The Sunday Mail
Years back, when whites still had absolute dominion over blacks in this part of the world, some of our own people thought the best way to get ahead in life under the circumstances was to suck up to whites by speaking their language, dressing the same way they do and wholesomely adopting their norms, values and culture.
In the then Belgian Congo (later Zaire and now DRC), this curious species was spawned from hordes of pilgrims who invaded cities from rural areas, and was known as the évolués, who were French in everything but colour and descent.
And, in some instances, this Europeanised breed — boasting nothing more than basic primary education, which was viewed as fitting and appropriate for supposedly evolutionary laggards such as blacks that only needed to learn the rote observance of rules and instructions — often viewed their rural counterparts with disdain and contempt.
At the time, the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant missions dispensed education tailored to train learners for “bottom-level” participation in the workforce and inculcate values of subservience.
Although secondary education for blacks was later introduced, it did not help to improve their lot, as learners had to make do with ordinary clerical work, which invariably meant every kind of odd job assigned according to the whims and caprices of whites.
Being both native and foreign
But those who fluently spoke French were considered and even treated as an evolved specie that merited the special privilege of sometimes hobnobbing with whites.
In their work “Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba”, writers Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick describe the extraordinary and absurd lengths that évolués were prepared to go just to look, feel, behave and be close to whites.
“At home, with knives and forks, they sometimes ate apart from their wives, who sat on the floor using their fingers in a communal bowl. At formal dinners with whites, African men appeared with only one woman, although they might have had multiple wives,” they wrote. Kikikiki.
“In this curious world, where they were both native and foreign, the husbands somehow associated with the oppressor, although they hoped for a time of their own autonomy. They were not entirely comfortable in their own skins . . .
“Some Belgians encouraged this new class to believe that if it, for example, gave up polygamy and adopted Western mores, Belgium would grant concessions that would eventuate in equality.”
We still carry that curse, even to this day.
For blacks, gabbling, stammering and failing to speak fluent English or any of the white man’s language is often met with the ignominy of guffaws of censorious laughter, while, conversely, when whites make an abysmal attempt to pronounce (rather mispronounce) words in our own native languages, they are rewarded with obsequious grins and appreciative applause.
Some amongst us go to obscene levels of bleaching their skin, having cosmetic surgery and wearing their hair to look Caucasian — even marrying into white communities.
Most often than not, their world inevitably comes crashing down when they eventually realise, as they always do after doggedly trying, that whites are not particularly interested in black groupies.
Musician and performer extraordinaire Michael Jackson had the money, fame, influence and even went the extra mile to bleach his skin, have his nose scalpelled to look like a white man and married a string of white women, but he could not gain acceptance.
He had to comfort himself by penning the song “They Don’t Care About Us” in 1996.
You need to listen to it. It was a profound lamentation from a broken black soul.
When “Jesus” snubbed “Zacchaeus”
You will never imagine how disappointed Bishop Lazi was in black folk who invited themselves to Britain Queen Elizabeth’s elaborate funeral and, after being snubbed and humiliated, later complained of racism.
Visuals of King Charles III unabashedly snubbing the hand of a black man who enthusiastically wanted a Zacchaeus moment of meeting the grieving King last week were shocking but not unexpected.
Shocking not because it happened, but because it played out in broad daylight before billions of viewers around the world who were following this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.
The Bishop does not blame King Charles III but the black chap.
It is absolutely fatuous for people of colour to seek validation and a sense of belonging at an event celebrating an alien culture that unapologetically prides itself in dominion over other races.
Let us face it. The queen’s funeral was quintessentially a white event celebrating the supposed supremacy of a race and Empire built on the blood and sweat of perceivably weaker races.
Even now, the royal family is currently being rocked by racism.
This is why Prince Harry — King Charles III’s son — finds himself ostracised by the royal family for daring to contaminate and stain royal blood by marrying Meghan Markle, a woman of mixed race.
It is not a secret that when Harry and Meghan were expecting a son (Archie), some in the royal family were concerned about how dark the baby’s skin colour would be.
Kikikiki.
You see, no matter how much they pretend, these people do not really care about us.
Moral of the story: The white man is not Jesus and the black man must stop trying to be Zacchaeus.
Unbridled naiveté
In the circumstances, Bishop Lazi finds it fascinating that we have people in our midst who still believe that those who continue to demonstrate that they are not particularly enamoured of blacks would have our best interests at heart.
How can those who enslaved our forebears for centuries now lecture us about human rights?
How can those who pillaged our villages for centuries teach us about property rights?
How can unrepentant racists be concerned about the welfare and well-being of ordinary wananchi in far-flung countries they consider sh*thole countries?
But we still have Zimbabweans who want us to believe that sanctions that were imposed by the US in 2001 have everything to do with democracy and human rights.
Democracy and human rights, my foot!
Proverbs 1: 22 asks: “How long will you gullible people love being so gullible? How long will you mockers find joy in your mocking? How long will you fools hate knowledge?”
2 Timothy 4:3-4 is equally relevant: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
Those who credulously believe this preposterous narrative that a righteous America is concerned about the welfare of ordinary Zimbabweans need to reflect on a recent report (April 2022) on the State of Black America that was released by the National Urban League, a New York-based American service agency founded for the purpose of eliminating racial segregation and discrimination.
Among many of its worrying findings, it discovered that black women in America are 59 percent more likely to die as a result of bearing a child, and 31 percent more likely to die of breast cancer, while black men are 52 percent more likely to die of prostate cancer than their white counterparts.
It gets worse.
Black couples are more than twice as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage or a home improvement loan.
In terms of education, schools with more minority students are more likely to have inexperienced, less trained and even uncertified teachers, according to the report, whose statistics are from the US Justice Department.
Wait, there is even more.
Black people were reportedly more than twice as likely as white people to experience threats or uses of force during police encounters, and three times more likely to be jailed if arrested.
In 2020, they were 93 percent more likely to be victims of hate crime.
This is still happening in the so-called “land of the free and home of the brave” more than 157 years after the last slaves were freed, and we expect the same system to superintend over justice around the world, least of all in poor Zimbabwe?
Oh, please!
But there is a reawakening in Africa, borne out of the glaring discrimination that became apparent after the coronavirus pandemic, where these powerful countries hoarded life-saving vaccines and condemned poor ones to an uncertain fate.
They did not care of what tragedies were likely to visit Bishop Lazi and his ilk.
A lot of countries, however, are beginning to see US sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe for what they truly are — callous unilateral coercive measures that are doing incalculable damage, particularly at a time when the world is grappling with a myriad of other crises.
Calls for sanctions on Zimbabwe, and pressure on those who opposed them, will continue to snowball and eventually become too loud to ignore.
Last week, we witnessed history in motion, as a historic number of Heads of State (and representatives of key regional bodies) used the platform afforded by the United Nations General Assembly to call for the unilateral measures to be lifted.
There is more than enough evidence from the 12 countries that are presently under US sanctions — Balkans, Belarus, Burma, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, North Korea, Syria, and Zimbabwe — that these measures do more harm than good, if there is any good at all.
In fact, they are evil.
If you are black and Zimbabwean, and continue to ape the white man’s narrative that sanctions were imposed because of human rights and democracy, and have to remain, you urgently need your head examined.
Of course, we will always remember how the opposition’s silence was so loud at a time when our brothers and sisters from around the world were speaking against the evil that continues to adversely affect generations of innocent Zimbabweans.
All this because we dared to correct a historical injustice by taking back our land.
Bishop out!
