This column suggests that we Zambians and Africans are taught and continue to teach ourselves the wrong and distorted Zambian history. The column explains the Eurocentric context of the current history. The column proposes the Distracted Dog Syndrome (DDS) as the reason we continue to teach ourselves, sustain, fiercely continue to support our wrong history. The column appeals to both educated Zambians and Ministry of Education to revise the current education to teach ourselves the accurate Zambian/African history.
*In Memory of the Great Africanist and Thinker Ali Mazrui.
Introduction
In our African history in 1968 in Form II (Grade 9) at the prestigious Chizongwe Secondary School, we learned that some of the earliest humans 125,000 years ago included the Broken Hill man (Kabwe) whose skull was found in the mine. There was also Zinjanthropus whose bones were located in East Africa in the Olduvai Gorge from 1.75 million years ago. The history also included the numerous names of Zambian and African tribes that I could not easily remember during exams and too many people that constantly fought each other; the Sebetwane of the Kololo fought their neighbors, Mzilikazi of the Ngoni fought the Chewa, the Ndebele fought the Matebele and so on. Zambia has 72 names of tribes.
The big part of the African history was European explorers’ arrival in Zambia such as missionary David Livingstone, Mungo Park, Henry Morton Stanley and others spreading Christianity, European colonialism and stopping the brutal Arab Slave trade in East Africa. My classmates and I did not have to be geniuses to realize that our place in this narrative of history was that we Zambians and Africans lacked religion, were ignorant, uneducated, passive, fighting tribal wars, lacked modern schools, democratic institutions, we were uncivilized, superstitious until the more advanced, enlightened, and powerful Europeans arrived.
This narrative of history clashed with my personal experiences when I grew up among the Tumbuka people. I experienced my grandparents, aunts, father and mother and everyone in the village as the most confident, intelligent, confident use of indigenous technological knowledge, articulate in Tumbuka language people I have known in my life.
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They didn’t behave and look like people who were waiting for Europeans to tell them what to do.
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My paternal grandfather Zibalwe Tembo was smelting and forging iron in the late 1800s. The founding fathers and mothers of the Zambian nation led by President Kaunda did not look lost in 1964. They were a confident lot. Indeed, looking back my grandfathers and mothers behaved more like people who have been around for numerous generations going back perhaps thousands of years. There was a confidence, knowledge and dignity about their persona and life that I can’t describe that suggested to me that they are people who had been around for thousands of years. They didn’t behave and look like people who were waiting for Europeans to tell them what to do. But why was their legitimate and accurate history not in the textbook official Zambian history I was being taught? For forty-six years these questions and contradictions were always in the back of my mind as I continued to gain Western education and lifestyle.
Why does the history we learn always have this undeserved underlying background and undertone of Zambian inferiority? Why do we continue to teach the history in this manner so that future Zambians will believe they have been always passive, colonized, slaves or somewhat inferior and will be perpetually behind while trying to catch up especially to the West and the rest of the world?
This column will address four major ideas. First, I will discuss the more broad accurate history. Second, I will discuss why our Zambian history is so distorted. Third I will discuss the Distracted Dog Syndrome (DDS) as the major obstacle to we Zambians as individuals and a nation discovering and teaching our 13 million citizens the accurate and appropriate history. Fourth, I will discuss in what ways as Zambians through the Ministry of Education can teach, reclaim for our future generations, and learn our accurate Zambian history.
The More Accurate History
The more accurate history is that many groups of Africans called homo sapiens evolved from Savannah East Africa about two hundred thousand years ago. They migrated through present day Saudi Arabia through India, Andaman Islands, to the Far East including Islands in the South Pacific, Australia, and New Guinea. The same Africans may have lived in North Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East and some may have migrated by canoe from West Africa and settled in North and Southern America.
This may have been thousands of years before what are known as the Dark Ages in European History (500-1500 AD), Spanish exploration(1492 – 1892), Portuguese exploration (1500-1600), and European voyages of exploration and colonialism around the world. I discuss some of this information which is at the center of human evolution in Chapter 17 of my book: Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture.
In other words all the 7 billion people today all over the world may be biologically descendants of Zambians and Africans starting from about two hundred thousand years ago. If this is the broad accurate history, why is it today that the history of Zambians and Africans is so distorted that nearly everyone generally denies that Africans had any significant influence in history? That somehow Zambians and Africans are a black race that have always been colonized, inferior or were slaves?
Why Our History is Distorted
We cannot understand why our Zambian history is distorted until we are aware and conscious of how we as humans have a major weakness: we try to impose the present day conditions on past history. We wrongly impose what we know and the language and terminology we use now on the past and are wrongly convinced that what exists today or now was there and is going to be there forever.
Also once as human beings we have declared one group of people as inferior, the dominating group or nations work hard at suppressing and successfully removing and distorting the history of that targeted inferior group. Europeans have been very successful in all three in suppressing and distorting the history of Zambians and Africans.
Today we have language and divisions according to races; Caucasian, (white or European), Mongloid, (yellow skinned), Negroid (black or dark skinned). All of these skin colors are false. A “black person” or “human” never existed among the Africans or Zambians from two hundred thousand years ago. In fact, munthu wakuda (Nyanja or Chewa) or munthu mubinkha (Tumbuka) referring to the physical race of person never existed among our people or Zambian ancestors. These terms are recent inventions and adoptions from probably the 1950s as a response to European racism and the superficial racial constructions. The term “Bantu” in our Zambian lexicon means “human” with zero reference to skin color. In this sense, all 7 billion people today are actually banthu or bantu.
Europeans have used three principle motivations and forces to successfully suppress the accurate history of Zambians. The clash between Zambians and Africans in the ancient Egyptian civilization and the Greek Civilization, the Atlantic Slave Trade of Africans to North and South America, and European Colonization of the entire African continent.
Ancient Egyptian and Greek Civilizations
The ancient civilization of Egyptian Kingdoms headed by powerful Pharaohs dominated North Africa and the Middle East for almost two thousand years ago from c 3100 to 1090 B.C. E. This was before Assyrians, Persians, the Babylonian Empire, Greeks, and Romans occupied Egypt. This was also before Christ. The African Egyptian civilization was the first to create a large empire, establish writing using hieroglyphs, large scale political economy, the bureaucracy and built the sophisticated massive pyramids. In 330 B. C. E: Alexander the Great of Greece had gained control of Lower Egypt and established the city of Alexandria. Greeks ruled Alexandria for 3 centuries or 300 years until the Roman conquest.
In 30 B. C. E: Rome imperial rule was established. Queen Cleopatra committed suicide to avoid being humiliated in Rome. Roman law and religion were imposed on Egyptians until the 4th century. From 7-2 B.C. E. to 30 -33 AD was the period of Jesus also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth the central figure of Christianity. From 640 -1600 was when the historical Age of Islam took root.
Zambian Direct Descendant of Egyptians
Europeans, their scholars, and other supporters for a long time have denied that any Africans were involved in the Egyptian Civilization. Their argument was that if they built the Egyptian Civilization, where are those same Africans and their descendants to day?
We Zambians are direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The journal article that Dr. Chisanga Siame had published was titled: “Katunkumene and Ancient Egypt in Africa” from the Journal of Black Studies of 20 March, 2013. It clearly shows that all of us Zambians might be descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Dr. Siame had cracked the secret code which was hiding right under our noses; our clan names and our Bantu languages which have left our imprints all over North and West Africa, the Middle East and all over Africa up to Cape Town on the Southern tip of the African continent.
The secret code might be buried all over rural Zambia in our 72 tribes and our languages and clan names which include Lozi, Tonga, Bemba, Nyanja, Chewa, Kaonde, Luchazi, Tumbuka, Namwanga,Luvale and dozens of Zambian languages. Dr. Siame found out that the Bemba term uku tunkumana may have descended from the name Tunka Men (Tutankhamun: c. 1346-1328 bc) the name of the ancient kingdom of Sudan suggesting a connection between the Bemba and Namwanga people and ancient Egypt.
Towards the end of the fall of the great Egyptian Civilization, the Greeks are believed to have taken some of the technical knowledge and philosophy from an Egyptian library in Alexandria. Some of the key technical knowledge for building the great Egyptian pyramids is believed to have been later adopted in the construction of sophisticated building structures in Greece, Mesopotamia and the Biblical great tower of Babel. As Europeans advanced during the enlightenment period in the 17th century, they sought to expunge or remove completely African Egyptian influence in the Greek Civilization. They wanted to make Greece suddenly a white, Caucasian, or exclusively European.The reinforcing and hanging on to this myth still goes on to day in form of conflict between Euro centrists and Afrocentrists in American academia. The European suppression and distortion of Zambian and African history may have started in earnest about ten thousand years ago.
The Atlantic Slave Trade
In the early 1600s Europeans began to buy and ship Africans as slaves to North America, the Caribbean Islands and South America. In 1619, the first 20 Africans arrived in Jamestown in Virginia in America as free indentured servants. By the 1660s all the British colonies had passed laws making all Africans outside the continent of Africa slaves for life. The Portuguese bought Africans from Angola and shipped them to Brazil. Other European countries bought slaves from West Africa. It is estimated that 11 million Africans were enslaved in the transatlantic slave trade. The significance of the trade is that it helped create and reinforce the image and ideological belief of Africans as an inferior people and therefore it was probably morally and ideologically appropriate not only to enslave them but to distort and deny their significant contribution and participation in human civilization but instead always portray them as just slaves and passive inferior observers in history of the rise and fall of civilizations.
European Colonization of Africa
There were dozens of large Empires in Africa and movement of Zambians and Africans on the continent and beyond for thousands of years. In 1885, 14 European countries met at the Berlin Conference and divided the continent into 54 countries that they colonized. Zambians and African were suddenly not only dominated and exploited, but were divided into 54 small countries. Often many tribes were divided between 3 or 4 different countries. For example, half a million Tumbukas are in Eastern Zambia and half a million are in Northern Malawi. A large population of the Lozi people are in the Western Province of Zambia. But some of the Lozi people are found in Namibia and Botswana. Some of the Luchazi people are in NorthWestern Province but others are found over the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Chewa people are in the Eastern Province but many of the same Chewas are in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. All of these people are Bantu or just Africans and belong together in terms of their origins, language and culture.
The most destructive aspect of the Atlantic Slave Trade and European Colonialism in Africa is the ideology of racial inferiority of Africans that Europeans generated, spread, and maintained all over the world. What made it possible to maintain this distorted and often racist knowledge about Africans was especially after the invention of the Guttenberg Printing technology in Germany in 1450. This made it possible to print newspapers, journals, text books that could easily spread false information and propaganda all over the world and into Africa about the inferiority of Africans. Why and how do you think the inferiority of Africans and anyone with dark skin was spread all over the world?
Distracted Dog Syndrome (DDS)
Why is it that 13 million Zambians cannot teach ourselves a more accurate history 50 years after gaining independence from European colonialism? Why do even the most educated Zambians at Universities and Africans in the 54 countries still learn and believe in the distorted history that is Eurocentric and continues to project and have the undercurrent of the inferiority of Zambians and Africans? The answer is the Distracted Dog Syndrome (DDS).
The “Distracted Dog Syndrome” (DDS) is a useful metaphor. Supposing you are walking along and out of the blue a big menacing vicious dog is charging at you and closing in. If you have a bone or a piece of very rotten meat in your pocket, you can throw it away from you. The dog will immediately change course and go where you threw the bone or meat. You distract the dog. You will escape safely.
The same analogy can be applied to how we Zambians and Africans have failed to uncover our own ancient history, because each time we may try to ferociously and tenaciously uncover our own history like that vicious charging dog, Europeans and others who have joined them who want to continue to bury that history throw us a bone or a piece of rotten meat and we charge into the wrong direction chasing the bone instead of pursuing our own ancient history going back to antiquity. How does this happen?
Whenever you mention an interest in finding out if Zambians, Africans, or we the Bantu created the ancient Egyptian civilization for example, you will be told: “Black Africans were in Sub-Saharan Africa and were always enslaved to America and sold by their fellow Africans”. “There were so many people crisscrossing Africa, there is no definitive evidence who built ancient pyramids in Egypt”. “Do you have a degree or qualification in Egyptology or Greek? If not, how can you tell?” “Aliens must have built the pyramids because Africans today are so backward.
[pullquote]Aliens must have built the pyramids because Africans today are so backward.[/pullquote]
How could they have built the sophisticated pyramids that even present day European engineers do not understand?” These sources of distraction are not only by Europeans but also our very educated Zambians and Africans who have been coopted to the Eurocentric thought or perspective in the process of acquiring Western education including Secondary School Certificates, B.As, Masters, and Ph. D degrees.
If you are an educated Zambian like this author, if you criticize your fellow Zambians and Africans harshly, you are said to be “rational” “objective” and the most well “educated”. The conversations and arguments will turn to who enslaved Africans, why Africans have failed, what were the other groups that crisscrossed North Africa and Egypt hundreds if not thousands of years after the fall of the Egyptian civilizations instead of the main topic. All the distracting tactics constitute the Distracted Dog Syndrome or what the Bemba would call “ukufulunganya ifintu”, “mifulungenye” or what the Chewa would call “musokonezo”(causing confusion), what the Tumbuka call “ku tangwaniska munthu” or causing “mfundukutu” or confusion and doubt.
Ministry of Education and Zambian History
Both the very educated and ordinary Zambians will be bewildered and will ask questions like: “What will learning our accurate ancient history do for us?” “Will this knowledge provide us food, create democracy, employment, get rid of HIV, now Ebola, or help us compete in the modern world, will this be racism in reverse?” “Will all the teachers have to be retrained and the Ministry of Education write and print new text books?” “Will all our Eurocentric educational certificates, degrees and credentials that we have be revoked or become useless?” “All of this will be wasting money and time that can be used for true development.” Insisting that we learn our own accurate history is not racism in reverse or retrogressive as those who practice DDS will claim or charge to create confusion and doubt like they have done during the last perhaps one thousand years. To the contrary, the answer to all these questions is “yes” in the long run we will develop better. Our accurate history is so important that it will truly liberate us from “mental slavery” as Bob Marley would say. If all the 13 million Zambians learn our accurate Zambian and African history, the thousands and millions of teachers who will also have this knowledge will play a very special role. This new knowledge will truly improve our lives and we will be truly educated, liberated, strengthen our sense of dignity and we will make better strives in development.
By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.
Professor of Sociology
References
Anta Diop, Cheik., The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, Edited and translated by Mercer Cook, Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press, 1974.
Anta Diop, Cheikh., Civilization or Barbarism: an Authentic Anthropology, Brooklyn, New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991.
Bernal, Martin., Black Anthena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. I, The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1987.
Bernal, Martin., Black Anthena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. II, The Archeological and Documentary Evidence, New Bruswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
Bernal, Martin., Black Anthena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. III, The Linguistic Evidence, New Bruswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2006.
Chondoka, Yizenge., and Bota, Frackson F., A History of the Tumbuka from 1400 to 1900, The Tumbuka under the M’nyanjagha, Chewa, Balowoka, Senga and Ngoni Chiefs, Lusaka: Academic Press, 2007.
Heine, Johan., and Tellinger, Michael., Adam’s Calendar: Discovering the Oldest Man-made Structure on Earth 75,000 years ago, Johannesburg, South Africa: Zulu Planet Publishers, 2008.
James, George G. Stolen Legacy: How the Wisdom of Ancient Egypt was Transformed into Greek Philosophy, San Diego, California: The Book Tree, First Published 1954, New York: Philosophical Library.
Khapoya, Vincent B., The African Experience: An Introduction, New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2013.
King, Richard D., African Origin of Biological Psychiatry, Baltimore, MD: Afrikan World Books, Inc., 1990.
Lefkowitz, Mary., Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to teach Myth as History, New York: Basic Books, 1996, 1997.
Ladner, Joyce. (ed.) The Death of White Sociology: Essays on Race and Culture, Baltiomore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1973.
Mainga, Mutumba., Bulozi under the Luyana Kings. Political Evolution and State Formation in Pre-Colonial Zambia, London: Longman, 1973.
Muller, Gert., Black Origins of Ancient Rome and Black Roman Emperors, London: Pomegranate Publishing, 2013.
Penda, Chanda (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Zambian Names: Reconciling Zambian and Global Worldviews, Lusaka: Pensulo Publishers Limited, 2013
Rotberg, Robert I., The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa: The Making of Malawi and Zambia, 1873-1964, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Siame, Chisanga N. “Katunkumene and Ancient Egypt in Africa”, Journal of Black Studies, 20 March, 2013.
Tembo, Mwizenge S., Satisfying Zambian Hunger for Culture, Indiana: Xlibris Corporation, 2012
“The Difference Between Us” Episode 1: in the video series Race the Power of an Illusion, California Newsreel, 2003.
Sharman, Fergus., Linguistic Ties between Ancient Egyptian and Bantu: Uncovering Symbiotic Affinities and Relationships in Vocabulary, Boca Raton, Florida: Universal Publishers, 2014.
Sertima, Ivan Van., They Came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003.
Wele, Patrick., Likumbi Lya Mize and other Luvale Traditional Ceremonies, Lusaka: Zambia Educational Publishing House, 1993.
Williams, Chancellor., The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of Race from 4500 B. C. to 2000 AD., Chicago, Illinois: Third World Press, 1987.
First Migration of African The five foot black skinned Andaman Island Isolated Tribe Evolution.
Mzilikazi of the Ngoni ??
And I got it right once again… it CAN’T be Field Ruwe. There is some piece of wisdom in this article.
That is some good reading, even though its some kind of hammering us down Zambians.
Yes Muzilikazi was one of the chiefs of the NGUNI (white writers called those who came to Zambia as Ngoni) speaking people, just like Zwangedaba, Shaka, Makana etc.
Dr.Tembo, thankyou for starting this great crusade in bringing our people back to the truth. My friend Jay Jay and I have tried to encourage people to read extensively with regards to history and religion, the lies which the white man has brainwashed us with. Infact, the name itself of being called African is foreign. the oldest name of the continent i could find was Alkebulan. We gained independence and we changed our name from N.Rhodesia to Zambia. Why havent we changed the name of our mother continent from the Roman-Greek version africa to Ta-Merry,Kemet, alkebulan or something we can make of our liking. In the article, you write -Alexander the great. But great from whose perspective. these are things we should also change
If i came to your home, broke in,r.aped the women, made you serve me, would you call me great?I dont think so, Alexander was a barbarian, anyman who leaves his home to go and bring confusion and war on another group of people is a savage and a barbarian. so in this regard we should also stop referring to people like alexander as being great. he disposed of our pharaohs in Egypt circa 332 B.C.E with his ptolemaic rulers starting with his general Soter.It is like you wrote Dr.Tembo,we are made to appreciate history from the perspective of the one who enslaved us, tortured and murdered us. This is why generation after generation we see greatness only in european style of life; economy, education,governance, politics, sex, language and all the other people activities. Its Sad.thank you tho
@Nostradamus
kikikiki please Nostra, give our friend Field Ruwe some space, the guy is trying hard to write…. normally Zambians dont write they just sing and utushimi, thats why our history is distorted,,,
@wawa
Mzilikazi led ngonis,,, Zwangedaba led ndebeles,,, of course they all came from Shaka
Please author, Wikipedia is not acceptable citation because anyone can alter information on those pages and many times it is not accurate.
aTembo PhD Wikipedia suwa??????????
However, spot on piece of writing and well researched… BUT again even the history that we were taught by KK Foundation was subject to UNIP and its work. Lumpa Church for example is an important aspect of Zambia that we have never tabled as a nation.
This whole paper bows down to one thing…INFORMED LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA that has been lacking for six hundred years. Today, you and I have an opportunity to take this continent back to ourselves, and an article like this is a good start to being the stimulation process of ignoring that rotten piece of meat and bit reality and truth that will surely set us free…
Ndobo you got it wrong. Zwangendaba led the Ngoni. Mzilikazi led the Ndebele. When the Ngoni left Kwazulu they called themselves the Nguni. After they crossed the Zambezi they changed to Ngoni
Great read! I’ve never accepted the european propaganda that we are inferior neither do I accept the terminology they use to describe Africans.Our ancestors were doing just fine before white man sailed in his boat and used the gun to defeat us.We had our own political,social education system.Now look at the mess we are in because we decided to adopt their way of life. There was no poverty until white man came to Africa
Thats the problem with us africans. When we get too educated we go crazy and fight wrong battles. Who stopped black africans from writing their own history? Africa is facing many challenges today eg the ebola outbreak, AIDs pandemic, food shortages etc. These are issues we need to focus on to better the lives of our people. Digging into the past trying to rewrite the black mans history won’t solve our challenges. We know colonialism had its evil sides but the same white people opened up africa to civilisation. Right now africa is looking to the west for the ebola cure yet we have educated men like him. This professor should be thinking of how his education should better the lives of his fellow africans instead the rubbish he has written above. Africa doesn’t need mad professors.
J.J
Well said and well missed…what Tembo PhD is telling you here is that you NEED to know your worth by understanding your past so that you are empowered and able to fully control your future; ebola and hiv should not have been a problem if this was done by our forefathers…
We Africans have always been notoriously religious… we had our own religion until Christianity and in some area’s Islam was forced upon us using the “bible” and the whip!!
Negro spirituals, such as “O Rock Don’t Fall on Me”, focused heavily on the Judgement Day.
This is why I cannot believe in this brainwashing crap. Any beliefs or teaching was forced on them from the same devils who were their slave owners. Any God that’s worshiped under “Christianity” .is the beliefs of White folks.Thanks but no thanks.
Consider this, if your Missionaires were not christian, would you be?
How true! Where the Arabs arrived first Africans are moslems. Where the European s arrived first Africans are Christian. This just means whomever would have arrived here would have taken the African his direction.
Probably. Look at McDonald hamburgers, Coca Cola, they are all American, but we have been converted to the taste and consumption by advertisement!
Anyway, I thought Muslim believed in the same things in our religion except for denying Christ. Now why would I want to convert to Muslim just to add on Mohammad and deny Jesus, King of Kings. He that can never be unseated, Glorious and Majestic.
I am convinced that many of the problems we face today are the direct result of us trying to believe this contaminated version of CHRISTIANITY.
I watched this documentary a few years ago!! I’m probably the first Zambian to know abot this.
Ninshi mule ngwinta? The truth hate te?
To be honset I’m also the first one to use a computer… ninshi bonse mwenda nefigamba nokulala mulikoloboi!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha………………
@Wawa
Mzilikazi was not Chief of the Nguni/Ngoni but of the Matebele. The Matabele were part of the Zulu Kingdom while Ngoni/Nguni were part of the old defeated paramountcy of Zwide. While Shaka and his generals such as Mzilikazi triumphed, the Ngoni/Nguni fled.
While i agree that there more than one Ngoni or Nguni tribe, they all left Kwazulu Natal/Swazi land, way before the Matebele’s departure .
Lastly, it were the Jeres and the Masekos Ngonis who encountered the Chewas not Mzilikazi. Mzilikazi never set foot in that part of Africa.
@Vuso
Please it is true the Ngoni under Zwangedaba made for the hills, but I thought (from my research at The British Library), that Zwangedaba decided to uproot us from our camp because he feared war hungry Shaka Zulu would shortly turn on us rather than being compelled to be his defeated servants!!
We begun our journey, from (Kkandla) Kwazulu) through Tanzania where Old Zwangy gave up his ghost. We then marched through to Zambia eastern province where we ran battles with lots of tribes, Crazy Tongas and demented Bembas! We finally settled in Chipata where Mpezeni, old chap, had a round with Her Majesty’s servants at Fort James. Fierce and marvellous were and are we to this day. We did not just lose a battle with Shaka, and flee. We parted with him because we are elegant…
Please note that the British gov’t does not teach History correctly. They miseducate their citizens on colonialism, imperialism. It is taught from a grandeur angle, ‘look we owned the world!’ They encourage their citizens to be proud of that period. Some bemoan the end of that period on the ground, it has made them poorer!!
Recently, I had a discussion with a white friend Fiona who describes herself as WASP, (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). Specifically she called herself middle class although she lives on welfare benefits with the occasional Nanny job she gets from The Lady (posh magazine).
I responded that I am Jere on mothers side and asked her if she had heard of Shaka Zulu, Zwangedaba as I thought I could show her how our history intertwine.
especially as Britain honoured and accepted our chieftainship Mpezeni a historical fact, making our chieftain proper UK aristocracy! She replied puzzled, “No who is he.” SHAKA ZULU I shouted…! “Did you not watch Micheal Caine in Shaka Zulu.” At this point my ‘Ngoni Princess,’ heritage lost it!!
I mean really! What white person has never heard of the greatest African warrior eh? Zwangedaba perhaps……….!!
The point being all countries miseducate, it is correct to reawaken our traditions. Thanks Hon Luo your ministry has a lot to do to reawaken our pride in our cultures. This Ngoni Princess is once again proud of something that is profound. My father’s heritage is not slacking either, Bena Nyendwa of Lala, Lamba aristocracy is now a source of pride too!!
michael caine was not in shaka zulu, it was Edward Fox, Fiona Fullerton, christopher lee na bena Rober powell.
@Zagaze
Wrong. He was in ZULU 1964. Same subject matter on the battle of Brits and Shaka. Check wiki.
Zulu is a 1964 historical war film depicting the Battle of Rorke’s Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War where 150 British soldiers, many of whom were sick and wounded as patients in a field hospital, successfully held off a force of 4,000 Zulu warriors.
The film was directed by blacklisted American screenwriter[3] Cy Endfield and produced by Stanley Baker and Endfield, with Joseph E. Levine as executive producer. The screenplay is by John Prebble and Endfield, based on an article by Prebble, a historical writer. The film stars Stanley Baker and “introduces” Michael Caine, in his first major role, with a supporting cast.
@Zagaze
With Cetewayo (Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi). Shaka was probably long gone by then??
See therein a lot to learn from our history!! Article proves our miseducation on our past!
Thanks! But I think Fiona would still not know Cetewayo (Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi)!!
@ Patriot abroad – Ah yes there i agree. Michael Caine was in that flick, but earlier you wrote Michael Caine in “Shaka Zulu” and not “Zulu”, that’s why i disputed. Anyway, the point is taken. we need to adress the issue of history in our country. Churchill once said that the history of britain will be great because i, we shall write it. So why not write and dramatise our own history for the sake of lifting the spirits and self esteem of our people. I dont mean recreate, but accentuate those moments of our greatness too to lift up the masses’ spirits. Thats what great historians should do and thats what inspirational leaders should do.
It is true we need to write our own history. The problem is that we are too urbanised to think creatively about our past. Just see how we are distorting our own recent history. Chiluba, RB and Sata are all being labeled by our history as corrupt individuals that messed up Zambia. We need to write our history correctly…
Do we even have any historians in this country or we only have politicians that are good at arguing on nothing…?
Ultimately, do we really want to associate with Egyptian history? After all they enslaved Jews and were condemned by God Almighty? Where is the Egyptian angle going? To suggest Muslim religion to us?
I do agree with re-educating ourselves on our history. But the great movement of people that led to absorption into another ultimately created a different heritage in the end and we are not so similar to the end product in its new environment.
Egyptians were different to us in culture. Our genes may be found in their genetic coding, but the final product is not Zambian in its genetic composition in total.
We cannot open ourselves to wrongful indoctrination of other cultures which are now completely different to the original culture we sent out.
Not all Egyptian history is bad history. Even in biblical terms. Joseph lived well in Egypt. The second most metioned nation in the Bible is Egypt after Israel.
We are Egyptian, the Ancient Egyptians were Us, we descend from there, your Bible or rather the white men that sat down to write the bible brainwashed us into hating ourselves and siding with the so called “Jews”.
Well you go ahead and believe that drivel. It is far off to today. We cant’t slide back to primitive faith, you know witchcraft, eating and that shit!! You go for that if you want.
Muslims and Mor,ons in Zambia need to be shown the door.
Um. Was he not nearly ruined Mrs Pottifer? Crazy dames in Egypt.
Dr TEMBO, IT’S SO GREAT TO HAVE LIKE YOU IN ZAMBIA. THE OTHER MAN I ADMIRE IN ZAMBIA IN THIS CONTEXT IS Dr GUY SCOTT. Dr SCOTT IS EVER TALKING ABOUT RECOMPILING ZAMBIA’S HISTORY. BUT BLACK ZAMBIANS THEMSELVES ARE NON-COMMITTAL. ZAMBIA’S HISTORY HAS BEEN WRITTEN BY WHITE PEOPLE TO SUIT THEIR FALSE SUPERIORITY OVER BLACK AFRICANS. JUST LIKE SLAVERY IS NEVER TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS IN THE UK APART FROM THE MENTION OF WHEN IT WAS ABOLISHED BY THE BRITISH. THIS IS TO AVOID THE HIPPOCRATIC FEELING. I AM NOT ANY AUTHORITY IN HISTORY (OR SOCIOLOGY). BUT, I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED SOMEONE TO RE-WRITE OUR HISTORY AND START COMPILING ZAMBIA’S DATA IN A STRUCTURED AND CONSISTENT MANNER…
…EG, IN THIS MODERN DAY DO WE HAVE VIDEOS OF ZAMBIAN GREAT ARTISTS SUCH AS PETER CHIPANGO, BA MULONGWE, INSHINGILI DRUM-BEATING? DO WE HAVE A ZAMBIAN COMPILED BOOK OF ALL THE PLANTS (WILD AND TAMED WITH FRUITS THEY PRODUCE) WE HAVE IN ZAMBIA? DO WE HAVE A COMPILED DATA ON ALL CHIEFS OF ZAMBIA? AND WHY DO WE CALL OUR ZAMBIAN KINGS, CHIEFS? BECAUSE ALL PARAMOUNT CHIEFS IN ZAMBIA WERE ORIGINALLY CALLED KINGS BUT DEROGATORILY, THE BRITISH PEOPLE ABOLISHED THIS TITLE FOR THEIR SUPERIORITY’S SAKE. THERE’S SO MUCH UN COLLECTED AND COMPILED ZAMBIA’S HISTORY AND WE SEEM NOT TO CARE. PLEASE, PROF. TEMBO LEAD THE WAY TO NATIONAL INDENTITY.
Bloggers are right in their own right of eschewing the essence of education: history, geography anthropology science or technology. Educators; at least those with an enlightened philosophy have an objective of what their end-result should be. A graduate is an output, end-product for a designed market: material or intellectual.
Like everything that we happen to have done in Zambia for the last 50 years: there is no mission, vision neither objective nor purpose; including history.
In what way will learning history help our society ? History in itself is false because it always represent the opinion of the writer. The most important aspect of a human being regards of colour is to strive to be who you want to be in life. Abolishing of slavery didn’t end with a stop in human trade, it was evolved into education . Africans are the most knowledgeable people but they lack intelligence and this is due to the education system that was put in place to replace physical slavery. Teach yourself and you will become the master.
A witty article professor. However, I find your paper very xenophobic. Your cynicism and distrust is very evident. I would have appreciated if you indicated some concessions and further more remove the emotion in your article.
I don’t agree with some of the narrative but this certainly is the best article I’ve ever read on Lusaka Times. If we are progressive it should provoke a lot of positive debate
This is like the Tower of Babel, so many reasonings and interpretations. We are who we are today because of history. Let us rest here and make the future better by doing what we know well.
YOU ARE NOT EGYPTIAN! Now or before, nor in future. Egypt is now a waste land, why would you want to sideline with that??