I did not expect it so soon that the new generation of young men in Zimbabwe could articulate gender imbalances and applaud transformations taking place in our societies so eloquent. He spoke about gender divides in labour profiles predating colonialization. Patriarchy back then was not in the vocabulary: it was a befitting labour divides for women who emphasized agro-economy and the menfolk were hunters. This setting of centuries was interrupted by colonialism that introduced hierarchy in African societies. The white colonizers spoke to African men only: bringing their own value systems about the labour demarcations based on gender, wholly patriarchal.
Kumbirai’s article attracts a response from all of us. It can generate four to five articles easily. I am sure the article was meant to bring the nation to speaking and to kick-start a dialogue regarding gender issues in educational institutions and in research studies. My main pick and attraction in this article are that of the role of the women in the armed struggle from Zapu and Zanu. The liberation war achieved one major aspect: It forced the government of Smith and Muzorewa to negotiate a settlement with liberation movements and to bring about a black majority rule in Zimbabwe at Lancaster conference in London.
History is always written by people who won the war and never about those who lost it. When I hear about the glorification of the guerrilla war that was successfully fought by both men and women freedom fighters, I cringe! Women in both camps suffered from abuse of various forms: sexual abuse, informants, (Chimbwidos) just to mention two aspects that I witnessed in Zambia. Yes, there were women who got military training and other trainings meant to be of use in a liberated Zimbabwe, and never about to fight at the front. The guerrilla war back then in Rhodesia was the most brutal one could ever imagine. The crossing of the Zambezi River was challenging even to men freedom fighters: Then fighting a Smith’s army that was assisted by South African army, was an adrenaline-induced induced military confrontation.
Most women were abducted in home villages, and boarding schools. Very few women were attracted to join the war purely on political conviction of liberating Zimbabwe. Some women were promised education: they were told on arrival in Zambia, they will be sent overseas to further their education. But because most women did not have the primary education to take up academic courses in Eastern European countries: to their surprise, they found themselves in camps for women and children not by choice. Freedom fighters came at night demanding sex from women and girls: these sex escapades were a daily occurrence. To talk about how our freedom fighters abused women in struggle is to invite open insults and will easily be labelled a traitor, not patriotic. Was it the purpose of our presence in the camps, in the struggle to quench sex drives from our men freedom fighters? Host countries: Zambia and Mozambique had complained to the leadership of the guerrilla movements: Zapu and Zanu about cases of rape especially on villagers in the war zones. Hence, the abduction of women into the struggle for independence was tacitly to avail freedom fighters with home grown presence of Zimbabwean women in Zambia and Mozambique partly for that purpose.
Thousands of women died on their way to Zambia and Mozambique. In Zambia, women died of poor health conditions in the camps because drinking water was contaminated with sewage water systems: they died trying to abort using subclinical methods of abortion: In Mozambique, women died in crossfire because they were used as cannon fodder to rely messages that the freedom fighters wanted to know on the ground. Women were sent back and forth in messaging information. Smith’s army used the same women to get information they needed about the presence and whereabouts of the freedom fighters. Those women caught by the freedom fighters selling out to the Smith regime, were put to death: The same applied to Smith’s army. These “Chimbwidos” were shot short range in the presence of villagers, to warn other villagers about what it would mean if they sold information to the ffs.
At home in Zimbabwe, Smith regime set up concentration camps to bar freedom fighters from mingling among villagers. These concentration camps were manned by the Regime’s forces; caused untold loss of livelihoods of villagers: Free movement of villagers even to tender their maizefields was not allowed. Lives of women were excruciatingly unbearable; There were “Pungwes” that the Smith regime wanted to control. Freedom fighters would arrive at a village and demand women to cook for them. A goat or a chicken will be slaughtered on demand. After a well-cooked meal, if there was a young girl in that village, freedom fighters would demand sex there in the home. This is how some of the freedom fighters were caught by Rhodesian army: There was no law and order to talk about, in the African sense, during the liberation war. It was a complete breakdown of African values that sustained Ubuntu/Hunhu for centuries.
I did not go to Zambia to join the liberation movement. My mother offered me the golden opportunity to complete my secondary education that I could not finish in Rhodesia back then. To her credit, she had organized me to stay at her relative: Mrs. Masipeta. I left the Masipeta’s because of sexual abuse. My English teacher at Roma Secondary School organized for me to stay with a South African family: Mr. and Mrs. Langa. Upon completion of secondary schooling, I became homeless. The only place I could be was living at the refugee camps until I got a scholarship for further studies in East Germany. I resisted going to the camps for many reasons I knew best: one of which was how women were sexually abused. When my mother left Zambia for Senegal as Chief Representative, I was placed under the custody of Mrs. Thenjwe Lesabe, my cousin. She organized my stay at one of the refugee camps for women. We went together to Zimbabwe House, about five miles out of Lusaka. She handed me over to a commander: an arrangement behind my back, drove me to the Mkushi camp. I was told to leave my luggage at Mkushi that evening and he drove me further to his place outside the camp. This is how I survived the Mkushi bombing, so many women lost their lives from Smith’s carpet bombing. Thenjiwe Lesabe is dead, but I will never forget her betrayal. My mother and I trusted her because she was a relative. I lived with the trauma of not knowing if I was pregnant from a commander, I did not even know his name. My life of five years in Zambia is a horror story that I must live with the rest of my life. Between life and death was cigarette paper thin back then.
How many women think they can write my curriculum vitae? They even deny that I was ever in Zambia. It is because they do not know what really happened to women in the struggle. We do not talk about the life we lived in the struggle for independence to get a trophy out of it. Yet, there are women out there who will never write about their tall stories regarding the life experiences they had to endure during the struggle for independence, including Mrs. Mujuru. The culture of silence especially the women folk, is still intact, but never with me. When I hear talking’s about going back to fight for freedom: I advise that an armed struggle must never be a repeat of the previous one we had. Armed struggles do not, sadly, reap outcomes they are intended.
I think about women who had no means to survive the crudeness of life and life challenges that women had to endure in Zambia, back then. There are former women freedom fighters who do not want to talk about the challenges they faced in the struggle for independence for many reasons. Come independence, male freedom fighters never wanted to associate with women freedom fighters because they are deemed prostitutes. The question is: Who made these women engage sexually with the ffs, as if it was consensual? These ffs preferred to marry women who never went to the struggle for liberation. These are men, some of whom abducted women from their village settings and schools; now their women comrades are now deemed loose, prostitutes. Worst still they got little nothing from the independent Zimbabwe. The results of fighting for independent is still questionable, to many women just Zero.
Was the struggle for independence worth it? Did the women get their land allocations after independence? Even the men war veterans are suffering equally. They are languishing in poverty and destitution. Only a few benefitted from the struggle for independence. However, women are even worse off. The independence celebration is a day away. Women are still living in absolute poverty, humble homes and in destitution. They will be invited to come to independence party and twerk for the powers that be. They will come back in the evening from celebrations to face the chronic poverty they were born in. Celebrating Uhuru is for the ruling elite and their children: they will celebrate independence, eat and drink on our behalf. Did my mother; Mrs. Sihwa fight for that hard-to-get independence so that her daughter lives in “exile” Germany forever. I cannot go back to Zimbabwe for fear of being harmed. Where is Itai Dzamara?
Nomazulu Thata
Post published in: Featured