By Farai Mungoshi

WHEN the previous dispensation under former President Robert Mugabe started the black empowerment programmes and promoting local content in the arts sector along with designing a new curriculum for schools, not so many people saw where we were headed.
Some even rejected the new curriculum, which also involved capacity building in our children from Early Childhood Development (ECD) level.
The digitisation programme was also implemented.
The aim was the same as other programmes started by Government, that we should, and must, eventually be our own masters, holding ourselves accountable where our country is concerned.
While all this was happening, most felt the environment was still not conducive as our economy was heavily marred by corrupt activities that seemed to favour a few elect, leaving the rest suffering and struggling to make ends meet.
A crackdown was carried out to rid the country of corruption needless to say we are still in that era whereby Government is still going after corrupt individuals using our fragile economy for personal gain – boosting their own nefarious businesses at the expense of the majority.
The aim for all this was to restore our legacy as a nation, to turn around and put country and people first.
It was to restore the infrastructure destroyed and regain our heritage.
This, obviously, was always going to take longer to achieve but as writers, some of us went ahead to look away from the day-to-day politics that had hoodwinked the nation from progressive economic development to write about issues that mattered if at all we were to come out of the economic doldrums.
Zimbabwe Heritage Trust (ZHT) held a workshop a couple of years ago in which invited guests were reminded to write stories that promote our culture and heritage.
Other institutions elsewhere, like the ZBC, also promoted local content.
At that moment, everywhere I looked, I found everybody singing the same pan-African song.
Musicians were wearing beads around their necks and dressing in African garb in their videos, while collaborating with other musicians from other African countries.
While the founding fathers of Africa like Nkwame Nkurumah and Julius Nyerere, among others, fought for a free Africa, their sons and daughters are today using art to express themselves in fighting against the self-hate message unknowingly preached by other Africans.
It all depends on how one thinks.
A message of love, ubuntu/hunhu, togetherness/oneness is being preached, but sadly some do not see it.
What they see is the mess Africa is in today and not what it can become.
For every effort we make in trying to rebuild our nation, (making films on zero budgets, borrowing a camera and sound equipment from a friend just to make a film), retrogressive people come back bombarding the very same institutions we are working together with in order to build a competitive film industry that will be recognised world over.
What they see is the old, not the new or what is taking place right now.
They do not realise that Zimbabwe has moved on.
Film-makers in Zimbabwe, despite belonging to different political parties, have realised that in order for us to build an industry, we must work together with Government in putting structures in place.
Zimbabweans on the ground have decided to look beyond the politics that had divided us a people, preferring to focus on Zimbabwe itself, particularly our economy.
While some artistes are indifferent to ZANU PF, they have realised they need to put their political affiliations aside and work together in order to build the film industry.
Writing with reference to one particular WhatsApp platform housing Zimbabwean film-makers, I would say we are headed in the right direction in as far as the fight against self-hate is concerned.
We are also in the right direction as far as patriotism in concerned.
After months of bombardment from one particular film-maker who goes by the name ‘Corbhiza’, the Zimbabwe International Film Festival Trust platform group administration finally decided to remove him from the group.
It was a move hailed by nearly everyone in the group.
It was Corbhiza’s repeated attacks on Government and peddling of fake news aimed at degrading everything Zimbabwean that saw him removed from the group.
Perhaps what Corbhiza did not realise is that for an industry to function, it needs people collaborating, agreeing and disagreeing to agree in order to move forward.
We cannot afford to stop progressive work in Zimbabwe because we belong to different political parties.
The film-makers of Zimbabwe made that crystal clear when they agreed to remove South Africa-based Corbhiza from the group. That move alone could also have cost him needed contacts who could assist him should he ever need to work with film-makers based in Zimbabwe.
Their argument was clear: “We are the people in Zimbabwe and we need to work together in order to build the film industry because divided we fall.”
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new Cabinet is a good example of what we are talking about.
Maybe it is time our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora look beyond the hate speeches and see what is at stake.
The time for preaching hate is over.
It is now time to act – and with action comes great sacrifice and usage of resources.
The only way to access some of these resources is by forging relationships with one another and not attacking each other.
Zimbabweans have learned this the hard way, but there are those stuck in the past, most of whom are not based in Zimbabwe and spend all their time on social media looking for anything negative to write and share on whatsapp about the country.
However, Zimbabwe has moved on and so has the film industry. Together we can make a difference!