HomeOld_PostsThe political economy of our school curriculum

The political economy of our school curriculum

Published on

ANTI-THEFT morality is essential if we are to wrench ourselves from the history of the legitimised armed robbery of our land and all its wealth by the British.
After they had robbed us of our land at gunpoint, the British armed robbers sat down to write laws to say everything they had stolen was legitimately theirs because it never belonged to anyone, there was no-one when they got here so everything fell to them.
But then the question is why make laws to say it is now yours if no-one ever owned it in the first place, there would be no need to justify themselves to anyone since there was no-one in the first place.
The warning then is, “so there was no-one? The day of reckoning is at hand,” and it did come.
The First, Second and Third Chimurenga told the robbers conclusively that there was someone when they came to our land.
But then we have inherited theft laws, structures, and morality, hence when we repossess what is ours, the theft laws never said it ever belonged to us in the first place and we are held to ransom and the war-cry is rule of law.
This is the political economy of our curriculum.
The curriculum largely inherited from the theft period (1890-1980) still justifies that armed robbery of our land.
But the aggression in the realm of education is deemed less vicious, but that is not true, it is the most lethal because it hatches its eggs within the person, consumes and transforms them until they conform to ‘his master’s voice’, we have seen the likes of Tendai Biti, what more is to be said?
Armed robbery is very aggressive, it is a violent phenomenon, the morality generated by it is also very aggressive and violent, Zimbabweans were summarily dispossessed of their means of survival, land, cattle, minerals, without a thought as to how they would survive this holocaust since this is what had been their mainstay for centuries.
To maintain the theft status-quo, the indigenous people had to be educated in such a manner that they accepted that actually no theft ever took place, that there was a legal transfer of their land and power to the foreigner from England.
This aggression was carried out and fought in the arena of education.
To turn around from the theft mentality, requires an equally aggressive force in the opposite direction.
This mentality will not go away by a few suggestions here and there, it requires a wholesale aggressive force to destroy it.
We cannot shoo it away just as we cannot shoo away a lion or a crocodile that has tasted blood.
During the liberation struggle, we analysed colonial curriculum and made fundamental changes.
We decided we were not going to gamble with the devil, the best thing is not to have anything to do with it at all, that is why we wrote our own books that embody the anti-theft mentality, everything was spelt out so clearly to the children it was not possible for anybody to be confounded.
Our current curriculum is still gambling with the devil, but then you don’t win the game because it is being played according to the rules of the devil.
Why would you want to gamble with the loser when you are the victor?
During the struggle, the children’s books we wrote spelt out that the whites from England took our land and cattle and treated us like slaves so we took up arms to repossess what had been stolen from us.
Thus the children read:
“Long ago the colonialists came to our country.
“They came from Britain and South Africa. They came and invaded our country. “The people of Zimbabwe fought against the colonialists, but the colonialists defeated them. The colonialists defeated the people of Zimbabwe, because the people of Zimbabwe fought with bows and arrows, but the colonialists fought with guns.
“The settlers saw that Zimbabwe is very rich.
“They walked from place to place. What were they looking for? They were looking for good farms and mines.
“When they came to Harare, they were very happy. They said, “Now we shall settle down and build our homes.
“All this land is ours. We shall build our farms.” The settlers saw some mines, too. “They said, “These mines are ours.”
“The people of Zimbabwe were not happy…So the people of Zimbabwe sat down together.
“They said, “We must have a party so that we can fight against the settlers… We must look for some guns so that we can fight them.” – (ZANU Education and Culture Department: 1979).
Pursuant to this our children’s books today should complete this struggle in education which started during the liberation struggle.
Our children’s books today should read:
“After we defeated the British, as part of their terms of surrender they agreed to pay for the land they had stolen from us at gun point which they had given to their children.
“For a number of years the British kept giving excuses for not paying for the land until we realised that they were refusing and so the freedom fighters fought the Third Chimurenga and took back our land.
“Now so many families have good land, their children enjoy fresh milk every day, they enjoy hodzeko from home, they don’t go hungry anymore.”
This anti-theft teaching should be repeated across the curriculum until this theft mentality that purports that it is permissible for foreigners to lay siege to a people because of greed for their wealth is totally destroyed.
We have only scratched the surface yet, that is why our young have the temerity to ask: who sent you to Chimurenga, we did not?
Is that not also why they opt to go and work for the robbers and their relatives in Europe and America doing the work they consider beneath their dignity?
Now the robbers seem so rich, vagere tatata, but their wealth is built on decades of looting our land, their palaces are decorated with the gold and diamonds from our land.
Zvishamise izvozvo?
Without unearthing and exposing the inhumanity of the marrow of the issue which is the armed robbery that took place from 1890 to 1980, we will be condemning our children to be permanent apologists for the robbers and their kith and kin, and when the those who fought for the freedom of this land are all dead, our children might just find it so natural to mortgage our country to the robbers we drove out at gun point.
This is the political economy of our curriculum.
Our curriculum has to be based on our political economy if it is to contribute to the destruction of the robber mentality which is sapping us of the strength we need to build us a Great Zimbabwe for all Zimbabweans.
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading