PROMINENT writer and academic, Robert Muponde, last week said local folktales were an essential tool that could be used to discuss the subject of rights, particularly how individual rights were often trampled in favour of those of the majority.
BY TINASHE MUCHURI
Speaking at a presentation at a University of Zimbabwe (UZ)English Department seminar last Friday, the professor of English at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, used a popular Shona folktale, where the hare disobeyed an instruction from the lion that every animal should contribute to the digging of a well during a drought.
Muponde argued that when society was faced with drought, it often trampled on individual rights, as seen when the hare is barred from accessing the well and added that the hare had as much right as the other animals to enjoy the water, as it was a natural resource.
The academic said he wanted folktales to be critically taught, adding that they were polysemic in nature and not as simple as they often sounded.
“African children love books. Why do you say African children love animals when they may be cruel to them? You will be made to think, once you give African children oral traditional stories, you have given them literacy,” he said.
Muponde argued that animals were used in folktales, as they did not reason like humans and, therefore, could not talk on issues of gender, religion, sex and race, giving young children an expansive berth for interpretation.
“Animals do not complicate their opinions, therefore, children cannot question the issues of sexuality,” he said.
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Muponde’s arguments were fiercely contested by fellow writers, who included Monica Cheru-Mupambawashe and academic, Ruby Magosvongwe, who argued that the rights of the public overrode those of the individual.
Cheru-Mupambawashe compared the hare’s conduct to human rights activists, who concentrated on upholding individual rights while conveniently ignoring that rights have responsibilities.
Magosvongwe also contended that hare’s rights could not override society’s.
UZ lecturer, Tanaka Chidora, dismissed the argument that it was in the western world where individual rights preceded that of society’s and argued that rights and oppression issues existed even before colonialism.
