Everyone who cares for the future success of black people must prioritise the accurate and relevant education and training of the young generation, writes Andrew Wutawunashe in his book Dear Africa-The Call of the African Dream that The Patriot is currently serialising.

IT is amazing how during the last quarter of the 20th century, breakthroughs in communication technologies began to bring literally the whole world into our living rooms through satellite television.
I still remember the time when one pioneering leading network, Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, was launched and began to bring events happening in many parts of the world live onto our television sets.
Someone at CNN once came up with a fascinating concept which they called Sights and Sounds.
Sights and Sounds of Egypt — then they would show clips of interesting and attractive scenes from Egypt.
It would give you the impression of a thirty-second visit to whatever country they showed.
Travelling in various parts of the African continent, there is a Sight and Sound that never ceases to grab my attention and to fill my heart with warmth in a way I am sure it would yours.
It is a sight vibrant with life, energy and above all potential, hope and promise.
Whether it is in rural Africa or in the cities I never cease to be captivated by the colourful sight of children in the African school.
As they stand in order at assembly and sing their songs or recite their prayers they always look to me like an army of little warriors waiting to wage war for African identity and competitiveness in years and decades to come.
The mind of the black child no doubt holds the key to the future rise of black people to that level of competitiveness — economic, social, political or otherwise which will enable black people to make their own contributions to humanity in various fields.
This is why everyone who cares for the future success of black people must prioritise the accurate and relevant education and training of the young generation.
This education and training must be in ways that will set them free from the deceptions which were incorporated in their education in the past and empower them with strategic knowledge and wisdom thus far withheld from them which will enable them to hold their own in the “dog eat dog” global economic village.
Some years ago I was holding a conference in a vibrant East African capital.
I watched the national evening newscast in my hotel room and saw a news clip which caused me anxiety for many years.
The president of the nation was visiting one of the beautiful schools and took time to give a motivational talk to those immaculately uniformed children.
The part of his speech which the broadcaster chose to highlight went as follows; ‘You are very fortunate to have the opportunity to be in this school. You must study hard and especially, you must learn English, French, German and other European languages. This is because the English, the French, the Germans and other Europeans will come here and open their businesses.
They will need people who know their languages to work for them, so you will ‘get a job’. The president drew applause from both staff and students for this piece of generational ‘wisdom’.
The most important contest among nations in the global village has always been the competition for resources and wealth.
On this economic playing field, the field where principals in industry, commerce — business, trade, mining, agriculture, technology, cyber-trade and so on — are the clear winners.
African president was advocating the training of black children to fill only the role of employees who would assist foreigners to become the dominant players in the game of exploiting the economic resources of Africa.
And the trainers, the teachers, were applauding.
To all parents, government and other education departments and institutions, trainers, educators and stewards of black children and youth everywhere, must arise a clear and unequivocal revelation that the black child must, of critical necessity be trained to become a principal player on the national and global economic playing field.
If this is not done, future generations of black people will, just like present and past generations, be condemned to be spectators in the most important game they should be playing — the game of becoming the principal wealth builders and owners of the economic and financial resources of their nations, and of the world.
It is clear that the black people everywhere remain at the bottom of the global economic food chain.
This is not a natural or providential phenomenon.
It was deliberately orchestrated by those who, through the plunder of slavery and colonialism, systematically dispossessed the progenitors of black people.
The strategy which was designed to perpetuate this dispossession of black people even after political independence was to deliberately design for them systems of education and training through which they could only see themselves as workers for, or employees of economic principals, largely of people of other colours.
I can understand the generational ‘wisdom’ of the African president.
He grew up in a context where the prescribed way for a black person to address any white man, even on the street, was baas or boss.
To the present day in some African dialects the phrase, ‘my white person’ is the accepted euphemism for, ‘my employer’. Worse still, some African dialects use the same word for ‘God’ and ‘white man’.
The black political leader needs to realise that political liberation means nothing without economic emancipation.
And since the shackles that were used to train black people to accept a subservient role in economy are mental shackles, drastic measures must be taken to undo those shackles through relevant education and training.
No amount of government grants or relief and charity programmes will be able to elevate economically a person who in his mind sees himself as unable, undeserving or unfit to be an aggressive principal player in wealth creation.
This is why a new sound must be added to the Sights and Sounds of the school, society and nation — the voice of well thought economic re-education and re-training of the minds of young Black people.
This financial and economic re-education and retraining is an extremely urgent matter.
Black leaders, people and nations are content to watch in idle apathy while people of other colours who were also victims of oppression and dispossession are aggressively re-asserting themselves on the global economic playing field.
Black people have not yet entered this race, but are content to, at best, survive on whatever crumbs will fall to them from the sumptuous tables of those who through history focused on fighting by fair means or foul for their own place of economic advantage.
There is simply no case for black nations to accept the fact that, for example, formerly impoverished Eastern peoples must overtake us economically while we watch passively from the spectators’ gallery, soon to become the beggar’s gallery!
The future global economic map is being re-drawn under our noses. There are no favours. Any people who want a place at this economic table must fight for their own space.
Unlike the past, any future position at the bottom of the global food chain will be voluntary.