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SENATE HANSARD 15 OCTOBER 2024 VOL 34 NO 05
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 15th October, 2024
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE ACTING PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR HARARE (HON. SEN. TAWENGWA): I move that Order of the Day Number 1 be stood over until the rest of the Orders of the Day have been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
EQUIPPING OF TRADITIONAL LEADERS TO ENSURE COMMUNITIES PRACTICE, PRESERVE AND RESPECT CULTURAL PRACTICES
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the demoralisation of cultural and our traditional values by western influence.
Question again proposed.
+HON. SEN. SIBANDA: Thank you President of Senate and I also thank the mover of the motion Hon. Senator Muzoda. It values our traditions. I have realised that we have since forsaken our culture and traditions. Sometimes we do that deliberately because we believe that we are civilised. We think that we are civilised by not conforming to our traditions and culture. Last week some Hon. Senators mentioned a lot of things pertaining to this motion, particularly with reference to the rain season and some other matters. In some countries, people do practice their cultures and traditions. Did you observe closely when Queen Elizabeth was being buried? If you watched closely, they were performing their tradition and culture during the burial of the Queen. During the rain season, if you look at our traditional leaders, what will have been done? They embark on rain ceremonies for the rains to fall. Christians say this should continue so that we have food security as a nation.
Going forward, President of Senate, it is time for us to plough as we go back home to attend to the seed before it is put on the ground. Because of failure to practice our proper culture, sometimes we find ourselves failing in our undertakings, failing to adhere to our traditions and cultural requirements when it comes to whatever we will be doing. You find that in some places, some people will never practice those traditional values which we had, they forget.
On the time of harvesting, people just come in to the field to harvest but that is taboo if we look at our traditions and culture. As it is, there are many places where we have diverse traditions and cultures. If you look at Kariba, there was a time when the water levels went down and those who knew about the tradition and culture were aware that it was a time to approach Nyaminyami and fulfil all that was required to be done. Now, we are no longer practicing that. As of now, there are some things that we need to look into. If there are rituals to be done, there are certain things that should be attended to by elders. When elders went out to seek peace for the rituals, there were people chosen to do that. A woman who was in her menstrual cycle was not supposed to enter that place that the elders visited.
President of Senate, when you look at the deaths in the families, when someone passes on, there are certain rituals that have to be followed for the burial. If someone hangs himself or herself on a tree, that tree should be cut down, but all those things are no longer practiced now. It is a taboo; it should not be allowed to continue. We tend to be civilised and forget our own culture and tradition. For those who have passed on through violent deaths, their bodies should not be taken to their residential homes but they will be taken to some make-shift shades outside the homestead so that the person can be buried. It is such failure to practice cultural norms that affects the families and other relatives who would have remained behind.
As you conferred Mr. President Sir, when we raise our children and when cultures are being followed, before a girl could be married, some rituals would be done for the girl so that when she goes there, she would go forever to be married in that family. Of late, they could be trained and given counsel by their aunts. Failure to recognise such things leads to poor families. There are a lot of things which we could do and make our lives fail. As a daughter in-law, when you are being brought in a particular family, you will be told about the laws that are supposed to be adhered to in that family. Mostly now, we come with our own laws and we go there to violate other people’s cultures and traditions. Such things lead to problems. This approach causes problems in our lives because these are things which do not exist in our traditions and cultures.
There are various mountains in different places. As we look, in Matabeleland South, there is Shamba Mountain and in the morning, you will find that Shamba Mountain will be smoking or burning. Now, it is no longer happening because of the violations that we have done. We have failed to follow these rituals.
If you go to Nyanga again, you are told there are certain mountains where you should not go when you visit there. If there is a cave and you want to go into that cave, you have to follow the procedures. Failure to recognise such rituals leads to adverse things happening. There are again some other places Mr. President Sir, that when you go there as a visitor, when you arrive, the relative should introduce you to advise the traditional leaders that I have a visitor who will be staying here for so many days. You do not just go there and stay for six months or whatever, violating people’s rituals and rights and end up affecting yourself as well.
Mr. President of the Senate, in some places where we come from, when you put on clothes, where we come from, we do not practice the use of Zambia cloth. If you come to our area, Chief Maduna will tell you, we do not allow the practice of using the Zambia cloth to tie yourself. I believe you understand me.
When a child is getting married and is pregnant, if there is a premature birth – these days you find us posting such matters on WhatsApp. That should not be done. Elders would attend on such matters on their own, they know how to attend to them. Again, when you have just given birth, the woman should not prepare food for people. She should stay on her own. The woman should go back to her place and be taught how to attend to herself. When the child is still young, you do not wash the clothes and put them on the line outside. These days we no longer follow those customs. Mr. President Sir. I thank you for this opportunity.
HON. SEN. KATUMBA: Thank you Mr. President Sir. I would like to thank Hon. Senator Wunganayi for such a debate, looking at our traditional leaders. We have a big role to play, seeing that our traditional leaders help to promote and uphold cultural values, facilitate development and resolving of disputes in their communities. The institution of traditional leaders is regulated and is within the parameters of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Mr. President, our traditional leaders are also there to supervise headsmen and village heads, oversee the allocations of the levies, taxes, rates and charges payable to rural local authorities and to conserve the environment and natural resources. We are saying our traditional leaders should be supported so that they gain their respect as they should be. Mr. President, they should also be equipped so that they carry out their duties without any interference.
In conclusion, I am saying traditional leaders should be given their powers so that they carry out their duties with respect and carry over what they should do. With those few words Mr. President, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to say a few words.
THE ACTING PRESIDENT OF SENATE (HON. SEN. KAMBIZI): Thank you very much Hon. Senator and again, a very gentle reminder that when a Member is making a contribution, it is only proper that we also listen to the Member. – [HON. SENATORS: Inaudible interjections] - Order, order! I am saying if a Member is making a contribution, it is only proper that as Members, we also listen. The next time you are also up on your feet contributing, that other Member should also be listening to you. I think it is only proper we do that.
*HON. SEN. GOTORA: Thank you Mr. President. Let me take this opportunity to add quite a number of words on this motion about culture that was brought to this House by Hon. Senator Muzoda. Let me first of all say there are eleven things that I want to say about our culture, way of life and our norms. Why eleven, because yesterday we saw a team of eleven players that defeated Namibia, so in my head there are eleven things.
Firstly, we had our way of praying. Ever since we started staying in this land, we now call Zimbabwe for most of our races as blacks were emanating from Guruswa, Kenya and Rwanda border. We would worship and receive food under a Muhacha tree. Whenever we would carry a rain-making ceremony, it would rain. I remember Hon. Senator Zvidzai and some others saying they used to stay at Matojeni where they would appease the spirits to cause rain. We had our way of worshipping so much that our prayers would be heard immediately because we were very close to the Creator. Then with the coming in of whites, those who stay close to farms continued worshipping and respecting our culture. Although they were displaced that way, they continued receiving rains. So, that is how we used to get abundant food.
Secondly, our agricultural practice would be in such a way that we would not destroy the soil. The crops would be grown over and over again, even fifty times using the same seed without any problem. Our way of agriculture was not turning upside-down the soil structure. It is like the Pfumvudza/Intwasa that we are using right now. We would conserve our field. We grew our crops and we prayed. We also observed certain rules when it comes to edibles and what to eat. There are some things that we were not allowed to eat, be it fruits, we would stick to that. That food was also good for our health and now, there are a lot of diseases because of our new eating habits. So, that is a culture that we have lost. It used to keep us well because God created us in a way that we would stay close to him.
When it comes to dressing, some think that by putting on those traditional clothes that cover the bottom part, it was not proper. It is not like that. That would actually tell you the wholesome nature of the person, not exposing that person.
The fifth thing is marriage and weddings. People would marry each other culturally and they would be celebrations, but these days someone flies from China or Dubai, they come, they wed with no aunties involved or the grandmother. It is like ceremonial.
The next thing is how we used to train each other jobs skills. There would not be a woman who was not capable of weaving a basket or making clay pots. The skills transfer was automatic because everyone would see how it was happening. There was no boy who would say he was not capable of curving hoe-handles or all utensils used for ploughing but we have deviated from that now. We are suffering these days, we no longer have manual work because now we have to pay a lot of school fees instead of the skills that are necessary for one to have a job.
The next thing is the sports that we had. Regardless of where we were in Africa, all our sports were cultural and were meant for physical fitness. There were no sports involving dances such as waltz, where you dance as if you do not want to walk. But all the traditional sports were meant for physical fitness, for example Jerusalem where drums were beaten early in the morning towards sunrise and some birds would come. The UNESCO actually declared that this is an important dance, but we are now going to ZBC and we prioritise guitars, thereby destroying our norms.
Our culture also followed a hierarchy. The younger persons would respect the elderly. They would make way for them; you bowed or at least bent knees as a sign of respect. That symbolised the significance of our culture.
The next item is funerals. These days, a two months old baby is invited to view the body of the deceased. When we grew up, I think I started attending funerals when I was in form four. We used to be locked up at home and would not be allowed to attend funerals. This was done for a reason. The way we did our burials is different from what is happening now. Where I come from, women of child bearing age were asked to leave that place and only those who had passed the child bearing age were allowed to attend. This was done for a reason.
On conservation of natural resources, if you look at Sub-Saharan Africa, there is no black person without a totem that is in line with natural resources. That was meant to preserve our natural resources and culture; everyone with an elephant totem would not consume that animal and this is for each and every animal. This was a natural preservation of wild animals. Those days, settlement was in order done by the heads of villages but these days, people are just settling where they want.
For fruits, there were some that were consumed and others were sacred and forbidden. If you speak ill whilst eating such fruits in the forests, you would get lost and disappear. If we were to teach our children our culture, that was going to be better. People were not allowed to cultivate in wetlands and this was forbidden by traditional leaders. There were some sacred rivers that people were not allowed to cross. There was a chief and according to culture, he was not allowed to cross rivers and if he had to, someone would cover his eyes and carry him on their back. This was meant for cultural preservation. There were sacred mountains where people would not just go such as Nyangani Mountain. If you just go without following certain cultural rules, you would disappear forever.
All these cultural practices were important and the spiritual leaders would work in conjunction with the traditional leaders. The leaders played an important role in cultural practices and norms but nowadays, we no longer follow that.
The final thing is inheritance. If my brother dies, I would want to inherit my late brother’s wife because she was well looked after by my brother. According to our culture, my elder brother’s wife is as good as my mother because in our culture, we say maiguru ndimai. Nowadays, a person would want to inherit his late brother’s wife. There is also another culture; if a man’s wife dies, he would have his head shaved. A girl would be appointed to do that, the girl who is supposed to be given to the man as a wife, not just everyone.
THE ACTING PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Senator, you are left with only five minutes.
*HON. SEN. GOTORA: I am about to finish Hon. President. So, this is one of my duties because I belong to the chieftainship. One of the items that we no longer respect is the appointment of chiefs. I know that we have a lot of tribes and chieftainship differs, be it from the maternal side or paternal side, from culture to culture. These days the appointment is done at the High Court. So, that compromises the cultural aspect. For someone who is appointed through the High Court, they lose that dignity. Chiefs are supposed to be dignified and respected so that we go back to our culture, the descendants of Munhumutapa.
+HON. SEN. R. M. NDLOVU: Thank you Hon. President of Senate for the time that you have given me. I want to also thank the Hon. Senator who has moved this motion which is quite pertinent. It reminds us of our past, how we used to live and how things were done. This is no longer happening now because of civilisation. We have changed to western tradition and now we are following other people’s traditions, norms and cultures.
Of late, people used to wear traditional clothes but today, our women do not wear those traditional clothes. We have since been overtaken by the western world and have forgotten what is ours. When I was growing up, when there was drought or before rains fell, there were people who attended to such matters, spirit mediums and ceremonies, to request for rains and this was done. People could walk from different areas and by that time, there was no transport. Just as they returned, the rains would start falling. That indicated that the rain ceremonies were done properly. Right now, people would go into the bushes and would even go to Botswana to request for the rains. They would walk on foot because there was no transport then. When they would return, the rains would follow behind them covering their tracks. If people would adhere to these traditions, rains would come but today it is no longer like that.
Even parents would go into the bush to consult as to what would have gone wrong and attend the necessary rituals by removing unwanted things lying in the bushes like animal carcass and skeletons. Today, we no longer practice that, some of the things that lead to that is because we now have young people who are no longer knowledgeable in terms of our culture and because of that, we have deviated from the norms and cultures that we used to adhere to. Chiefs in those jurisdictions were knowledgeable in terms of those areas and what should be done.
So, the chiefs should consult with the elders in terms of the culture that we used to practice. Today’s children are very disrespectful, not disciplined and cannot be reprimanded. Of late, and when we were growing up, when our cattle strayed in a neighbour’s field, the neighbour would come straight to our home, into the bedroom, discipline us with a thorough hiding and our parents would not interfere with that. Today, it is the opposite of that. We are no longer practicing the basics and no longer follow what used to happen. The chiefs should stand firm to ensure that people stick to the basics. We should go back to the basics and do it according to what our forefathers used to do. There was so much respect but today, we no longer respect each other – that is indicative of the fact that we are no longer observing the basics in the region.
I therefore, implore traditional leaders to ensure that basics are adhered to. Our children nowadays walk around not properly dressed, semi-dressed. We may complain that the Government is not doing this and that, but what are we doing in our jurisdictions? What are we doing to correct this anomaly? This affects traditional leadership who should be knowledgeable in terms of how to handle matters.
In Binga, women used to smoke traditional pipes. It was the tradition of the place but it is no longer there as western culture has taken over. Of late, marijuana was not sold, people were given for free but right now because it is being sold as business, people end up being arrested for smoking it. Things have changed because of civilisation, education and other arising matters. People are now very civilised and are ashamed of practicing the basics, things change with time.
Someone said, if your brother dies, you would inherit the wife of the deceased for you to look after the children of the deceased. Currently, people only want the estate of the deceased. The motion that was tabled by the Hon. Senator is very pertinent and reminds us to reflect on the past. Why are we deviating from the past? How helpful is pursuing the current status quo?
Hon. President of the Senate, with these few words, I would like to thank you for this opportunity once again. I also thank the mover and seconder of the motion. I thank you.
ᶺHON. SEN. MALULEKE: Thank you, Mr. President for affording me this opportunity on the motion that was tabled by Hon. Sen. Muzoda. We all know our culture, way of living and what we used to do in the past. Each area and each and every chief and their village heads had their way of living. These cultures were defined as bad and satanic by the western countries. These cultures groomed us as we were growing up and every chief observed culture.
Where I come from, in the past and to date, girls are still being sent to the cultural schools where they were taught on how to handle themselves as adults and how to behave as wives. Only grown-ups, or mature girls are allowed to undergo this training from June up to August. Each chief and his subjects had their own way of living. The boys also went for training which we call hoko in Shangani where they were taught everything which concerned their lives as Shangani people and how they handled themselves as men.
Some people may say those things are bad but they are very good in our culture because they teach men how to handle themselves. You were also not allowed to perform some other things before consulting the chief. Each and every function which was done, one was supposed to consult the chief first. Even during the rain season, when people are preparing for farming, the elders of the area used to go and ask for the rains from God through our ancestors. Young children were not allowed to go but only elderly people.
If a woman had just given birth, she was not allowed to prepare a meal for the family until three months had lapsed. Nowadays, if a woman comes from labour, you will see her in the kitchen preparing food and going all over the places but in the past, all those things were not allowed. If the woman’s husband has passed away, the woman had her hair cut and there was a certain cut which identified the woman as having lost her husband. If she has lost a child, you would notice it by the hair cut but nowadays, women no longer cut their hair. Even if she has lost a child or husband, they do not follow our culture.
God has demarcated the times of the year as having the time to cry and that for joy. Even the chiefs used to know that all the laws should be followed. The chiefs from different areas know how they are going to mourn, even the deceased. You see that these days, people no longer follow the culture of spending some days mourning saying we have already finished mourning. It is another law which is no longer being followed but during the past, all those laws were being respected.
I now want to thank Hon. Wunganayi for raising this pertinent motion. I am not going to talk much about my area but I am going to give others the opportunity and listen to what they used to do. As Zimbabweans, let us continue to follow our laws and culture. Let us not be carried away and follow the laws of other countries. Let us continue to take pride in our laws, culture and way of living as Zimbabweans. Thank you.
+HON. SEN. S. MOYO: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to add my voice on the motion brought by Hon. Senator Wunganayi. Firstly, I will touch on what I know, have seen and experienced when I was growing up. We were lucky that we learnt a lot from our traditional leadership. Traditional leadership is something that is inherent in a family. When children are ten in a family, one is chosen to be a traditional leader. Traditional rituals are done to select a replacement when one dies.
A traditional leader is a powerful person, not an ordinary person and they are born with power. When a traditional leader walks around, he speaks and does things that are traditional and through values. As I speak, I do so because our norms, values and cultures were given to our traditional leaders to guide us. As Senator Moyo, I also have a traditional leader who is in charge of the place where I stay. In other words, all of us here have traditional leaders who are responsible for our jurisdictions. Even the President who is in charge of this country has a traditional leader, village and kraal head.
Where did things go wrong? When crimes are committed or things go wrong, people should first approach the village head who will in turn approach the kraal head and the matter will be solved. If the matter is not settled there, it is then referred to the chief who acts as the High Court. If you look at it now, things are going wrong and issues are just taken straight to the chief. Sometimes they are not even taken to the chief but to the English system, the courts.
Again, what I have observed is that our traditional leaders, like I said, are born leaders. When a chief is being installed, there are a lot of problems. You find that the actual person who should be installed is not installed because someone comes in with money or it is someone with influence from politics and that person ends up being the chief. You will find that person has no power to control the jurisdiction properly because there is some sort of segregation.
A chief in Mthwakazi is a very important person. If you look at it now, I do not know whether it is politics which makes traditional leaders look useless. Even here in the Senate, we have traditional leaders but they should also think on where we went wrong. You find a chief segregating his subjects as he looks at other people as more than important than others. I heard that traditional leaders are in charge of everything in their jurisdictions but in some jurisdictions, there is some segregation of some sort and as a result, things no longer work properly. When you talk about culture, you see things changing. Such things were not there yet.
I heard that in 1947, there was a drought. Where I come from, when we were preparing for the rain season, the chiefs would sit down in accordance with their norms and values and would go to what they called ‘the Manyangwa’. They took some men who were referred to as wives of Manyangwa. Traditional rituals would be done there, not what we are seeing right now. Traditional brew would be prepared and rituals done. Sangomas called Hosannas were in some places and were Kalanga. In Africa, there are no Hosannas except for the Kalanga people. I believe Hon. Nyati knows that there were Hosannas. They would do the ceremonies for the rain season.
Madam President, things are now different. All these things are no longer being practiced. I used to put on traditional clothes and would ride on zombies. A lot of things were picked up before the rains came. People would pick up bones and all those things but today, the country is dirty, people are dying as well as animals. We look up to the heavens for the rains. But when? God is speaking to our ancestors. He is not a fool. He wants us to know who we are and prepare our places. This is a matter I wanted to raise, Madam President.
The issue of churches; I do not know whether it is poverty, or what. When these English churches came into being, we all rushed there. Right now, when I move around at night, I see people in places where it used to be prohibited for them to move around. Now, we find people in some of the holy places following their rituals.
Owners of such places are the ones who should stay there. All those things are not in place now. You now find people not originally from those places staying there. If we want to go back to the basics, I believe the Government should put in place a deterrent law because churches have become a law unto themselves and have destroyed our culture.
A prophet now stays in the bush and these days chiefs are attending to matters of fighting each other. When the chief says we do not want this person, then the person goes to court and the chief is rendered powerless. There were places that people would not just walk to. At Manyangwa, right now, everyone can play around in that area. The sacredness that was there is no longer there because they violated our rituals which were done before us.
Beer would be brewed and liquor taken under a tree. As we grew up, some people would be asked to lead the rituals. You would hear what they would be saying, even if there was illness, sickness or if things had gone wrong at the home. Now, all those things are no longer in place. I would like to once again thank Hon. Senator Muzoda for moving this motion.
Let us go back to our traditions whereby our leaders would be given their powers as it used to be. When I defy the chief, the chief would be afraid of me. All the chiefs do not show fear or favour. We used to have chiefs who used to stick to our traditions. They would defend all that was under their jurisdiction.
In conclusion, chiefs on their own must sit down and introspect to see where we went wrong because we see chiefs in other countries still adhering to their basics. In Matabeleland these days, chiefs sit down, putting on their traditional regalia in remembrance of their grandparents. They should continue like that, teaching the children. When a child is at puberty stage, they would not show around their breasts but now it is different. Women go up to 25 years and still consider themselves children, yet they say they are adults.
There is another issue, that of rights. These rights have undermined our norms and cultures. Mothers have their rights. They want their rights. We know we should move in time with civilisation,
but we should respect our basics. We did not know that a child who is very young would walk naked. Even when you are talking to that teenager, you would not be given such respect. Even when reprimanded by an adult person, the child should listen to that person. Hence, I am grateful for this motion which was brought before this august House. It gave us the chance to air out especially the duties of our chiefs. If we did not take note, we are talking about the chiefs. If we continue for the next 10 years, we will end up not having our cultural norms. We want our culture to be respected.
This is a country which has got culture and traditions. Just because we are not following these cultures, we should give the chiefs the authority and jurisdiction so that we live peacefully. I thank you, Madam President.
*HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Madam President. Let me put my word on the debate which was tabled by Hon. Senator Muzoda. Madam President, I would like to start by clarifying to say what actually happened for people to have an alternative way considering our culture. When the first person started debating, initially, he talked about the period after the missionaries left. When the missionaries came into this country, they simply said they are the ones who brought light to this continent. They labelled us black people as people who are uneducated. That is why you see a lot of schools were built by missionaries. By so doing, they used to do all those things as if they were helping nationals, yet they had their goal which they wanted to achieve afterwards.
After that Madam President, when these missionaries came into this country, we received those colonisers who came into this land after negotiating or communicating with the missionaries who were here before saying in this country, we have a lot of resources that we need, but the major problem that we have is that of chiefs. The reason being that in all the areas, they respect their chiefs and our very own chiefs were the people who knew that in my area, I have people of this sort and they knew the types of crimes which were being committed back then.
That is when they sat down and said if we do not eliminate these chiefs, we will never achieve our goal here in Zimbabwe. That is why you see a lot of those chiefs were downgraded to an extent that they introduced district administrators who were said to be now in charge. Those are the people who were now giving out the laws and chiefs were stripped of their powers. There was nothing which they were allowed to administer. That is how we got colonised.
By so doing, that is when they discovered that for them to colonise this country, they needed to remove the so-called chiefs. That is why you heard those people who debated before me, who came from various constituencies saying what the chiefs used to do. They were just similar. They used to be respected but then that is the crisis that we encountered. After that, like you see now, they have some other motions which they actually bring into this country. Motions like wildlife conflict. Back then, we never had such conflicts. People used to know that this is the area where people stay, this is the area where animals are found. It was a different scenario whereby people could be attacked by wildlife.
After saying all these things, us as a nation, after colonisation, our mindsets were then confused. Now we started to believe these laws brought in by the colonisers, we said those were the correct laws. Hence, we lost all our laws which we had before. Now we have a lot of problems but most of the problems that we encounter emanated from human error. When we got liberated in 1980, those are some of the things that we should have addressed to bring back our traditional laws so that we do not consider some things like child rights and all those things.
When we were growing up, we used to know that when you want your child to grow up as a well-mannered child, people used to treat children accordingly, but now we fail to understand and address such issues. Why? Simply because, Madam President, all things need to be done, the earlier the better. We actually delayed. Only if we had started in 1980, by now we would not be regretting like what we are doing now. Those are some of the problems that we should have addressed back, anyway, we do not have to continue crying or continue regretting.
Those errors were done, yes. Right now, as we see this motion in place, that is why you even see here in Parliament they added a Thematic Committee on cultural heritage, meaning that we now understand where we went wrong, where we have to address, where we have to correct for our laws to go back to where they used to be and also you can see that a lot of diseases or a lot of illnesses are happening now. I do not know, is it that all the hotels where people stay, be it in Mutare or anywhere else, I think they got the laws to say they were taught to say if you want people to believe that, you have cooked delicious meals, you should apply around two litres of cooking oil, which is very dangerous to us. Let us actually try to go back to our cultural manners whereby we used to cook healthy food.
Right now, I am very happy when the Government rolls out Presidential scheme seeds. They now know the areas, the regions, according to the amount of rainfall which they receive annually. They know where to distribute large grains and the like. Right now, most of the people, even our children do not even know what we used to do. If you want to try telling them how to prepare dried food, they do not even know. Why are we crying now? We erred before we should rectify such problems but all the queries that we have right now should be addressed to say those are the things we used to do. Right now, we know what we used to do but we still have ample time to rectify. I will also want to thank Hon. Senator Wunganayi because the motion that he brought forward considers everybody’s life. It also considers the lives of our children, our future leaders. If we just sit in here and lie idle, let us try to rectify all those things so that our youngsters will end up having the idea of what people used to do back then. Right now, we have our chiefs who can witness for themselves. This is a very good thing that chiefs have got their own areas, so we have all those things that need to be worked on. We need to empower chiefs so that they receive the enablers for them to ensure that we bring everything back to our previous situation.
If we do so Madam President, people would see us as a good nation. Even if we do some benchmark visit to other countries like Eswatini, they are still wearing this traditional clothing, but here if we see someone dressed like that, we start to laugh at them but those are the very clever people who maintain their culture. Right now, what we used to do, we do not actually encourage everyone to go back and wear those animal skins but we simply believe that they were colonised by the British to say you must not have dressed like this but by so doing, we still have ample time to rectify problems where we did it wrong. We need to avoid throwing away culture and heritage.
To end Madam President, let us look closely to some of these laws which we implement to this country. Let us also consider that those laws should continue being there or for our country to go forward, we have some laws which are put in place. Another law like in 1950, something that is where such laws were put in place. Why can we not look into those laws as Parliament? When they were put in place, they were put in place to oppress us. Now, it is our duty to rectify and repeal such laws to say this law is not practical for us as Zimbabweans. Let us have laws which will ensure the well-being of our country. Our children should not blame us in future to say these old people impose such rhetoric laws. So, for our children, we need them to continue to enjoy their lives. Thank you Hon. Senator Wunganayi for bringing such an important motion. It impresses us but we are working together to say whatever we are doing is good for everyone. Thank you.
HON. SEN. MUZODA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. RICHARD NDLOVU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 16th October, 2024.
On the motion of HON. SEN. RICHARD NDLOVU, seconded by HON. SEN. MOHADI, the Senate adjourned at Five Minutes to Four o’clock p.m.