WHAT does it mean when children learn foreign languages and not their mother toungue?
What does it mean when children learn European history and not African history, let alone, the history of our liberation struggle?
What does it mean when the ideological axis of a curriculum is irrelevant to Zimbabwe?
What does it mean when there is no trace of a people’s indigenous cultures in the learning environment?
What does it mean when the total moral, ethical and aesthetic learning environment is so Eurocentric that indigenous African children cannot be traced to their origins?
All this obtains in private schools and it begs all these questions.
When the private authorities seek permission to set up these schools and they are licensed to operate in Zimbabwe, they are not being licensed to alienate Zimbabwe’s children from their destiny nor to operate as foreign entities.
These children love their Zimbabwe as much as any other.
It is unjust to recruit them to any other destiny.
Zimbabwe is their destiny, their mission is in Zimbabwe; this should not be derailed.
These children get hurt when they are forced to be foreign to themselves.
They cannot get over the feeling of anomie which results from a systematic contradiction with oneself for years.
Who pays for the agony they go through for the rest of their lives when they are forced to live as caricatures of themselves?
Europeans are Europeans, and among them, the French are French, the Germans are German.
The world over people honour themselves, the Chinese are proud of who they are, similarly the Japanese, so do the Russians and all other nations.
So why can’t Zimbabwean children be taught to be Zimbabwean and why can’t they be left to honour their God-given identity, to honour themselves?
What kind of mission is this?
Whose mission is it that zvizvarwa zveZimbabwe should not be Zimbabwean?
Even the Pope would tell you that colonialism is contrary to Divine law.
Is this not the same colonial agenda that Zimbabweans rejected and defeated in the armed struggle?
“Nyika yedu yeZimbabwe
Ndimo matakazvarirwa
Vana mai nababa ndimo mavari.”
Children in private schools should be left to sing this song with the rest of Zimbabwe’s children.
The liberation struggle liberated every inch of Zimbabwe, saka hapana zvekuti‘tinoita zvatinoda’.
Every inch of Zimbabwe is under the Zimbabwe flag, the rights of these children are protected by the flag of Zimbabwe.
Saka tinoda Zimbabwe navana vayo vose, they are Zimbabwe’s greatest wealth, our nation’s greatest endowment and we cannot dispense with a single one of them, ‘vese vakadaro ndevedu,vakakosha, vanaveZimbabwe’.
Zuva reZimbabwe rakasvika musiwa April 18 1980, lest it be forgotten.
It is not yet Uhuru if our children cannot sing their song in the land of their birth which was restored to them at such great cost, if they continue to be subjected to everything so inimical to themselves.
So the children write Cambridge, but ‘KuCambridge kunodzidziswawo here kuti ‘Once upon a time there was a Zimbabwe which the British took by means of an armed invasion until they were defeated ‘nemoto weChimurenga?’
If not what is the relevance of Cambridge?
There is no universal family anywhere, it is Zimbabwe which is their family, when Zimbabwe’s children cry it is Zimbabwe which bleeds, and when Zimbabwe mourns, it is her children who must comfort her as the freedom fighters did.
This is the symbiotic relationship between Zimbabwe and her children.
Children have to learn about their family Zimbabwe, they have to know this is where they belong, this is where all their needs are met and it is to Zimbabwe they owe their allegiance.
It is to Zimbabwe that their duty and responsibility lie.
No-one can be at peace if they don’t believe in who they are. Now if this edifice is permanently under siege it is a violation of their inherent human dignity and it is unacceptable especially in a country in which this dignity was defended by the precious blood of thousands.
The children have to celebrate their Zimbabweaness.
They have to be proud of being Zimbabwean and there is plenty to be proud of.
Why cost our children to feel that Zimbabwe is not good enough for them when in fact those who pose as our superiors do not rest, still searching, hoping to find another way of re-colonising our Zimbabwe?
Is this not why the curricula in these schools refuses, refrains from naming and condemning slavery and colonialism in their true characteristics, why they refuse to apportion blame where it is due, why they do not have the stomach to state West European culpability in these evils?
Is this not why they give the children a view of the world which is upside down, the view of the world entrenched by the colonial master before he was booted out by the liberation forces?
Our children do not have the burden of such evils in their history, on the contrary, they are heirs to a history that actually fought and defeated such evils so they should be left free to celebrate the legacy rather than being befuddled by histories of people who have perpetrated such evils and have never owned up, confessed or paid reparations.
Slavery has injured Africans, colonialism has injured Africans, our children should not be bundled together with the perpetrators, they should be assisted to understand the truth as it is, so that they realise that they as Africans are very different, their race has never been guilty of such gross violations of human rights.
How can their history protect them when it is distorted and disfigured beyond recognition?
Are these private schools or foreign schools on our soil?
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.