HomeOld_PostsShame on us for new breed of black slave masters

Shame on us for new breed of black slave masters

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THE PATRIOT of last week had very intriguing articles on slavery that stirred debate among the newspaper’s readers.
These discussions, however, were centred on a new form of slavery; the one perpetrated by blacks against blacks.
It seems there are black people who have thrown their morals to the dogs and have chosen to follow the former colonial masters in abusing fellow blacks.
The first European contact with Africa came through the slave trade that flourished for close to 500 years.
By the time of the European scramble for Africa between 1880 to 1910, the slave trade had been abolished, but the British who created Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) expropriated mineral and agricultural wealth through land grabbing and slavery, while missionaries who formed the religious arm of colonialism were another strong and lasting force.
While colonialism and Christianity were imposed upon the indigenous population of then Southern Rhodesia, commerce was reserved for the colonialists and a few Asian immigrants.
The Land Apportionment Act passed in 1930 gave the best farming land to whites, and in 1934 a new labour law forbade blacks from training in skilled trades and professions.
The economic impact of these actions was to force the indigenous people into lowly paid labour on white farms, mines and factories.
The hut, animal and other numerous taxes that had to be paid to the colonialists resulted in a new form of wage slavery that disrupted the traditional economy that functioned very well before the arrival of the whiteman.
Schooling was also controlled with a discriminatory system that allowed a few blacks access to higher education.
Housing, recreational and sporting facilities as well as medical care were other areas where blacks had limited access during colonialism.
A few whites lived in white suburbs, patronised white clubs, ate at white restaurants, stayed at white hotels, were educated at largely white schools and universities and enjoyed exclusive sports such as cricket, rugby, golf, tennis and lawn bowling.
Black people provided for these luxuries through back-breaking work that could best be described as slavery. These people were mainly guards, gardeners, cooks, housekeepers, maids and drivers.
Whites enjoyed and travelled to exclusive resorts and sites that few blacks could afford, including Victoria Falls, Great Zimbabwe, Lake Kariba and game parks.
However, only a few blacks in privileged positions could afford luxuries like televisions and cars.
The enslavement of blacks by their fellow countrymen started as soon as the former colonisers began to flee Rhodesia during and following the war of independence.
The white population of Zimbabwe dropped while the new Constitution provided Africans more opportunities in education, management, Government housing and business.
Those blacks who were able to take advantage of these opportunities, largely through higher education, have become the new ‘colonial’ masters who have embraced the white system of subjecting other blacks to slavery.
Today, they patronise the former colonialists’ bars and restaurants, their children go to the former colonisers’ schools and have made noise about the new curricula and national pledge. They still believe Cambridge schools examinations are the best as opposed to the local ZIMSEC.
Their gardeners and maids still work in near slave conditions. They also do not go to their rural homes, in fact everything black to them is backward and white lifestyles are preferred.
At their farms, workers are asked to call them ‘bass’, and some have married white women.
They occupy former colonialist homes and neighbourhoods.
They obtained their education, and still educate their children, in former colonialist schools or in some cases in the UK.
They have taken up and follow British sports with enthusiasm.
They dress and speak as the former colonialists did and frequent the hotels, resorts and holiday destinations of former colonialists.
Although there are some prior patterns of behaviour that remain, much of this new learning is based on observation and imitation.
I agree with writers of the previous articles in this paper that Americans did much the same thing in breaking free from Great Britain, but continuing to emulate upper class British sports, clothing, architecture, art, foods, fashion and living patterns.
However, in the case of Zimbabwe, the absence of upper class blacks before independence in 1980 meant that the only comparisons available are former colonialists, a few remaining whites and those in more developed countries.
Zimbabwe lacks an earlier generation of black elite role models to emulate.
With a history of Western missionaries and colonialists demonstrating Western lifestyles, the country has seen a new breed of black slave masters who are striving to materially emulate former British colonial masters.
These have not taken heed of the liberation struggle ethos that guided the sons and daughters of this country to take up arms to dislodge the loathsome colonial regime. They still live in a small Rhodesia almost 37 years after independence.
They have disregarded their indigenous predecessors and failed to emulate them.
And they have begun to renounce traditional obligations to support their extended families.
There has also been a trend among the modern day slave masters that reveals the impact of white role models. It is the appeal of skin lighteners, being ‘coloured’.
The link to Great Britain by most Zimbabweans remains strong largely due to the strong English bias in the education system.
Hence efforts by Government to transform the school curricula must be commended.

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