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Zimbabwe's 'gender neutral' agreement blind to women
Pumla Dineo
Gqola, Pambazuka News
October 09, 2008
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/51038
Over the last
week, news of the agreement
signed by Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara
has received repeated airplay. As well it should. Indeed, radio
station listeners have been calling in to comment on the perceived
vindication of the now former South African president in the eyes
of the international community now that there has been success in
Zimbabwe. All of this has been seen as further evidence that African
solutions work best for African problems. Significantly, this narrative
has continued to permeate the contributions of even those callers
who are more critical of Mbeki-s other stances. We have, therefore,
been reminded that although there may be solutions in Zimbabwe,
and maybe next in Darfur, problems at home abound.
As I listened to the
live coverage of the signing, I was struck by consistent absences
in the reporting as well as in what could not comfortably be used
in the interest of the celebrated moment. One reporter, live outside
the venue in Harare, noted that even as the ink was drying on the
paperwork, a group of MDC women approached him to say they had been
attacked by ZANU-PF male youths moments before. I was somewhat relieved
that this was a radio, rather than a television broadcast because
I did not want to see more brutalised bodies. I could not help noticing
that this information was quickly passed over.
I recoil from the sight
of more bruised and bloodied bodies not because of what Gail Smith
has called 'compassion fatigue in relation to the crisis in
Zimbabwe,- but because there are other ways to make sense
of our continent. A.C. Fick insists that when we privilege particular
forms of evidence over others 'we run the risk of giving the
former more power than they already have in our world.- Therefore,
we trap ourselves in a certain cycle, since 'we are educated
to understand the world in particular terms.- Furthermore,
we remain so accustomed to our particular view that we completely
miss the presence of other events and 'critical languages-
in the very same moment in which we attempt to understand. Part
of what we have grown accustomed to is the near total elision of
women-s lives, contributions and agency from large political
events.
Consequently, I turned
away from the coverage I had been obsessively following in between
teaching, and reflected on what was unfolding through other events
I have access to. Sometimes it helps to turn away in order to better
make sense of what we are in the midst of. This is the approach
I brought to my reading of the text of the power-sharing agreement
signed on Monday 15 September.
In August, I formed part
of a group of South African women who went on a feminist solidarity
trip to Zimbabwe. The excursion was coordinated by activist and
international relations and development expert Bunie Matlanyane
Sexwale, and divided into a group that went to Harare and one that
flew to Bulawayo. My group, the Harare group, included the essayist
Gail Smith, as well as poets Lebogang Mashile and Gertrude Fester.
We went to have conversations with a variety of women-s and
civil society groups; unionists, students, health activists, law
and human rights activists and so on. This trip clarified many of
the niggling questions that had been plaguing me in previous years.
The Johannesburg office of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition had
made the trip possible, also offering us insights into what we might
encounter upon arrival. Among us, Bunie was the only feminist who
was personally familiar with the different Zimbabwean epochs.
To the extent that it
had been impossible to live in South Africa without reflecting on
Zimbabwe constantly, the trip followed numerous conversations with
people more familiar than I with the crisis in Zimbabwe. Two artist
friends, one a filmmaker and the second a novelist, who had grown
up in Zimbabwe as South Africans in exile, noted upon returning
from visits recently that this was a different Zimbabwe from the
one they knew. There was sadness in one-s eyes and anger etched
onto the face of the other. My child-s day-mother, herself
Zimbabwean, had remarked upon return from an earlier trip that her
homeland made her despair. Colleagues commented on how fatigued
they were at being asked to comment about their home country at
every turn. I was careful to listen to information volunteered,
but not to pry and further exhaust them. Only one said 'things
are not the worst they have ever been.-
I had questions raised
by other areas of information as well. Where were the women in all
the coverage of Zimbabwe, in the negotiations, in the interviews
broadcast, among the experts explaining and helping the continent
and the world make sense of the crisis? I know from reading, watching
and from interactions with feminists from the continent over the
years that Zimbabwe has a very strong women-s movement. How
is it that I was hearing so little about what women were doing,
when they were not being brutalised, inside Zimbabwe?
The trip was to help
me grapple better with some of these struggles.
Unfortunately,
it also raised many more. Very few of the new questions are addressed
in the resolution we are all invited to celebrate. The Harare we
arrived in at the end of August brought different worlds into collision.
In a very public sense, it was the Harare in which the (Women
of Zimbabwe Arise) WOZA 14 trial was scheduled to start, after
many postponements. These are women considered so dangerous that
the Zimbabwean State imagines their varied activism treasonous.
This was also the Harare which staged the opening of the new parliament,
during which MDC leaders, among them the leader of Senate Sekai
Holland, shouted for Mugabe to go back to the talks so much that
he was visibly flustered as he tried to open parliament.
When Holland agreed to
meet us in a public place, with unionist and former MDC Women-s
Assembly Chair, Lucia Matibenga, the disbelief was palpable on the
faces of many young Zimbabweans in the Harare CBD location where
we met. There was no question that both women were recognised. As
they explained to us, it was unusual for powerful Zimbabwean politicians
to be seen in a food court. Holland and Matibenga had both been
driven underground by the physical and other attacks instigated
by ZANU-PF and other agents of state sanctioned violence. They shared
some of these experiences with us. But more so, and interspaced
with a wicked sense of humor shared by both, they articulated a
very clear vision for a new Zimbabwe. These were women who demonstrated
what Pregs Govender has called 'insubordinated spirit-,
in their actions, incisive analysis of power and in rising after
being personally attacked. I was saddened by the fact that as powerful
and active as they have been, even these women-s names were
often lost in the reporting of what occurs in Zimbabwe.
I wonder how much of
such voices we will hear in the future, given the bizarre half-protected
freedom of speech as articulated in Article 19 of the agreement
signed on Monday. Recognizing the necessity for freedom of speech
in Zimbabwe, the article nonetheless opens doors for dismissing
certain media outlets if they are 'foreign government funded
external radio stations broadcasting into Zimbabwe- since
these 'are not in Zimbabwe-s national interest.-
What about radio stations operated by Zimbabweans in exile as one
of the few ways to contest state-controlled media outlets? So what
if another government or its agencies fund them? What if that government
is Botswana-s? How will the stated desire to ensure 'the
opening up of the airwaves and ensuring the operation of as many
media houses as possible- translate in a context where ZANU-PF
youths allegedly attack people outside the signing?
Further down
the same article, I had to laugh as I read 'the public and
private media shall refrain from using abusive language that may
incite hostility, political intolerance and ethnic hatred or that
unfairly undermines political parties and other organizations.-
Perhaps there is hope for the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation,
whose evening television bulletins were peppered with Mugabe pronouncing
on the immaturity of MDC MPs, their unsuitability to lead, and on
this being the worst parliament he had ever presided over.
However, that was the
end of August when we watched aghast, and everything had changed
now that it was September and the agreement had been signed.
What would that change
mean, when Article 18 of the agreement, which focuses on the security
of persons and prevention of violence, conflates state-sanctioned
brutality against citizens after the elections with violence by
unarmed people? There is no mention of the brutality of the military,
even though this emerged in many of the conversations we had with
women on our visit. The army was credited with hunting people down,
militia and the formal army tortured, killed, maimed and raped.
What happens to this memory? How do people just move forward? Many
women-s organizations reported on how women were forced to
pay for reintegration into their communities after surviving previous
post-election displacement. Given that the violence between the
powerful and ordinary citizens is falsely equated in this agreement,
what happens to the scars? Where do these women, whose houses have
often been razed to the ground and their means of livelihood destroyed
while their children are raped or driven into exile, fit into the
'gender neutral- language of the agreement?
History teaches us that
'gender neutral language- is very often blind to women-s
lives. Yet, women in Zimbabwe, like in South Africa, are the majority.
They are the majority of the displaced, raped, tortured and burnt
alive, and of the people sleeping in the safe houses all over Harare.
They are also the majority of those who resisted and voted for change.
Writing of another African
context, Pregs Govender has recently reminded us in her Julius Nyerere
Lecture on Lifelong Learning at the University of the Western Cape
last week that, the links between 'the militarisation of society
and the increased levels of violence against women across borders
and in homes- are not just clear but also backed up by much
research at academic and trans-national levels.
Is the Zimbabwean crisis
over? Can it be over when there is no recognition of the results
from the March elections or of how people suffered for the choices
they made? It is not inconceivable, given the absence of a clear
call for accountability for perpetrators of violence in Article
18, that the president of Zimbabwe may claim the power vested in
him under Article 19 to both 'declare war- against his
enemies as in the past, as well as 'grant pardons, respite,
substitute less severe punishment and suspend or remit sentences,
on the advice of the Cabinet- which he chairs. Is it conceivable
that he will bring the rapists and the men who destroyed the livelihoods
of men to book?
Perhaps I am pessimistic
at what should be a moment of great joy. However, the questions
remain in the aftermath of the signing: where are the women?
When we met
Netsai Mushonga, the co-ordinator of the Women-s
Coalition of Zimbabwe, she reminded us of the necessity to come
up with new paradigms for thinking about vigilance. The automatic
equation of violence with militancy is an unfortunate southern African
inheritance. In an article written long before our meeting, and
far before the agreement, Mushonga had written: 'Democracy
for women in Zimbabwe can be summarized in two key capacities: participation
in decision-making at all levels, and equal access to resources.-
The Agreement is vague on this.
Pregs Govender
could have been speaking directly to this statement when she remarked
last week: "One of the central features of patriarchal authoritarian
systems is the way in which we stop thinking for ourselves and begin
to depend on the political leader, the expert, the husband or the
priest." This is also a statement for those of us who watch
as Zimbabwe changes, and who feel solidarity and search for ways
to assist and support meaningful change.
I am not entirely convinced
that the agreement, which mentions women only three times -
in relation to access to land, entitlement to full citizenship and
gender equity, as well as the need to appoint women to 'strategic
Cabinet posts- - goes far enough. These are important
recognitions, and reflections on South Africa-s recent past
illustrate how difficult it is to get any gender recognition into
a negotiation process. The presence of these acknowledgements is
no small matter.
However, it seems that
much ended up on the negotiation floors given the demands that were
shared with us by various women-s groups and individual women.
It would be a travesty if this southern African country continues
to revel in our most uncomfortable heritages as a region, that of
downplaying women-s lives and pretending women exist as nothing
but victims. Our trip showed that women are organising across class
and education status in ways that directly intervene in the crisis,
and the manner in which the state-s courts and violent men
responded was a clear recognition of the power of such women. Yet,
this agreement that we are all invited to celebrate falls short
of this recognition of women-s multi-faceted activisms.
On the importance of
telling stories carefully, Veronique Tadjo argues: 'We live
in a community and in trying to tell one story in particular, I
have to rely on other stories. Our destinies cross, we meet people,
they enter our lives, then exit, to be replaced by others, etc.
Our existence is layered by an amazing number of stories. So that-s
why I move in and out.-
Would it not be a remarkable
thing if this were true of the Zimbabwean Agreement and the future
it ushers in?
* Pumla Dineo Gqola is a feminist writer and blogger, and is
associate professor of literary, media and cultural studies at the
University of the Witwatersrand.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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