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Your
city, my land
Rejoice Ngwenya
April 16, 2010
Conte Mhlanga and Daves
Guzha are two of the best playwrights in Zimbabwe. One resides in
Bulawayo, the provincial capital of Matabeleland that took the biggest
brunt of Zimbabwe-s post-independence 'genocidal-
human rights violations in the 1980s. The other is based in Harare,
Zimbabwe-s capital, the seat of one of the most brutal and
senseless government in modern history. Both men are my friends,
having met them last year at a regional arts workshop.
I am so impressed
by their history of protest activism. Once in a while, their 'play
houses- are visited by the proverbial men in dark glasses
who want to glean anything off their plots that vaguely pokes fun
at our very own ageing dictator Robert Gabriel Mugabe. My view is
that there is no play or work of art worth its salt if it makes
no reference to the liberation of Zimbabweans from ZANU-PF fascism.
This may sound really negative; indeed, oppression of citizens is
a negative force. Those like Mhlanga, Guzha and I who have the courage
and rare opportunity to say our opinions, we might as well have
fun doing it, messages full of laughter, tell me about it!
And so during
that workshop - in a spontaneous feat of bravado, I foolishly committed
myself to contesting for the 'best playwright of the year-
and promised to deliver a gem to Conte and Dave. Mind you, the nearest
I ever encountered playwriting was only reciting lines that were
shoved at me by Bev Parker, my 'old- lecturer at United
College of Teacher Education. Some things are easier said than done!
The title of my play was simply going to be Assegai Technology with
a curiously named main character Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life
- a sophisticated, enlightened but unorthodox, crude and jovial
middle-aged cell-phone addicted dictatorial president of an African
country called Haraland. He is obsessed with this compulsive and
paranoid idea that someday, King Bengula who died one hundred years
ago in Bengula Province south of his country would lead an insurrection
to challenge his authority. Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life
is afflicted by this recurrent dream that King Bengula will incarnate
through Team Impi - four rebels based in Bengula Province to spearhead
this rebellion. He claims that a fellow dictator Yoom Shin Sha of
an Asian country called East Kora, has promised him portable guns
with rubber bullets laced with radio-active material to suppress
the rebellion. Problem one: Haraland has no money to pay for the
guns, but his wife owns a diamond mine which he can persuade her
to give away to Yoom Shin Sha in exchange for the guns. Problem
two: The mine is located in a national game reserve, so the East
Koraian also wants to have a licence to hunt the endangered rhino!
Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life tells Yoom Shin Sha
to wait until after the elections. Yoom Shin Sha promises or claims
to have delivered the contraband even before the elections, but
of course he is lying. Problem three: Team Impi are all geniuses
of different professions who are designing an advanced model of
a Bengula assegai that bounces off bullets to the sender, much like
an Australian boomerang! In the play, all this 'conspiracy-
is only seen and heard from conversations that Your Excellent Sir,
the Good Leader-for-Life has on his cell phone with both Yoom Shin
Sha and ironically, Team Impi.
Just as I am
about to finish this play, I read a report of a massive land scandal
at Harare Municipality, Daves Guzha-s local town and am immediately
inspired to write another play I will aptly title Your City, My
Land. I want its plot to be less painful than Assegai Technology.
The main character will be named Leapfrog, a young black policeman
who retired from active service in 1980 to work as a security guard
for a rich white banana wholesaler based in a town called Haracity.
The banana man had never married, and has no children so when he
passes on; he bequeaths one of his many double-storey houses to
his loyal askari, Leapfrog. The house is too expensive to maintain,
so Leapfrog approaches Comrade Zvamahara, a Member of Parliament
from his rural village to rent the house. For almost twenty years
Leapfrog continues to work as a guard-cum-messenger in a real estate
company, until he is enlightened to sell his house to start an own
estate agency! But there is problem. Comrade Zvamahara had deliberately
forged the lease into an agreement of sale, so all along, Leapfrog
thought Comrade Zvamahara was paying rentals, yet he was receiving
monthly instalments!
Luckily, Leapfrog had
befriended a man named Makoini, an experienced housing officer in
Haracity who helps him win his case against Comrade Zvamahara. It
is through this friendship that Leapfrog and Makoini ensure scores
of Leapfrog-s relatives are clandestinely registered on the
housing waiting list. He retires from formal employment to concentrate
on developing and selling the housing and industrial stands issued
to his relatives. On realising that Leapfrog is getting wealthy,
Comrade Zvamahara sends an emissary to convince Leapfrog to enter
politics so he can 'one day take over as member of parliament-
of the village. The two men make more money and get more property
through Makoini, but when the latter retires from Haracity, the
only 'gift- he gets from Leapfrog and Comrade Zvamahara
is a motorcycle! Makoini is so distraught and heartbroken. In a
feat of diabolic rage and vengeance, he sells his story to a local
weekly newspaper called The Insider and reveals the transgressions
of both Leapfrog and Comrade Zvamahara. Just before the two are
arrested, they escape to Zambezia, a neighbouring country.
I only hope that either
of my playwright friends Conte Mhlanga or Daves Guzha will accept
Your City, My Land and perhaps, just perhaps I might join this elite
team who indeed are worthy members of Zimbabwe-s protest theatre
hall of fame!
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