LIKE we have said in past editions, our youths are in sixes and sevens as a result of a lack of knowledge of where they are coming from.

How much have we done as a people to record for our children and grandchildren the numerous stories about the liberation struggle which emancipated all of us.

How many novels have we written about this struggle since 1980?

How many collections of poems about our liberation have we compiled so far? 

Yes, our musicians seem to have done well in singing about our joys and sorrows during the struggle, but the question still remains: is it enough?

Equally how many films about the struggle have been produced by our film makers so far?

After 42 years of our existence as a nation can we say we have done enough by way of capturing through art the stories associated with the founding of Zimbabwe?

Today we are a nation with one of the highest rate of literacy on the African continent and we are rightfully proud of this!

But the question still remains to be asked: do our children and grandchildren know about how Zimbabwe came into existence?

Is it not common nowadays to come across students who have acquired very good grades in their ‘A’-Levels, but who are completely ignorant about the journey from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe during which many lost their lives?

To put it more cogently, to what extent has our educational system mainstreamed key aspects of the liberation struggle since it is the foundation of the Zimbabwe that we have today?

Meanwhile, the Rhodesians are churning out many books seeking to define us through their version of our history.

Our very identity and aspirations as a people are being seriously compromised by Rhodesian writers who seem to have chosen themselves as our interpreters to the rest of the world.

Already there is a mini boom on books by Rhodesians which are meant to explain Zimbabwe and its challenges on our behalf.

Is it not ironic that the people whom we fought and defeated on the battlefield are now in a privileged and almost uncontested position to define and explain us to the whole world at our expense?

If we do not tell our own stories from our own point of view, others, especially our enemies, will do it for us at our expense but for their benefit.

And in a world which claims to be a global village when in fact it is a brutal jungle, we risk losing a collective memory which defines who we are and where we are coming from.

Inhaka yedu; It is a Zimbabwean commonwealth to be handed down with much care and love to next generations.