Over the intervening years I have changed my mind. His name keeps reappearing and I am grateful to Tinashe Mushakavanhu for his thoughtful appraisal of Marechera in The Zimbabwean (21 December).
Mushakavanhu writes, Marechera did everything in his power to confound and confuse us to pull us into a dizzying dance of identities that pulverizes all possible points of reference and, ultimately, compels us to ask ourselves the same question he asked himself: who am I? He was in despair when he looked at the new Zimbabwe born in 1980 with its presumed identity, closed and ignominiously static. Nothing had changed in the House of Hunger except that one group of bosses had been moved out and another had come in. He became the only writer who articulated the black rage of the deceived povo.
Was anyone listening in those complacent days? Prophets are seldom heard in their own time. Their message disturbs and unsettles. He was saying something about identity: that Zimbabweans have a right to be as confident about themselves as any other people, be they Indians or Chinese or whoever. Yet their identity has been trampled on and become hidden under layers of lost dignity, lost culture and a lost sense of who they are. And the primary task of the new government should have been to enable people to explore how to regain what was lost.
But in fact what happened? Control became the watchword. Every social, cultural or economic movement had to be harnessed to an overriding political programme and the freedom to explore was stifled. Yes, schools were built and clinics opened but did these answer the aching need to discover the lost sense of who am I? We should have sought this first and then all the rest would be added on.
Marecheras agenda is still on the table. What he raged about still calls for action. While we are looking outside for saviours all the answers are within us. What we lack is the vision to see them and the courage to live them. If the prophet confounds and confuses us it is only to wipe the board clean and shake us into action. A New Year is a time for fresh approaches.
Post published in: Opinions