COMMENT: Let’s not celebrate defeat at the hands of oppressors

LAST year at around this time, we carried an article in which we boldly stated that the celebration of June 1 as the anniversary of the declaration of Bulawayo as a city by the colonisers is an insult to the history of the country.

We spoke to analysts who agreed that June 1 was not the day to celebrate as the founding of Bulawayo.

South Africa-based academic Mr Khanyile Mlotshwa said the celebration of Bulawayo Day on June 1 has erased the history of King Lobengula.

“I am embarrassed by our naivety as the people of Bulawayo, especially in how we have fallen in love with colonial history to the extent of celebrating our own demise.

“Celebrating the so-called Bulawayo birthday on Monday has the effect of completely erasing King Lobengula’s history of that city,” said Mr Mlotshwa.

Historian Mr Pathisa Nyathi said while it was a noble idea to celebrate the city, the day should not coincide with June 1 that was declared by the colonisers.

“Being conscious of the history of this country and the Ndebele State in particular, I cannot celebrate the day, there is no way, to me it would be contradictory and against my conscience. If anything, it’s an insult to our ancestors, it’s as if now you are celebrating the destruction of Bulawayo because to think that Bulawayo started in 1894 is itself an insult because it emerges from the ashes of our Bulawayo. It’s okay for people who do not know, what is bad is the first of June 1894, the day that Dr Leander Star Jameson declared Bulawayo but his Bulawayo, not our Bulawayo,” said Mr Nyathi.

Yesterday, the city fathers were at it again, celebrating Jameson’s Bulawayo.

One is quickly reminded of Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s recent piece titled: “Decolonisation of the education and epistemology systems in Zimbabwe.”

“Colonialism was underpinned by an active cognitive empire. An empire that invaded the mental universe of its victims and made it possible for colonisation of the mind to happen.

“An empire which committed such crimes as theft of history (denying its victims any history), epistemicides (killing of other people’s knowledges), linguicides (killing of other people’s languages and imposition of colonial languages), and culturecides (killing of other people’s cultures and setting afoot cultural and social imperialism),” Prof Ndlovu-Gatsheni wrote.

Our history as Bulawayo was stolen from us. Our knowledge was killed. And so was our language and culture.

This is why the city fathers led by the mayor, celebrate Leander Star Jameson’s Bulawayo. They celebrate defeat at the hands of the oppressors.

That is how far our mental universe has been invaded. We celebrate defeat and forget the famous victory in Pupu, Lupane, where Alan Wilson and his troops were completely wiped out.

The victory that led to the firing of the world’s first machine gun — the maxim gun — to shoot at united Zimbabweans from all tribes who fought colonialism fearlessly.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Omar Fanon bemoans intellectual laziness.

Bulawayo, we can celebrate our rich history without mocking ourselves!

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