Let’s rename our institutions, towns in line with indigenisation

Since Independence, Zimbabwe has gone to greater length to ensure total liberation of all facets that affect the indigenes. Although significant strides were made to eradicate vestiges of colonialism soon after independence and, recently, through agrarian reform and indigenisation, there is yet another area that has been ignored and which constantly haunts our revolutionary achievements â€" colonial names.

As Africans, we smart from the indelible sad past of historical contradictions of slavery and colonisation. Though these sad historical misfortunes have partially shaped what we are today, we can never take pride in these historical catastrophes.

The contention of this argument is that names of former colonisers and other associated champions of racial segregation and exploitation should be removed from the public domain and be confined to our national archives. It is the conviction of this writer that names of liberal whites, philanthropists and genuine missionaries do not constitute those I refer to as champions of colonialism, in case my opinion is misconstrued for a racist one.

I believe that claiming that we are independent and criticising slavery and colonialism and all that these two institutions represent should rise beyond mere rhetoric through practical steps which will rid Zimbabwe of the stink of colonial architects like Cecil John Rhodes. Rhodes is sleeping at our sacred shrine of Matopo, this to me, is stinking desecration, which we have lived with for all these years. What feelings are evoked in us as we stand at Matopo watching the tomb which inters Rhodes? We have, in my view made Matopo a shrine for Rhodes because most visitors go to Matopo to see Rhodes' grave!

The war veterans who are advocating for his exhumation and repatriation of his remains to Britain seem to be treated by the government with indifference. What are Rhodes' remains compared to the vast tracts of land we reclaimed in the Third Chimurenga?

Is it an indication that we love him and what he represents so dearly? Are we tethered permanently to colonial values which are represented by Rhodes and his so-called Pioneer Column? I say this because roads, schools and many other institutions carry names of these erstwhile colonisers. In Gweru, for example, one very popular primary school is CJR which is Cecil John Rhodes. While we cannot obliterate the footprints of Rhodes from present day Zimbabwe, retaining his name for a school attended by black African students is an ironic and complicit gesture which should leave us wondering why we have let the situation be as it is up to this day.

Why can't the school be JNK or RGM after Joshua Nyongolo Nkomo and Robert Gabriel Mugabe respectively? Nowhere in Europe have we seen Adolf Hitler being celebrated or venerated by having schools or institutions named after him. Even biblically, Judas Iscariot for his betrayal of Christ's is rationally not celebrated and does not occupy a place in the liturgy of the church, more so, he does not have cathedrals named after him. Where are our traditional leaders? Where is the revolutionary spirit which saw us fight against colonialism? Residential suburbs in Zimbabwe also bear this evidence of our failure to execute the revolution fully. Let me take the example of Masvingo where the modest and enviable low density suburb is called Rhodene.

Even the streets of Rhodene are almost exclusively carrying foreign names and one might be tempted to believe that it's exclusively a suburb for whites, but a visit to Rhodene is a revealing experience when one meets very black Africans and very rarely, a white person.

Seemingly indigenous names in Masvingo are reserved for overcrowded locations like Rujeko where service delivery is next to absent. The other low density suburbs in Masvingo are Eastview, Morningside and a new one named Target Kopje has been born. Even in Harare, near Kuwadzana, there were tenacious efforts to reject an indigenous name for a foreign one: Westlea. What does this suggest?

We seem to have an insatiable appetite for English names. In short, most indigenous names seem to stand or are given to institutions or places where standards are the reverse of modest.

This is a sad manifestation of how colonialism pervaded our psyche to the extent of being engraved in our thinking, resultantly the majority of us have come to accept that white is good and black is backwardness. This has also resulted in our indigenous languages being looked down upon yet these carry our values.

As Zimbabweans, we are also guilty of complicity in giving the man who wanted to be King Lobengula's hangman a place in our midst by naming a school in Harare after Allan Wilson and another very popular school in Kadoma after Rhodes' friend, Jameson.

These are colonial ghosts which we have been living with for far too long and should now be exorcised!

It is time our important institutions, those which define or contribute to our definition as a people, carry our true identity.

By naming our institutions, important places and even roads after our erstwhile colonisers like Rhodes, we inadvertently celebrate Rhodes and his colonial crusade more than what was done on Rhodes and Founders day.

Former Education minister, Chigwedere once advocated for the renaming of our schools and there was an uproar. This uproar emerged partially from neo colonial bourgeois reasoning which sees the Whiteman as the model of what life is all about.

This servile mentality is tragic and affects even some of the very educated in our midst.