Conquest, Colonial Education and Cultural Uprootedness in Africa — the Role of Education for Hunhu/Ubuntu in de-rooting the African in Zimbabwe

Abstract

There is disagreement between colonial and post-colonial Africanist historiography over the impact ofcolonial education on the indigenes of Africa. Theformer maintain that colonial education benefited the Africans tremendously as it brought them (the Africans) civilization and enlightenment (Temu & Swai;1981, Majeke, 1986). However, the latter are not quite agreeable to this position as they argue that colonial education had more negative effects than positive effects. Notwithstanding the benefits of Western education to the Africans it had the major negative effect on the Africans of culturally uprooting the Africans from their autochthonous culture consciously or otherwise, into a foreign and alien Western culture.. The argument of this paper is that colonial education was and is still instrumental in culturally uprooting the African from his\her indigenous culture into a foreign Western culture. Cognisant of the' preceding, this paper intends to examine the role of colonial education in this regard and in the same spirit is proposing a type of education, namely education for hunhu\ubuntu; (Makuvaza,1996) as the modus vivendi in efforts to de-root the African. Education is being singled out for this purpose precisely because if education was instrumental in culturally uprooting the African, it too must be instrumental in de-rooting the African. This paper is an effort toward contributing to the debate on cultural uprootedness in Africa and Zimbabwe in particular and possible ways of containing it.