WEEKEND GAZETTE
Murambatsvina revisited
Book review by Zhean Gwaze
Book title: In My Own Words-Zimbabwean women’s encounters with Operation Murambatsvina Author: The Feminist Political Education Project (Fepep)
Publishers: Weaver Press
“This booklet is about expression, comfort and healing,” reads the foreword of the 25-page easy to booklet, which offers a voice for the experiences of women in the aftermath of Operation Murambatsvina (Operation Clean-up).
The government’s clean-up exercise, embarked on in 2005 rendered 700 000 people homeless, according to United Nations envoys, triggering an alarming humanitarian crisis that means to this day, many citizens are still sleeping in the open.
In My Own Words explores the plight of seven women; Shupikai, Winnet, Kerina, Annatolia, Rorana, Simangele and Eleanor who were deprived of their livelihoods by the operation.
Although the exercise affected men, women and children, In My Words reveals how the operation endorsed patriarchy and that Murambatsvina was not the first form of such violation against women.
“However, allowing women to speak about their experiences, the consequences that resulted and the ripple effects of the Operation reveals the differential in the kinds of violations they experienced that are mostly linked to their being female: to their physiology or to gender stereotypes that govern their experiences and how the world responds to them,” the book says.
For 27-year old Shupikai, who is disabled and has only empowered herself through vending, Murambatsvina is a nightmare. Her mother dies of pneumonia (from sleeping outside, after she fails to pay for accommodation) and Shupikai has to co-habit with a 70-year-old man who physically abuses her and whom she fears might infect her with HIV.
For the FEPEP team: Thoko Matshe, Bella Matambanadzo, Teresa Mugadza, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Janah Ncube, Shereen Essoff and Karen Alexander the topic is reclaiming the love, rights and freedom of women from sexist supremacy.
The book launch coincided with a four-day training course for a group of 26 young and energetic females drawn from across the country who expressed zeal to rejuvenate the women’s movement in Zimbabwe. A team of motivating facilitators revived the training despite ferocious expressions of repression and oppression.
Matshe, so full of energy and highly inspirational took the group for eight hours in three consecutive days in live discussions. Matambanadzo, hinted largely on how every dollar counts in a woman’s life and that every dream can come true in life. One of mine came true– thanks to Matshe.. Misihairabwi-Mushonga, whose talk on sexuality and sexual health left participants yearning for more … Get well soon after the accident. Essoff’s exploration of the women’s movement in Zimbabwe also left hearts with answers on who is next. Everjoice Win’s post-mortem on strategic thinking was also a fundamental tool in becoming a feminist .
For a timely and provocative account of the crisis that unfolded among Zimbabwe’s women after Murambatsvina, In My Own Words is the book to read.
Dear Women of Zimbabwe however it is that you may positioned right now,
As the commemorations for International Women’s Day draw nearer, I am inspired to write to you all about the legacy Sekai Holland and Grace Kwinjeh have made to our movement in Zimbabwe. I realise that in their immediate roles they are largely seen as representatives of opposition
politics, but that is not where they have always been located, and it is certainly not what I wish to focus on through this email.
Last night I spent a long time in a telephone conversation with Isabella Matambanadzo. She told me of her visit to both of them on Tuesday when they were admitted in the late
afternoon to Avenues clinic. Her intention was to offer any kind of help, be it with making calls to family and friends, just chatting or in the spirit of sisterhood that the women’s rights movement of Zimbabwe has taught us, just being there.
Sekai Holland is over 60. Her mother founded the Association of Women’s Clubs in 1938, one of the oldest women’s organizations in Zimbabwe. Sekai built on that tradition. She fought the battle at the high court for the rights of non-Zimbabwean men who married Zimbabwean women to have citizenship. at the time the law was discriminatory in favour of zimbabwean men whose non zimbabwean
spouses received citizenship quite automatically. Her battle against the Citizenship Act was an important win for women’s rights to equal treatment before the law and opened up the way for many more women’s equality cases to come before our domestic courts.
Details are available from an IPS publication that is fortunately on line: http://ipsnews.net/racism_gend/racism_gen.pdf
Sekai was influential in supporting demands for the creation as early as 1981 of the Ministry for Community Development and Women’s Affairs. It was envisaged as a national mechanism for women’s advancement. The
Ministry provided an invaluable platform for debate on women in development issues. It was also a critical force in the realistion that the women’s movement, operating from outside of the ministry and government space, could advocate for political demands for women’s emancipation.
We all know the Grace Kwinjeh, the journalist and the opener of spaces in the media for the women’s movement, even at a time when those spaces were monitored and shut off for other civic formations. We know the Grace Kwinjeh who strategised with us in pushing the NCA male leadership and caucusing for a women from the movement to head the Assembly.
We all know and have worked alongside Grace and Sekai and the other comrades who are now in hospital brutalized.
I am told that last night ztv aired an advert for the Ministry and
Unifem inviting
Zimbabweans to commemorate international women’s day on March 17. The
“end impunity for violence against women” slogan, with its the take
off point as the domestic violence bill could not have been more
poignant.
Grace and Sekai were brutalised while in police custody, hearing about
their trauma and their bodies in hospital once again shows us how much
the patriarchal state machinary, in this instance the police, has
mirrored the battering husband.
So I sit here, far away from you all, with a sinking heart as I hear
about the invitation to a ceremony to mark international women’s day
to end violence. Because in the face of this we are living state
perpetrated violence. So I sit here and have to question … How do you
go and and spend money on buying the official regalia and being
collected from the usual pick up points …while sekai, grace and
other comrades of our movement have been battered. And the formal
systems of women’s protection, the women’s movement, has kept so
alarmingly quiet.
The report of the Doctors say: the injuries documented were consistent
with beatings with blunt objects heavy enough to cause:
• Multiple fractures to hands, arms and legs
• Severe, extensive and multiple soft tissue injuries to
backs, shoulders, arms, buttocks and thighs.
• Head injuries and laceration
• Ruptured bowel and trauma to the abdomen.
• A split right ear lobe sustained by Grace.
I have since heard that prolonged detention without accessing medical
treatment resulted in severe haemorrhage in Morgan Tsvangirai leading
to severe anaemia which warranted
a blood transfusion. Injuries sustained by Sekai Holland were also
worsened by denial of timely access to medical treatment which led to
an infection of deep soft tissue in her left leg. Denial of access to
treatment in another individual suffering from hypertension has lead
to angina.
Whatever our personal views and emotions, especially about their
present political location, there is no denying Sekai’s and Graces
contribution to feminism and its development in Zimbabwe.
An appropriate response this year with the themes of women’s day would
be for political peace and the machines of violence, be they public or
private, to stop brutalising women. the WOZA women have reaptedly
given testimony of their dire treratment in jail cells, as have the
women in the union formations.
Let’s get beyond the rhetoric of celebrating an international day with
pomp and costume, and demand our rights to peaceful societies, as so
boldly outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action.
If our movement is really not partisan and does not make choice based
on political location, but rather on the true principles of feminism,
can we show it? This violent machine that beat up Grace, Sekai and
other sisters, called them “whores of Tsvangirai” and “Prostitutes of
Bush and Blair”. What does our individual and collective silence mean
in the face of such an assault on womanhood by patriarchal forces?
Kind Regards
Shereen Essof