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Stephen Mpofu 

Perspective

WITH Africa on Thursday celebrating the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, now the African Union, on May 25, 1963, it is no exaggeration by this pen to suggest an urgent need for the formation of a media brigade, print and electronic.

That brigade will have the mandate to defend our continent’s 1,4 billion citizens and many more in post-post-modernity until the return of Jesus Christ, against both blatant and subtle machinations to recolonise our continent by those without knees — a reference by black people in loin-skins to white skin-pigmented foreigners from beyond many waters upon their first arrival on our continent as pioneers of colonisation and wearing long trousers concealing the knees that carried the invaders to Africa.

With various activities taking place in different states to commemorate Africa Day, the enemies of a self-liberated and free African country are also busy planning and mobilising themselves as in the case of illegal Western economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies in 2001 to remove the democratic Zanu-PF Government from power in anger at the recovery through land reform of the soil seized from blacks by white settlers, in some cases leaving dispossessed peasants starving with exotic grass now being grown on the land for export to feed livestock in foreign lands.

But by the grace of God, Zimbabwe is proving triumphant in that area while on the other hand imperialists woo opposition political elements not only in this country but elsewhere on the continent as well to fight legitimately elected governments with promises of support to form “truly free and democratic governance”. 

Tragically, however, those blinded by their desire for power do not realise that they are being lured into self-hate by imperialists as any ensuing violent political outcomes will not spare the very hunters of “political power at any cost” along with their relatives.

Similarly some African countries have also fallen into the self-hate trap. 

For instance one country will bar or even chase away people from a neighbouring country who use different surnames but share the same totem as that of natives in the neighbouring countries where they seek employment.

As in the case immediately above, a media brigade should wage war to liberate people from the neighbouring country from the premeditated, subtle self-hate tactic used by foreigners seeking to divide, weaken and rule Africans.

Another important area where a Press brigade should play an important role is in the exploitation and exports of raw African minerals that are then refined abroad and sold with no original country of the riches being involved in the prices finally charged for the refined products with some of the high price money from the products sold overseas being stashed away there and not coming back to further develop countries where the gems are either spirited away or bought at give-away prices and then sold at extortionate prices out of sight of the original owners of the minerals.

If a mineral-rich country such as Zimbabwe and others like it boasted a Press brigade with members posted overseas, such price extortions and the banking abroad of some of the exorbitant prices for the mineral products will be exposed with, hopefully, the result that underhand dealings in the exploitation and sales of rich African minerals will come to an end. 

But much closer to home, it is really tragically ironic that self-hate has become a lifestyle in many African homes, including ours in Zimbabwe, with small children being taught and encouraged by parents, or other relatives, to learn and master the languages of our erstwhile colonisers as they grow, at the expense of their mother tongue and the cultural values embodied in the lingos.

Ironically the upshot of parents smiling as they listen to their own young kids  communicating  with each other, or with peers in the languages of our former colonial oppressors is the failure to realise that those kids will, as they grow, thumb their noses at their own mother tongues and the cultural African values that make us truly African as opposed to our erstwhile oppressors and dehumanisers.

Time is well overdue for de-campaigning the foreignisation of our children through languages of our colonial oppressors left behind in the form of self-hate.

A media brigade such as that proposed by this communicologist will no doubt expose the subtle self-hate bedevilling Africans today by exposing and de-campaigning it, whether some people will like or hate it, because our Africanness in language and cultural values must be complete and not fake as linguistic distortions now prevailing in many homes. 

Hail Africa Day, hail media brigade till the end of the world!