AMOS N. WILSON opens his book "The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness" by saying: "The psychology, consciousness and behavioural tendencies of individuals and societies are to a very significant extent the products of their personal and collective histories."

Indeed, both personal and collective psychology are constructed from experiences consciously retrieved from memory and those forgotten or repressed, but which still represent themselves in individual and collective tendencies, habits, traditions, emotional responsiveness, perspectives, ways of processing information, ways of interpreting events and actions, attitudes and all forms of reactions to different stimuli and situations.

The history that we learnt in Zimbabwean high schools before and after Independence was largely an adulterated version of events that was designed to deodorise colonialism as a way of civilisation and not an expression of brutal repression.

This writer was spared the misfortune of memorising the glorified achievements of the Allied Forces and the vilification of Adolf Hitler, having been in the top 40 of the 170 students in his Junior Certificate level stream.

That feat meant doing Physics with Chemistry as a subject in place of History at O-Level.

Now, it is apparent that this writer was spared gross childhood brainwashing about world events of the 20th century.

Most of the people who were introduced to European history at this tender age are today diehard believers in Western supremacy, and it would not be an exaggeration to assert that some of the people affected by this intellectualised propaganda have been mentally handicapped for life.

Sadly, even the aspect of our own African history was not spared the manipulation.

We had to live with the mortal threat of Eurocentric historiography to the African story. We were, and in many cases are still made to live with the functionality of an African consciousness and behaviour that is a derivative of a history written by our erstwhile oppressors.

The history of the oppressed, as written by the oppressor, shapes the consciousness and psychology of both the oppressed and the oppressor.

It helps to legitimise the oppressive system, such as the imperial world order of today, and to maintain the imbalance of power in favour of oppressive forces.

So we have a generation of young Africans that have been indoctrinated with apologetics for Western domination and the oppression of African people in the past and in the present.

This, in many cases, is just a crude attempt to create and shape a subordinate and inferior African consciousness and psychology.

The world order created by the colonial legacy has imposed on the African social system a socio-cultural amnesic tax that creates a reliance and dependency on a facade of a reality that robs our people of their most valuable resources.

These resources are the people's knowledge of truth and reality of self, their cultural heritage and identity, minds, bodies, souls; their wealth, lands, products of their labour and their lives.

This writer recalls very well that these are the valuable resources that were enshrined in the National Youth Service curriculum that was drafted at a stakeholder gathering at Great Zimbabwe in February 2001.

The whole idea was to liberate young Zimbabweans from the bondage of inferiority and ignorance of the real African identity.

We deliberated on the way forward and we agreed that it was imperative to liberate the young Zimbabwean from mental slavery and from the deception of Eurocentric historiography.

We agreed that Eurocentric history was, in fact, the most formidable ally of Western racism and imperialism.

We resolved to create a youth who would be unafraid to speak to imperial power, a youth who would have a national orientation that re-conquered the African mind, our body, our land, our resources, and our autonomy.

We agreed that our political system had been badly infiltrated by a civic institution that conspired badly with Eurocentric opinion in a way that handcuffed and incarcerated our national consciousness.

We realised that many of our local NGOs and some of our political parties were justifying and facilitating the subordination and exploitation of our people.

We resolved that the treacherous role of a Eurocentric history and opinion among our people had to be reversed by introducing an African-centred historiography written by our own people, and dedicated to the accuracy and truth of Zimbabwe's real story.

Needless to say, imperialism immediately fought back.

Our plans were labelled "propaganda machinery" and the NYS was called all kinds of derogatory names before it was even launched on September 8, 2001.

Every act of political violence, real, imagined or made up -- all were attributed to graduates of the NYS programme, and there was no sparing even of the girls-only Vumba Training Centre in Manicaland.

In fact, any young person that gets involved in a scuffle of a political nature is now considered an NYS graduate by definition, unless it is perhaps one of the increasing cases of intra-party violent clashes at MDC-T rallies and gatherings.

The problem we had with the National Youth Service programme was that there were people involved with its administration and implementation who erroneously thought national orientation was a fairy tale wherein certain things are accomplished and then people live happily ever after.

Many thought that life after the passout parade for the NYS graduate would all be endless accomplishments expanding for eternity.

Some of the NYS graduates thought as much themselves -- hoping to graduate and be placed in nice and well-paying jobs as super patriots equipped with anti-imperial survival skills.

We should not be so optimistic as to be foolish.

The mental freedom one gets in an institution like what we created in the NYS centres is not easy to sustain and maintain in the real world of challenges and pressures.

There is no law that says freedom gained cannot be lost again, and that is the lesson we need to learn as a people.

There was a lot of Zimbabwean history from 1890 to 1980 that was being taught at the NYS centres, from an Afro-centric point of view, that is.

However, the study of history cannot be a mere celebration of those who struggled on our behalf.

We must be instructed by history and should transform history into concrete reality, into planning and development, into the construction of power and the ability to ensure our survival as a people.

If we do not do this, then the liberation legacy in its totality risks becoming an exercise in the inflation of egos -- that way cutting us further off from reality.

Let us look at the irony in South African anti-apartheid history for example.

We now see people who are clearly not friends of Africans in general and of our brothers and sisters in South Africa in particular; celebrating the history of South Africa's liberation legacy.

They want to lecture us on the greatness of Cde Nelson Mandela, as if he actually hailed from Europe.

Even his jailers, who incarcerated him for 27 years, want to be seen at the forefront of preaching the greatness of Nelson Mandela.

This can only mean that these people must be seeing in this history some means of protecting their own interests, and they see in it something that works for them, and possibly against the people of South Africa.

If the people we are liberating ourselves from can celebrate our history and hail it as something positive, then it means that we are not using our history in a revolutionary sense. This way they do not see our study of this history as a threat to their power.

If we are not telling the African history in a way that is a threat to imperial power then we are telling this history incorrectly, and our celebration of such history is only helping to maintain us in a state of deception.

It is important that we ensure that we tell our history in a way that advances our interest as African people, more so our interest as Zimbabwean people.

It is very easy to tell a history of a people in a way that only inflates our egos and that completely blinds us to reality.

Young Zimbabweans and young South Africans face this danger where the true history of our people is trivialised and downplayed so that it has a very poor reputation.

We have an increasing number of our young people who view history as a set of dates and events with hardly anything to do with today.

These youngsters think history is not going to get them a job, to make them money, and they cannot figure out what they can do with their own history.

Clearly, they cannot see the connection between history, power and money.

It is extremely dangerous to miss the direct connection between history and economics.

This is precisely why we have a legion of Zimbabwean youngsters and others who are expressing blind anger against the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, the same anger we saw being expressed by others against the land reform programme.

These people cannot see the link between our history and our economy.

They believe in the history of the African worker and they cannot comprehend the idea of an African producer and employer.

If there were no direct relationships between history and money, between history and power, history and rulership, history and domination; then the colonialists would never have bothered rewriting our history.

Even today, the West would not be investing so much money into trying to destroy our true history or to take it away from us.

Why is it that the Westerner wants to rewrite the history of Zimbabwe's liberation from colonialism?

Why is it that they want to create the image of a dictatorial Mugabe as the centrepiece of this history?

Why is it that they want to taint the liberation war veterans as combative militias that fight against democracy?

Why is it that they want to fund some of our politicians into contrived political heroes and heroines?

Why is it that they want to write a history of a Zimbabwean inclusive Government with only half its members as sane democrats and the other half as barbarians banned from interacting with "Western civilisation"?

Apparently the rewriting, the distortion and the stealing of our history must serve vital economic, political and social functions for the Westerners, or else they would not bother and try so hard to keep our true history away from us, and to blatantly distort it in our own minds.

Some among us are made to religiously believe that Westerners are dedicated to democracy and the human rights regime, and they actually believe this is why millions of dollars are clandestinely poured into our political system. We cannot be as democracy-hungry as to be stupid.

If Africa is not going to lose all of what the liberation movements gained since 1956, then we need to meditate on the issues raised and realise that there is a direct relationship between history and economics, as well as political and social development.

©  EsinIslam.Com