LAST week I wrote about the reluctance, if not downright refusal by Africans, to take charge of the land that they have reclaimed from their white colonisers.
I pointed out that failure by resettled farmers to give new names to their farms meant that the previous owners were still in charge.
The continued use of the white farm names in itself showed that Africans had not yet taken over the lands.
I also strongly believe that the low productivity on these resettled farms is partly due to them remaining with the whiteman’s names.
Makomborero (blessings) from our ancestors are not forthcoming if the land is not identified as ours.
If the local Africans, including the new farmer, all call the farm by its old name, surely they are acknowledging they are not the owners.
Africans know that a name means everything. On second thought, I figured new farmers were the same people who lived in towns.
Numerous new suburbs are being opened up in urban areas across Zimbabwe.
With the exception of a few, all have European names.
So these names are a critical element in the colonial strings that tether us to our former colonial masters.
Our names and place names, what do they mean to us?
Are they not the invisible strings that keep us colonised mentally?
The classic case is that of the residents of what we call Westlea, next to Warren Park in Harare.
Who was Warren anyway?
The liberated Zimbabweans who bought stands next to Harare’s main rubbish dump (no offence intended) held a meeting at which they argued to have the new suburb named Westlea.
I understand one of the arguments was that a European name would ensure that their houses would accrue a high property value as people would think white people also stayed there.
That says a lot about the residents’ own self-image which needed to be propped up by an English name.
They convinced the Harare City Council to adopt the name Westlea.
There we are, up against the stark reality of our colonised mentalities.
Here, as everywhere in urbanised Zimbabwe, are black Zimbabweans believing that a white name gives superiority to a place.
Do the new farmers who troop to the farms at weekends also want to keep the white names of the farms for the same reasons?
So they have status?
Residents of new suburbs have chosen English names: Bloomington, New Caledonia, Crowhill, Borrowdale Brooke and so on. We all know about what Zimbabweans call ‘madale dale’ taken from the classic one, Borrowdale.
I saw one in Glendale called Westview.
I wondered if the residents of Tsungubvi, the main residential suburb in Glendale, would feel inferior to their compatriots in Westview! Do residents of Highfield feel superior to those of Budiriro, purely on account of their English name?
Madokero is a beautiful new suburb just east of Tynwald, off the road to Dzivaresekwa.
It has up-market housing units that would challenge any others in Harare in terms of décor and ambience.
Does its Shona name Madokero, relegate it to a lower class?
All the former whites-only suburbs of Harare and other towns have retained their colonial names.
Do the Africans living in them feel superior just because they live there?
Do they have a sense of ownership or do they now feel equal to or closer to the whiteman’s standards?
Of course we know that all over the world, different suburbs in cities will have different statuses depending for example on the density of housing or the building costs.
My gripe is with the names and the general attitude of my compatriots.
If you own it, you name it!
Can that be said of the properties and lands that heroic war veterans, dead and alive, sacrificed so much to place in black hands?
Zimbabweans must confront our colonially biased view of names as part of our process of mental decolonisation.
Do we want to be little black Englishmen or do we want to be ourselves.
Do we want our children to yearn for things European and in the process lose their real roots, the African ones?
Do we not perpetuate colonial mentalities by also introducing our children to the shadows under the whiteman’s tree (language, attitudes, music, films, novels, among others instead of growing and nurturing our own trees?
Borrow we may, but we should largely stand out as ourselves.
In a world where racism is openly practised against black people in sports, business and social circles, are we not condemning ourselves and our children to perpetual inferiority stress?
We become truly free when we accept and become ourselves, create our own thunder, so to speak!
Can you imagine the stress on your children taught by you to long to be in England without England or America without America? You do that by giving European names to children and places.
Of course you remain black or you try, like Michael Jackson, to use cosmetics to turn yourself white.
You die frustrated.
Some may feel offended, but how do we explain our children’s European names, our new suburbs with English names and most frustrating to pan-Africanists, our downright refusal to re-name our streets, towns and monuments using African names.
How do we explain our retention of the Union Jack Flag dominating the centre of Harare at Africa Unity Square?
Does re-naming it ‘African Unity Square’ not sound offensive to other Africans?
If we are so keen to remain under the British crown, why should we drag other Africans to unite with us under that symbol of colonial bondage?
The cross of St George and St Patrick marked out at Africa Unity Square do not mean anything to us Zimbabweans.
Let us redesign that square to reflect our African symbols.
The grave of King Mzilikazi lies literally unmarked while next door is the well-maintained grave of arch-imperialist Cecil John Rhodes.
And we stand by and are grateful for the peanuts the grave is bringing by way of attracting tourists?
Where is our conscience?
And next door, the shrine of Njelele/Matonjeni, the source of Murenga’s messages, lies almost forgotten as we anxiously wait for the next white tourist.
Indeed we must ask again: Did colonisation cut so deep?