Mashudu Mambo
CULTURE has always been a bone of contention among people with some viewing it as archaic practices and others as the lived experiences of our forefathers. Tomorrow, we celebrate the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, a day where we celebrate our different cultures.
In Zimbabwe, we have different ethnic groups who have different cultural beliefs. We have the Shona, Tonga, Venda, Sotho, Ndebele, Shangaan and many other groups and all these groups have different cultural beliefs and customs.
The World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development is an occasion to promote culture and highlight the significance of its diversity as an agent of inclusion and positive change.
It represents an opportunity to celebrate culture’s manifold forms, from the tangible and intangible, to creative industries, to the diversity of cultural expressions, and to reflect on how these contribute to dialogue, mutual understanding, and the social, environmental and economic vectors of sustainable development.
As we celebrate cultural diversity, we celebrate and promote each culture that we have as Zimbabweans. In an interview, a custodian of the Venda culture, David Mbedzi (Chief Staudze) of Beitbridge West said this day was a celebration of our identity, and parents had a pivotal role to play in educating their children on culture.
“It is important that even when we live with different people from different ethnic groups, we must always uphold our culture. To preserve our culture, as parents it is our duty to educate our children about it because culture does not mean people have to stop going to church. It gives us our identity as people to know our roots and where we are going to.
“In Beitbridge, we have our culture village which signifies mainly the Venda, Shangaan and Sotho and our way of life.
The culture village is there to help the youth and next generation as a source of learning or a library. It is important to share about the family history to our children, and taking them to their rural homes where they will learn from folk tales about their identity and be proud of it,” he said.
He said culture was mistaken to be a practice of evil things rather than a celebration of identity and a way to remember our values as human beings.
“People have different beliefs on what culture is, but culture basically means to have “ubuntu”, which is love and caring for one another. Culture must not be associated with things like witchcraft, there is nothing bad about our culture.
“It all starts in families where we show love to one another and spread it through the community,” he said.
Chief Staudze added that as we celebrate Cultural Diversity Day people must remember that it is not about wearing traditional clothes but rather upholding values of love and respect.
“People must be proud of where they come from because we might wear our attires and look wonderful for ceremonies but its significance is when we spread love. We must be able to stand and not let other cultures override us but be confident with our differences and uphold them,” he said.
Culture is not only in food and customs but also in music.
In an interview, the communication and marketing manager of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, Rodney Ruwende, said one of the pillars that they had in the music strategy was of cultural diversity where their main focus is to develop the use of traditional music instruments.
“The idea in the music strategy is that we promote the mbira, one of the many traditional instruments we have in Zimbabwe. We have mbira manufacturers that have already formed a mbira guild, a grouping of craftsmen.
“The mbira was listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in the intangible cultural list. This was spear-headed by Zimbabwe and Malawi. Mozambique has recently pushed for the listing of the mbira on the Unesco list,” he said.
Ruwende said their goal was to ensure that future generations can learn and preserve the mbira for more generations.
“We also have activities that have been put in place to promote this instrument and transfer this instrument, which is the safeguarding part, to the youth and the young people. Once you have standards, the next generation can just open books on how to manufacture a mbira and that stays within our community,” he said.
The day provides us with an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the values of cultural diversity and to advance the four goals of the Unesco Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions adopted on 20 October 2005. These goals are to support Government systems for culture, increase mobility of artistes and cultural professionals, integrate culture in sustainable development frameworks and promote human rights.
