I attended Minister Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga’s press conference yesterday the 17th of May 2010 at Meikles Hotel where she announced that she was relinquishing all her claims to her late husband Christopher Mushonga’s estate. As she went through her statement outlining the challenges she had endured since the death of her husband in August last year, I could see a tormented face, a face filled with bitterness, anger and frustration.  Tears filled my eyes as in front of me stood a defeated woman who was using the little strength left in her to announce her defeat.  The most confusing part was the involvement of the CIOs and the police in an issue that was already in the civil courts. Priscilla’s relatives were being harassed and intimidated and all this was meant to break her spirit not only to fight for her husband’s estate but also her political spirit.

The painful part is that I have known Priscilla Misihairabwi as a fighter and a woman liberator and for her to end up throwing in the towel on an issue I believed she had every right to contest, I got scared, scared for myself and all the other women that are in marriages and those that are widows.

After the press conference people stood in groups discussing Minister Mushonga’s announcement. People held mixed views on this because some felt Priscilla had disappointed and broke the spirits of all the people who believe in women’s liberation and some felt that she was only human and could only take so much. To me what Priscilla did might be a disappointment to many but her action and decision is a sign and a depiction of the reality in Zimbabwe. Our society is still very patriarchal and continues to pull down and destroy women who attempt to liberate themselves. All those women who attempt to fight for their survival are labelled as prostitutes, witches and gold diggers. Clearly, Zimbabweans have not fully addressed the issue of supporting women and the civic society groups have not clearly supported Priscillah yet they claim to support disadvantaged women and to me she is one woman who has been disappointed.

Priscilla’s defeat is defeat for all of us. I therefore urge women to rise up in support of her so that she at least gets a decent home to live in.

Here’s a really interesting article from Radio France Internationale on the subject of burqas:

Burqa fashion show by Majida Khattari

By Zeenat Hansrod

Morrocan artist Majida Khattari has been working for some time on the theme of the veil worn by some Muslim women. Khattari uses her artistic perspective to take a refreshing, provocative look at why this piece of cloth fuels so much passion in this country.

Majida Khattari doesn’t look like a feminist who’ll readily burn her bra. Born and raised in Morocco, but currently living in France, she is petite, with large, deep, black eyes and soft-spoken. And she loves to laugh. She, Majida, defies stereotypes. So does her work.

Her work is interesting not only because it is sometimes a political statement but also accomplished by a consummate artist, liberated from the history of art and free to play with it.

The Martine and Thibault de la Châtre art gallery  is showing a selection of her photographs and an installation called The Houris until 19 June.

One of the photographs at the gallery revolves around the issue of the burqa. On 19 May, a bill calling for a ban of the burka in public places will be reviewed by the French Council of Ministers. The burka has been at the centre of much-heated debate here in France.

The burka refers to the veil worn from head to toe by some Muslim women and which completely hides their body.

As an artist, Khattari wonders about the world around her and wants to make people think through an artistic process. “Art is provocation. And we need provocation to move forward. I’m trying to highlight the ambiguity and the complexity of the situation,” she says.

Her capacity to lay bare ambiguity is one of the reason gallery owner Thibault de la Châtre is currently showing Khattari’s work. He also values her ability to fuse her own Moroccan cultural heritage with a thorough knowledge of Western art.

That’s apparent in the collection of photographs inspired by the Orientalists. De la Châtre insists that Khattari was not selected because of the prevailing acrimonious socio-political context in France around the burqa. One of the photographs at the gallery, Partage (Sharing), shows two women facing each other, one naked and one veiled.

For de la Châtre, Partage is not provocative: “In art you can do everything. Picasso used to make the head on the bottom and the bottom on the head. Everybody was shocked to see the human body destroyed like that. But he showed what was going to happen. [And as for Khattari], she sees what is going to happen tomorrow. So, you know naked people and veiled people are going to live together, they must, they have no choice.”

Khattari’s most impressive work on the theme of the veil was a fashion show last April at the Cité Internationale couched as performance art. She says it is her fourth and most radical show. Heavily veiled women and men walked down the catwalk while nude white women wearing large turbans and high heels walked up on the opposite side. This meant that the two models faced each other at one point.

The pace was slow, the nude models all looked alike, and the all-body veils were like sculptures, each one different from the other. One model would discard the layers of veils as if peeling off its skin, while another veiled model moved in an erratic pace, struggling to get out of the garment.

“These are extreme situations. I voluntarily worked on those two extreme images to extract the issue of the burqa and that of captivity outside the religious realm,” says Khattari. “Because women are not subdued because of religion only. We also have to comply and conform to aesthetic norms to look young and beautiful, always,” she added.

Art critic Pascale Le Thorel has followed the work of  Khattari for the last 10 years. She says the originality of Khattari’s work around the veil resides in her ability to link performance art and body art.

“It’s important to say that Majida is the first one to approach this issue. She has really broadened the issue within the context of the study of the body itself, on nudity, obviously on women but not only as she’s used men in her shows. She’s very much part of this ongoing discourse which goes on between one artist to another, which is a very good definition of what history of art is itself,” says Le Thorel.

Khattari doesn’t understand why, in France, laws must be passed to decide how people should be dressed. “It’s absurd to create laws to tell us that veils need to be banned in public places. After all, we are in France because it protects our freedom.”

“It’s as if you’re saying that women not capable of making their own decisions and you’ll decide for them. Or that they must have chosen to wear the veil because they are completely dominated, that there could be no other reason for such a choice. I’m sorry, there are many women who wear the veil out of their own free will,” says Khattari.

One would imagine, now that fatwas are so readily thrown at artists, that Khattari may have been threatened by radical groups. But that’s not the case. The only objection came a few years ago from a French women’s rights group, Ni putes ni soumises, who thought she had an agenda.

As far as Khattari is concerned, all the commotion around the burka goes beyond that piece of cloth. It’s far more complex and she successfully brings the audience to look at her interpretation.

Did you know that there aren’t any post women in Zimbabwe? I know that does not sound right but I was talking to a manager of a post office and she said that when they advertise for postal delivery people women do not come up to bring their applications. I was at least relieved when I spoke to a lady manager. Why is that women are not coming up for postman jobs. Is it because they are afraid of the bicycle or the long distances you need to cycle delivering mail. Or is it that the postman title is a way to make women scared of trying out for the job?

You realize you men out there, that this question is not directed to you, but to all my mothers, sisters and female human beings. The Vagina Warriors have an agenda; to show women and men alike that there is an issue here and as long as it is not discussed they are going to come right out and ask if the vagina had a mouth what would you hear it say? To be a bit precise these are called The Vagina Monologues.

If you did not attend a function by the Young Women’s Leadership Initiative (YOWLI) that was themed reclaiming our bodies, demystifying sex and sexuality, let me then tell you it was about dissecting issues relating to young women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Yes, you read right; this is not from foreign lands but stories of young Zimbabwean women in our communities subjected to a whole lot of different experiences. I was shocked at what other people think and feel about sex. From the monologues that were there, issues ranged from having sex without using condoms to shoving some liquids down your privates so that you are relatively tight for him.

After that function I read somewhere that these mentalities are the ones causing HIV and AIDS to be on the rise in Southern Africa – that is creepy and scary. The article said that if a woman shoves ice into her vagina she is bound to experience pain and bruising, making her body vulnerable to a lot of infections.

African as I am there is a lot of things that I would have loved to say about this whole subject but my culture prevents it. I can only encourage you to go to these functions and get enlightened. Who knows maybe we are the generation to kill these mentalities and restore our bodies, male and female to God’s original intent. To be adored, cherished and treated fearfully and wonderfully just the way we were made.

In Zimbabwe I recently traveled in the back of pick-up truck with several other people.  At one point the truck stopped to pick up a man along the route to town.  In his attempt to get onto the truck, he held onto a woman who was seated next to me. She protested; she did not fancy any man besides her husband holding her shoulder.

There was an angry retort from the man, who felt that the situation called for a suspension of what he termed ‘stupid and immature’ moral stands. There was a chorus of condemnation of the woman; with some saying it was the likes of her who pretended to be saintly in public, but were in reality, ‘snakes’. As much as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to rape a woman.

I was not happy with the way the helpless woman’s rights were being violated and I said as much.  It was well within the woman’s rights to choose who held her shoulder and who did not; the circumstances did not matter. She did not want her shoulder held by another man, end of story.

Why should anyone ever say, what could I have done? The doctor asked me to strip me naked, what could I have done? You could have said you are not comfortable and you will not do it. I have heard people say it is backward for a woman to demand that a female nurse examine her. Well, it is within her rights to demand that a male nurse not touch her and that a male doctor not ask her to undress. It is well within her rights to be ‘backward’.

Malaysia recently introduced women only train coaches.  Those women who are not comfortable with harassment from men can travel in peace. Those who are okay with their bottoms being slapped and obscenities shouted at them are free to travel on the regular coaches. That is what I call upholding human rights!

Why should we see abuse of human rights only in the political sense; the burning of buttocks, burning of homes and so on. If someone is made uncomfortable in any way then a human right has been violated, it does not matter how many believe otherwise. Human rights, especially women’s rights, have been trampled upon so much that rape is now considered a small infringement that should be ignored. Young girls cannot move in peace as ‘suitors’ lay ambushes for them. I know of a number of young girls who refuse to be sent to the shops. They would rather face the wrath of their parents than face the vagabonds on the way.

As long as we do not see the violation of human rights as making someone or group of people uncomfortable regardless of their numbers or how trivial we think their case is, then we are a long way off.  No one should ever say, ‘what could have done?’

‘The teacher asked me to come to the storeroom and fondled my breasts, what could I have done?’

‘The doctor inserted his fingers into my vagina, even though I did not understand that my vagina had anything to do with my headache. What could I have done?’

‘The taxi driver asked us to pile into the taxi, women on top of men, what could I have done? The situation demanded it.’

‘The police officers whipped us, despite the fact that it is taboo for a man to lay hands on a woman without her consent. What could I done, he is a police officer.’

‘The human resources manager asked me to hold the desk. What could I have done, I wanted the job desperately?’

No one should ever say, what could I have done? Because there is always a choice, always a decent and dignified way out.  I remember a case when I was growing up of a man who used his wife to pay off his gambling debt. He instructed the guy he owed money to, to go to his place and ‘have’ his wife. The wife ‘consented’. After years of abuse, she could not think of going against her husband’s wishes, but she could have. In narrating her ordeal, the refrain was, ‘What could I have done?’  She could have said no, because she was not comfortable with the whole nonsensical setup. But she did not take the dignified way out.

In our fight for human rights, we should make sure that no one ever says, ‘What could I have done?’ What could I have done is not the dignified way out.

It does not need an expert in any field to inform the Zimbabwean populace that this country needs them in terms of production and economic resuscitation. In as much as we are aware that the economy is not functioning as expected, the few working systems that we have need maximum efficiency for sustainability.

One element that the entire national system does not respect is time.

For instance, if one goes to the bank to do a withdrawal the tellers are not in a hurry to serve you. As a result unnecessary queues form. If one goes to buy lunch, it takes a long time before the order is processed. Commuters are my witness when we see the police slowly doing their duty especially when they inspect public transport. So instead of people appreciating the role of the police in maintaining security and safety, people just get annoyed by unwarranted delays that are usually a result of unnecessary negotiations and kick back payments between the police and transport operators.

And if one goes to collect a National Identity card, the provision of services is slow. These are just some examples.

The entire economy is run in a manner that is slow, without any efficiency. We as citizens should start to think beyond our own selves, and start to act far beyond the call of duty as well. Those who work in positions where they serve people should now start to think in terms of production hours that the country loses by delays in services provided.  I mean, if you tell someone to wait, consider that you have not stopped that person alone, but you have also stopped production somewhere else. As a result you also stop national recovery! If you alone delay ten people for six minutes then you have cost the whole economy one production hour.

This knowledge only comes with an understanding beyond where you are at the moment. The no-hurry approach to life must not apply anymore if we are serious about making the country as vibrant as it was before. We therefore have to revisit our conscience when we tell someone to wait a moment, park there, of come back later.