Mutemakungu.

Going no contact with someone you still love really hurts. I Just hope you’re doing okay.

Do you realize that some of the biggest companies in Zimbabwe have chosen indigenous names? Not by accident. Not by lack of options. But by design. Look at names like Masawara Holdings, Nyaradzo Group, Mukuru, Simbisa Brands, Padenga Holdings, Masimba Holdings, Zuva Petroleum, Tigere Property Fund, Tanganda Tea Company, Makomo Resources, Chibuku Breweries, and Kuminda Enterprises. These are not small backyard operations. These are institutions. Regional players. Market leaders. Some of them even moved away from more “conventional” English branding over time and leaned into identity. These companies have access to -Branding consultants -Market research -Consumer insight data -Millions of dollars in marketing budgets They don’t just “pick names.” They test them. They validate them. They invest in them. So when they choose indigenous names, it’s not emotional it’s strategic. Yet, at the early stage that’s exactly where most entrepreneurs go in the opposite direction. You will find someone starting a powerful, high-potential business… But when it comes to naming, they default to: “Global sounding” “Corporate sounding” “Safe English names” Almost as if: Local = small English = big But the market leaders are telling us a different story. Names like Mukuru carry authority. Simbisa communicates strength. Nyaradzo evokes trust and emotional connection. Zuva speaks to energy and life. These are not just names. They are meaning systems. They are memory anchors. They are identity. And in a crowded market, identity is everything. Here is the shift we need to make as founders and builders. Don’t ask, “Will people understand my name?” Ask, “Will people remember it?” “Will it mean something?” “Will it carry weight 10 years from now?” Because the truth is this: The companies that win are not always the ones with the most neutral names… They are the ones with the most distinctive and meaningful brands. Maybe it’s time we stopped underestimating our own language. Maybe the next billion-dollar brand doesn’t need to sound like it came from somewhere else. Maybe it needs to sound like home. Moyo musande kwazvo waYesu mutiitiro tsitsi. 🙏

Let’s not abuse notion of FREEDOM OF CHOICE on the inapplicable. Definitionally, education is policy and policy is directional. In our historical circumstances, the two examination boards are historically rooted, with choice of either impliedly making a statement about our status as a post-colony. It is truistic that education embeds and perpetuates a value system, which is why societies direct it through policy. I don’t think this is esoteric at all; it is plain knowledge. I recall the spirited contestation between the Church-led British educational system and the post-war ZIMFEB one; it was deeply ideological, with the current Cambridge/Zimsec debate being its re-incarnate after forces of nationalist struggle capitulated then. Now there is a clear realignment of forces and I just hope we can now imprint post-independence values through the Zimsec curriculum! I am a product of Cambridge system; I have had to literally rebel epistemologically from that system to develop a new sensibility which coheres with the post-colonial ethos. The ideological power of the British educational system works by disguising its value-laden basis by reducing matters to FREEDOM OF CHOICE. What choice did I have in studying John Keats in place of Wilson Katiyo, Musaemura Zimunya, Charles Mungoshi, Stanley Nyamupfukudza, Tsitsi Dangarembga or our own Petina Gappah? What freedom of choice does a British kid have when Geoffrey Chaucer’s bawdy Wife of Bath is made a compulsory foundation as opposed to Maxim Gorky’s Mother Courage its socialistic hermeneutics??