SOME of us who lived in the colonial era endured being reminded everyday that white people were heroes and blacks were the villains.
The so-called born-free generation should have been given a new lease of life: new names, African names, liberation names, a free country at last!
But no, Africans have stuck to colonial names.
We seem to hang on to the place names that we had all along longed to be in ourselves (we survivors of the colonial era).
With the whiteman out of the picture, we have jumped to occupy the same colonial structures, schools, hospitals, farms, streets and a myriad of formerly all-white residential areas.
We literally slipped into the whiteman’s shoes, regardless of the shoe-size or glaring contradictions!
Otherwise how do we explain our shameless adoption of colonial names?
We refused to identify ourselves as the new masters.
We seem to have believed that all the privileges and benefits that white children used to have in their white schools would now accrue to black children if we kept everything, names included, intact.
We, Africans seem to have sought to placate our inferiority complexes by occupying white spaces and pretending to ourselves that we were as good as whites just for living in or learning in a school where whites used to attend school.
Not that the whites were superior.
They used their dominance and power to carve huge privileges for themselves. It is a terrible indictment of our colonial mentality.
That this mental attitude could be stuck in our psyche is evidenced by the length of time we have hung onto white names, and even symbols, long after the departure of the whiteman.
For what good are we keeping white place names, statues and graves of homosexuals who colonised and abused our forefathers?
What do we want our children to be proud of?
Mimics of white institutions?
So do we celebrate with the whites every September 12, commemorating the 1890 takeover of our land by Cecil John Rhodes’ pioneers?
How can we deny it?
All our children go to these white schools named after Rhodes, Alfred Beit, Admiral Tait, Leander Starr Jameson, Allan Wilson, Ellis Robins, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Edward, Blakiston, David Livingstone, Lord Malvern and George Stark, among others
The culture at these schools is not African.
It is distinctly white and Western, yet black parents fall over each other to get their children into these schools.
What pride does a black pupil have when every morning he recites the motto of Allan Wilson High School: ‘We are men of men’?
Allan Wilson led the Shangani Patrol sent to capture King Lobengula.
While the patrol caused numerous casualties among the Ndebele troops, it was eventually wiped out by Matabele warriors at Shangani River.
Wilson is considered by Rhodies as one of their greatest heroes.
An all-white school espousing the virtues of white supremacy and the total subjugation of the blackman was built in Wilson’s honour.
It stands in the centre of Harare (formerly Salisbury).
Now, with 100 percent black pupils and staff, the school retains its motto and all the trappings of English superiority.
The pupils even feel superior to others attending institutions with African names like Kambuzuma High, Mufakose or Chindunduma.
This grossly incongruous situation makes a mockery of our liberation struggle and its ethos.
What pride do black children gain from attending an institution named after white heroes of black oppression?
Could we not have changed the names of these schools and named them after our own heroes?
The depth to which the colonial mentality has sunk into the psyche of Zimbabweans can be measured by the number of new suburbs given English names.
Westlea was an early example where residents reportedly felt that an English name would raise the market value of the suburb.
But who are these people who will come to buy your house measuring its quality by the name of the suburb?
There are numerous suburbs with English names: Borrowdale Brooke, Southlea Park, Cowdray Park, Crowhill and Bloomingdale, among others.
Have we run out of indigenous names to give our new suburbs?
What is the origin of the names of all these suburbs in Zimbabwean cities?
The reader may recall that Cecil Rhodes promised 3 000 morgen of land to each pioneer.
All the formerly all-white suburbs in Harare were farms pegged out and owned by the pioneers.
These include places such as Greendale, Borrowdale, Hatfield, Glen Lorne, Avondale, Mabelreign and Marlborough, among others.
Harare suburbs are named after the original farms established by chucking out the black original owners.
These suburbs are the very epitome of the rape of our land.
How can these names be retained by Zimbabwean authorities following a protracted liberation struggle to free the land from the clutches of settler-colonialism?
Just as it is unthinkable that this country could continue to be named after Rhodes, so it is hard to understand how the formerly all-white suburb names have not only survived, but new ones with English names continue to be carved out.
How can the present generation, born out of the most painful liberation struggle in black Africa, embrace the names of their former colonial masters?
Could it be selective amnesia?
When the whiteman forcibly took our land, he renamed most of the places and monuments dotted across our beautiful land after his own heroes.
His missionary compatriots also renamed all the African converts they persuaded to accept their Western Christian religion after Bible characters.
Sekuru Kaguvi was renamed ‘Dismas’, ‘Tapiwa’ became ‘John’ and ‘Wadzanai’ was baptised ‘Joseph’.
The Bible supplied the new names meant to obliterate the African identity.
The success of that agenda is reflected in the continued refusal by educated Africans to speak their African languages or adopt African names, norms and values.
Thirty six years after independence, these British colonial names persist.
Which land and which people did we free from colonial bondage through the armed struggle?
If names signify who is in charge, can we truly say we are the new owners of our farms, schools, streets and tourist resorts?
By maintaining the foreign names of local places, are we not turning ourselves into de facto squatters?
Turning to farms, most black farmers have retained the former white farm names.
What are we doing in Baron’s, Johnson’s or Montgomery’s land?
By continuously using the colonial farm names, we have failed to assume ownership of the farms we have occupied.
How long shall we remain in the shadow of the whiteman?
The Ministry responsible for restoring and reviving our culture should create a database of all the various place names in the country and analyse to identify those with foreign colonial names.
Research should be conducted to identify local names that were thrown out by the former white settler-regime with a view to restoring them.
Relevant new names should also be found or coined for those places where a local name did not previously exist.
All these efforts should be part of our agenda to restore the dignity and identity of the black Zimbabwean.