By Dr Charles Leyman Kachitsa
The door that you use when entering a building may not necessarily be the one you will use when coming out, exiting the building, a very sobering truth. This much depends on the circumstances and on the time when one is coming out and the design commissioned by the owners of the building even if they are tenants. It also depends on the strategic intent of the owners as to what they want you to see on your way out.
At times the difference in the use of doors on coming in and out is determined by unforeseeable happenings, for instance in an emergency if a heavy fire broke out then people may use whatever opening takes them away safely. Uninvited guests no matter the type of building usually look to enter and leave a building using unconventional doors and openings, in this group you could mention thieves.
By design some buildings require that people use different doors when getting in and out. As example, for most commercial buildings this is very common both as a security measure and also as a tactic in leading people through an experience or encouraging them to see goods normally people buy on impulse, prompting them to make a purchase of such items.
However, for certain quarters of people in this world their experience is knowing only one door especially for their dwelling places which in any case would only have one door without even windows or any other openings. Life is a teacher, that we have many doors we must be very grateful. That we can choose which door to use at any one time, we have to be thankful and look up to the Creator for the privilege.
The quotes for this week are a continuation of extraction from a history book relating to stories that now define the countries south Of African which independent have on paper attained independence normally examined every year by those who care to. I am sure the few chosen quotations listed below from the book will enlighten you to one or two life lessons. Read and enjoy:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF CENTRAL AFRICA – ZAMBIA, MALAWI, AND ZIMBABWE by A.J. Wills
“Yet another impact upon the African consciousness during the first generation of European rule was the East African campaign of the Great War. Indeed the largest significance of the campaign, which was militarily of minor importance, can be seen in terms of the impact, of which a closer study has yet to be made. In addition, the four years of hostilities influenced the rate and direction of the economic and political development of all three Central African territories. An expected acceleration was postponed for a decade when events in Europe, their consequences reaching out all over the world, intervened.”
“It was decided to encourage agriculture with the combined objects of allowing an increase of self-sufficiency, of reducing the cost of living, and of attracting a different type of settler. Much early ‘farming’ had consisted simply of cutting timbers for fuel and for mine pit props. In 1908 a Department of Agriculture was created to assist and advise farmers and to carry out research. A Land Settlement Department was established, together with a Land Bank which would grant loans for farm development. Experiments were made with cotton and tobacco. Maize farming expanded on the red soils of Mashonaland, while in Matabeleland extensive cattle ranching was carried on. ——- Great efforts were made to advertise Rhodesia, not simply as a prospector’s hope, but as a land where British people accustomed to a temperate environment could make their homes. ……..”
“Land apportionment was not officially regarded as a permanent policy. It was defended on grounds of encouragement of white immigration, the scientific cultivation of the soil, and protection of Africans from competition in land. It is true that large areas were preserved from erosion; but the interests of one race were placed before those of the community as a whole. The division of land and people occurred just when healthy urban growth was becoming necessary and when the virtual interdependence of white and black labour could confidently be expected to increase. Europeans, however, saw the Act as liberal compared with land distribution in the union; while African criticism of the land settlement was not observed by the Bledisloe Commission in 1939, and did not in fact develop till after the war.”
“The struggle to balance expenditure during the first generation of settlement accounted for the favourable bias shown by the colonial administration towards planters in the working of the ‘tangata system’. Owing to the return of Africans to the Shire highlands after the pacification of the nineties, many holders of estates under Certificates of Claim found Africans living on their land. In order to overcome the labour shortage, money rent was not accepted and the ‘squatters’ were compelled to work for one month, usually in the rainy season. Combined with the month’s work necessary to earn for the hut tax, this made it hard for Africans to manage their own gardens. The consequent trouble helped to account for the Chilembwe rising. In 1917 the Government sought to remove the worst abuses of the system by the Native Rents (Private Estates) Ordinance that forbade exaction of service in lieu of rent, and exempted altogether Africans who had lived on the estate for longer than twenty years. This was difficult to establish and by various means estate owners managed to evade the working of the regulation for many years.”
