THERE have been calls in the media recently for a shared vision between Africans and Rhodesians as our colonisers.
Such calls seem to suffer from a short vision of our history as Africans and Zimbabweans; or are simply mischievous and intend us to be taken for a ride, again, by whites.
For, they cannot surely expect us to have forgotten that from the time Rhodesians set foot in Zimbabwe, they defined their vision of their relationship with us as of the horse and the rider, where we, Africans, are the horses and they, Rhodesians, are our riders.
That was the vision of Rhodesians’ relationships with us as defined by Lord Malvern (Sir Godfrey Huggins) as the first Prime Minister of Rhodesians in Zimbabwe.
That vision has never died and will never die.
They killed for it at Nyadzonia.
They killed for it at Chimoio, at Freedom Camp and other innumerable places in Zimbabwe during the First and Second Chimurenga Uprisings.
They formed MDC to help them to continue to maintain that vision in Zimbabwe.
They imposed illegal economic sanctions and ZIDERA on us to help them make us suffer and get down on our knees and let them continue to enjoy their vision of Zimbabwe as their ‘paradise’ for all time.
Can anyone in his or her right mind who calls himself or herself an African or Zimbabwean, really have forgotten Ian Smith’s famous speech reiterating that same vision of Zimbabwe saying “There can never be black majority rule in a thousand years in Rhodesia, meaning Zimbabwe?”
Isn’t this the vision that Rhodesians and the whole Europe and America are so restless and frantic about trying to resuscitate through regime change and all kinds of strategies, the most nefarious being to use our own people to infiltrate ZANU PF and destroy it from within. Kukanga nguruve nemafuta ayo.
No.
There can never be a shared vision in Zimbabwe between Rhodesians as our colonisers and us as Africans who took up arms and removed their yoke which they had put around our necks as their oxen hooked onto their ploughs to till our own soils for their benefit while we eat the dust.
Every nation, people or race, has its own vision.
Only people with similar visions can share their visions.
Zimbabwe shares its vision with other African nations at the African Union (AU).
That vision is called Pan-Africanism.
A Pan-African vision is the vision of African history as “a current event”.
What transpired 5 000 years ago; five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years from now or 5 000 years from now.
That is how Africans define and visualise history according to Dr Henrik Clarke.
In that sense, history is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day.
It is also a compass that a people as a nation use to find themselves on the map of human geography.
Any people or nation that loses its vision of history is a nation or a people that has lost direction. They don’t know who they are, what they are, where they are, or where they should go from here.
The role of history is to tell a people what they have been, and where they have been, what they are and where they are.
The most important role that history plays is that it has the function of telling a people where they still must go and what they still must be and their own potential as a people.
If a people’s vision of their history fails to do so, then, it is a useless vision.
A national vision is also a people’s philosophy of life which connects them with their land and gives them their identity and integrity as a people and a nation.
The name of a nation connects them to their land as an African people.
The names Zimbabwe, African, and ZANU PF connect Africans to their places and lands on earth.
A people without land are dead.
The names MDC, Orange Coalition Party and Rainbow Nation are floating names unconnected to any place or land on earth.
They do not serve the primary function of a name, which is to orient a people’s vision towards their own land, language, culture, and history.
Europeans who left their homes in Europe have never lost their vision of Europe as the source of their culture, history, worldview, philosophy of life and identity as Europeans.
They carried the names of their lands and their languages and ancestors and cultures with them to America and all places they have conquered.
For instance, the official language of America is English.
The northern coast of United States is referred to as New England.
The States of New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York refer to provinces in jolly ole England. Louisiana is named in honour of Louis XIV, the King of France.
Wherever they go, Europeans carry their vision of their history and who they are as a people and a race.
They share this vision with their Motherlands in Europe as Europeans.
They never share their vision with the people they conquer and whose lands they take away and colonise.
They never shared their vision with Red Indians they conquered in America.
They never did so in Australia or New Zealand.
To think that it would happen in Zimbabwe is to suffer malignant illusions and hallucinations.
The correct vision of our relationship with Europeans or Rhodesians in history is: “Africa for Africans and Europe for Europeans.”
Let all nations or races bring their gifts to the round table of the world.
Those who want to share will share with those who want to share with them and there will be nothing to fight about.
That is what is meant by independence and sovereignty of nations among nations.