THE Western idea of freedom is based on the myth by Rousseau that man is born free, but everywhere is in chains.
African governments have been misled into adopting this myth for their societies without giving serious thought as to whether there is really any truth in it.
As far as they are concerned, Rousseau is a great philosopher and he is white, therefore, he can’t go wrong.
That’s why Departments of Philosophy in universities in Africa and Zimbabwe teach European falsehoods about life as wisdom especially about Africa.
Here are some examples from just one of them, Emmanuel Kant.
According to him, “Africans are very vain and so talkative that they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings.”
Kant also says Father Labat once reproached an African carpenter for being severe with his wives.
The carpenter’s answer was: “You whites are indeed fools, for first you make great concessions to your wives, and afterwards you complain when they drive you mad.”
The priest’s response to the carpenter’s observation was: “There might be that there was something in this which perhaps deserved to be considered, but in short, this fellow was quite black from head to foot, a clear proof that what he said was stupid.”
Again, according to Kant, “Africans, like all inhabitants of the hot zones, have a thick skin.
“When one disciplines them, one cannot hit with sticks but rather whip with split canes, so that the blood finds a way out and does not suppurate under the skin.”
Here is the last example from Kant: “The Hottentots can perceive a ship with the naked eye at the same distance as a European can with a telescope.
“The women already produce children at the age of nine and finish before they are 25 years old.”
These ideas are taught as philosophy in African and Zimbabwean universities without critiquing the real truth and intentions behind them.
So when Rousseau says man is born free, but everywhere is in chains, including in Zimbabwe, Africans clap their hands in approval and clamour for freedom without asking freedom from who or what?
For an answer, they turn again to the same whites who tell them that they must be free from their parents, families, cultures, history and religions and that these are the chains that oppress Africans.
Africans then thank the whites for enlightening them and lobby their governments to enact laws that give them freedoms to abandon their parents, family, culture, history and religion and follow the ways of the white men however abominable they may be to African people.
But is it really true that man is born free?
Where in the world has such a miracle happened?
Take the Son of God for example.
Was he really born free?
Is to be born in a manger anyone’s idea of freedom?
No.
The Son of God was not born free.
His life was in danger even before he was born.
His birth was foretold and awaited for by his enemies even before his mother conceived him.
Witches and wizards, magicians and politicians were ready to eat him up as soon as he showed his face from his mother’s womb.
Women who were suspected that they might be carrying him in their wombs were brutally put to death.
Babies that the Son of God was suspected to be among were put to death as soon as they were born.
The idea that men and women leave the ways of their fathers and follow the ways of strangers is not even Christian.
Christ never abandoned the ways of his father to follow the ways of strangers.
When a cunning stranger promised to give him all the wealth of this world if he bowed down to worship him, he told the stranger to go hang!
The Africans who would out-English the English would say, get lost!
No.
The Son of God could not be persuaded to embrace the freedom to abandon the ways of his father and follow the ways of a stranger who was, for that matter, an avowed enemy of his father and expect to remain as the most favoured son of his father.
The same applies to Africans.
We cannot afford the luxury of embracing the kind of freedom that tells us to abandon the ways of our fathers and expect to remain the favoured ones before the eyes of God.
Anyone who declares himself or herself free from the values of his or her society ceases to be of their society and to be human or normal in the eyes of God.
We say hapana munhu in Shona meaning: “There is nobody there” even if you are sitting right there in front of us and we can all see that you are there.
We also say: Hausi munhu. Wave mhuka, meaning “You are not African. You are an animal,” even if we can see that you are black like us and you don’t walk on all fours like animals do.
For, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
If you free yourself from vanhu, you are no longer munhu.
If you abandon the values of hunhu and replace them with white values, your life, worldview, religion and your politics will become white.
White interests become your interests.
A white world becomes your world.
White people become your people.
You are estranged and lost to your people.
You are a white man.
To say you are white is not a compliment, but an aggrieved statement that you are as good as dead and buried as far as your people are concerned.
The idea of individual freedom from one’s people, culture, and worldview is a strategy by whites to kidnap African children one by one from their fathers, mothers and families and incorporate them as slaves into European society.
Real freedom for Africa is national, not individual.
National freedom is national liberation from oppression by other nations or races. National freedom is revolutionary and not negotiable, or the so-called freedom of conscience for the individual to pursue the cultural life of his choice enshrined in our constitution based on European myths of fundamental human rights and freedoms.
True liberation for Africa upsets the systems based on such myths and replaces them with real values of the people as a nation and a race.