By Tawanda Chenana

WE, in the village, are very particular about our identity.
In the village, everyone knows who they are, meaning where they have come from, who their ancestors are.
What the Chinese, the Japanese, the Arabs and the Jews boast is very much present in the village.
We have our sacred places and, most importantly, the dos and don’ts; we have ways of operating that ensure peaceful co-existence and success for all.
The success we are recording and the growth we so much desire, as we build our nation brick-by-brick, stone-upon-stone, will be accelerated if we all stop dwelling in the shadows of the so-called masters and big brothers.
Our people, all of us, must fully appreciate that those who set up their own standard, who practise self-judgment, release themselves to make decisions and contributions that will not just transform their lives but that of all mankind as well.
The fact that you find Indian and Chinese products in nations that formally regarded themselves as superior to these peoples is testimony to the fact that those who begin to judge themselves desirable begin to be competitive in the eyes of other peoples.
We must not shy from introspection.
Again and again we must ask the question: Who am I?
Do you know your heritage, do you feel and have a connection with your past?
As you get older, is your sense of identity getting stronger or you are losing it?
Do you feel confident that your children are getting enough hunhu/ubuntu from you which they will also pass on to their offspring.
Do you believe that the very God who created you has some children He/She prefers over you?
It looks like every generation has something bad that will be called ‘black’ by some races and will you stand for that, will you agree with the notion of black this, black that?
We and our forefathers are guilty of allowing some people to call us ‘black’ despite the fact that we are not ‘black’.
We find ourselves helpless; when everything bad is called ‘black’ we do not know what to do other than accept it passively — it does not matter that we have a lot of good that has saved the world.
Because the term ‘black’ is associated with everything bad, we have allowed a culture of self-denial to creep into our veins.
We now see our children whitening their skin, risking skin cancers in the process and putting on artificial coloured long hair in a bid to totally eradicate who they are.
They are trying to physically dissociate themselves from ‘blackness’ which is always associated with bad and bad occurrences.
Would our children like to be called ‘black’ if everything that is called ‘black’ is bad?
If anyone knows why we are associated with the black colour other than hate, blatant racism and arrogance of other races, please tell our children.
We cannot be a people storing all abuses from other people who begrudge Africans for being endowed with natural riches by the Creator.
Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe liyakwa ngabanikhazi also means we should teach our children not to accept all labels thrown at us by non-Africans.
Our children are called monkeys in Europe as they go out there to play sports and do other things.
We should, in fact, restore the pride of our children by telling them that they are indeed not black, rather they are various shades of brown with riches of the fertile soil that nourishes all living things.
Those with knowledge of British imperialism and colonialism know that the slave trade was never intended to make the victims prosper.
It cannot be denied that when Cecil Rhodes’ Pioneer Column invaded and occupied our country in 1890, he was certainly not on a benevolent and humanitarian crusade to make the people prosper.
It was primarily to exploit our resources in order to raise the living standards and welfare of the British people back home, not improve the lives of ‘black’ people.
We, in the village, have heard of some envoy who wants to come to our country and has begun making some pronouncements that do not make sense at all.
Let it be known to that envoy that we are very good hosts but also that we have prospered as a people not by the benevolence of our erstwhile colonisers, but by the sheer scale of our determination to resist exploitation and abuse.
We know that the colour of our skin is the first thing that you take note of before you begin to engage us and it evokes judgments for worse — informed by stereotypes.
In the village, we do not waste our breath over things we have no control over, suffice to say, whether we like it or not, we shall be judged by the colour of our skin.
For this reason, it must be you, the ‘black’ person, who must dictate how you are judged by the colour of that skin.
And it is true that of all judgments, it is self-judgment which is most critical, and the ‘black’ person has betrayed himself and his children by abrogating his right to be his own judge.
Sadly, throughout history, ‘black’ people have not only allowed other nations to pass judgment on them but have also succumbed to those judgments.
It seems we can only grant ourselves personal approval when we attain standards dictated by people of other colours.
We are working towards achieving Vision 2030 of an upper-middle income economy, that is a standard we have set ourselves.
We have taken a position that does not see ourselves as a victim.
Throughout history, nations have only become great when they have broken free and begun to judge themselves — to set their own standards, no words could be truer.
India only started on the path to greatness when Indians rejected the British standard and adopted an Indian one and so did the Chinese who crawled, walked, ran and are now sprinting, informed by the Chinese ethos.
We plead with those coming to our shores not to waste their time debating about us, we are very much capable of running our affairs, on our own.