THE new curriculum is not something former Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Dr Lazarus Dokora pulled out of his hat.
It is something that inevitably came about because of Zimbabwe’s historical achievements.
In the US, today president Barack Obama institutes Obama Care and tomorrow, Donald Trump reverses it — that is not democracy, it is confusion.
We are not entangled in that kind of confusion.
Those who never wanted the new curriculum seem to think it is time to shred it because Dr Dokora is no longer in office.
We recognise the machinations; it is the political gambling of opportunists whose interests are hostile to the country.
In our history, we do not gamble, we work, we sacrifice and we achieve great things.
Zimbabwe itself came out of great sacrifice, tireless work and dedication with thousands willingly perishing because of their love for their country — they gave up everything.
Therefore, in this country we do not gamble, we cannot gamble, it is sacrilegious to gamble, for too much is at stake.
We do not institute Command Agriculture today and tomorrow reverse it; we do not fight the Third Chimurenga today and tomorrow reverse it.
The decisions that are taken in this country are to requite the people of Zimbabwe who were oppressed and exploited for almost a century by the British; they are not taken to please the privileged few, but the masses, the owners of this country, those who paid most heavily for the freedom of their land.
Not only did their sons and daughters willingly perish for Zimbabwe, but on their part, they fought side-by-side with the freedom fighters, feeding and clothing thousands of guerillas, being their shield by providing intelligence which outwitted the Smith military machine.
It is their time to be at peace.
So, we do not gamble in Zimbabwe; we take decisions to further, to fulfill the cause of the struggle, to take care of the people.
The new curriculum had to come into being because we were labouring under a curriculum that did not serve the cause of Zimbabwe; the needs and purposes of our people, an elitist curriculum without a soul.
It did not have a soul; it did not recognise the liberation struggle as the foundation of the country.
It was a curriculum without a Zimbabwean ideological axis.
It did not teach the children who they are, where they came from and what their destiny is.
It did not teach them that they are the custodians of this great beautiful country, that they are its heirs, to take the mantle from their predecessors who died for it and build us a great Zimbabwe.
It did not teach them that Zimbabwe is their destiny, that they are Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s defence.
And so our children were not schooled to understand that Zimbabwe is their heritage and they are responsible for it.
This situation is extremely dangerous for us because it leaves us without heirs and without heirs we are vulnerable.
Those who have always coveted our land and its wealth, principally the British and their European relatives had very fertile ground to sow their seeds of regime change.
The curriculum did not teach our children the political economy of the country, the ownership relations obtaining in the country, the history of these ownership relations and what the liberation struggle means for these ownership relations.
Our children were not taught that the prevailing ownership relations are so because imperialists expropriated land from our people at gun point; they took our cattle, hundreds of thousands of them; they took our mines and on this built a loot economy fueled by our resources and labour, our forced labour, a blood economy built after massacring thousands of our people.
Our children were not taught that after we defeated the settlers after a bitter 16-year armed struggle, they would not give up our land and when we repossessed our land in the Third Chimurenga, they started dismantling the economy and imposed sanctions assisted by their kith and kin from the West.
Thus, denied of this vital information and understanding, our children could not understand the myriad problems besetting us.
They were not inclined to put their hand to the plough and rescue their heritage but felt they had to dump the moribund country for foreign destinations.
They did not understand the nation’s accomplishments; incredibly rising from the ashes of the First Chimurenga, the triumphs of the Second and Third Chimurenga.
They could not comprehend the political, economic and socio-cultural achievements of the last 37 years; they were denied this, they were led to feel that their country was hopeless.
Thus for many, the solutions to our problems lay outside Zimbabwe not inside it, not in their power as Zimbabwe’s heirs.
The curriculum was not critical of the colonial socio-cultural baggage, the debris that the British rule offloaded on us, burdened us with.
In religion, knowledge of God originated with whites, colonial white values became synonymous with holiness and were superimposed onto us.
The best in our cultural values was vilified, so were our saints; Nehanda and compatriots became synonymous with devils.
Our soul was viciously attacked.
All whites died and went to heaven, especially those who came and murdered our people but there were no African ‘saints’ for all Africans died and joined the devil, ‘their master.’
So our people fought and defeated a cruel system and our children were never taught to understand and appreciate this.
The old curriculum was not preoccupied with solving Zimbabwe’s problems; it was esoteric, dancing to a song that was not our song.
True to the mettle of the liberation struggle, its legacy, the President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday last week called on higher education and tertiary institutions to make education productive.
The old curriculum had not been pre-occupied with solving Zimbabwe’s problems — an expensive tragedy, and the President’ message is that this should not continue.
Zimbabwe has to come home; we had to have a new curriculum and we will see it through, for the sake of our people and the nation’s future.