THAT labour is the source of all human wealth is true whether you are in capitalist America, or socialist Cuba.
Even in the Bible, this is underlined: ‘Uchadya cheziya’.
There is no escaping this fundamental principle of political economy; ‘You shall eat of the sweat of your brow’.
The laws of the science of political economy do not change.
They are there to be used wisely by those who know what they want to achieve.
When our children see the big cities with their blinking lights, the big magnificent buildings, it seems the truest testimony the whiteman is way ahead of them; so advanced, it is only he who deserves to grace these wonders of modern technology, hotels and magnificent airports, so much so that when they approach these places, the tendency is to be over-awed, to be diffident.
But it is the labour of the African that was expended for those buildings and places to come into being.
In fascist Rhodesia, the architects and civil engineers were only white, but they did not build, they only directed.
But today, we also have African architects and civil engineers, to compliment the African builders, the bricklayers who actually put brick to mortar and construct the buildings inch-by-inch, but too often you hear the phrase: ‘Murungu akaoma,’ (the whiteman is invincible) sometimes referring to a building put up by African hands and minds from inception as an architectural design to a complete brick and mortar complex.
This means the whiteman has got us exactly where he wants us, admiring him as a far superior being and us completely blind to our own accomplishments and potential.
And yet the fact the African was a ‘dhakabhoyi’ and the whiteman the architect, the civil engineer, was a result of circumstances created by white colonial oppression and exploitation.
He too could have been an architect, an engineer as has become the reality today, but our eyes, especially those of our children have yet to be opened to this liberating truth.
The obscurantism of the racist colonial education is still rife among us, in our minds certain ‘lofty’ professions are locked in compartments in our brains as ‘white only.’
So what is the missing link?
In business we have MBAs, MBLs, accounting and marketing graduates, thousands of them.
As well, we have millions of literate school graduates of productive ages who can still be trained to carry out any form of production and yet our thousands of graduates in business do not start enterprises the way the whiteman did.
They leave the country to find whoever might employ them.
The millions of literate school graduates do not start enterprises.
They also join the exodus in search of whoever might employ them.
Is it not apparent why we are locked up in this quandary?
We are still shackled to the dictates of the division of labour of the capitalist education we inherited from the British bandit robbers who plundered us economically and mentally for 90 years.
The education for Africans was deliberately designed to create hewers of wood and carriers of water.
We still educate our children to be the underdogs of capitalism, those who manage other people’s businesses, who produce for others and have no say in the billions they make for others.
When we cry for foreign business to come and invest in our country, our media always blows the horn; 1 000 jobs to be created, 200, 300, 500 and so on.
But what should be highlighted is the mode of ownership; is it sole ownership?
Who co-owns with the foreigner?
Is it the state of Zimbabwe, does it have a controlling stake, is it local entrepreneurship, what is their percentage of ownership, do they have controlling shares?
How does it affect the dominant relations of production in the country, in what ways does this advantage or disadvantage the ordinary Zimbabwean?
This is what would open the eyes of the Nation, the eyes of our youth and children to the whole concept of ownership by our own people as something they can participate in, that who-ever participates with us in our economy, Zimbabwean ownership should dominate.
This is what makes sense because it is our country, our resources, our destiny.
But because we accepted an education that makes us underdogs of capitalism, it seems outrageous, almost criminal to suggest that we should own what is ours.
The debates around this issue are debilitating; that the final say cannot be ours, that others must approve of our wish to own and control what is ours.
Those who colonised us preserved education for ownership for themselves and the underside for us.
It is an eye-opener that Google was started by Information Technology (IT) students at Stanford University in the US, an illustrious example of education with production.
Today they make millions, on the other hand we continue to shun education with production.
The Harvard Coop, a world class department store in Cambridge Massachusetts, was started by Harvard students and today, it is one of the best department stores in Cambridge and Boston, a shining example of education with production.
“Ah there is no money!” is the perennial cry.
When the President needed to raise funds for the African Union, he looked for cattle here at home and these were auctioned to raise funds for the cause.
Botswana was able to build its Gaborone campus of the then University of Botswana and Swaziland when President Sir Seretse Khama appealed to the Batswana to donate cattle to build their own campus.
The ‘One Motswana One Beast’ campaign built the Gaborone campus (1975).
It is the mindset that matters; every Zimbabwean eats chicken, goat, lamb and beef. What percentage of our graduates would be willing to start chicken, goat, lamb, or cattle ranches?
There is a time and place to start small, to sacrifice, live even in thatch houses with limited amenities in order to start something useful for the Nation.
Inga nyika yakauya wani nekugara musango?
Dendairy, now supplying the Nation with milk and other dairy products, is a family-owned enterprise based at a farm in Kwekwe.
One looks at Irvines and says: “Ah I can’t do it, they have money,” but how did they start?
The couple started the business in one room at their Waterfalls home in the 1950s, now they supply chicken products to over 20 countries in Africa.
Tragically we still advocate and teach our children to be hewers of wood and carriers of water as the ‘colonial master’ taught us.
This is why we are allergic to education with production.