Bantu Documentary Challenges Zimbabweans to Reclaim their Identity

By Alfred Tembo

Harare — Zimbabwe cultural heritage should not be viewed as being in conflict with modernisation, but rather as a foundation upon which the country can build its future, says Echelon Trust Executive Director Regges Kudzai Mubaya.

Mubaya was speaking about Bantu, the Zimbabwean Identity Project, a 17-part documentary series produced by Echelon Trust and airing on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation every Thursday at 21:00hours.

The documentary explores traditions, languages, rituals and oral histories of Zimbabwe’s 16 ethnic groups while challenging colonial narratives that have often portrayed African cultures as backward or incompatible with modern life.

One of the central themes emerging from the project is the relationship between tradition and modern technology.

“We discovered that the binary between tradition and modernity is false.

"Our communities are not choosing between the past and the future instead they are living in both simultaneously," Mubaya said.

"A young Karanga farmer uses weather applications on his smartphone while practising humwe in the field. And a Shangwe headman records his oral history on a mobile phone held by his assistant.

"I see n  in that, it's the change in time," he said.

The idea that tradition and modernity are opposed is a colonial construct that seeks to convince Africans a need to abandon their cultures, he said. 

"The documentary shows the opposite, heritage is infrastructure for the digital future policy formulation. You can be modern and still be African," Mubaya said.

He said modernisation was not necessarily a threat to traditional culture, arguing that the danger arose when modernisation was imposed without consideration for indigenous values.

“Modernisation is not inherently a threat. The threat is when it is imposed without regard for cultural values, where education teaches children to be ashamed of their languages, when media portrays tradition as backward, when economic policy ignores indigenous knowledge.

"Bantu documentary shows communities that have integrated modern tools without losing their identity.

A smartphone is a tool for documenting tradition, not a threat to it. Tractors can coexist with humwe. The two can coexist when modernisation is adapted to cultural values, not imposed in their place," he said.

The documentary has also encountered young Zimbabweans who are using social media and digital technology to revive, document and even commercialise traditional practices.

“Yes in Harare, young TikTokers are creating content about traditional cooking and fashion.

"In Masvingo, a teenager filmed her grandmother weaving baskets and posted the video online and the basket sold to a buyer in Germany," he said.

"These young people are not simply preserving tradition; they are adapting it for a digital age. They are proof that heritage is not a museum piece.

"Heritage is a living, evolving force. The medium changes; the message endures,” said Mubaya who believes digital technology could become one of the most important tools for preserving Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage, provided communities remain in control of how their traditions are documented and distributed.

Considering the tech era in which we are Mubaya attributes the needs to value tools that benefits out growing need for betterment of mankind and his ambitions.

“Digital platforms are essential. They allow communities to document their own heritage, bypassing external gatekeepers.

"A smartphone is a documentation tool. YouTube is an archive. Social media is a distribution channel.

"But digital preservation must be ethical. This is why we developed the ethical content protocol, which speaks to ethical engagement such as free prior informed consent, attribution, benefit-sharing, transparency.

"Digital platforms are powerful, but they can also be exploitative. The goal is not just to digitise heritage but to ensure that communities own and benefit from their own digital heritage," he said.

Building trust in communities by producing a documentary of this scale presented numerous challenges, particularly when it came to accessing communities and documenting sensitive cultural information.

“The biggest challenge was acces. We could not just show up and film. We had to go through traditional leaders, build trust, and earn the right to document. It took time and patience," explained Mubaya

The documentary projects on what defines Zimbabwe with a single phrased definition but rather a composition consisting of its 16 ethnic groups, the cultural diversity which is should be seen as a source of strength rather than division.

“Absolutely. In fact, this is the strength of our nation. We are not a melting pot—we are a tapestry. Each ethnic group contributes a thread to the fabric of the nation," he said.

The documentary celebrates this diversity while showing the common values that unite Zimbabweans.