Distortion
of any history is mainly done by the historians, the people who write it and who
tell it. People as a whole really have to be careful of the people who tell
their history or that of any nation and watch out for the information they are
provided with.
Oral
tradition is one form that was used by historians to try telling the history of
Zimbabwe. There is very little information or written documents we get from our
Shona and Ndebele historians and /or ancestors because they did not manage to
record any history. There was no effective form of transitioning history by our
ancestors. Due to that, other people start writing our own history for us and
by so doing, incorrect information is passed on from generation to generation.
Misinformation
of history by some of these historians is done unintentionally mainly because
they know nothing much about the history they are writing. On the other hand,
some of these historians write or record incorrect information intentionally in
order to mislead the people of their own history. The first European to visit
Great Zimbabwe was a German geologist called Carl Mauch in 1871. He was
skeptical that the Africans alone had the architectural ability to build the
magnificent Great Zimbabwe walls. He thought Africans at that time were not
civilized enough to the extent of building such monuments with wonderful
coordination.
Carl
Mauch concluded that Great Zimbabwe was not built by the Africans but rather by
the Arabs who came from the Eastern side of Africa during the 14th
century at the time of the rise of the Great Zimbabwe state. This
misinformation could be on a basis of racism. These white European settlers
like Carl Mauch and Cecil John Rhodes were ignorant towards the works of the
Africans and they wanted people to believe that they were the ones who brought
in civilization to Africa. Professor Manu, A stated that “a European scientist
by the name Theodore Bent was sent by Cecil J. Rhodes to analyze the ruins of
Great Zimbabwe and Bent concluded that “the Africans were not yet civilized at
that time to be able to build such articulate stone walls”. They were clearly
distorting the native Zimbabwean history, resulting in fellow Zimbabwean
scholars of today not being sure of their own history.
The
media mirrors the way we live in our societies but it does not always do so.
People actually learn to be what they are through what they read, listen to and
see in the media. However, media can be used as a way of misinforming people
and make people believe what is actually not true because of other peoples
interest. One scholar stated that “some
sources of history are not always accurate; information passed on can be
changed by people from generation to generation”. For example, the true fact
about Great Zimbabwe is that the stone walls were built by the Shona people,
but some forms of media were used by the Europeans so as to assimilate the
minds of the Africans and make them believe that the stone walls were not built
by these Shona people.
A
journalist by the name Gregory, E once wrote ““Those of us exposed regularly to
the international, especially British media, found it hard to match what we
heard on the TV and radio and read in the newspapers with what we were finding
on the ground”. The Europeans plant in the minds of the uneducated Africans
that they brought education and civilization to Africa hence them being the
ones that would have constituted to the architectural ideologies of the stone
walls.
Africans
now simply believe that the historical information that they obtain from the
Western archaeologists is true because they do not have proper sources of
information about their own history. History can also be distorted due to
misinterpretation. For instance, the Europeans who came and settled in Africa
could have written the actual facts about the Zimbabwean history but that
information could have been misinterpreted into the Shona or the Ndebele
language. The form of language used to inform people about their history can be
very distracting because other people may not understand and end up having
their own assumptions as to the events that took place in the past.
Preservation
of any history in a country is very important for it entails what the future of
a nation may become without repeating its old misconceptions.History is
distorted by twisting a story and it being written falsely. In order for that
not to occur, events need to be taken note of, recorded and archived. This
information can be used to teach and tell people the true facts without letting
any information being wrongly misinterpreted or result in distortion.
Media
can play a huge role in preserving historical facts and events of a nation that
would have taken place. Traditions and cultures of a society and the meaning to
these traditions need to be applied to school curriculum education systems.
This in a way helps in preserving our history. It is very difficult for history
to be distorted at this stage when people are educated about traditions and the
culture is often practiced.
Now
with the incredible expansion of technology, it is easy to store some documents
containing information about a county’s history. Tanya Lewis, a blogger stated
that “Protecting artifacts against degradation is one of the Library's primary
jobs. Most paper documents are digitized, but the Library works hard to
preserve the originals”.Not mush history can be distorted at this stage of time
in this century and correct information can be passed on.
Picture Courtesy of www.zimmail.co.zw
