I do not know my cultural history and it shames me

Somewhere in deep and rural KwaZulu-Natal, history is slowly unfolding, the seat of power is being occupied as a new king takes to the throne. With the leadership battles that have marred the succession battles of the Zulu nation, one cannot help but delve into history.

For many years history as we know it, in its colonialised form, has dictated to us what is important to know, going as far as writing the oppressor as the victors and the victims portrayed as the ones enlightened by those who bludgeoned not only their physical existence, but their significance.

The African role in history reduced in its command of authority and yet, over the years, we have studied it, regurgitated it. And as we, the people of colour, idly stood by and watched our history, culture, our ways of life and the sacrifices of our ancestors being annihilated, a specific monarch rose in influence. It rose through the final years of the oppressive years.

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My cultural context, its limit thereof, would have been that of the books that lay before me in libraries that require that I first sift through fiction before I can reach the richness of the truth? We are learning, the circumstances sad, but the lessons more than that of rands and cents.

In this, even if the mourning be superficial, may we take from it the call that there is a need for us to go back to the classroom.

That we need to decolonise the mind and in so doing, decolonise the content that which we are willing to accept the distortion of our history, that we cannot be simply reduced to the print of unfavourable text, but to be the seeds that leads to the birth of our being.

Can we learn from this transition that we do not know who are we? And as we learn, may we also be willing to teach without a tone of disdain.

A tone that cannot understand how men and women do not know of their history? We do not know because we had to learn the books before us.

Our people freed, we return to the roots, begging for the educational nourishment lest the tree of our heritage wither and die. I’m honest to admit, I do not know my cultural history and it shames me.