WITHIN the euphoria that engulfed the country on April 18 1980, a key component of national development; national consciousness was lost in the celebration for freedom that pervaded Zimbabwe during that time.
In the middle of the 36 years of independence that Zimbabwe has enjoyed as an independent Nation are many bright spots that have brought the country to where it is thus far.
The historic Land Reform and Resettlement and the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Programmes, coupled with the peace and unity in the country are the major highlights of uhuru in Zimbabwe.
Despite these milestones, external forces continue to nag the country through their never ending intrusion and interference.
These challenges need to be probed in the context of national consciousness and national development in order to understand why the aforementioned two key components of national development have continued to elude the country.
In a journal titled On National Consciousness of the Basic Laws of the Special Administrative Regions, Han Dayuan explains why national consciousness is the foundation upon which any nation is built.
“The so-called ‘national consciousness’ is the identity and recognition that people on the specific land hold for the state and embodies the cognitive status and mental state of people for the value consensus of the political community,” reads Dayuan’s paper in part.
There are several factors playing against the country’s quest to embrace national consciousness.
These have left the country almost in limbo, with its progress hamstrung by external political influence and a warped education curriculum that has robbed citizens of national pride.
But an appreciation and a rise in national consciousness have long been recognised as the foundation of any state.
There is a tendency in Zimbabwe by the so-called ‘pro-democracy elements’ to personalise what they say is their ‘struggle’ for democracy.
They mistake their resentment for certain political figures and entities for dislike of their country.
While it is their democratic right to rebuke political individuals and parties, that can never be justification for reviling their country.
Zimbabwe is our country and nothing can change that compelling fact.
The national question must therefore be revisited as a matter of urgency in order to shape their consciousness which is clearly an expensive commodity in this country.
To achieve this, the definition of our ethos as a country and a people must be probed and embraced by all and sundry.
When a country lacks such simple things as a national dress, then the future of that Nation is in trouble.
When a simple proposal for students to recite and embrace the National Schools Pledge is met with fierce resistance, then the future can never be bright.
When land indigenisation processes are rebuked, then a people who embrace hunger must be educated.
Today, some Zimbabweans refuse to accept the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Programme because it antagonises whites.
That is sad and strange, but not surprising.
There are some in our midst whose faces are black, yet their minds and hearts are white.
They think like whites and their feelings are in tandem with those of our erstwhile colonisers.
We have the land and economy in our hands, but we wait and hope whites will ‘develop’ those assets for us.
We resent the colour of our skin and our land.
We resent our economy and we have lost our identity.
We need to define who we are as a people, then understand and practice that which makes us a Nation.
Hate them all you like, but the British are fiercely patriotic.
They converge under the banner of national interest and literary worship the national question.
What is ours?
An article by Rob Sewell on June 16 2004, published by a website called In defence of Stalin, brings to the fore the national question.
The article deals with the important contribution Stalin made on the national question and how such a correct stand on this issue guaranteed the success of the Bolshevick Party in October 1917.
“Therefore, a Nation is a historically evolved entity, which emerged under conditions of war, invasion, upheaval and the dissolution of old frontiers and the emergence of new ones,” it says.
“In the general sense, from the viewpoint of Marxism, the Nation state arises from a developed stable community of language, territory, economy and culture.
“The existence of nations, Nation states and national consciousness, is a characteristic feature of the capitalist epoch.
“Before the advent of capitalism, there was no genuine national consciousness in the modern sense.
“Feudal society was dominated by particularism, where peoples identified themselves as members of villages, towns, localities, regions and principalities.
“It took the development of capitalism, an economic revolution, to bring about the home market and the assimilation of peoples into nations.”
Wikipedia has its version of national consciousness which makes interesting reading.
“A national consciousness is a shared sense of national identity; that is, a shared understanding that a people group shares a common ethnic/linguistic/cultural background.”
Nationalism requires first a national consciousness, the awareness of national communality of a group of people, or Nation.
Those agitating for the demise of the country must think twice. They belong to the country like those wishing for its success.
Let those with ears listen.