THE past weeks have seen Zimbabweans focusing on the youths; some choose to call them a ‘lost generation’.
President Robert Mugabe is on a nationwide tour to meet this so-called ‘lost generation’.
However, there are so many questions that beg answers — like, what went wrong?
Who really is responsible for making our youths a ‘lost’ generation?
Some blame parents and even the Government.
I say every right-thinking patriotic Zimbabwean is to blame because we have allowed our children to be infiltrated and compromised by the colonial mindset.
This colonial mindset now deeply entrenched in the young minds says ‘everything Zimbabwean is bad’.
What should we expect if parents do not value their country or have little historical knowledge of it.
We have parents who encouraged their children to write the Cambridge University General Certificate of Education at Ordinary and Advanced Levels telling their children that the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council Certificate (ZIMSEC) is a bad Zimbabwean product that will not give them employment opportunities abroad, especially in the UK.
The same parents were against their children reciting the National School Pledge which was necessitated by our history of resistance to imperialist domination.
These are the same parents still fighting a losing battle against the teaching of the new curriculum which has a bias on economic empowerment
In 1976, there was the Soweto Uprising in South Africa.
Hundreds of South African youths lost life and limb protesting against unfair educational practices.
They knew if they did not learn their own history and language, they would remain in colonial bondage.
Yet we have parents in Zimbabwe who insist their children should still learn the colonial curriculum.
There are examples of some highly educated youths who wrote local examinations impacting the greater community by doing what they have a passion for.
I admire Dr Irene Mahamba’s articles on ‘education with production’.
It is a programme that the sons and daughters who fought to liberate Zimbabwe believed in, hence many successful black farmers soon after the successful Land Reform Programme.
But we have denied our children the opportunity to learn to depend on the soil — instead encouraging them to just pursue white collar jobs.
While we did that, the former white farmers were sending their children to agricultural colleges like Kutsaga and Chibero, to mention but a few, as they appreciated the wealth on the land.
We have not taught our children the value of being patriotic.
It is a shame some cannot even sing their own National Anthem, but should we blame them when their own parents do not even watch the local news bulletin, local dramas or even read local newspapers.
Patriotism is, generally speaking, an emotional attachment to one’s nation.
This attachment, also known as ‘national feeling’ or ‘national pride’, can be viewed from different features relating to one’s own nation, like ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects.
It is a set of concepts closely related to those of nationalism.
Over the years, hundreds of young people ‘fled’ Zimbabwe to European countries alleging they feared for their lives or were being persecuted by the Zimbabwe Government.
Some have remained holed up in these foreign capitals, while others sneaked back home empty handed.
Others died miserably as victims of Afrophobic and xenophobic attacks.
The demonisation of the National Youth Service, where Zimbabwean youths are taught the true values of being Zimbabwean has worsened the situation.
While the National Youth Service has been condemned by the West, the same Western nations have more rigid and successful youth training programmes.
Within Zimbabwe, the graduates of the service are known by derogatory names such as ‘Green Bombers’.
The National Youth Service is a programme for Zimbabwe by Zimbabweans of ages 10 to 30.
The service instills in young Zimbabweans a sense of national identity and patriotism.
While it proposes to unite people beyond party lines, it also promotes wariness of ‘foreign influence and intervention’ in national politics.
The imperialist-driven organisations ignore the fact that these children are the rightful heirs to Zimbabwe’s heritage and have every right to know their history and to participate in the country’s economic empowerment programmes as well as to defend the sovereignty of Zimbabwe.
Western countries, which sponsor these human rights watchdogs, have national youth service programmes where their children are required to undergo military training before they embark on careers of their choices.
We must stand up as a nation, empower the youths and change their mindset, lest we lose them forever.