The Tommy D I knew

University of Zimbabwe. 1985. Not exactly a good year to be in 1^st year. Female. And of indeterminate ethnicity. It was supposed to be the best times for those of us who had grown up in the gwazhas (villages), and smaller towns. Coming to the capital city. To the big one and only “Vhaa”. Away from parents, strict boarding school rules, and nosy neighbours. We got student grants, with some extra cash to spend, (thanks to Robert Mugabe’s education policies). Many of us lost our heads. Some lost their panties. Some bought pants to wear publicly for the first time. And we walked funny in them. The lecturers gave us hour long sermons, and walked out on the dot. We didn’t know what to make of this method of teaching. So we went to the Students’ Union, drank our pay-out. And lost our heads once more. Well if you were a man that is. Or a clever girl, who spoke with a twang (acquired from one year of schooling at a former whites’ only school). For the rest of us of the female species, you kept your head down, walking funny in those new jeans. But knowing the boundaries; don’t go to the Students’ Union at night or you will be raped. Stay away from boys in groups because they will harass you. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

I was strange anyway. Not quite Shona, not quite Ndebele. From bang in the middle of the country. So I could hang with the other group on Monday and with the other on Fridays. I could talk about the massacres going on in Matebeleland with the one group. But not with the others who vociferously denied that it was happening. Being non-aligned was dangerous. You had to choose sides.

Only if you didn’t know Thomas Deve. A wiry little man. With a bit of a stoop. He sported ‘unkempt hair’, (as my father would have spat), smoking his life away. Smiling at one and all. Jumping from one activity to the next. Always talking. Always gesticulating. I soon met his friend George (Charamba), also doing his Masters, but in English. They made a weird pair. Tom, the skanking, smoking, drinking, fun loving one. George, the bookish, ever serious, teetotaler! The one loved loud reggae, the other loved Orchestra Dendera Kings and Zairean rhumba. They had furious political debates. Half the time I had no idea what they were fussing and fighting about. I just listened. Then when they were done, we would all have a good drink, a laugh. And still remained friends.  

I soon discovered we shared a love of reggae. He brought me lots of cassettes, (those little spooled things that you stuck into a little portable radio (bought with that payout), and played loudly. Annoying your room mate or the girls next door. Till the spool broke, or got entangled. He introduced me to IJahman. Eeka-Mouse. Dillinger. John Holt. All kinds of singers my brother had never introduced me to. “Fluffy reggae”, he said, dismissing my beloved Bob Marley and Third World. “There is no consciousness here my friend. That is just doof-doof-doof. All about love, love, love. Why do we want to just sing about love! Listen to the lyrics (oh that is what words to songs were called? We just called them words. Lyrics he called them). I got hooked. He invited me to the Students Union to go skanking. Skanking? I had never skanked before. I was too shy to skank. In public too? Tom held my hand. Took me to my first reggae party, and my first night out at the dreaded SU! There I was, throwing one leg this way, and the other that way, among them dangerous looking-ganja puffing-beer fuelled boys of the UZ. There were dozens of them. All of them with similar hair to Tom’s! We skanked all night. Any time someone tried to place their hand on me, Tom was there in a flash. ‘Idrin, we don’t do that to our sistren here’. They listened to him. Respected him. The Elder had spoken. I was left in peace.

A few weeks later. I ventured back to the SU on my own. There was to be more skanking. I did not know where Tom was, (this was in the days before cellphones in case you are wondering). Besides I needed to grow up. Be my own girl. Yeah right. A new idrin I had never met, made a beeline for me. I kept ducking, he kept pulling me. I wanted to leave. But I wanted to stay and skank.  I got wedged into a corner. Blouse torn. Poked by smelly fingers. Then Tom materialized in the darkness. Beat the living daylights out of my attacker. After that, the SU was mine. Reggae nights were the highlight of my life at UZ. Tom continued to be by my side. I wondered what time he studied for his MPhil. He just seemed preoccupied with all kinds of projects.

Soon, he had launched, the Society for African Studies (SAS), with other friends. Tom organized speakers. Lectures. Africa day events. Solidarity events for South Africa. For Namibia. For Palestine. For the Saharawi Republic, (where was that?).  I learnt about events, struggles, people, leaders, I had never heard about. They didn’t teach us that stuff in the formal African history lectures. “They are reactionary these people! Very reactionary! We must teach young people a different history of Africa”, said Tom. I did not know what reactionary meant. He had to give me a whole lesson on that word. My lecturers didn’t speak such language.

We joined the team producing the students’ magazine, FOCUS. Together with Tawana Kupe, (the late), Dr. Lawrence Tshuma, Tendai Biti, (when he was still just Tendai Biti), and the delightful cartoonist Lennox Mhlanga we put out a magazine for the students. I learnt how to write. Tom read my pieces. I teased him saying he was studying Economic history, I was the one doing English, so he had no right to correct my grammar. “You must be more political Everjoice. This is too fluffy! It is fluffy! Fluffiness was clearly his pet hate. This was said with grace. With humor. And yet with seriousness. I have kept the fluff Tom, and added a bit more seriousness.

Then Tom fell in love. With the absolutely beautiful Bernadette. Berna, as he called her. Oh she was beautiful. Still is. Tom had found the love of his life. For many months he disappeared from the skanking gigs, and wrote less for FOCUS. Then he reappeared. Like he had been gone only for an hour. Just picked up where he’d left off. But this time with a new spring in his step. Suddenly he would hum along to my fluffy songs. The power of love.

1990s. We had grown up. Joined the world of work. Tom had dropped out of his MPhil. George had completed his Masters. Then life happened. Tom married Berna. Started a family. George got married too. The country was moving in all kinds of directions. So were we. We all dabbled in writing, journalism of sorts. But on different ends of the spectrum. We would keep in touch, in between producing kids, publications, and movements. He would continue to find me good reggae. He had eventually given up trying to get me to stop eating meat and study Rastafarianism. I am too fluffy for any such commitment. Besides, my father owns cattle, I have to support the beef industry – I kept telling Tom. And he would laugh.

When I need a good goss’, serious gossip, I would find Tom. He always seemed to know who was doing what, where and with whom. If I needed the intelligence on some guy, Tom would supply it. He seemed to know everything and everyone. That was another thing we shared, our love of a good goss’. In the 2000s, when our world connected again in so called ‘global civil society’, it was Tom who supplied the goss’ on what the boys’ club was up to. Yes, there is a boys’ club. With a membership.  Tom was not exactly ‘card carrying’, but he certainly got invited into it when strategic. Then he’d come back and tell his excluded sistren!

In the same two-nought-noughts, I relied on Tom to help me figure out the new Zimbabwe.  There he was again. Bobbing up and down in the various movements and spaces. Always debating furiously with someone. Gesticulating. Was that slight stoop getting worse? The dreadlocks were certainly greyer, the beard totally silver. I looked at Tom and knew that I too was getting older. And hopefully wiser. I could rely on Tom because I knew he was not selling me a partisan political story, or project. Somehow, he managed to stay above it all. Non-aligned. In a country in which it seemed one had to declare their allegiance to one party or the other/s. Yet the Tom I knew maintained his friendships across the divides. He was still friends with George Charamba. I do not know what they talked about. Or what they now disagreed about. Tom was labelled a State spy. He found it hard. Debilitating. I have kept my friendship with both of them, (does that also make me a State spy?). It was hard. The Tom I knew kept going though. Passionately believing in social justice. In socialism, (at least he did last I checked).  He stayed in love with the beautiful Berna. Passionately talked about his children. Each time I visited Zimbabwe, I would find Tom, so we could catch up. Mostly on the phone. Life had become too complicated to find two minutes to sit. He always had a story to tell.

I will miss you Tommy D. My Idrin. My comrade. Thank you for respecting me as your sistren. In the last 24 hours since you passed, I have kept tweeting, posting on social media, that you were the one man in civil society movements who never treated me, my friends, as a piece of meat. Which we often get in these mixed spaces. From the days of the Students’ Union, till you passed on I knew you as my brother, a fellow traveler. I always felt safe in your presence. Again something many women don’t feel in mixed sex spaces. Thank you for NEVER talking down at me or those who are less educated. Thank you for never condescending to us, for never ever mansplaining! Not once do I remember you reframing anything a woman said in your presence – ‘what my sister was trying to say is…Let me give the BIGGER picture.”. You knew and respected that all of us had a part of the picture, big or small. And all the pieces matter. Thank you for respecting me, us, as your social and political equals. Thank you for the love. For the reggae. For always, always reminding me to be more political. I will continue to admire your steadfast beliefs. Your values – in a world, a civil society, a country where these now come and go like the morning dew.  I am sure Tajudeen, Barnabas and all our other sistren and idrin up in there are now agog, listening to you. You are telling them the good earthly goss’.

I will always think of you when I listen to Bunny Wailer’s song – Fighting Against Conviction. An example of not-so-fluffy reggae. You told me he was the least ‘reactionary’ of the Wailers…..

Battering down sentence

Fighting against convictions

I find myself growing in an environment

Where finding food, is hard as paying the rent

In trodding these roads of trials and tribulations

I’ve seen where some have died in desperation

To keep battering down sentence, fighting against convictions

In a family of ten, and raised in the ghetto

Hustling is the only education I know

Can’t grow no crops, in this concrete jungle

A situation like this is getting too hard to handle

To keep battering down sentence

Fighting against convictions

Keep on skanking Tommy D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy 20th my home Number 2

Here’s two glorious decades -my chosen home

I have the privilege of choosing where to live and call HOME. I have two homes in fact. Home number 1 is where I was born, where my mother is buried and my huge extended family lives. Zimbabwe. Home number 2 is South Africa, where my mummy's people came from, and I came back on their behalf! This the home I chose for myself. I love both my homes equally. Each one has its charms, and its dark sides. My two homes share common social, economic and political histories; the glory days of indigenous empires – from Shaka, to Munhumutapa to Mzilikazi and Mapungubwe, to colonization by the British and the Dutch, to the bloody and painful liberation struggles. Then finally freedom. Independence. Zimbabwe’s independence days is April 18^th, and a few days later, we celebrate SA’s on April 27^th. This year independent Zimbabwe turned 34. SA turns 20. The Mail & Guardian asked me to write a piece for Zimbabwe’s birthday. I came up with all sorts of excuses. The truth is I don’t remember my own or anyone else’s 34^th birthday. I do not recall my 34^th kiss. 34^th drink? Such a hugely insignificant number. It is that terribly confusing age at which one knows they are an adult, a head of household/family even and quite often a decision maker of some sort. But you kind of fluff your way through it and say, ‘ah well, I am not yet 35, and 40 is six years away so….”. And you sink back into your original malaise and confusion.

Twenty, is two decades. Now there is something to talk about. Although 21 is the big birthday that most people celebrate, 20 is actually what we should pay more attention to.  I look at you now my dear home number 2, through the same prism that I look at my son this year.  Andile turns 20 on May 4^th. Smart, confident, and very independent my young man is. At 20, he thinks he knows EVERYTHING! He behaves like he has been EVERYWHERE. Because he is the youngest of my children, he has tended to get the best, and the most attention. You could call him ‘the baby’ of the family, but he would probably kill you for that. He sees himself as a man. No, the man.  He and his cohort all walk around like they have six balls. They have a get -out of my way- I can do anything – and I am the world’s best- attitude. Sounds familiar South Africa?  

Yet ever so often, too often for his liking, the little boy will show through. The horribly unwanted acne will be scrubbed (not quite off), with the most expensive exfoliator on the market. The body is still growing, but he obsesses about his body image. Spends as much time in a gym as a new convert does in a religious institution. Gotta have the biggest, the most visible muscles. He watches documentaries and hugely meaningful movies, not cartoons. Well, when nobody is watching, he will switch to Sponge Bob or Digimon. In public, he will not hold hands, or hug me.  But when it is cold outside, or he has a headache, he will sidle up, cuddle up, sniffle like a baby and look suitably miserable.  Mummy gets ignored when times are good. No reply to emails. No smileys in response to my (lame) jokes. Just don’t let the school administrator send an important email! It gets forwarded to mumsy in two seconds flat.  Need cash now, now? Frantic long distance call at midnight. And as soon as the crisis is over, he reverts to his adult-confident self. Mummy is only instrumental to the boy’s needs. Sounds like anyone you know South Africa?  

Happy 20th birthday my grown up – yet still so young home. In human-black-African terms, you belong to that category of family members we call ‘children’. Yes, you are still a child. At weddings and funerals we don’t expect you to do much really, except show up, hang out with the big men slaughtering the cow.  Take instructions from the older women organizing the wedding. Pass the sugar, the salt, hold the other end of the steak as they ones with the skills cut it. Occasionally you might be invited to sit in decision making processes, and the adults might tolerate your word or two thrown in. But remember you are still growing. You still have a lot to learn.

Like my son, you are the baby of this continent. You and South Sudan. Your extended family, all 53 of us like you. Most, (not all, we have to honestly say), supported your journey to freedom. Some with blood, and tears. Don’t you ever forget that.  No, they don’t want to be paid, as some South Africans have often ungraciously commented. They just want public acknowledgement. Your African family admires you, and at times are jealous of your Joseph’s Technicolor coat.  Just don’t flaunt it. Be nice. In Shona we say, share your good fortune with your family. A complete stranger is very forgetful. Sometimes some of your African family wonder whether you really are part of them though? Do you really know who your family are? Because at some moments you sound and act confused. They don’t get why you like comparing your economic growth, your statistics, your - everything in fact, to that of strangers. Many of whom don’t actually belong to the same family lineage as you. Trust me, it does not matter much that you might sound like them or aspire to be like them, when the chips are down they say of you, behind your back, through clenched teeth, “Jeez! These people!” A phrase with which you are so familiar I have no doubt.

The beauty of being young is that your mistakes, missteps, and misspeaks, are easily forgiven. Do not be afraid to make mistakes. Where you don’t know just admit it. If need be, ask for help from your brothers and sisters. Nobody expects you to be the wise-all knowing- big brother that you are often forced to act as. No really. You haven’t yet attained six balls to walk like Nigeria, nor do you have the mouth born of experience to speak like Kenya. The majority of your black people have a long way to go before they can walk, talk and behave like they OWN this country, like they have a right to step confidently on Sandton soil, the gumption to look straight in the eye of that shop assistant and say, yes this is my card, I know the pin number, no I did not steal it, and yes I live in this hood, I have a right to make decisions on this apartment complex’ body corporate.

Like all teen-adults, you have terrible acne. Lots of it. And that is ok, it is a necessary part of growing up. You just need to remember that acne comes from the inside of you, not from the outside. It is deeply seated you might say? In the blood stream. In your case, you were born at a time when fast food, GMOs, fizzy drinks, and all bad things were the order of the day. Naturally the acne was going to come. So no amount of exfoliating or face creams on the outside will do the trick. Keep working at changing that deeply rooted cause of the acne. It is a lot of work. It is not comfortable. It is hard. You will many things wrong. There will be and has been resistance.  Like all things not visible to the naked eye, the causes of your acne will keep shifting and changing shape and form. Making it harder to eliminate, or even see results. The trick is not to get defeated, or expect quick results. Sadly you are growing up in the age of instant gratification. Instant change. Press a button and what you want will pop out. You are firmly a part of the ATM- Whatsapp-SMS generation. Sorry. Real life isn’t like that, as you will discover to your chagrin as you plod through your 20s and especially your 30s. In plain English; Keep working at eliminating the structural causes of injustice and inequality in your own country and globally. Apartheid is still alive and fighting back. You are doing well to fight it, to uproot it. Racism and sexism are deeply ingrained. Keep talking about them, and working to eliminate them.

One of my favorite artists, Gregory Isaacs sings about how one never knows (the use of) a good thing until they have lost it. South Africa, you have a lot going for you. Sometimes when I listen to you though, everything sounds all gloomy and doomy.  Maybe that is teenage attitude where everything has to be seen and expressed hyperbolically; It is so bad! Oh my God! The government is corrupt! The roads are in disrepair! So much poverty! All these human rights violations! It is terrible!!! Terrible!!!

Hee hee dee! Huuriii! Let me laugh as we would at the communal water-well back in my home village in Shurugwi. And we would round that off by saying, kudada kwevari mugomo, kukumbira vari pasi matohwe, (the insensitivity of those up in the mountains, disdainfully asking those on the ground for fruit). Of course I realize you are 20, very much an urban child, and will have no appreciation of mountains and wild fruits. So in a language that you will understand; don’t be ungrateful and ungracious about what you have. Be happy. Appreciate it. Celebrate it. There are those of us who would give a breast and an ovary to have what you take for granted. Freedoms of association and assembly. Sexual rights. A fantastic constitution. Running water. Electricity at the flick of a switch. Freedom of expression, (where even racists and misogynists of the worst variety get more than a word in and hog the airwaves instead of hiding under the biggest rocks, but of these, another day). Economic opportunities that have drawn so many of us in your extended family to your overflowing table, (that is what family is for, don’t grumble, haven’t you heard of the black tax?).  Your thriving arts and creative industries. your functional democratic institutions and systems. And all the wonderful support, goodwill, and love so many of us have for you and how we will keep cheering you on, and on, and on. Need I continue? 

Happy birthday my beautifully thriving, comfortable, full of hope and opportunity Home Number 2. I love you more each day. As we would say in KZN, in Bulawayo and all over this continent, khula uze ukhokhobe! Or as your generation would have it, khula uze uphile lama steroids, (grow as old as you wish or till you depend on steroids to prop you up. *Note no political inferences may be drawn from this heart-felt wish).    

One year to go - what I know for sure

As I inch closer to completing half a century on earth, this is what I know for sure. I am at that wonderful age when I am expected to be wise, clever, and say big things that my children and their children will quote after I die. I have earned the license to say whatever I want and get away with it, in so many spaces. This is a privilege I did not enjoy when I had more teeth, firmer breasts, a perkier butt, (did I ever have that?), and had less consciousness about who I am and what my place is in the world.

So here goes. Take out your pen and journal, (that thing with ink, and a real paper journal honey, this is not phablet stuff), you might learn a thing or two.

Note; these ARE in order of importance.

1.        Clarins facial products really work. On black women. Sorry white friends. I have given up suggesting anything to most of you. Some things are beyond even me.

2.       Having children is not for every woman. Eating croissants baked by Mohamed of Rutland Court on 4^th Street in Harare and drinking mojitos at Doppio Zero (Rosebank branch only), have the same effect – you are fulfilled. Life is beautiful.  

3.       Love your mother. Always. Give her whatever she asks for. Listen to whatever she says. You will want to quote her ad infinitum. Very effective when talking to men, directors of institutions, mentees, the media, and anyone you want to respect you.

4.        Body shaping spandex is amazingly wonderful. Just make sure you take low blood pressure medication in advance, otherwise the blood supply to your head gets cut off and you WILL faint, mid-powerful presentation, quoting said mother above.

5.       Never ever have sex with someone who has never bought, and owned five vinyl long playing records. LPs. This applies to every generation. Golden standard evidence of having lived. A life.

6.       There is no point in arguing finer points of politics, world affairs, human rights and what is wrong with heteronormative-extractivist-capitalism, with someone who does not know the words to one Randy Crawford song, or horror of all horrors, has never heard of Peter Tosh.

7.       To women of my cohort, if you are walking along the street and a man walks towards you with a smile on his face, don’t assume it is for you. It is for the little nymphet behind you. Should the smile really be for you, never ever let on that you have a platinum bank card, and your banker comes to you. Quietly enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labour. It is called willing giver, willing eater. Give them what they want. It is their patriarchal RIGHT to be the provider.  Do not deprive them of their God given right, (see Goddess below).   

8.        If they don’t give you that job/contract/column inches, it is not because you are not smart, witty, skilled or experienced. They are just too scared you will show up their deficits.  

9.       Nice women who speak in a sweet, squeaky whingy voice only get eulogized at their graveside. Speak up. Speak loud. Tweet. Write. Shout. Better to be more powerful and well respected in this life, than as a tokoloshe. Practice saying NYET. Very often.

10.   There is a Goddess up in the sky. She is always on your side. You don’t need to go inside a building to chat to her. You do not need someone else to interpret your conversations with her for you. Especially if you have to give them and or their wife any money. You do not need to consistently tell everyone about your lovely relationship with her. She knows. You know. For sure. Just enjoy it. Be grateful.

 

I will vote in 2018, not this year

I did not go home to vote today. I already knew my ‘candidate’ was not on the ballot paper. All of the ballot papers, Presidential, parliamentary, local government. She was not there. No, this had nothing to do with rigging, lack of identity documents, lack of adequate time to prepare or any of the logistical issues – before you consign my candidates’ absence to all the alleged stereotypical issues that everyone has been rattling on about. No.

My candidate gracefully chose to step aside. Walked away from this election – literally and metaphorically, because she knew that this was not that sort of election. My candidate figured out  five years ago that the 2013 elections were never going to be about the issues or things she, myself and probably millions of other Zimbabwean women care about. She knew already, that this was merely an election to choose one man over the other. Yes. A man. Women like my candidate have been quite clear for some time now that it didn’t matter how clever, analytical, or clear they were about what the problems are in our country and what the solutions could be, they did not stand a chance. Their voices would get drowned out in this all male contest. And if we were ever in any doubt as to what this election was about, a young man representing MDC-T told us categorically on South Africa’s E-TV last weekend – “this election is not about VALUES”, he thundered, “all we want is to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe”. I have never understood why or when it became necessary to pronounce his name in full like that? Interestingly the other contestants are now referred to in that way…’Morgan Richard Tsvangirai’ Hee hee. Is that supposed to give them more gravitas? (Or more curiously, referring to them by their totems/clan names. Each time this happens I have visions of their wives kneeling on the floor wiping their penises after sex). Let me not digress. We were told the truth. Or more accurately we were reminded. The message was broadcast across the region. Whatever little denial I had left was banished from my head. I cancelled my ticket.

Values. A concept that has largely deserted our politics and our people. Honesty. Integrity. Humility. Care for another one. Heck – just being a good person! We forgot what that means many years ago. It is now person eat dog and its owner. It is not just the political leadership who lack values. It is most leaders, from so called Civil Society, to religious bodies to even the family. Everyone just wants what is good themselves. The fanciest car. The biggest house. The largest amount of cash. The longest weave. The latest Apple product. The biggest Bible. Let us not forget this last one. The biggest fashion accessory of my people. This is what matters. How you get it is not that important. You just have to have it. In NGOs– that part of the population with which I am most intimately connected, we made sure we generated these material things from our vantage point. It started with us being the ones getting forex, trips outside Zimbabwe, (to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe), and the fuel coupons. This was back during the hyper-inflation period. Soon we got hooked onto these lovely things. We generated trips to Joburg and London. As Directors and Senior program staffers we made sure we did not miss the next per diem. If there was no per diem we threw such tantrums that the money just had to be found. Our donors did not disappoint. After all we were the leaders furthering the democracy and good governance agenda. Development? Rural development? Urban poverty? That agenda is coming later, for now we just needed Mugabe to go.  

When the ‘crisis’ eased after dollarization, we struggled to keep up our lifestyles. We almost fell into the bottom 5%! We had to do something. So we generated more trips. The smallest altercation with a police officer became global news. Even if it was for an infringement of the road rules. We organized workshops, preferably after hours, or out of Harare, just so we could award ourselves the $30 per diem. Why we had to get a per-diem to participate in our own workshops I still don’t get. Actually I do. There is a name for it. Greed.

Greedy. Selfish. Now there are two words that define who we have become. At the top of the greed ladder are the ones who want to control all the diamond mines. In the middle the ones who fleece anyone fleece-able; the plumber charging an exorbitant amount to fix a mere broken pipe, the mechanic stealing car parts instead of fixing your car, the school teacher charging for extra lessons when she should have been teaching properly during normal school hours, and the home affairs officer wanting a ‘Coke’ to give your baby the birth-certificate to which she is entitled. On the same spectrum, the church leader/founder screaming around town in a 10 fancy- car- convoy while his congregants have not had a decent meal in many months.     

Most of us have, over the last decade forgotten what this clamour for change was about to begin with. For some of us it was as that political party person said – not about values. It was only about getting rid of Mugabe. He could never do anything right. Nothing that he said could ever be true, or good, or useful. And if the uninformed among us were to be believed, the man and his government had never EVER done a single good thing for Zimbabwe since his mother Bona delivered him. Mugabe and anyone associated with him were just bad because….they are intrinsically bad. Gone was the critical perspective. Even those of us who went through doors of UZ thanks to his social development policies did not ever want to be heard acknowledging it.

Across the street, our newspaper editor friends and journalists in the non-state media joined the ‘party’. Besides the entertainment good news, everything and anything that Mugabe and his party said or did was just to be trashed. Ditto, across the borders, and across the seas. Ours became the single narrative – MDC good, ZANU PF bad. Simple. No room here for nuance, or complexity. And we all know, to quote Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi ‘the danger of the single story’.  

My candidate is not on the ballot paper because she would simply be hounded off the political stage by the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and violent political culture that pervades Zimbabwe. From a whole elder statesman who swears at a diplomat from another country and calls her a ‘street woman’, to the average Tendai and Senzeni, who take to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to abuse others using the most degrading Shona and Ndebele words ever seen in print! ZANU planted and cultivated this political culture, it got nurtured by other political parties, sections of civil society and ordinary citizens. In between the swearing at ‘your mother’s vagina’, it is hard to pick out what is at political stake and how the one whose mother’s vagina is better/cleaner/smaller,(or whatever it is one’s vagina is supposed to look like on public platforms), will do anything different.  Political violence and intolerance is certainly not the preserve of ZANU PF.

‘Zimbabweans should stop being driven by ideology and be more driven by economic pragmatism’, advised one economist on twitter.  For many days I have wondered what this meant. I guess it is in the same vein as saying this election must be devoid of VALUES. The economist should have said in simpler English, don’t think, just focus on making money. Be good capitalists and your problems will be solved. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, who gets hurt in the process or who you shove out of the way.

My candidate is not on that ballot paper because she thinks too much about ideology. She worries a lot about what some of the choice phrases mean; attracting foreign investment (of what sort? To invest in what?); Reengaging the North/West (Because? How will we make sure we don’t lose power and control over our resources?); Attracting donors (so that they can support whose development?);  Unlocking Zimbabwe’s wealth (so that it goes into whose pocket?);  Media freedom, (to promote whose rights and will black women in Mkoba township get to speak for themselves? On their rights?). See what I mean? My candidate asks too many questions. She wants to have conversations that are about ideology, values and principles. In the current atmosphere,  she will not be heard. She might as well be speaking to herself and her few friends like me who make her helpful cups of coffee but aren’t enough to win her an election. She will not have an inch of space in the media. She will have very few NGO friends, religious ones, or media ones because that is not our language at this moment. 

I will vote in 2018. My candidate will run in that election. The dust will have settled. I am optimistic that come the next elections Zimbabweans will put values back on the agenda. We will debate and be clear about our leaders’ political ideologies.  I see NGOs in another five years discussing and implementing human rights based DEVELOPMENT for all Zimbabweans– not just the heterosexual.  In the next five years, I want to have honest conversations about the unfinished business of RACE and RACISM. Honest conversations, inside Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe, rather than the current dishonesty that says it is one of the present male leaders’ sole agenda. It is still my agenda. By the time we vote in 2018, we will have a definition of democracy and participatory governance which is not just about personalities but about my favorite topic- street lights. Yes really. Street lights. to increase safety and security for my granddaughters when they walk late at night in the township.

By 2018 we will have developed a new political culture, one which at the very least allows each Zimbabwean to speak, act, chose, and be who they want to be.  I will vote when my country and its women’s broken souls have healed. When we relearn how to just be what my mother used to call ‘good people’. Simply that.  I so wish that by the next election – Zimbabwe will have reverted to being a secular space.   Jesus will be removed from the ballot papers and we will keep him off  forever. As a black Zimbabwean woman, it is my deepest wish that this is the last election in which the only choices in front of us are  ‘BULLS’, (their party’s words not mine!), and a bunch of great-grandfathers who have never heard the phrase ‘sexual autonomy and choice’.  

Why I voted yes in the referendum

I voted yes. I stood in the short queue and within less than 10 minutes, I had cast my vote. My son Andile who turns 19 soon, was thrilled to cast his first ever vote. He kept wondering if it was really over? Whether there was anything else required of him? We took several photos of our pinkies in the parking lot. The police looked on disinterestedly.  

I voted yes because indeed I like this draft constitution. I have read all of it for myself.  I didn’t understand some parts, so I asked my dozens of lawyer friends to explain it to me. This was after I gave up on civil society organizations getting round to explaining it to those of who are legally illiterate. I could not rely on the parliamentary committee because they were too busy serving their parties. In mid 2012 when the first draft leaked out, it was immediately seized upon by several “experts” who trashed, twisted and interpreted it for us in what have become the hallmarks of Zimbabwean public discourse – hate speech, hyperbole, and plain old partisanship. Because it did not say things in exactly the way they wanted them said, my fellow NGO workers were having none of it. For several weeks, I kept asking some of the organizations my international NGO funds, “What exactly is the content of the draft constitution and what should we as citizens know and think?”  The conversation would start off nicely, but within a few minutes it would degenerate into a fully fledged attack on the former ruling party, and their (evil), leader Robert Mugabe. We never got to the good parts, if there were any in their minds. I was left none the wiser.  So were millions of Zimbabweans.

I did not trust any of the media to translate the draft either.  They are all hung up on either Mugabe, or Tsvangirai, so their ‘analysis’ focused on these two men.  We all got earfuls on what the draft provides for ‘Mugabe’, as if he will forever be the President of Zimbabwe.  Even as we went to vote, the so called international media obsessively reported on Mugabe going to vote, what the draft means for him, what will happen to HIM, and what he is likely to do. When they got tired of that they turned to what the draft means for Tsvangirai, in particular that the post of Prime Minister is not provided for in the draft.  As if to say we want Morgan for Prime Minister now or for posterity!

If it wasn’t about these two men it was about gay rights. Following the ruse cleverly created by ZANUPF,  several sections of Zimbabwean civil society fell over each other denouncing gay rights, telling us how Christian/God fearing or good Shona-Ndebele peoples they were, and they would   never tolerate gay rights.  It was open season for hate speech. Yet on closer inspection, gay rights were and are still not in the draft! Grave omission if you ask me but that is the subject for another day.

Only in the last few weeks, after the referendum date was announced, did both the media and the NGOs start complaining that they had not had enough time to study the draft and tell citizens what’s in it. The average Chipo and Themba have been short changed not only by the state in its current form, but even by those who should have known better.  I am privileged to have had access to the various drafts, to some of its writers and to the few spaces where serious analysis of the draft happened.   I refused to cede my personal choice and right to be informed to someone else. I went out and looked for the information, because the single narrative of my country was beginning to feel too simplified and too narrow. The average citizen was left stranded by politicians, the media and civil society, way back in July 2012. Yet these are all people who all claim to be on their side or working on their behalf. We should have known better.

I voted yes because I am tired of this unending constitutional conversation – if one can politely call it that.  I was there in 1997 when we started a movement for a new Zimbabwean Constitution, the National Constitutional Assembly. Myself and a few other activists were invited by two young men, Tawanda Mutasah and Deprose Muchena to work with them in creating what became the NCA. Back then I was a bright eyed, easily persuadable feminist activist in the making, leading a network of women’s organizations – the Zimbabwe Chapter of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF). Our membership was 38 women’s organizations and movements. Deprose and Tawanda, working under the auspices of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches spearheaded the formation of a movement that was to catalyse constitutional transformation and would forever change the face of Zimbabwean politics and civil society activism.  Our message was simple, constitutional transformation was about crafting new content, through processes that involved all Zimbabweans. It has been ‘16 years of hard struggle’, as ZANU PF would say! Sixteen years in which the people have been engaged, mobilized and they have spoken, through various means.  It has not been a perfect process. It has not been totally participatory. The journey has involved tears, and in some cases blood. But in my book, I felt involved, engaged, asked what I want, and felt I had my say.  When I didn’t want to engage I made my choice and didn’t participate. I also know that the women’s movements valiantly talked to and educated women. Inevitably they too would get caught up in the partisan politics and get lost in the melee. It has not been easy to go against the grain, whatever the grain was at that moment.

There are a few things that I don’t like in terms of content. There a few things missing or which I would have wanted to see writ large. But on a scale of one to 10, I give this draft constitution a 7.5. As I have grown older, less cross-eyed and not easily persuadable, I know that one never gets their wish 100%.  The Zimbabwe we lived in 1997 is not the Zimbabwe we are in today. If there is only one indicator of this fact, it is that this society has careened to the fundamentalist right, culturally, socially and religiously. So the bar some of us had set 16 years ago on women’s rights has had to come a tad lower. And I know that the women’s rights that I would have wanted to see fully in a new constitution are going to have to be vigorously fought for whether a Mugabe or Tsvangirai is in power tomorrow morning. I still hold up high my feminist values and principles which I took into the NCA. I define those and stick to them, but I adopt my strategies, alive to the context around me at any moment.

 I voted yes, because I like this new constitution. It promotes and protects women and girls’ human rights in so many ways and far much more than we have ever been protected in our national history.  I see a lot of opportunities for women’s movements to use it to gain more rights in the near and distant future.  I claim my voice as a founder of the NCA to say, I voted yes, because part of my dream and vision is now within reach. I don’t want this moment to pass. I want my son who voted for the first time today to set a new agenda for the Zimbabwe he wants. I want Andile to go to elections in a few months to choose leaders who will speak to that agenda. I don’t want him burdened by an unending conversation on one document, as if there is nothing else to talk about. More importantly, I want him to be spared the agony of seeing and hearing the same people spewing hatred, intolerance and violating his rights. As I told him before he voted, this constitution is about you and your rights, not about those men.

Letter to my mother

There isn’t a single bottle of perfume on your dressing table. Not even French lace talcum powder that I associated you with in my childhood. There is only one boring piece of some nameless pink soap in the bathroom. Not your usual large collection of fragrant soaps. The bubble bath is gone. Nobody buys or uses it anymore. You always smelled beautifully. I loved sidling up to you and inhaling your perfume. Growing up, I used to think that since we shared the same size hips, and some looks, I would grow up to be as elegant as you were. It didn’t rub off. You were always clean, smart and fragrant. Effortlessly. Everyone else’s mother looked dowdy and un-bathed next to you.

Your earrings and necklaces are gone from your bedside drawers. We gave them all away. Those who got this inheritance don’t quite wear it like you, a slightly awry necklace here, earrings too fashionable for that one. On you it always was perfect.

Your beautiful house still looks beautiful. Just the way you left it. Well sort of. Mandlovu sweeps, scrubs and disinfects it every day. Just the way you like it. Everyone now runs their finger over the furniture, checking for dust. If we pick up a speck, we worry, and quickly get the yellow duster! Even the children know to clean up, just in case you come in and see the dirty walls, dishes in the sink, or  disorganized wardrobes. Sadly we are slacking on some of your housekeeping rules. I now see cups mixed up with dishes. Drinking glasses  in the same water as greasy pans. I shriek at my sons and daughter in law in horror – a bread knife dunked in water  - complete with its wooden handle!  Sorry ma. I am trying. Some standards were just too high for our lot.

We have started drawing the curtains though, and leaving them drawn all day! Come rain come sunshine. You used to hate that. I have finally won the war on this one. I told you, the whole point we bought a North facing house was so that the sunshine could stream in through those big windows in the morning. I kept telling you that the sunshine was supposed to make us all happier, sunnier, more cheerful. You were bothered about the sun burning your sofas and discolouring them. So we fought each time I came home. I would draw the curtains apart, you would draw them back together, casting a shadow over those pretty green and butter-cup walls. Sorry mummy. We do protect the sofas up with throw overs. I hope that makes you happy?

Your garden had become overgrown with weeds. The hedges were too long. And the shrubs had grown into giant trees. All in one year. We trimmed them all on your birthday, December 24^th. We mowed the unwieldy lawn too. I hope you like the new roses we planted. We had to uproot the old pink ones because they didn’t look so beautiful. Sisi Maggie came to inspect the garden after New Year’s. She said it is beautiful. She will tell you more about it.

I am sorry I haven’t been going to church as consistently as I should have. You taught me and my children to love God, and the Methodist church.  I love the singing. I love the familiar rituals and liturgy. The fellowship is a blessing. I look for you in the pews, among all the red blouses, and you are not here. I go to Gweru Central more than my local because I keep hoping you will walk through that door and sit with your fellow Golden Girls. But you are no longer inside the church, and I don’t know how to pray and sing without you. Hymn 191, your favourite, makes me weep. So you will forgive me if I spend six weeks without going to a service. It is hard to keep up my faith and hope. It is even harder to find the verses and chapters in the Bible when you are not here to quickly turn the pages to the right section.  

You will also be disappointed to know that I haven’t learnt the art of speaking in a low voice. Mum, you have only been gone a year. It is early days yet. You used to cringe when dad’s side of the family got together and we shouted at the tops of our voice. “Hayi, MaKaranga bakithi!” you would cringe. I haven’t put it in any of my resolutions because I know I will fail miserably. You in contrast were the epitome of measured calmness. Maybe I should hold you accountable for not passing on enough of your good genes to me?   

I don’t know how I have survived this whole year without you. But I have. Over the last year, people have said a lot of trite little things like; oh she had lived a full life. Oh she has gone to a better place. Time will heal your pain. I don’t know what to think of all these things. Actually I do know what I think. They are not helpful! You are my mother, the one who gave me life, and my bearings.  You were my true North. I am lost. I don’t know what to do with myself. I wanted you to live to 200 years. I want you here, and not in some invisible “better place”. I still want to smell your perfume each morning as you come to tell me you are going off to your shop. And I expect to see you walk through that door each evening, dog tired but happy to put up your feet. I want to sing and pray with you. I still need you to show me how to cook sweet potatoes, rice with peanut butter and “road runner chickens”. My children need to call you to tell you they passed their exams. Today Andile passed his A Levels, and he had no grand- mother to call and celebrate with him. Collen is doing well in University and we need you at his graduation. I am expecting my second grand child and we need you here to help us raise your great grandchildren.  So I don’t want to be told that you have gone to a better place, where we can’t see you and enjoy your love.

Today, I will not say those trite things to you or to myself. I love you mummy. I miss you. The children miss you. I bought you the new Chanel perfume in a black bottle. I am keeping it for you. I am buying hats for you and wearing them.  I am keeping the houses clean, the way you want them. I am trying to raise the children the way you would have done it. I am trying to be a good person. Not a religious zealot. As you always said, “it doesn’t matter how matter how many times you say God this, or church that, just be a good human being to other human beings. That is all we are required to be”. I don’t know how I am doing on that score.

I will plant more flowers in both our gardens because I know you love flowers and flowers remind me of you. Today, I will sing Hymn 191, and I will cry. I will pray. And cry some more.  Then I will draw the curtains, and hopefully the sun will be out and it will stream through. And cheer me up.

Patriarchy on hind legs

I saw patriarchy today. It was on its hind legs.  Arms akimbo, it stood at the door, surveying the room. Appraising all of us. Up, a lesser being jumped! He smiled so wide I feared his face would crack. As he got closer to it, he started clapping his hands in greeting, the traditional way. Then he went down, almost squatting, all the while clapping those hands in this endless greeting. The meeting froze. The cameraman turned the lens towards it. Satisfied with the greeting, patriarchy clapped back to acknowledge the greeting and told the lesser being to stand.

 It was led to the high table.  The special place reserved for it. Up on the podium, from whence it could continue to appraise us. The flowers were beautiful, a massive bouquet that must have cost at least twenty real dollars. Even the bottled water laid in front of it was of a different variety. We all had the cheaper 50 cent sort. Patriarchy sat back in its high chair, took out its three mobile phones and laid them out in front of itself. Not bothering to turn them off, or putting them on silent. Patriarchy is important you see. It must be available 25/7. It cannot miss a call. Besides, it can always answer its phone mid speech, “hello! Yes! It is me. Yes. Me; Honourable/doctor /ambassador/engineer/prophet/reverend/bishop/Mr/father of/Minister/chief/imam”

It always has to remind the caller and all within ear shot, of its importance.

I celebrated patriarchy today. Aided and abetted its power over me, over all of us. There is a special way to greet it. Colourful. Wordy. Full of humility. The longer it is the better. The lesser being took the microphone. Asked another lesser being to welcome the great patriarch, in that special way reserved for patriarchy. Lesser being two obliged. Down he squatted. Asked all of us to clap our hands in unison while he chanted the greeting. A long, colourful praise poem. Praising the totem. Inviting the ancestors of the totem into the room. Thanking patriarchy for gracing us with its presence, we of lesser importance. Then he invited us the women, nay ordered the women to ululate, in the special way that women ululate for power. I do not possess the gift of ululation – fortunately. So I sat with my mouth half open in amazement, while my sisters’ ululation must have rung all the way to Samora Machel Avenue.  Patriarchy fiddled with one of its phones, then, the other. Clearly bored by this performance for its supplication.

I saw patriarchy last week. It was on its hind legs in another room, in another town. It walked into the room late. All the chairs were taken. Mostly by women. There was only the floor mat left, next to the woman in the blue dress. She shifted to make space for it. But it stood erect, and smirked.
Then the women on the chairs got the message through osmosis– make way, make way, patriarchy is here!  Suddenly three chairs were vacant. Oh two more! Plus four more! Such a vast choice. It surveyed the chairs, appraised the room, and chose the one strategically next to the window. It was too hot to sit anywhere else.

Patriarchy is good at 'interpreting' words and others' thoughts. Even when we are speaking the same language; “what this woman is TRYING to say is.....I think the BROADER issue is......The more strategic discussion IS.....

See, it is the role of patriarchy to think for lesser beings, to interpret their words, and even to yank thoughts out of their heads. Patriarchy feels it carries the burden of framing every discussion and reframe it so that we lesser mortals get it/get with the program/abandon our silly ideas/think bigger/think better/generally fall in line.
Then there is the real interpretation. It is the role of patriarchy to provide literal translation for those of us who don’t speak ‘the language’ at all, or well. English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese. That language. It is the duty of patriarchy to translate as well as decide what is important and what is not. I listened to patriarchy two weeks ago, up in Binga, in Siachilaba ward. The women spoke Tonga. The visitors spoke only Shona. Translation was needed.

“I was very happy to buy my own pots with the money I got from the garden”, Georgina said.  

Translation; “haaa, she is just saying some small -small things.”  

I heard patriarchy in Haiti three years ago. It had to translate from Creole to English, for the visitors to understand each other with the women in the program. “Sometimes we don’t even enjoy the sex!” said Marie. All the women affirmed her with claps and whoops. We were bemused. What had she said? No translation. All picture, no sound. We asked for translation, it wouldn’t come. We begged.  Then we got angry. Demanded it! “Well, she just said something very silly, you don’t need to hear it”. Patriarchy clapped its mouth shut and looked the other way. Patriarchy had spoken. It had decided. This was not to be spoken about. Not on its watch.  

All my photos are full of patriarchy. It put its paternalistic arm around me in every picture. I am not sure why. In workplace conference group photos, community photos, social gatherings.  It just wanted to touch. To feel?  To protect? Who? From what? We will never know. We just know we were OWNED.

I can now spot patriarchy from a mile off. I have learnt its ways. Some of them still fox me. Some still surprise me. I just need to get better at dealing with it, when it walk in on its hind legs.