Blogging The Caine Prize: What Molly Knew

This is the third short story in the Blogging the Caine Prize series I'm participating in with several other bloggers. This week's story, What Molly Knew is by Tim Keegen from South Africa. Of all the stories thus far, this is the best - hopefully the stories will keep getting better. Unlike last week's story, 'Butterfly Dreams' the writing is much tighter and with each sentence comes a development in the story unlike 'Butterfly Dreams' which was so overwritten in several places that it stunted the development of the story, as I've said before.

'What Molly Knew' is mainly set in Goodwood, Cape Town and tells the story of Molly Retief's daughter's murder. Molly's prime suspect is Tommie, the son-in-law, an illegal, half Black half White Mozambican she refuses to recognize as family. Making clear her dislike, she says to the investigating officer: “I hate it when you call him my son-in-law. I never thought of him as part of my family.” His race, migrant status and political connections to the ANC are negative markers of difference for Molly and in marking him in this way, she also reveals the dynamics of race and foreign othering within White South African society. 

The gossip session at the haridressers on Tommie's percieved betrayal to the Portuguese (and by extension the White race) and unsavoury political connections affirm that the stranger is definitely 'not one of us' unlike other Coloured South Africans of the Cape who have insider/outsider status within the Afrikaans-speaking community because of the shared history and language. However, like many other Coloured characters in the (White) Afrikaner world (e.g. Josef Malan in Looking on Darkness by Andre Brink and Michael in JM Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K), Tommie functions as a figure of moral and political censure against privatised, casual racism, an enduring social feature even in the new South Africa.

The story opens with a desire for routine, normalcy - Molly's cat expects to be fed, and she walks around the house in her pinafore over a "shapeless lavender jersey", as she always does when cleaning the house. But that normalcy is interrupted and contaminated. Though it may seem like this day is like any other, it isn't. Sarah, her daughter, is dead.

Rather than deal with the loss of her daughter, Molly finds it apt to try and carry on as though things were normal - despite the glare of the cameras and reporters lurking about and a policeman visiting an overly neat house - everything must be normal. And that includes, Rollo's drunken tirades. 

To a certain extent, I agree with Mumpsimus who criticised this story for being 'nice writing' - where it's easy to identify good and bad. Mumpsimus writes:

Tim Keegan clearly does not like racism or domestic abuse. We, too, do not like racism or domestic abuse, and so we can read the story and feel all the proper emotions. Nasty Rollo! Poor, deluded, weak Molly! Good Sarah! Wronged Tommie!

It's easy to feel sorry for Molly, and also to feel at least a tinge of contempt for her: Stupid woman, sticking with such a man! It's easy to hate Rollo. It's easy to feel anger that Tommie is so badly treated. 

This is true, it is easy to dislike Rollo and Molly and get on a soapbox and preach about racism as I'm doing here in this post, but the meaningfulness of 'easy fiction' depends on how we as readers engage with it. In my view, the niceness of this story invites the reader to look beyond - beyond the things that we're comfortable with, like disliking Rollo and Molly, to see what else the world of the characters tells us. How telling of South African society, is the Reitiefs' desire to preserve the normal or rather illusory normalcy of their world with all it's half-truths, untruths, sad truths and family skeletons? (See AfricasACountry link below) In an eerily measured tone that marks the pace of the Retiefs' life, things seem to happen in slow motion in this story, there are no big action scenes, no climactic emotional/awakening scene. Life continues to roll out in slow motion, just like that real life story (read: country) you've heard one too many times before and you as a listener (read: citizen) don't have the power to stop from recurring.

...If there is one actionable message for the new post-apartheid South Africa, as a whole, apart from that to do with the politics of race, Afrikaner privilege and acknowledging prejudice, it is also the treatment of the stranger, the foreign African. In theorizing the notion of hospitality, Derrida argues that  the stranger is one who is the diametrically opposed 'Other' to the Self, but the notion of community and humanity embodied in hospitality mean that co-existence is possible, but rarely is this ever the case in migration and ethnicity politics - the stranger never belongs. And for the Retiefs, there is no feeling of responsibility or hospitality towards Tommie. With news of at least five recent xenophobic killings of Zimbabweans in South Africa, I couldn't help but think of the parallels in Tommie's otherness and foreign others, like Farai Kujirichita who was wrongly accussed of a crime and bludgeoned to death in Diepsloot Pretoria.

Although I enjoyed this story, I find myself strangely coming back to my weekly question about the Caine Prize and what the choice of shorftlisted story says about how the Caine Prize sees Africa and Africans. The previous stories played up stereotypes but this is story doesn't. It's well written and deserves to be shortlisted, but why do I hate feeling like this isn't the best of African writing. I haven't quite articulated how I'd ask the question of the Caine Prize in regards to this story without sounding like a overly-critical critic, but there is a question, somewhere.

Views from other bloggers:

Africa is A Country

Method to the Madness

Mumpsimus

The POWA Mixtape

fisttap @telamigo

South African hip hop guru, Tumi from Tumi and the Volume has finally dropped the video for the remix of Kanye West's Power he did last November. (See this previous blogpost for lyrics and background story). He's also dropped a mixtape in collaboration with a whole host of South African-based artists speaking out against sex and  gender-based violence. Some notable names are: Zaki Ibrahim, Ben Sharpa, Zubz and Proverb. The tape opens with some very depressing stats on rape in South Africa. Apparently "every 26 minutes a woman is raped and the majority think its okay."  In between the tracks Akhona Ndungane narrates her story of how she was raped. 

I wish I could just say how sick the rock throwback on Crush Boy was and go on about how dope tracks like What We Seek and Another Summer Without Sun are and how so and so kills it on this and that track. Because they do. All that and more, even, but the beats are overpowered by the graphic story of Akhona's rape sandwiched in between each track. Listeners cannot escape that. 

And that's a good thing. 

Salut & thank you Akhona for your courage in speaking out.

 It's called the POWA mixtape -POWA - People Opposed to Women's Abuse. 

Get your download here.

In DOPE Music We Trust

Blogging the Caine Prize: Butterfly Dreams

This is a late post that should've been done on Friday (!), but real life got in the way, so here it is:

The second in the series of Blogging the Caine Prize is Butterfly Dreams by Beatrice Lamwaka from Uganda. She is published author and teacher and if interested you can read her story Vengeance of the Gods which was later turned into her first novel.

Butterfly Dreams is the story of a female rebel child soldier who comes back to her family after having been taken to fight by the Ugandan rebels in the conflict between the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Acholiland.

For me, Butterfly Dreams reads much better than Hitting Budapest - there's a bit more structure to the story and there's actual plot development. However, there's too much overwriting in the some parts of the story and as a reader I felt like there was a slightly tortuous dragging out of the story rather than  purposeful repetition where new facts or twisted metaphors are added. In some places the repetition works, because the writer actually does something with the words or she lets lets the story tell itself.

Compare and contrast:

Exhibit A:

We watched you silently. In return, you watched us in silence. We gave you food when we thought you were hungry. You gulped down the sweet potatoes and malakwang without saying a word. We didn’t want to treat you as if you were a stranger but in our hearts, we knew that you were new. We knew that you would never be the same again. We didn’t know what to expect of you.

Exhibit B:

This is something that we don’t understand. This is our home, something that we don’t know how to explain to you. Something we took refuge in. This is our home that keeps us alive. Keeps us sane. Just huts. Grass and bricks. Just huts to hide our nakedness.

Clearly B is much stronger than A because B actually describes refugee camp where they live and also explores the emotions of the family whereas A is, well, just words. And too many of the same ones, they don't move the story along but stagnate it. At points it comes across as an 'art for art's sake story' because it embraces certain stereotypes about Africa. What Neelika at Africa's a Country calls 'mining for misery.'

Unimpressed by the number of cliches in this story, The Oncoming Hope said in this very frank post:

name an African development storytelling cliché, this story's got it, from child soldier to displacement camps to walking to school though bombs to cartoonishly evil rebel soldiers.

Again I ask, if these are the stories the Caine Prize shortlists, what does that say about how the Caine Prize as a literary institution - with all the power it wields within African literature -sees Africa or expects to see Africa represented?

Backlash Scott had a more balanced, but equally critical view:

 the tone of the writing was what separated this piece from other “poverty porn” types of stories for me. Even then I’m kind of torn. The story is about a family’s struggle to cope with a crisis as much as it is about showing you how bad children have it in the North. While I would hardly expect a writer born in Gulu to shed the atmosphere in which she grew up, it is interesting to see how many of these Caine Prize stories will cater to the troubled-dark-continent narrative. 

...When reading this story I was reminded of the late great Yvonne Vera's Under the Tongue which similarly works on repetition and lyricism - only that Vera brilliantly executes it. Don't believe me, go read her. it also deals with muteness as a result of child trauma and the woman-centered family - Grandmother and mother - become the conduits through which the protagonist, Zhizha discovers a new language with which to speak, it is a language that isn't filled with the trauma of the past. Being taught to read by her mother becomes one way for Zhizha to regain her voice and another is through her Grandmother's stories of the family's history and in speaking, Grandmother exorcises the skeleton's of her past and also regains her right to speak as a woman because her husband had often told her 'a woman cannot speak'. Similarly in Lamwuka's story, the matriarchal family is the healing unit for the protagonist - hence the constant use of 'we' but it's used in a 'we and them' way rather  than an 'us' - as seen in the family dynamics discussed below. Education is also a form of catharsis for the child - but strangely also her obsession. Curiously before she is conscripted and after the war has begun she still goes to school: 

Even when the war started and many children were waylaid, you managed to get there. You cursed the teachers and called them cowards when you didn’t find any children or teachers. Days after a heavy fight between the rebels and soldiers you continued to go to school. You never gave up even when you didn’t find anybody there.

In the present-time of the story Lamunu's about 11 years old, so she was younger before she joined the war. Reading this I wondered how realistic is this, what parent would allow a child to go to school under such circumstances? I know it's fiction, but come on. There's got to be a level of credibility.

In her book, The Body in Pain Elaine Scarry explores the silencing effect of pain and trauma, it 'has a resistance to language' thus making it difficult for the traumatized to speak. So as much as the authorial voice of this story wants Lamunu to speak, she cannot. The pain is 'unshareable' and the only place of refuge is the special school where, through therapy she will speak again and have a new relation to language that will enable her to unburden the horrors of war. On the morning of her first day at school, she speaks:

You said apwoyo. You said thank you to Ma. That’s the first word we have heard you say. 

But the family responds: 

We’re happy to hear you say something. We hope that you will be able to say a lot more. Tell us more than Anena, Aya, Bongomin, Nyeko, Ayat, Lalam, Auma, Ocheng, Otim, Olam, Uma, Ateng, Akwero, Laker, Odong, Lanyero, Ladu, Timi…. Most of all, we want to hear your voice.

If the family still want to hear Lamunu's 'voice', then they are not listening. She has spoken by saying 'thank you.' It's a breakthrough! You'd think they'd make a song and dance about it, but they don't. Perhaps this is why Lamwaka's character finds sanctuary in an educational institution whereas Vera's protagonist finds refuge in her family who educate her and give her a 'new language.' In both of these stories the acts of expression could be described as a gendered performance of orality (oral + literature) as language is a pre-dominantly patriarchal construction and privilege and the wars in both Uganda and Zimbabwe are largely patriarchally-constructed struggles. Mmm okay, nice feminist jab there, I think I'll leave that issue now.

Onto the last bit, which I found really jarring:

Ma says that you will get special treatment. Most of the children are like you. They too have killed, tortured other children. They too fought in a war that they didn’t understand. The teachers will treat you well, Ma says. They have had special training.

'Most of the children are like you. They too have killed, tortured other children.' - From one sibling to another, eh? I get the feeling the family doesn't quite understand the new Lamunu or her condition and they don't seem to want to. Having already lost the father, lived in a refugee camp where they eat posho (a yellow maize meal like polenta that's often used as drought relief food in southern and parts of East Africa excl Kenya) that they used to feed the dog, they really aren't willing to deal with anymore tough emotional issues - they want to move on and be happy again. And they don't have the cultural capacity to do so, either:

"We had never been taught how to unbury a tipu. We only hoped that your real tipu was not six feet under."

For the family, any disruption would open the floodgates of tears and trauma they've tried so hard to keep shut, so Lamunu will have to go deal this at her 'school of the other children' and find her tipu. 

A list co-bloggers and their thoughts on this one:

 The Oncoming Hope, Backslash Scott, Africa is a Country, Method to the Madness, The Mumpsimus and ZunguZungu.

I'm New Here

R.I.P 
Gill Scott Heron 1949-2011
jacked from: Guardian

Street Life in (Conrad's) Lagos

This documentary was recently aired on Al Jazeera on the programme Witness, a weekly show that aims to 'bring new stories to light they showcase the talents of a new breed of multi-skilled, frontline journalist.'  Street Life in Lagos is made by Joe Loncraine and it focusses on two migrants from Benin who go to Lagos, Nigeria in search of  a better life. As slum tourism is the in-thing among documentary filmmakers on African cities, this one fits right in. It raises the usual questions of who is telling Africa's story, how and why? How are these Africans telling their story within this documentary, what is it's framing? How is Lagos the city, it's slums and it's inhabitants represented on screen? By the looks of things, not very well. Unlike some of the commenters on AJE's site or the upset multitudes on Nairaland, I think it's really great that these stories are being told and I have no problem with Nigeria or any other country's poor being given a platform to speak. However, when it becomes fashionable for the world's media to tell only one particular kind of story about a city and this becomes the perceieved major, singular narrative of a city, I think it becomes probelmatic and especially so when that narrative (with all due respect to the filmmaker) isn't presented well. A city has many complex, interwoven stories.

The act of giving of voice to stories -by making a film, writing a news article - is as crucial as the telling because the framing, context and intent etc is what also (not solely) gives meaning to a story, determines audience reception and what genre the story falls into. This feels like a cross between observational anthropology and poverty porn, because, despite the filmmaker's most likely good intentions, the film doesn't create a bond with Makoko or many of its people seen throughout the film - they're fleeting, sometimes dragging stories, but the glue that binds a viewer to a character/story somehow isn't there. It feels like you're meant to just get a glimpse and move on. In the role of anthropologist armed with a camera, the filmmaker gives no introduction nor political or social context to Makoko or Lagos - instead the (international) viewer is thrown in the deep end. As a documentary film concept it might be all edgy and stuff, but unfortunately it doesn't work here. 

After the protagonists have told their stories of migration, the anthropologist/filmmaker goes to the school (around 4:00) where poor, non-speaking, inquisitive children are filmed. No explanation nothing, onto the next scene. And so it goes: lots of stories belonging to nameless, ageless people whose characters and circumstance you never really get to know... If Wole Soyinka was outraged by BBC's documentary, Welcome to Lagos, I can't imagine how he'll respond to this. It's a million times worse. And unlike the BBC's one which had the sickest afrobeat soundtrack, this one doesn't have much of that. Instead it invites us to observe (not engage with) the poor slum dwellers of Lagos, all filmed from behind a Conradesque camera lens.

Why Rape?

fisttap @texasinafrica

Howard French asks about some thought provoking questions on the recent report on rape statistics in the Congo about how the Congo is constructed in the media and our rather limp global response to the ongoing war which has killed well over five million people to date. I think it's interesting to consider French's critique alongside this extract on the Congo from a longer, interesting piece about the lack of media attention to the protests in Burkina Faso recently published in Pambazuka:

The Guardian's 2010 list of most tagged countries confirms to some extent that history of familiarity with a place guarantees coverage. Egypt, South Africa and Zimbabwe got tagged more times than the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Sudan. Possibly because of its hosting of the World Cup, South Africa had 547 tags, outranking earthquake-stricken Haiti, which had 436 tags. Egypt had 219, while Zimbabwe had 144 tags, and yet the DRC had a paltry 124 tags, Sudan had 122 and Somalia even less at 113. All three are among the most unstable African countries of 2010 and yet they ranked lower than the World Cup host South Africa. The war-stricken Congo is one of the world's suppliers of raw materials for mobile and computer technology and ironically constitutes just over a fifth of the 604 articles on Apple. This is not a criticism of the Guardian as the paper does provide some of the best and insightful international news coverage, but these tags are unfortunately a skewed quantitative reflection of coverage patterns and the consumerist nature of public interest.

Saying this with all flippancy intended, the formula is simple. Reports of anti-British and homophobic comments by the African dictator everyone loves to hate, and shark attacks in Sharm el-Sheik make catchy headlines. Never-ending sagas of jungle wars and mass rapes, unless involving powerful countries, do not. Or unless they're packaged as humanitarian causes fronted by celebrities and award-winning journalists like George Clooney and Nicholas Kristof. Their combined interest in the Save Darfur campaign, malaria awareness and referendum for north–south separation ensured Sudan received frequent coverage in the New York Times. Unfortunately, no similar twin-set of movie star and scribe of Clooney's and Kristof's stature have permanently adopted the DR Congo or Somalia as their primary cause. Although one of the aims of international news is to appeal to as broad a global audience as possible, how broad is our interest and genuine our humanity as people if we suffer war and compassion fatigue towards stories on the DRC, Somalia and Sudan?

But now with all these revolutions and uprisings going on, places like the DR Congo are a distant tragedy. Despite the exceedingly valuable coverage of the uprisings by some news networks, there is an underlying sense of competition within the media to see who can land the best, exclusive interview or provide the most comprehensive coverage. In the face of such fierce competition, taking a few moments in between protest broadcasts to ask the world to remember the 5.4 million (and rising) Congolese dead since 1998 or to take a serious look at Compaoré's megalomanic scheming in Burkina Faso wouldn't be a suicidal gamble with the ratings. Events in Africa and the Middle East shouldn't be placed in competition with each other; what's happening in Nigeria, Syria or Libya can share the spotlight with many other untold or under-reported stories. It’s a question of willingness to pluralise news stories and cover unfamiliar terrain.

Joy Dibenedetto, a broadcast executive and founder of alternative news site, Hum News, reports that in 2009 research conducted by Hum News found that there are 237 countries or territories in the world, and the world's largest news organisations report from only 121 countries or territories. Out of 237 global locations, 116 are not covered. If true, that's just under 50 per cent of the world's stories potentially out of mainstream media focus – almost 50 per cent. Allow that to sink in.

African Bloggers Statement on David Kato and Uganda

“We the undersigned wish to express our deep sadness at the murder of Ugandan human rights defender David Kato on 26th January 2011.  David’s activism  began in the 1980s as an Anti-Apartheid campaigner where he first expressed a strong passion and conviction for freedom and justice which continued throughout his life.   David was a founding member of Sexual Minorities Uganda where he first served as Board member and until his death as Litigation and Advocacy Officer and he was also a  member of Integrity Uganda, a faith-based advocacy organization.

David was a man of vision and courage. One of his major concerns was the growth of religious fundamentalism in Uganda and across the continent and how this would impact on the rights of ordinary citizens including lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered / Gender Non-Comforming and Intersex  [LGBTIQ] persons.   Years later his concerns were justified when the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill backed by religious fundamentalists was outlined in 2009.  David was also an extremely brave man who had been imprisoned and beaten severely because of his sexual orientation and for speaking publicly against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Many African political and religious leaders in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Gambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi and Botswana, have publicly maligned LGBTIQ people and in some cases directly incited violence against them whilst labeling sexual minorities as “unAfrican”.

In October 2010, the Ugandan tabloid, Rolling Stone published the names and photographs of “100 Top homos” including David Kato.   David along with two other LGBTIQ activists successfully sued the magazine on the grounds of “invasion of privacy” and most importantly,  the  judge ruled that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons.

The court did not only rule that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons but it issued a permanent injunction against Rolling Stone newspaper never to publish photos of gays in Uganda, and also never to again publish their home addresses.

Justice Kibuuka Musoke ruled that,

“Gays are also entitled to their rights. This court has found that there was infringement of some people’s confidential rights. The court hereby issues an injunction restraining Rolling Stone newspaper from future publishing of identifications of homosexuals.”

Every human being is protected under the African Charter of Peoples and Human Rights and this includes the rights of LGBTIQ persons.   We ask the governments of Uganda and other African countries to stop criminalizing people on the grounds of sexual orientation  and afford LGBTIQ people the same protections, freedoms and dignity, as other citizens on the continent.”

Anengiyefa Alagoa,  Things I Feel Strongly About

Anthony Hebblethwaite,  African Activist

Barbra Jolie, Me I Think

Ben Amunwa, Remember Ken Saro-Wiwa

Bunmi Oloruntoba, A Bombastic Element

Chris Ogunlowo, Aloofaa

Eccentric Yoruba,  Eccentric Yoruba

Exiled Soul,  ExiledSoul

Francisca Bagulho and Marta Lança,  Buala

Funmilayo Akinosi, Finding My Path

Funmi Feyide, Nigerian Curiosity

Gay Uganda, Gay Uganda

Glenna Gordon, Scarlett Lion

Godwyns Onwuchekwa, My Person

Jeremy Weate, Naija Blog

Kayode Ogundamisi. Canary Bird

Kadija Patel, Thoughtleader

Keguro Macharia, Gukira

Kenne Mwikya,  Kenne’s Blog

Kinsi Abdullah, Kudu Arts

Laura Seay,  Texas in Africa

Llanor Alleyne, Llanor Alleyne

Mark Jordahl,  Wild Thoughts from Uganda

Matt Temple, Matsuli Music

Mia Nikasimo, MiaScript

Minna Salami, MsAfropolitan

Mshairi,   Mshairi

Ndesanjo Macha, Global Voices

Nyokabi Musila,  Sci-Cultura.

Nzesylva, Nzesylva’s Blog

Olumide Abimbola, Loomnie

Ory Okolloh, Kenyan Pundit

Pamela Braide,   pdbraide

Peter Alegi, Football is Coming Home

Rethabile Masilo, Poefrika

Saratu Abiola, Method to Madness

Sean Jacobs, Africa is a Country

Sokari Ekine, Black Looks

Sonja Uwimana, Africa is a Country

Spectre Speaks, Spectre Speaks

TMS Ruge, Project Diaspora

Toyin Ajao, StandTall

Tosin Otitoju, Lifelib

Val Kalende, Val Kalende

Zackie Achmat,  Writing Rights

Zion Moyo,  Sky, Soil and Everything in Between

Story: Part 1  Part 2

'Africans Will Always Be Africans'

Tahrir Square, Cairo

copyright Marc

jacked from Sultan Al Qaseemi

The conversations below are from three Zimbabweans that I spoke to recently trying to get some idea of how Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe see the current events in Egypt. All of these people are not politically inclined so they in no way represent the political perspective in Zimbabwe. While many Zimbabweans have been inspired by what they've seen in Egypt and Tunisia - they've blogged, talked and tweeted about it, but it's largely an impassioned hand-wringing affair, as usual. Some people want freedom but they don't know how to or are too scared to fight for it. Then there's a certain sector of the middle class, the ones who are comfortable in Zimbabwe right now, they are not on the frontlines of any political party and have largely made their money the legal way. These are the people I spoke to. At the time I didn't intend to record our conversations on this blog, I just wanted to know how people felt about Egypt in relation to Zimbabwe. All of these people are personally known to me and are of different ages as indicated by one of the names and the language used. Parts of the conversations have been re-created or paraphrased. While I don't intend to suggest that this is representative of the whole of the non-political middle class, I think this gives some insight into political indifference that has been produced by and has sustained Zanu majority rule. 

Me: So Mama have you been watching the news and seeing what's happening in Egypt. 
Mama: 'Ahh K' she says in a piteous voice, 'African will always be Africans hai wa wa wa [a lamentation] everywhere in Africa we will always fight one another.' 
Me: But Mama, they're not fighting, they're protesting for what they believe in and they're being killed.
Mama: Was Egypt not peaceful before? Why can't they do it peacefully?
Me: How can they be peaceful when they are being attacked? Don't you remember we have been through the same thing in Zimbabwe?
Mama: Yes I know. I have watched the news about Egypt, but why is the government being so violent? Now Tsvangirai wants to scare people saying Zimbabwe will be the next Egypt.
Me: [laughing] Maybe Tsvangirai's right.
Mama: [laughing] Tsvangirai is a man of threats and fear, when it was Kenya he was saying the same thing, when it was Sudan's separation he said the same thing. Now we will be Egypt.
Me: We all know Tsvangirai has his problems, he talks but doesn't seem to understand the situations in Kenya, Sudan and Egypt are all very different. 
Mama: Yes but they have violence in common, we Zimbabweans don't want violence. We just want to wake up on voting day, drive to cast our votes and come back to our homes and have our food. All these other things about Mugabe and Zanu, let them talk amongst themselves.
Me: But we have violence in Zimbabwe. Every election kune violence, it's even started now.
Mama: Yes, but it's not the same as the war. People really died.
Me: Even now, people are really dying.
Mama: But most of us are not. Zimbabwe's okay now.
Me: Hamuna magetsi [you have no electricity]
Mama: Ehe, that's British talk now.
Me: [laugh] We'll see what happens, change will come.
Mama: Isusu [Us] we are happy, shops are full and the rains were good. 
Me: But life is not cheap. Not everyone is happy. 
Mama: This is our country, as long as it's peaceful we are happy.

jacked from google y'know how we do

Online Friend: I struggle to see an uprising in Zimbabwe similar to the one seen in Egypt recently. People just want to get on with their lives
Me: Do you really think so? Maybe it's possible.
Friend: Sitting where I'm sitting right now, in Zim, I doubt it. People just want to improve their lives, save and plan for Easter and all that.
Me: True. But what happens when election violence starts again. Are we going to be eternally intimidated by war vets and Zanu youth?
Friend: Mind you, the violence is not country wide and people have been through their darkest hour and have realised that they want to move forward.
Me: Just because its not everywhere that doesn't mean we should accept to live in a society where that happens. In the last three months I've come to the realisation that I really cannot be worried about a decent salary in Zim, and ignore the abuses in Chiadzwa. [diamond fields]
Friend: It's interesting, but what I've realised since moving home is its important for reporters and such to talk to 'common people' to see what they want.
Me:  I don't care about reporters, I care about problems we have in Zim. People don't want violence but doesn't mean people don't want change.
Friend: You misunderstood what I'm saying.The 'real story' isn't told.The majority of regular normal people aren't interested in rebellion. What I'm simply saying, is the news will focus on what happened in Mbare whereas that incident is only limited to that one area.
Me: Ok that 's fine I agree with you 100% but I still say this isn't about reporters, its about us Zimbos, is there a will to change things? I don't mean the Tunisian way but I'd just love to see a mass number of people protesting government to improve health, education and jobs. I think our government wld be forced to do something about it but we don't even have the right to protest or make such demands peacefully. : (
Friend: Now that I'm home I see things differently, I will have to express in more detail what I see and experience here.
Me: Ok I look forward to hearing from you.

Me: Have you been watching the news? Have you seen Egypt?
Friend: What the Egyptian crisis?
Me: Yea, what you think?
Friend: I don't know, it's heavy, yo.
Me: Yo, Sis it's like revolution!
Friend: [line crackling] Like what?
Me: Like revolution, like people power.
Friend: Oh yea, power to the people!
Me: You think it's gonna happen in Zim?
Friend: [laughs] We comfortable here. 
Me: But so many things wrong wit' Zim.
Friend: Yea but we aint taking to the streets, we good here.
Me: Yea but somebody's gonna have to fight the government one day.
Friend: Yea one day, someone will.


*Kanye Moment *
Granted that some of the comments above may have been made as flippant remarks, but they're indicative of how deeply entrenched apathy is in Zimbabwean society particularly among the educated middle class. The abuses of power and failures of our public services don't really seem to bother many because they are comfortable, yet this is the group of people who, with their well-placed contacts and economic influence, could collectively lobby the government to do better for it's people. Indifference to our own condition of oppression and that of our fellow Zimbabweans is, partly what has emboldened the perpetrators of violence. If the affluent classes were to rise up against some of the injustices in Zimbabwe, would the youth militia and war vets be so quick to invade places of business in the name of Chimurenga and indigenization? Would the police be so pathetic in their response to these perpetrations and other crimes? If this sector of the middle class were to throw its weight behind civil society groups, could they be a more effective rights lobbying group? On a different note, our selective indifference is also very telling of the kind of the disgraceful (read: subliminal self-hate) attitude we sometimes have towards our own people. How is it that our righteous outrage towards the bombings of Gaza, war in Somalia or Blush and Blair's Iraq war is maintained at an all-time high, but we become defensive or blind to the aggression of our own state in periods when the election violence ( 2000, 2005 &  2008) has died down? Just as the people of Gaza, Somalia and Iraq will always deserve their freedom and dignity, so do our neighbours, villagers and activists. They always deserve a high place in our memories because they are our people. They must be remembered if not for the sheer tragedy of human suffering in our nation then for the selfish, but logical reason that those atrocities may one day become our very own experiences if things should ever escalate into full-scale war. And while one could rightly argue that right now the majority of Zimbabweans' lived experiences are not centred around brutality, it cannot be denied that all of us feel the effects of sub-standard education, transport, energy and health systems, screwed up economic policies and rampant corruption and for as long as we put up and shut up, we will continue to have a sub-standard and screwed up country. 

A Giant Falls

Caribbean theorist, poet and novelist, Edouard Glissant has passed away today in Paris at the age of 82. He had been ill for a long time, but his death comes as a sad and sudden shock to me. I never knew him personally, but I have seen him speak and I know his work. His name is synonymous with contemporary Caribbean studies. This is a HUGE loss. 

Kevin Meehan's obituary from Le Monde:

Eloquent defender of diversity and métissage, the great Caribbean writer Edouard Glissant died on February 3 in Paris, at the age of 82. Poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, thinker, [and exponent of the concept of] creolization, he was born in Sainte-Marie (Martinique) on September 21, 1928 and conducted studies in Philosophy and Ethnology in Paris.

His success upon winning the Prix Renaudot in 1958 for his novel La Lézarde made the general public aware of this intellectual, who never separated his literary creation from a militant reflection. Influenced by the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, he construed the history and geography of the Caribbean politically, demonstrating his revolt against racisms of any type and evoking the indelible mark of slavery on the relationship between France and Africa and all overseas territories.

Opposing any imposed systems and any rejection of the other, Edouard Glissant has been champion of métissage and exchange, formulating in his essays gathered in the “Poétique” series his theses on Philosophie de la relation [philosophy of relation] andPoétique du divers the [poetics of the diverse]. He refused to be constrained by single genre, moving constantly between the novel, essay, and poetry, even within a single work.

Novels Directed towards the Imaginary

Edouard Glissant, who shared at once a respectful and conflicting relationship with Aimé Césaire, the other great personality of the Caribbean world, also expressed his concern for literary parentage, through writers and “disciples” [I would rather translate this as supporting scholars] such as Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphaël Confiant, or Ernest Pépin.

His novels, from Quatrième siècle (Seuil 1965) to Ormerod (Gallimard 2003), are geared towards a mythical and imaginary world, far from any naturalism, but also imbued with picturesque elements specific to certain Caribbean novelists.

After having created a center for research and teaching in Martinique, as well as a review named Acoma, Edouard Glissant founded in Paris the Institut du Tout-monde, aimed at putting into practice his humanistic principles and to allowing for the dissemination of “the extraordinary diversity of the imaginaries of the people.”