To climb a mountain takes courage and strength, yet to overcome the cliffs of despair takes even greater courage and strength.

When suffering comes, it is time to go on rather than stop;
it is time to accept rather than reject;
it is time for courage rather than weakness;
it is time to look forward rather than back;
it is time to understand rather than question.

In loss, not all is lost, for memories are left to be cherished.
In darkness, light is needed.
In confusion, clarity is needed.
In despair, hope is needed.

- Prem Rawat

Dance your anger and your joys,

Dance the military guns to silence,

Dance oppression and injustice to death,

Dance my people.

- Ken Saro-Wiwa

Likely many Zimbabweans feel stuck and maybe slide into complacency. The current election crisis has left people feeling frozen, like there’s nothing that can be done to bring positive change. Also, issues such as vulnerabilities to HIV, domestic violence, gender inequalities, and others at times carry self-acknowledged complacency often due do a difficult to shake feeling that reality only allows for complacency. A couple things got me thinking about complacency and possible ways to make complacency productive.

First, I saw a Zimbabwean film The Bitter Pill and there’s complacency everywhere in the film. A married couple feels helpless they have not been unable to conceive a child. The frustrated husband goes to Canada. The husband’s best friend, a wealthy entrepreneur, pursues the wife. You feel his complacency – forex is the only way to make money and belief it’s his right and obligation to pursue any women he wants because that’s what men do (particularly wealthy ones). The film portrays a possible reality. After having sex with the entrepreneur, the wife becomes pregnant, and through meeting one of the entrepreneurs other girlfriends, the wife discovers the entrepreneur is HIV-positive. It struck me that HIV is a prominent element in the film. However, as is an accurate reality, HIV is barely discussed. Not only are the characters complacent, but the film itself, given the way HIV is engaged (or rather is not discussed), potentially perpetuates complacency. Thus, the all important question: What’s attached to disseminating the film? In a move to find productivity in complacency, the International Video Fair intends to use the film to facilitate discussion. Importantly, part of discussions will be seeing that silence around HIV may be a common reality, but silence is not the only option.

My second set of thoughts about complacency developed while reading Charles Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain. First published in 1975, the book is a timeless classic. Additionally, I found it interesting to think about the complacency of the father-son characters Tongoona and Lucifer; they both are struggling with a feeling that many things remain unsaid. At the same time, the characters are not at all complacent. I’m fascinated by the ways Tongoona and Lucifer are, individually and in conversation, immersed in self-reflection – about life, family, opportunities, change, etc. Perhaps this is a way of reading thought processes as an example of productive complacency. Many things in the world can and do remain unsaid, yet the thought process around why they are difficult to be said is just as crucial to efforts to bring positive change. Delving into Tongoona and Lucifer’s thoughts serves as a reminder that reality has long made many people feel stuck and limited actions, but complacency to the point of being void of thought is not a place many people have ever resided.

Watching TV the other night I was horrified to see groups of South African men marching through townships in South Africa brandishing weapons of all descriptions from hammers through to axes, baying for the blood of foreigners living in South Africa. Equally horrifying were the images of members of the South African police force standing back nonchalantly watching victims writhe on the ground in pain from their assault.

These xenophobic attacks are appalling and unacceptable as are the daily high levels of violence that South African women experience in “the rainbow nation”.

Amnesty International, in their 2008 report on the state of the world’s human rights stated the following on South Africa:

High levels of sexual and other forms of violence against women continued to be reported.

According to police statistics, reported incidents of rape had decreased by 4.2 per cent over the previous six years. However, between April 2006 and March 2007, 52,617 rapes were reported. There were also 9,327 reported cases of “indecent assault” – including anal rape and other types of sexual assault which did not then fall within the definition of rape. In December new crime statistics for the period April to September 2007 included 22,887 reported rapes.

Police officials reported to Parliament that between July 2006 and June 2007, police recorded 88,784 incidents of “domestic violence” in terms of the 1998 Domestic Violence Act (DVA). The Department of Justice reported that over 63,000 protection orders were issued by the courts between April 2006 and March 2007. However, the ICD reported in November that of 245 police stations audited in 2006, only 23 per cent were compliant with their obligations under the DVA, ranging from none in Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces to all of those audited in the Western Cape.

Women experiencing violence and service-providing organizations told Amnesty International that while some police facilitated women’s access to protection orders, others referred complainants back to their families, or failed to seize dangerous weapons, or refused to take any steps unless the complainant laid criminal charges first.

For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable. For every boy who is burdened with the constant expectation of knowing everything, there is a girl tired of people not trusting her intelligence. For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weep. For every boy for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl who is called unfeminine when she competes. For every girl who throws out her E-Z-Bake Oven, there is a boy who wishes to find one. For every boy struggling not to let advertising dictate his desires, there is a girl facing the ad industry’s attacks on her self-esteem. For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation, there is a boy who finds the way to freedom a little easier.

Poster from CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective