By Farayi Mungoshi

“Oh so you are one of those guys!” said one man I met at my cousin’s shop a couple of weeks ago.
This came after I had told him that I’m an author, film scriptwriter and that I also write for The Patriot.
I did not know how to answer him as I could not tell whether his outburst was a question or whether it was a statement, declaring who I was or who he thought I was.
So I had to ask: “What do you mean, one of those guys, do you mean anti-white?” to which he replied: “You said it, you always talk about the past, about how black people suffered instead of focusing on the future and a way forward.”
He went on to talk about how Roots, (the American television series about the slave trade) incited violence on the streets of America when it came out some decades ago.
“Surely you must have learned from that unless kana murikuda kutiita maracists.”
My cousin told me to let it go because it was clear the man had had quite a few.
But I was not about to let it go because this has become the assumption of most people – with others telling me to stick to film and writing books like my father, to which I would always reply: “Then you don’t know my father.”
First of all, if the black folk in America had remained quiet about the injustices they faced back then they would still be in the same position they were decades ago, not that much has changed in America.
It is still as racist as it was back then, if not worse despite having a black president.
The only thing that has changed is that a few blacks, especially those in the entertainment field, have been allowed to rise into positions which make it seem like blacks now have equal opportunities while defenseless black males are being shot in the ghetto by police all the time and others are getting killed in race-related incidences. For example Rodney King and Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9 2014.
I write because most of us are still living under an illusion and actually believe that the first man, Adam, and God are white and that black folk are the lesser race or that the Victoria Falls is the actual name of Mosi-oa-Tunya.
Go around the streets of Harare today and ask randomly the actual name of Victoria Falls, you will find that very few know it is Mosi-oa-Tunya and they actually believe that David Livingstone was the one who discovered the Falls, which suggestively means every other person (locals) living in that area before Livingstone came were not human and did not have the capacity to name places and self.
You cannot come into a place and wipe out the collective history of a people. For example in sci-fi movies we watch, whenever the main actor loses his memory or has his memory wiped out, it is done to hide certain information that is vital and dangerous to himself and other people around him.
That is how we are like – a people walking around with collective amnesia and those willing to find out the truth about themselves get accused by fellow black brothers. We are stuck in the past.
The information we are living with today is for the benefit of those who planted it there, and the blacks are unaware it was put there in order to enslave them.
I write to help us to stop thinking of ourselves as lesser beings.
For example, during the liberation struggle, not every black man was fighting for the liberation of Zimbabwe.
There were those fighting for self-gain and would sell out any information they could about their fellow black brothers fighting for freedom as long as they were paid for it.
We called those people sell-outs, black folk on the white colonialists’ payroll. Theirs was not a love for the people but rather a love for money – a belief that it was better the whiteman ruled than the blackman.
In other words they did not believe a blackman was capable of running this land. Had they known that one day a blackman would rule Zimbabwe, I am sure they would have put their bet elsewhere. How is this possible, you might ask, for someone to betray his own brother to which I would reply — It all starts with the kind of information one is given, you start by saying; “Murungu haumukunde, akapenga,” during conversations in your home, till you start believing it wholeheartedly to the extent that you forget who you are and start idolising murungu.
That’s why you find certain black brothers who are abrasive and talkative among their own, but shivering in their shoes once you bring in a whiteman.
This is also how Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, but later when the truth confronted him, he hung himself.
No, it is not reverse racism but if the truth is not written, lies will prevail – and if mental decolonisation is not pursued we’ll all remain slaves.
Even Julius Malema recognised this. On November 25 2015 he is quoted as saying that Mandela knew that the struggle was incomplete. We too know that our independence in 1980 was just the beginning of true liberation.