by Nechinanga Tawanda Kapikinyu
Here is my take on culture..just my opinion.
What us culture? Culture is self-preservation, it is a way of survival. It is ownership.
Culture constantly evolves. It is defined by the living, honours the works of the dead and strives to remain relevant into the future.
Culture responds external influence because it dies if it doesn't...that means adopting what's good and abandoning what's bad. Culture also seeks to influence outside its circle...it is all about survival. It adopts, adapts and influences.
People who think that culture means going back to old ways are as lost as someone who digs up their ancestor's grave in order to wear their old attire hoping to derive wisdom from there...or worse still, to try and get the ancestors skeleton sewn on them hoping something will change.That is not culture..its nolstagia!
"Zviro zviedzwa, chembere yekwaChivi yakabika mabwe pakabuda muto" is an old proverb which urged the living to try out new things. Our ancestors believed in innovation, they believed in change "Kare haagare ari kare". So if they wake up today and see many relating culture to old ways they will disown us because they clearly left us the keys to self-determination and the wisdom to innovate.
Our ancestors knew this thats why they constantly interacted, innovated and traded with the externals. Thats why they had to use their hunting tools to defend themselves and later moved trading guns, making guns and using their own gunpowder "unga". The quest for self-determination saw them evolve, innovate, form alliances in oder to reclaim their right to self-rule! Because that's what culture is!!
Whilst people think they were clad in animal skin in the 1890s, they were already moving with times growing cotton and making cloth "machira". Yes, the pictures of Charwe (Nehanda) and Gumboreshumba (Kaguvi) have our heroes wearing their own clothes because it was modern then! They moved with times!
It is foolish to try and go back to old ways when you have modern tools...own them and innovate..that is culture! Culture is determined and lived by the living, it is not static!!
What is bad about it is felt and experienced by the living so it is the duty of the living to modify it and keep it alive!!
As an example, if "culture" dictated that the short-cut to village B is through a small forest and then after generations of walking through that forest lions decide to make it their home. If you argue that your ancestors have always used that road instead of perhaps finding a safer route or killing the lions, the whole village will perish! If you decide to use another route and allow these lions to breed, they will eventually come to your villages and take you out! Culture requires that you sit down and plan new ways of survival into the future!
If society believes say lobola has become more of a financial burden than a source of uniting families...it is the society's duty to come together and find other means...however society has to AGREE.
Lets face it, there are things we cannot wish away but just take control and make those things speak to us. Cultural hegemony left us a "government" and a system of capitalism which is rooted on oppression. It can take as long as 90 years to undo it, IF we really want to do away with it.
Democracy has always been there...we just called it culture because these are the ways which the majority in that society subscribed to. The only new thing is the system of capitalism which we can either abandon or localize it so that it benefits us.
We should focus more on how we can own modernity and make it speak to us and benefit us, how we can look into lessons of the past and innovate around them to make them relevant today than trying to chase shadows.
If the majority of society believe the way we do some things is a "bad culture" then the fault lies on the living of that society...because the dead modified it when they were alive!
Mukai vana vanyamunhu!
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