June, 2005

Time To Honour The Real Discoverers
By Readith Mwila Muliyunda,

IT has been years since most African countries got independence from Europe, breaking away from colonialism and slavery periods that shamed the continent. These activities left Africa scarred to date as the continent’s history got twisted, erased or stolen by colonisers and the so called explorers.

When it finally came, Africa’s long awaited victory against colonialism presented an opportunity for the continent to find its lost and true history —the history of our ancestors that could provide the population with the real education about themselves, their spirituality and their surroundings.

It was also an opportunity to do away with some of the Eurocentric education that has for a long time alienated us from our environments by teaching us more about Europe and its people and less and less about ourselves.

This is the education that stole away our history and brainwashed us into believing that everything good (ironically even on our mother land) was either created or first seen by the European before the African that had always lived there had actually seen it- however possible that is.

This has been a huge burden that Africa is still struggling to offload. Years of raping Africa off its resources and honour is reflected in the reality we see on the continent today-a slice of it being the fact that there are more monuments and places named after Europeans than Africa’s own indigenous people or heroes.

Many years of learning about Europe and almost nothing about ourselves has left most of us feeling unworthy or lacking a history to look up to. But while many African countries are on the path to address these issues in order to move forward and instill a sense of pride and self-confidence, it seems others like Zambia are still lurking in the dark as we blindly cling to the lies and burdens of colonialism.

The Mosi-O-Tunya is among the seven natural wonders of the world In this day and age Zambia, in all its glory, is proud to announce to the whole world the celebration of 150 years of European David Livingstone’s discovery of the Mosi-O-Tunya (Victoria Falls). In case somebody did not know, Zambia has become a laughing stock outside where the discovery concept of history's explorers has not only diminished, but also lost its credibility, especially as nations go about putting their indigenous history in order.

First of all, this obsessive Eurocentric concept of discovery beats all logic and even by mere common sense, it raises questions as to where the Africans that lived and died in Livinstone and around the falls long before Livinsgtone apparently discovered it were? Don’t we know that Mosi-O-Tunya, which means, the smoke that thunders, was the name given to the falls by the old time people of that area because of the thundering noise it produced.

The indigenous people were not blind to the presence of the falls-they saw it and they marveled at its wonder and thundering waters, hence describing it as a Smoke that thunders. Then a European guy, from somewhere in Scotland who was among several others that went about pacifying people, comes to this corner of the world and sees the falls.

And suddenly, the indigenous people are taken out of the picture and ignored and this foreigner gets all the honour and glory of having suddenly discovered the falls.

According to a book written by Mrs J.H Worchestra, Livingstone also discovered Lakes Ngami, Shirwa, Nyassa (which he named lake Victoria), Morero, the upper Zambezi and Bangweulu.

Shamefully, Africans in Zambians have bought into this discovery lie and we are repeating it to our children today and those to come, at a modern time like this when the whole world has come to realise the idea of discovery, as a big joke-even in the Americas where famous Christopher Columbus slaughtered the Amerindians while discovering their land, taking away their ownership to date.

I am sure some of you are saying but Livingstone was a good man and a missionary on top of that. Livingstone and other European heroes may have been called anything as we have been taught by Europe, but the truth remains just that.

And actually, it appears there were no good people in Africa. just the other day, a big international ceremony was held in Europe to celebrate the naming of a street (in Europe) after some of our brilliant Africans.

The street is now called Musonda Chilufya. Really? And if Livinstone was really a good man, which I do not doubt he was, he would not have at least been so selfish as to go around changing names of places and things wherever he strayed, and naming them after himself or his relatives.

He would have respected the people that he found there by maintaining their names. I recently bumped into Charles Randon, a Canadian here in Montreal who had just returned from Zambia and this is what he said to me when I told him I was Zambian; ‘‘ I was in Livingstone and came across this teacher who had brought little kids to the falls. The teacher throughout the time kept teaching the kids about this hero Livingstone who discovered the Victoria Falls and everything else about the glory of Europe.

Wondered ‘‘It shocked me as I wondered throughout the process; don’t Zambians have their own history, about Zambian heroes that the kids should know about other than foreign people? I was expecting to find a free Africa. Tell me- you guys don’t we have indigenous history to celebrate and teach children about? How can Africa claim to be free when its people have not even freed their minds.’’

This was so embarrassing. Indeed! Africa is still shackled mentally. But I still managed to find words to respond to Randon. I simply explained to him the deep-rooted European structured education in our schools, that Zambia was trying hard and was gradually getting rid off it.

‘‘Look we are even overhauling the whole constitution to usher in one that is based on our own ideas,’’ I said. Little did I know that Zambia was preparing to go global about our deep-rooted ignorance by not only portraying that the whole bunch of educated Zambians believed that Livingstone was the first one to see our own beloved Falls, but actually toasting to this ëdiscovery which without any reservations I call a big lie and an utter shame to ourselves and to our ancestors that lived in those times.

Just try going on the Internet and pick up brochures that are using the discovery world with Livingstone’s picture everywhere, as if we were still living in the colonial days. Surely can’t we find something local that we can use to woo tourists to the Falls, unless we attach it to some European guy?

Baffour Ankomah, editor of the New African Magazine asks if we as Africans can really call ourselves educated or merely eternally brainwashed by European education. Mr Ankomah says: No wonder somebody says PHD stands for “Permanent Head Damage.’’ If our heads are not permanently damaged by Western education, who in Zambia in their right senses - today, two thousand years after the death of Christ - will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Victoria Falls by David Livingstone?

And you bet if you ask these Zambians celebrating Livingstone’s discovery of the Victoria Falls whether they are educated, yes will be the chorus that will pour forth from their throats. The question is how are we as Zambians, for God’s sake, going to be able to successfully deal with much more complicated issues of sovereignty such as the on-going amendment of the constitution whose reasons for change is because it is modeled on the British concept if we cannot even get over the simple, straightforward and common sense concept of discoveries?

Livingstone did not discover the Mosi-O-Tunya (we would even rather bury our beautiful original name and uplift the name of Victoria Falls), he just happened to be the first of the nosy (you can argue this) Europeans to see the Falls. But it still does not provide an excuse to celebrate him. Come on Zambia you can do better than that!

Zambia would do well to get some lessons from our neighbours in the Democratic Republic of Congo who after years of lies that King Leopold, their Belgian coloniser was a hero, the stark truth of his horrendous reign, of murders and raping of Congolese people were unearthed.

The Congolese people today are furiously up-rooting his monuments which stood majestically in the country’s capital Kinshasa- expensive monuments for which Leopold diverted the country’s gold and other mineral wealth.

Belgium, which had also benefited from this wealth that drove millions of Congolese to their graves during Leopold’s reign had to confront its dark past by getting rid of the (King Leopold’s) monuments, which were dotted around its cities. This is why South African President Thabo Mkebi has joined several voices calling on Africa to de-learn some of these concepts that have remained chained to their brains.

At the Association of African Universities Conference held in Cape Town recently, Mr Mbeki observed that there was need for all educational curricula in Africa to have Africa as their focus, and as a result, be indigenous grounded and oriented.

“As we know, the centuries-old subjugation of Africa to foreign exploitation, ranging from slavery to colonial system, which was singularly designed to achieve maximum extraction and exploitation raw materials, wreaked serious damage that continues to impact contemporary Africa. This was accomplished through a whole range of arrangements including educational philosophies, curricula and practices whose context corresponds with that of the respective colonial powers,’’ Mr Mbeki stressed.

We have learned enough about Europe (remember Africa learns about Europe), but the rest of the world including Europe itself has learnt absolutely nothing about us. Their ignorance (about Africa) is shocking and makes some of them come across as almost stupid.

But at the same time, it makes you feel sad to see how governments (Western) that have for years, spent their time exploiting Africa, have kept their people ignorant and blind to the reality of how some of their acts and activities are directly intertwined with Africa’s perpetual struggles against wars, unfair trade to poverty issues.

However, there can never be anything much more stupid than being ignorant about your own self and surrounding. Africans should wake up from slumber to be able to restore our history and take charge of our destiny.

As long as our history remains uncorrected, and our minds remain chained, all efforts for our present and future endeavors will be futile because we are technically still living in the past. [courtesy of the Times of Zambia]