ON October 31 the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) scored a first after bringing together writers from across the nation to discuss the new curriculum so they could write from an informed position.
The Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) was their co-sponsor.
It is most encouraging to find the ZIBF involved in book-writing for national development at such grassroots levels.
What is also significant is the transparency engendered by such a forum, affording writers in their individual capacity, as well as publishers, an equal opportunity to contribute to this noble task.
This breaks the traditional monopoly of the publishers.
By levelling the playing field, the CDU can source the best that they need from the wealth that abounds in the nation.
The Permanent Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Prisca Utete-Masango, gave the writers an overview of the new curriculum.
The writers would not let her go until they were clear on critical issues, she did not disappoint.
The director of the CDU, Dr Arthur Makanda, was very candid about his expectations from writers.
The materials have to resonate with Zimbabwe’s socio-historical context.
The liberation struggle, the attitudes, values and feelings that capture our socio-cultural identity, unhu hwedu, have to be reflected across the curriculum.
For those writers who believe that writing is a platform to say anything, anyhow, it was clear they would have to find another customer, not the CDU.
He cautioned those who write with an agenda, especially those who are remunerated for attacking the Government, the leadership or the country, that this was not their platform.
No-one would be given the opportunity to coach Zimbabwe’s children to despise themselves and their people.
But his thrust was not to go uncontested, unfortunately not from a scholarly point of view.
It was mostly an ideological diatribe that sought to dispel the incandescence of Zimbabwe he had encapsulated the writers in.
It was a desperate attempt, more desperate because it was clear he would never deviate from his position, they knew it would only be for the gallery, what they said, it would never get to the children.
Professor Rosemary Moyana was to shock, by claiming that it is poverty that has undermined our value system.
One looked for an in-depth analysis in her presentation but in vain?
She would not criticise British colonialism which tormented us for 90 years, how it systematically attacked our socio-cultural identity as a key strategy in subjugating us.
She would not trace the poverty to the dispossession of land and minerals by British bandit robbers as well as the extremely harsh exploitation of African labour.
She would not talk of strides Zimbabwe has made in the last 35 years in mitigating this Britain-engineered poverty, the land redistribution, the opening up of other national resources such as mines for ownership by the indigenous people of Zimbabwe.
She would not go into how her ‘heroes’, the street kids, have other options, how land is still an option for people to make a living.
Her take was the old Western song: ‘Zimbabwe has failed’.
She would not touch the issue of sanctions and how this has affected livelihoods of Zimbabweans, neither would she agree with Farayi Mungoshi that: Poverty is a mindset, and so is prosperity, it has nothing to do with what you have in your pocket, but rather on what you can achieve because of your talent or gift and setting out to achieve that.
She did not offer the writers a critical framework within which to cast their work, rather she pandered to the popular claim by the West that Zimbabwe is a failed state.
Professor Moyana told the writers she did not agree with those who want Shakespeare dropped from the literature taught in our schools for instance, she said there is no need to and she went on to give examples of Shakespeare’s works which she said have the same ethos as ours and that it was desirable that they share the platform with our own works.
One would ask of her if those in England have also analysed our literature and incorporated some of our works which they feel are resonant with their ethos.
Perhaps she knows of such, but that does not mean that we should not decolonise ourselves.
It was a strange experience.
Phathisa Nyathi felt he would not stay in Dr Makanda’s ‘shadow.’
He had to ‘steal’ the thunder, by doing the unthinkable.
While we are busy having Zimbabwe’s children salute our national flag, honour their Chimurenga heritage, while we are busy writing about the sacred moment that brought Zimbabwe into being, Nyathi took time to ridicule the national flag, giving his own sick interpretation of the design of the national flag.
It was too sacrilegious what he did and it is clear he was desperate to tear the writers away from the path just charted by the director.
He could not bear that something so special would happen in this great land, that Zimbabwe’s children would everyday salute the national flag.
But, it is a gross miscalculation because those who truly love Zimbabwe cannot lose their way because someone insults the national flag nezvinyadzo.
After all, each person has his/her own sovereign will, his/her conscience, s/he will do as it directs.
Navatungamiri vave nenduramo: to stand in front of Zimbabweans gathered for such a noble cause of deliberating on how best to help Zimbabwe’s children take their turn at building Zimbabwe and to use this platform to say things that are so vulgar that one cannot repeat them to a second person, is to fail dismally; it is total failure.
One’s moral depravity should not be hung in the open for all to see, especially when we are dealing with affairs of Zimbabwe’s children, it is unconscionable.
Not to be outdone was a certain ‘Ambuya Muhera’ who claimed that there was nothing wrong with mini-skirts and being improperly dressed because that belonged to Victorian morality, our ancestors wore mhapa and according to that dress code, the Zimbabwe woman of today is actually overdressed, she declared.
One wonders why she did not come in a mhapa or mini skirt herself, that would have made her point conclusively.
Besides, this workshop was a forum for discussing what should be written for our schoolchildren.
Should we be telling children that the semi-nude dressing of prostitutes is ok because our ancestors wore mhapa?
There are things that are sacred to Zimbabwe and we must defend our children with all we have.