This week Andrew Wutawunashe in his book, Dear Africa – The Call of The African Dream that The Patriot is serialising says black children in the Diaspora must be taught their origins, identity, languages and cultural values and must be shown that these are equal to any other in the world

THE first step to healing a malady is to define it and understand its origins and causes.
You cannot fight an enemy you cannot understand.
This is why black people should be alarmed at the conspiracy to silence everyone on the subject of the wrongs that were done to the black people throughout history.
At the same time the world is being continually reminded of the wrongs that were done to peoples of other colours, for example, the Jews in the holocaust.
We must not seek an impossible charity.
It is black people themselves who must trumpet the wrongs that were done to them to every generation, and inculcate in every black person the vision of never again.
I have often heard the argument that the young generation of black people who did not experience the slave trade and colonialism are free of inferiority, and should therefore not be defiled with accounts of the African holocaust.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact is, just as children and youths of other colours inherit the confidence and wealth advantage of their progenitors and in many cases their prejudices, black children and youths inherit the inferiority complex, poverty rooted in historic disadvantage and the self-hate of their progenitors.
Their further disadvantage is that as they step out of the ghettos and slums and even suburbia affected by ‘white flight’ — they cannot explain why they feel inferior and despise all things black.
This is a direct result of being kept in the dark by their elders concerning the black holocaust.
The inferiority complex of the black young person as he rubs shoulders in a disadvantaged assimilation with young people of other colours is all the more devastating and dismaying because he has no idea why he feels and acts inferior. He cannot understand, for example, why he aspires to dress, eat, live and behave like a white European while his Indian, Chinese, Jewish, Arabic and other peers reflect identities and tastes distinctive to their respective peoples.
Secondly black leaders, governments, education departments and parents must invest in teaching black people their origins, history, culture, language and identity. Any heroes in their history must be brought to their attention.
In many cases, particularly in the case of black people in the Diaspora occasioned for example by the slave trade, renewed programmes must be mooted to inspire and facilitate all black persons to identify their roots — that is, where they originated in Africa before being forcibly and violently uprooted by white slave traders, their tribes and languages as well.
Modern genetic breakthroughs are making it more and more feasible to decipher the ‘X’ in Malcolm X’s name.
One outstanding movement that will surely be a boon to all black people is when African-Americans for example, utilise the advantages they have gained by being in America to channel different forms of development to areas of Africa which they will be inspired to identify with having recognised them as their original homes.
This will not be foreign aid, but the homecoming of African sons from the hunt, and African daughters from collecting fruits in the field.
Many black people are these days being driven into a voluntary Diaspora into the Western world by economic conditions and opportunities.
One watches with dismay as these people who grew up with wholesome personalities because their parents in Africa taught them their identity, language and culture, rob their own children of these vital things through sheer negligence and in some cases a foolishness born of an inferiority complex that makes them think that their children will find fulfillment in becoming, for example, as English as possible.
One family told me that their black child in a white school in Australia came home from school in tears one day, and appraised her mother tearfully of the tragic discovery she had made that day; “Mommy, I am not white!”
Well the Biblical adage was “Can an Ethiopian (African) change his skin?”
The parents received a rude awakening that their child had suffered psychological damage directly as a result of their not teaching her at home the uniqueness, dignity and worth of her black skin and heritage.
Only in this way can black children and youths stand shoulder to shoulder with their peers of other colours without any sense of inferiority and thus make their own unique black contribution to mankind.
It will require effort, but these black children in the Diaspora must be taught their origins, identity, languages and cultural values and must be shown that these are equal to any other in the world.
A social worker in the United States of America once made me aware of a shocking statistic.
He told me that African-Americans make up less than a fifth of the population of the United States, but account for over half of the inmates in American prisons.
He told me that the reason for this is a high level of crime among black youth.
The crime in turn is a result of a smouldering anger in the psyche of many young black males.
They are frustrated by their imposed ignorance of their identity in a nation dominated by a predominantly well off white male.
While aspiring to be like this white male the reality of their colour and disadvantaged history haunts them and they vent this frustration and anger through violent crime.
Contrary to what many black people think, when a black person is taught the true dignity of his colour, it heals his psyche and puts him at advantage in the competition with other peoples.
This is why a concerted effort must be made to teach all black people their roots and dignity and value.
Next, the Black person needs to be taught and trained against any sense of entitlement and dependence, especially on other peoples.
One of the most debilitating results of the inferiority complex bequeathed upon the black person is a sense that he has nothing to offer and must only receive help and ideas and things that come from other peoples.
When a people become aware of their true self-worth, their immediate response is, what can we create, what can we give and what can we contribute to mankind? The immediate response to needs should be how can we solve this problem ourselves, not other peoples must come and rescue us.