The Sunday News
Richard Runyararo Mahomva
I am not a fan of these Western anchored ideas nor am I keen about human rights commemorations emanating from the West.
I find Africanist interpellation of humanity and commemorating womanhood in particular more appealing. In the same manner, I can safely declare my bias towards African feminism rather than Western inclined feminism. However, this time I had a chance to closely follow the 16 Days of Activism commemorations.
Traditionally, this feminist advocacy initiative usually runs from 25 November up to 10 December.
This campaign is marked by a series of events aimed at castigating violence on women and girls. Many of our neo-liberal civil society entities in Zimbabwe have embraced the 16 Days of Activism as part of their gender activism calendar.
While following this year’s 16 Days of Activism from a distance, I had an opportunity to read a book written by one of our own unique feminist writers.
Her name is Ericah Gwetai, a seasoned educationist and prolific writer with a unique style of intermingling her imagination’s interaction with the pen to share her personal experiences with the world.
In her work, one can trace salient feminism — a kind of feminism different from that which radically vilifies men. I doubt she considers herself a feminist in as much as she might not notice how her work is deeply anti-colonial.
In my view, she is a decolonial feminist and her work is relevant enough to deconstruct misogyny derived from deep seated inventions of patriarchy which is an outcome of a normalised failure to re-imagine African existentialism beyond the realms colonial symbols of power.
On several occasions I have interacted with Amai Gwetai both as a parental figure and as a fellow intellectual.
In all our conversations, most of which are densely intellectual; she has proved to be more of a laissez faire being who is not married to any fixed ideas. She is not philosophically rigid. No. She is just a fluid thinker.
Certainly she is a lover of intense fiction writing and she is very well invested in terms of her multi-genre reading collection. Sometime last year she was disposing some of her old reads much of this literature got space into my shelf courtesy of her careful book disposal with me in mind.
She gave me a hard-copy of Frantz Fanon, Immanuel Kant, something from Hall and another from Gramsci. Thanks to her kindness, I also got souvenirs from the late iconic novelist, Dr Yvonne Vera’s library.
Ericah Gwetai is the mother of the late Zimbabwean literature goddess, Dr Yvonne Vera. Talking about Yvonne Vera just reminds me of how much Zimbabwean feminist writing has continued to immensely contribute to the body of knowledge in terms of challenging the linear voices of patriarchy in our national recollections.
In reference to this view, one is quick to remember the sterling contributions of Tsitsi Dangarembgwa, Tanya Lyons, Cynthia Marangwanda, Virginia Phiri, Barbra Nkala, Sibongile Mnkandla, Cynthia Marangwanda, Rudo Gaidzanwa, Vongai Zvidenga Nyawo-Viriri, Patricia MacFadden, the late Professor Sadza and Dr Simbanegavi-Nhongo.
Therefore, as we reflect on how women and the girl-child have been presented as socially and politically weak; we must also fairly evaluate the contribution of some Zimbabwean women in redefining our being away from the down streams of coloniality.
It is without doubt that some of the feminist intellectuals have carefully exploited their experiences to capture our history — at the same time challenging the patriarchal monologue in shaping Zimbabwean densities of knowledge, power and being. I am happy that in the little time I have invested my passion for literature I have been privileged to interact with most of these great ladies of the pen. They have helped me understand The Other Side of imagining being, knowledge and power.
The Other Side
Ericah Gwetai’s latest offering titled The Other Side is particularly unique in drawing the reader towards a historical appreciation of the present livelihood conditions of the African.
The principal theme emerging in the first story of his compendium is that of recovering the past to read into the present.
The past in concern is that of the confrontational realities of the being colonised and being a coloniser.
The main character in the story is Uncle to the persona and that earns him the name Uncle Key in the story. Uncle Key is at the centre of the persona’s recollection, the setting is some colonial township somewhere in Rhodesia.
Uncle Key started off working at a bar and his main description of duty was to wash the reusable cylindrical containers (izikali) for opaque beer sold to patrons in the colonial “beer-gardens”. The beer gardens were part of the colonial social amenities for “native” recreation.
To date in the townships of Bulawayo one comes across many of these public alcohol outlets (amabhawa). Some of these beer gardens were named to symbolically sustain the culture of racial prejudice, tribalism and demeaning African identities in pursuit of defining the power relations of the coloniser and the colonised.
Hence one finds names such as Makhalanga, MaNdebele Beer Garden. Adopting the same manner of the naming of such drinking outlets, Gwetai speaks of Mahlakanipheni Beer Garden. The word Makahlanipheni is a colloquially substitute for referring to a wayward person, without composure and polished etiquette skills.
A person whose raucous character is misleadingly regarded as social intelligence. The term is used to deceitfully mock individuals who think they are clever.
In a subtle manner, Gwetai’s appropriation of this symbolic name can be linked to the way alcohol was used by the colonial establishment to mass create the Mahlakanipheni kind of socialites in the townships.
Probably this explains why most townships have more bottle stores and beer gardens. The idea could have been a deliberate strategy to create a Mahlakanipheni kind of society — one bent on alcoholism, extravagance and mass moral decay.
In the story, Touch me moral decay is profusely prevalent; when patrons are drunk they use the cylindrical beer containers as chambers.
They even vomit in the same containers which they would come back to use again. One day Uncle Kay had the worst nightmare as he came across contents of the womb after one of the girls probably committed abortion at the beer garden. “Her loss was probably due to chronic alcoholism,” writes Gwetai. Nonetheless, Uncle Key had no other option, but to wash the container for the next client’s use.
This scenario is not so different from that of apartheid South-Africa’s context as spelt out in Botha’s manifesto of institutionalised massacre of blacks through targeted poisoning and deliberate virus infection of commodities sold to black communities.
This indicates how Gwetai’s writing has an interwoven historical depiction of the African’s plight. Her recollection to events of the past through her imaginary story telling also gives room to observing how the conditions of the Black majority have insignificantly changed from the time of the colonial era.
The story in concern is primarily set in a typical three-roomed township house. Here the person’s already big family accommodates extended family members. Uncle Key, his wife and their son, Master live in this same house.
However, it is Master’s head injury which brings us to the main gist of the story. Following his routine play with his son after work, it so happened that Uncle had to bear the reward of a habit he had been warned to refrain from when playing with little Master.
That one evening Master hit the floor with his fragile head. He was rushed to a white hospital and after failing to get access to a head scan from the township medical facility.
After successfully doing Master’s medical errands, it so happened that Uncle Key was offered a job at this hospital. It was his new job which got him to touch an injured white man.
To him touching the white man was a breakthrough. It was the most epic thing ever to happen to him. So unbelievable the injured white man pleaded, “Black man! Touch me, lift me and save my life”.
On the next day, the story was featured in the newspaper and Uncle Key was captured on camera saving the white man. Uncle Key’s story made the headlines.
“Uncle Key cut out the picture from the newspaper and stuck it on the wall of his bedroom. It’s there up to this day,” recalls the persona. To be continued
-Richard Mahomva is an independent researcher and a literature aficionado interested in architecture of governance in Africa and political theory.
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