THERE came a time in sub-Saharan Africa when blacks in different parts of the continent fought to be acknowledged as Bantu (vanhu) instead of the derogatory names the whiteman used in reference to blacks.
Even the whiteman’s religion and social system of governance was despised in favour of our indigenous ubuntu/hunhu doctrine which is deeply rooted in our culture.
In the case of Zimbabwe, one of the nation’s first creative writers in English, Stanlake Samukange, published a book called Hunhuism or Ubuntuism in 1980.
At that time, the nation was trying to formulate its own system of governance as we were breaking away from the colonial regime.
On the table were socialism and capitalism as choices of guiding ideologies.
Socialism comprised Russian communism and Chinese Maoism while capitalism was typically European and American.
None of these were indigenous and Dr Samukange thought it proper to present hunhuism as an appropriate choice for a non-colonial Zimbabwean system of social and economic governance.
Many other African countries in sub-Sahara, including Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa have opted to be called Bantu as opposed to boy, black, coon, jiggaboo, nigger, mully, kaffir and others.
Even the term ‘African’ does not sit comfortably with some free-minded blacks simply because the term Africa is not rooted in us.
It is what Europeans call us and our land, not what we originally perceived our self to be.
In South Africa, blacks fought to retain their mother languages and rejected being taught in Afrikaans which is a Dutch-based Creole.
They also rejected being called South Africans and opted to be called ‘Azanians’ as the latter had a historical link to the indigenous people of the land.
This movement had a great following and during apartheid, the portion apportioned to blacks was named a Bantustan.
As colonisation and slavery proved, anyone can be African or American.
The whites who colonised us have descendants who classify themselves as African by geography, but never by ethnicity.
In America, there are blacks who were taken there to be slaves and their descendants are classified as Americans, yet their ethnicity is still tagged as African.
These colonial names tend to confuse us, but if we instead use our own names like Bantu, the confusion is minimal.
For instance, a Bantu man is exclusively black and no whiteman can call himself Bantu, even if he is a settler.
This is unlike words like American and African which can be hijacked by non-indigenous people because they involve geographic location and not the identity of the people.
Even the way the word Bantu is used is incorrect because it is borrowed from Western interpretation.
An individual cannot use the plural Bantu or vanhu to refer to himself.
Instead, one ought to say; ‘I am muntu (munhu)’ and if there is more than one person; ‘We are bantu (vanhu)’.
This alone should suffice to say we are black people from the continent now known as Africa.
This wrong pluralising of the word munhu is also evident in the word ‘Mon’ which refers to the ancient blacks who settled in South East Asia.
The Mons sailed from south-east Africa and founded nations like Sambojudasia (Cambodia).
This is the Mon in words like Monsoon, Monastery and so on.
The plural is now called Mons when in actual fact it ought to be vanhu or bantu because the blacks who sailed to Asia from Africa by way of the Monsoon winds referred to each other as munhu and they are remembered as such.
I often hear Zimbabweans subconsciously display a thorough understanding of the word munhu when they see blacks approaching with whites among them.
You hear one saying; ‘Pane vanhu vaviri vari kufamba nemungezi’ which literally means, there are two Bantu walking with a whiteman.
If the word munhu loosely meant human and not blackman, why then are we quick to dissociate none-blacks from the word?
We are the vanhu in the title for Mwari called Musikavanhu (Creator of Bantu) because we are the ones who call Him by that name.
The ubuntu/hunhu understanding is ours because it is us who remember it.
If we lose this understanding of ourselves as the original people with the custodianship of humanness, we will lose the link between God and man and this has been the tragedy of the modern age.
So let us not exclusively look East or West for we will risk losing the original and indigenous ways.
We should look to our roots and uncover the rich culture our ancestors left for us.
Because they lived harmoniously with nature to this our present age, we have to find out how they ate and medicated themselves.
This is what nations like China and Japan have done.
They built their nations on their roots and only incorporate Western ways if they are useful to them.
The West, which we so much admire and want to be like, was founded by Barbarians who initially had nothing at all that was sophisticated.
All that we see in the West was borrowed from Africa, Asia and the Americas.
European brick buildings are Moorish and resemble the Zimbabwe bricklaying technique which our ancestors used more than 500 years before Europeans.
Europeans only began building as such after the fall of the black Moors in Granada in 1492.
The English alphabet and numerals are also Arabic in origin and the technology that Europeans inherited from the Moors is innumerable.
The compass, paper, gunpowder, shirt, trouser and jacket are all of Chinese origin.
The only trait which whites had prior to meeting blacks and Asians was barbarity which is associated with their ancient name Barbarian from which the term was derived.
Owing to scarcity of resources, barbarity in the form of fighting was inevitable.
Bantu made the mbira (thumb piano), ngoma (skin drum), the early tools like hoes, hammers, blades and so on.
Our ancestors founded the early civilisations of Egypt and our achievements were the basis of the Greek civilisation which was the first white world power.
Why then should the Bantu be ashamed when most of what impresses us from the West has its origins in our ancestors.
Only by digging into our roots by way of researching can we truly uncover our identity and potential, rather than letting others define us as has been happening since the detrimental advent of slavery and colonisation.
Blacks have been conditioned to see differences among themselves.
This is a foreign trait.
Life in Africa was always communal and tribalism would not have thrived in the ancient world because there was abundance of resources in addition to hunhu (humanness).
This was unlike in Europe where the hostile environment shaped its people into a hostile race associated with tribalism.
The abundant resources of Africa still abound but they are now feeding impoverished Europe.
This now causes a deficit on our part which causes squabbling and fragmentation.
If the blacks of this continent, whether inland or overseas, treasured not that which is outside, but inside Africa, the situation could be quickly reversed.
But because soft power has drawn us to the West, imperialism still thrives and Africa is the number one victim.
We are set up to be a resource and labour fount and not a beneficiary of the wealth of our continent.
We do not service our market with what we produce, but we rely on imports which strengthen the exporting party not the importers’ economy.
The cashew nuts of Senegal are popular in France, the cocoa nut of Ghana is popular in Switzerland, the fish of Mozambique are known to Portugal and the gold of Zimbabwe to Britain.
Ironically, the people of this continent are estranged to these goods that are highly valued.
Malawi has rice, tea and fish which make their way to Europe regularly but is uncommon to places of close proximity like Zimbabwe.
Because the goods will be marked cash crops and set for export, rice and fish like chambo are overly expensive, even in Malawi.
The indigenous population will have to resort to other foods that the whiteman does not want.
So, until Bantu physically and mentally return and stay in our precious continent, they will not be in a position to achieve a reversal of the current situation.