history has indeed no comparison in scale, depth, complexity, clarity and significance, and will certainly remain so for many years to come.
His passing on brings me back to the subject I am passionate about; that of the need to tell our story from our perspective and not let it be told by others.
I hope and pray it will not be many years before we have other Vansinas.
Generally, deliberate efforts are made to deny black people their achievements.
Our story has been, and still is being, distorted. In fact, according to the whites, we have no story worth telling.
And people like Vansina worked tirelessly to show that Africans are a people with a rich history.
He showed that we have always been a successful and thriving people and did not become human with the coming of the whiteman.
We have always been human, successful and wise people at that.
Let us take the baton from all people like Vansina who are daily departing our physical realm.
We must continue running, picking up from where they have left.
Let their departure not be a loss but a celebration going forward, while reclaiming everything stolen from us.
Daily, as black people, we are fighting many forces bent on keeping us down, elements that want to keep us far away from the truth of our identity, the truth of our capabilities.
Recording our history is not a waste of time.
It is an exercise of the highest importance.
In, and by, writing, we are taking our struggles to a higher realm; the intellectual space, the world of ideas.
It is in those spaces that our voice will be heard, where our voices will be hard to ignore.
We will not be shut out in the dark corners and crevices that we have been relegated to for many years. By recording our stories, we will take our Chimurenga to new intellectual levels, in the process ensuring that future generations continue the rich legacy of our struggles from the Changamires of vaRozvi, our Mzilikazis, our Maponderas and our Tongogaras.
Let us be inspired to tap into the rich resources of Zimbabwean history.
We have elders in our society with important stories, all the people with nasty experiences in the then Rhodesia have a story to tell that is important to nation building and growth.
The ‘new’ farmer too has an important story that stands to benefit future generations.
Our scholars must, as I have said before, set the appropriate research agenda, an agenda celebrating our Zimbabweanness, our heritage and cultures.
Let us document in celebration our knowledge systems, which others have called ‘indigenous knowledge systems’.
The battle is far from over, we must not sit on our laurels, we must ideologically and intellectually engage the same enemy whom we thrashed on the battlefield.
Let us take heed on the enemy who retreated from our farms and now engages us from the safety of publishing houses, research institutes and ‘think tanks’ around the world.