A FRIEND alerted me to a tweet from Kudzai Sevenzo in which she wondered aloud whether the Zimbabwean masses keep adjusting to their suffering, while the leaders watch as they enjoy some popcorn.
OPINION: Albert Gumbo
The analogy is not lost on me. The predatory elite are sitting in a private cinema auditorium in their mansions munching away at their popcorn, in incomplete indifference to the scene playing out on the movie screen in front of them.
Who would eat popcorn while watching Schindler’s List? Except this is no movie.
There are real Zimbabweans, like the Jews in Schindler’s List, who are at their wits end as their suffering continues unabated seemingly with no solution in sight.
The brave opposition has tried and failed to dislodge Zanu PF stranglehold on power, and, in cases where it has managed to prise a way through, has, unfortunately, jumped on to the gravy train, as we have seen with scandal after scandal in opposition-run municipalities.
Worse, the opposition has failed to remain a cohesive unit splitting so many times that a ballerina would be envious. It is not funny of course.
My reading is Sevenzo’s tweet is a more desperate cry than protest. What to do?
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Because she is an artiste, I want to refer, one of America’s most respected writers and cultural critics, Toni Morrison, to Sevenzo. Morrison is a novelist, editor, teacher and professor emeritus at Princeton University.
She was feeling quite depressed after the re-election of George W Bush when a friend asked how she was and she blurted out how paralysed she was, “unable to write anything”.
Her friend interrupted her shouting on the phone, “No! No, No, No, No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work — not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!”
My response to Sevenzo and appeal to artists in Zimbabwe is, therefore, inspired by Morrison’s words.
She writes: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There’s no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilisations heal.”
Our Great Zimbabwe name has lost honour, reputation, dignity and pride because of the actions of a predatory elite.
Your role and mine is to give a voice to the voiceless to encourage, not to lament, to defy not mollify and to stir the spirit to pause, reflect and act.
We know what is wrong with the country, we know if we are honest with ourselves how the opposition has deviated from its original mission and we know this because we have seen how they behaved once they glimpsed the allure of power.
It was fleeting, a passing glance, but enough to warn us about the dangers of a drowning man desperately reaching for a straw.
We must remain calm enough to make it to the plank that is a mere metre or two away from the straw.
In any situation of crisis, artists choose to either collaborate or stand up.
You will find artists, who will sing about how easy it is to make money, live the good life in a time of squalor and, hopefully, you will find those who speak truth to power in word and deed.
I suspect you stand in the latter category. When the people have no voice, the artist speaks, when they whisper, the artist amplifies their voice in colour, in stone, on screen and on stage.
This is the artist’s way. In the same way, the church has a role to play as directed by its moral compass.
You see, I go by the eternal truth of “nation above government and truth above power” and so I write. I offer solutions because my desire is for a sustainable Zimbabwe and not straws, based on experience and not emotion.
Someone once said: “We must inject passion, short of emotion”. My passion is for Zimbabwe in particular and, certainly, Africa in general.
This passion leads me to pause and analyse the players on the screen before us, to decide who the genuine method actor is and who is playing a false role.
If my popcorn is going to be enjoyable and if it’s going to last, I must select the right actors and the right movie directed by the best possible Director will come to pass.
This is our role, Sevenzo. You and I, and thousands of other voices out there.
We must hold up the mirror to society in such a way that society begins to say we have been so preoccupied with survival, we have not taken the time to consider our options for a very real outcome for our children’s future.
I maintain, the issue is not who is against Zanu PF, the bigger issue for me is what they stand for, what competence they offer and how they intend to govern.
When I gaze my eyes across the Zimbabwean landscape, I say that person is Nkosana Moyo and I say, let the artists help us, and the nation, see clearly with calm objectivity.
It is time to step back from the canvass and look at this Zimbabwean painting again. What do you see? “Light a candle, instead of cursing the darkness.”
Albert Gumbo is an alumnus of the Duke University-UCT US-Southern Africa Centre for Leadership and Public Vlaues. Follow him on @AlbertGumbo or contact [email protected]
