A FEW days ago I was in Bulawayo for some meetings.
The lunch break was a couple of hours and I decided to do a quick cultural tour in order to kill time.
I started with the Bulawayo Art Gallery; bad timing, gallery was closed to the public that day but the attendant, seeing me as a civil Hararean, allowed me in.
Well laid out displays but given my Unyetu 1970s primary school background, I just failed to connect with this art.
The closest we came to art was during crafts and art lessons; making axe/hoe handles, cooking sticks, beadwork and drawing.
In the latter I was hopeless, unlike my friend Noel who always got top marks for photo-like drawings of Cecil John Rhodes, William Wilberforce, Bishop Knight Bruce, Booker T. Washington and Bernard Mizeki. I digress.
I did not stay long in the gallery and proceeded to my next stop. This was at the Joshua Nkomo statue. It is an imposing image befitting the icon.
Scores of people were milling around it, including arty and touristic characters.
I looked silently, perhaps in meditation, at it until a mad man passing by seemed to put words into my mouth with a remark in Ndebele that I only half understood.
That’s for another day.
From the statue I got a taxi to the Natural History Museum.
This is one of the finest museum buildings on the continent.
The natural history displays are always a marvel.
Had I not last been here a couple of decades ago?
But the history and cultural displays are something else.
Perhaps because I am a subject insider.
But on this occasion, it was depiction of race that left me disappointed.
In the mining display the whiteman is the miner, holding tools of mining intellectualism while the black man applies his muscle to the ground.
And in the Hall of Man, ‘thinking man’ is illustrated as a white man.
Last but not least, Cecil John Rhodes gatecrashes into the Hall of Kings.
I thought of a remark I had heard in Harare at the archives a week before; Nehanda and Kaguvi are hidden in some obscure part of the gallery while Rhodes’ majestic presence is accommodated in the archives grounds.
These are some of the heritage centres and monuments that will no doubt be at the core of the new curriculum.
School visits to such places will obviously increase several fold as learners seek compliance.
The question, however, is: Are the institutions and monuments ready to complement the new curriculum?
Are the teaching resources ready?
While in subjects like history the events will largely remain unchanged, emphasis and illustrations will change to accommodate celebrating our own heroes and deeds.
Colonisation stripped us and other Africans of our dignity, history, culture, religion and language.
ChiShona was created in 1931 by Clement Doke as an amalgamation of chivanhu languages/dialects.
Blacks were made to worship whiteness and demonise blackness; skin lightening, the hair war and the anti-indigenous languages crusade being telling examples.
African history is relegated to ngano of no relevance to development and from which we seek salvation and redemption through the same religions that were used to enslave and colonise us.
The curriculum, heritage centres and monuments must therefore seek to decolonise the mind of the African, transform the ‘cultural zombies’ into inspired and creative minds underpinned by African history and culture.
To do that we must celebrate being Zimbabwean in the curriculum, have pride in our Africanness before seeking our place as global citizens.
That will not happen with our sisters and daughters wearing Mrs Trump’s hair.
That will not happen if history becomes an optional subject in the new curriculum.
That will not happen if schools are given the option to master English history through the Cambridge syllabus.
We must go back to our history and culture and locate everything including the economy there; agriculture, mining, wildlife, architecture, crafts, arts and culture.
That must inspire the modern creative economy.
I was in Zanzibar a year ago and the home industries trade is dominated by Swahili doors.
Compare with Siyaso or Glenview with their pathetic imitations of ‘mainstream’ furniture.
What of our Tonga doors and chairs?
What of our mutsago?
What of our mbira?
We must celebrate our heroes and achievements from our past like we did with Knowledge Musona’s wonder goal in Gabon.
Our children must compulsorily get to know and perform the national grievance that gave rise to the armed struggle.
They must know of the prophets that God sent to their fathers.
They must know of prophecies like Solomon Mutsvairo’s 1956 vision:

Nehanda Nyakasikana
Aah! Nehanda Nyakasikana!
Kunozove riniko,
Isu VaNyai tichitambudzika;
Mweya Unoera!
Kunozove riniko,
Isu VaNyai tichidzvinyirirwa?
Ko, inga taneta wani nokunwa misodzi;
Ko, toshirira kudzamara kuve riniko?
Ko, inga panguva yechando miti inozvizorodza,
Inokuhumuka mashizha yombowana rudekaro,
Kwozoti nokuchena kwokunze yodombera;
Mashizha yovawo nenhenhere inoyevedza;
Shiri nemhuka nenyuchi dzokwezvwa nehwema,
Ko, isu rugare ruchatisvika riniko?
Vana vacheche vatinobereka,
vawakatipa Iwe Samasimba,
vanova ndivo vadyi venhaka dzedu,
nhasi vokura vakasunzumara munyika yavo,
Voshaya nzvimbo dzokurarama nokuzvidekadza?
Apa nepapo pazere rufuse,
Makumbo avo ane matuzu nokupfuviswa neriri pfumojena.
Ko, vosvikepiko?
Mudzimba dzose nomumisha yose vari kutandwa pamwe nokurohwa;
Munzvimbo dzose nomumatare mose avanotongerwa, vari kungourayiwa senhunzi,
Pasina chikonzero, pasina mhosva
Pfuma yenyika nhasi yakatorwa vakagovana paukama hwavo vepfumojena.
Nhasi vari kudya mafuta ayo nyika
Isu tichidya nhoko dzezvironda
Nhasi vari kudya, vakora sehochi
Isu toondoroka sembwa ine gwembe
Nhasi vagere murusununguko
lsu todzipwa huro nemajoto
Rusununguko, Nehanda, ndorupi?
Hamungaburukirewo kwatiri here?
Harahwa dzedu dzobatwa sepwere
Munyika yawavapa, musiki mugoni!
Havasisina rukudzo panyika.
Havasisina chavanacho
Dambudziko guru ndiro ravawira
Baba mutsvene!
Gomo rine ngoni!
Hamungotinzwawo kuchema kwedu here?
Tine chitadzo chakakura sei
Chokubva matiramwa zvakadai?
Nehanda Nyakasikana!
Kunozova riniko?
Isu VaNyai tichidzvinyirirwa
Neriri pfumojena rasvika munyika.