Not  many readers may have been around or interested to chart the success of the singer Boy George; some may know him from being on the panel of the singing reality competition television series called ‘The Voice’ but his claim to fame began in the 1980s when he was the lead singer of Culture Club, a new wave band which gained considerable success around the world. Their greatest hit was ‘Karma Chameleon’ with the catchy refrain “Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon: You come and go, you come and go”. We are like chameleons, changing in different circumstances.

It became the best-selling single of 1983 in the UK and reached No. 1 in twenty countries. AI describes it as being “about the fear of alienation, the pain of unfaithful love, and the consequences of not being true to oneself” while adding that it “refers to an inconsistent, unreliable person who changes their behaviour, opinions, or emotions to fit in or manipulate situations”. In the song, he says “Every day is like survival; you’re my lover, not my rival” and “I’m a man without conviction; I’m a man who doesn’t know how to sell a contradiction”. We know about survival, do we not?

Some of this might be reflected in the life of Zimbabweans over the years, not least now as we are called to think more seriously about the whole concept of our culture and heritage. In the short history of the country called Zimbabwe we have experienced many currencies, many curricula (and Ministers), many Constitutions, many convictions, many commands and many cultures, both formal and informal, both written and understood. We also have different tribal cultures here in Zimbabwe, so it is difficult to identify a clear, pure, singular, Zimbabwean culture.

Some have jokingly declared that one culture Zimbabweans do share is the ability to laugh at adversity but equally the strongest claim to the Zimbabwean culture is far and away the strong assertion that “we’ll make a plan!” That is the hallmark of Zimbabweans – and we have had plenty of opportunities to polish it shiny! Zimbabweans have in many ways learned to be chameleons, to adapt to the latest situation, while some decisions may appear to be like karma. We make a plan.

We have been through times when we had an annual budget which became a quarterly budget, then a monthly budget before people were reduced to ask, “What’s a budget?” We went through a time when children learned not to save as if a desired object was in the shop one day, we should buy it because it may not be there the next day, but if it is, it was likely to have doubled in price. We still do not save money now (we have learned that, not in any curriculum) but invest money in building houses, fuel stations or schools. That has been a culture forced upon us.

The curriculum that life has thrown at us (whether it is karma or not) has taught us to make a plan. It is perfectly described in the Kipling poem ‘If’ to which we have referred in previous articles. Other lines from the poem tell us that ‘If you can hear the truth you’ve just spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings, and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and lose, and start at your beginning, and never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in it except the will which says to them “Hold on”…’ If we do all that, we will be a Man. We make a plan to be a man.

The desire for education is to produce innovators and entrepreneurs and therefore we seek to teach it in the curriculum. The interesting thing is that there is no need; everything that has happened in the past has forced people in their experience to learn it by the seat of their pants, from experience. Zimbabweans are experts in making a plan; it has become part of our whole culture. We just need to join the club as it is our culture. Situations come and go, come and go; we must just take them.

Through making a plan, Zimbabweans have learned to be resourceful, resilient, resolute (maybe even, whisper it softly, a little ridiculous) by learning to change, to rip things up and start again, to adapt and remodel. The boy George or Tatenda will become a man that way. Scrap the curriculum and develop the culture: make a plan and make a man. No ‘if’s about it.