Cecil John Rhodes

1. Cecil was born in England in 1853 into a family oa an Anglican Clergyman at Bishop's Startford in Hertfordshire (Atkinson, 1972)

2. He went to Oriel College, OXFORD and got his Master's degree in1881.

3. He went to South Africa where he become an outstanding politician and businessman and made a lot of wealth in the diamond mines at Kimberley (Parker, 1960).

4. Rhodes won over his partners to the idea of using the wealth of the De Beers Consolidated Mining company to develop the north on behalf of Britain (Parker,1960).

5. IT WAS TO THIS END THAT HE SENT CHARLES RUDD TO NEGOTIATE WITH LOBENGULA, THE KING OF THE NDEBELE, FOR PERMISSION TO MINE MINERALS IN MASHONALAND.

6. This agreement which become known as the Rudd Concession was misinterpreted by Rhodes as permission to set up an administration in Mashonaland.

7. "The fact that Lobengula had granted no land rights, no powers to make laws nor authority to settle disputes was tacitly disregarded" Mutambirwa 1980:34

8. What is important is that Rhodes appeared to be deceitful to both the Shona and the Ndebele.

9. RHODESIA  WA FOUNDED ON MISTRUST AND MISJUDGEMENT.

10. Rhodes went on to form his own company The British South Africa Company (BSAP), which organized the pioneers who went to Zimbabwe and set up and administration.

11. This mistrust of the European settlers by African has been the only constant and consistent feature in Zimbabwe during the colonial era. Whatever the settler administration did for the African people was construed by the Africans as a tactic to subdue them.

12. When the settlers developed a system of education for Africans separate from their own, the mistrust grew stronger and many Africans refused to go to school (Mungazi, 1982)

13. The settler developed to be the colonial government and the new government proclaimed boundaries of the new country of Rhodesia and enacted laws.

14. Thus, the government instituted an educational system that was too tired. There was a Ministry of African Education and a Ministry of European Education. The curriculum in the African section did not take cognizance of the African traditions but of diluted European tradition. The end product was obviously not meant to be European nor pure traditional African. (Chrispen Matsika, 2012)

15. This resulted in the 'educated' African shunning their traditions at the same time not being accepted as equals by their European colonizers.

 

FROM

THIS

FRUSTRATION

ROSE

THE

DISCONTENT

WHICH

LED

TO

AFRICAN

UPRISING

AND

EVENTUALLY

INDEPENDENCE.

That is the reason why I always session my brains so that I do not fall on the same trap that my fore-fathers fell in and also so that I can be a better leader: For I believe that this world can be a better world if vivid and transparent communication reigns in our midst.

More Love to the thinkers...

Yours in ink

Publisher T. P Chikepe