By Farayi Mungoshi

THE land issue has always been one of many controversies cutting across nationalities the world over. 

There is no mistaking who the main culprits are when it comes to land invasions and land grabs, turning entire races into slaves to work the land. 

It does not take a rocket scientist to know the cause of a lot of suffering across the globe.

We have been fighting Western capitalism from the late 1800s and, today, Zimbabwe is still suffering because it decided to take its land back. 

Libya is in ruins right now because of its oil — so is Iraq. 

In the US, the ‘native Americans’ (the so-called Red Indians) were almost wiped from the face of the earth by cowboys who displaced them from their ancestral lands. 

To cover up for their evil, the American establishment churned out a series of cowboy movies where Westerners were presented as the good guys, typically wearing white hats, while the indigenes were cast as the villains.

Most can relate to how we even cheered the cowboys on as they masqueraded as heroes; yet behind the scenes, they were covering up for the blood on their hands. 

We all stood and watched as they gloated over such inhumane actions as they destroyed livelihoods, and erased a people’s history from the face of the earth; its culture and traditions gone, in the process poisoning almost an entire race. 

Even to this day, we still have people who look to the same culprits to intervene and solve Africa’s problems, as if they truly care. 

Thank God others have started opening their eyes and are not being quiet about it! 

While some Africans still look to the West and America for help, it is the African-Americans as well as some of our brothers and sisters who have migrated to America who are speaking out from inside America. 

You can sense their anger on facebook, WhatsApp, twitter and the various social media platforms out there displaying their disgust at the unjust American system; not everything in America is as beautiful as it seems or is portrayed. 

Through film, television, sport, music and other art forms, African Americans have presented their case on inequality and police brutality in America, perpetrated against the minority. 

The Black Lives Matter movement, fighting on behalf of black folk in America, is such a platform. 

But that is a story for another day. 

Today, I want to talk about a television series airing in America that should make one think twice about the ‘democratic’ land that is America. 

Perhaps we can learn a thing or two and together, with one voice, we can then shout; ‘Enough is enough!’

We are going to look at the American television series, Queen Sugar, which is going into its fourth season this year.  

Queen Sugar, though named after the Sugar Cane Mill within the television series that is located in New Orleans, is actually a story about heritage, cultural preservation, land, ownership, identity, black pride, hope and self-belief.  

The story is packaged in such a manner that it educates black folk (African-Americans) about where they are coming from, how the past influences their present day and where they are headed.

The series focuses on how it is worth fighting for a piece of land that was fully paid for in the blood and sweat of their forefathers, who worked the land as slaves until they managed to buy their freedom and the land from their owners. 

This is the reason Queen Sugar is a story that Zimbabweans can relate to. 

There are iconic figures like Mbuya Nehanda, Comrade Josiah Tongogara, among many others, who lost their lives f0r the land. 

It is upon their blood and sweat that Zimbabwe is what it is today. 

Yet, sadly, the struggle continues while more and more children are choosing to ignore their past or to learn their history.

Queen Sugar storyline revolves around the Bordelon family. 

After the death of the family’s father, the siblings — Nova, Ralph Angel and Charley — must unite in order to run the family farm (a sugar cane farm), passed on down from generation to generation within the Bordelon family. 

The siblings run very different lifestyles and are so engaged in their personal lives such that when their father dies, it’s not easy to take on the task left behind by their father — that of running the farm. 

Nova is a journalist and black rights activist, struggling to hold on to a single relationship. 

Hers is a fight of discovering the self, a fight against the system that favours whites over blacks, the stereotyping of black folk in America, cast off as criminals, gangsters and thieves which is not always necessarily so. 

Thus, Nova wants her voice to be heard, and when the story progresses to Season 3, she would have managed to clinch a book deal which enables her to speak her mind.

As for Charley, she has a model life most black women can only dream of as she is married to and managing an NBA Player and star (Davis West). 

Charley’s life looks perfect, until her husband is implicated in a scandal where sexual allegations are thrown his way through a leaked video. 

Eventually, Charley divorces Davis and buys a sugar cane mill, making her the first woman to own a mill in America.

On the other hand, Ralph Angel is just coming out of prison when the story starts. 

He had been struggling to stay out of prison, but as the story progresses, one can tell he is trying so hard to take care of his son and live a straight life with the mother of his son, a drug addict on the mend; but one event after another keeps pushing them apart.

This is an interesting storyline that Zimbabweans can relate to and, definitely, one to look out for.