OVER recent years, the language of creating and sustaining safe spaces has become one I hear more and more often, especially in feminist spaces. For a time, I accepted this language uncritically, neither thinking more broadly about what a safe space truly requires nor introspecting around the various problematics that such spaces often bring with them. As such, I think it’s important to reflect on … Continue reading Are safe spaces really safe?
We were sitting on the old cushioned chairs in the dormitory reception where the temperamental TV set mounted overhead to one corner of the room was not giving us any news about the election results. It was just before 8 pm on a Sunday night, and I had just arrived back in Bulawayo from Harare, a trip of almost 450 km and many jaunty hours … Continue reading Why I’ve Chosen Social Media Silence About Zimbabwe
A man in a workman’s suit stands at an open grave. A coffin has just been lowered into the freshly dug pit as family and friends eulogise the deceased; a wife, mother, grandmother, probably also an ardent member of a local church group and women’s societies and clubs in her community. In essence, family and friends are gathered to bury a woman of high repute … Continue reading Why ‘Lameck’ Struck A Chord With Me
This article is based on reflections I gathered at Independence Day commemorations in 2014. The early morning April sun is high and hot when I arrive at Harare’s National Sports Stadium where Zimbabwe’s annual Independence Day commemorations will shortly commence. Buses and cars jam the driveway that leads to the stadium entrances, and queues of people bend and wind with the railing that runs round … Continue reading A Flag of Many Colours – A Reflection on Zimbabwe’s Independence
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Last month, I bumped into an old acquaintance whom I’ll call Timothy (not his real name) for the purposes of this article. Timothy is in his late 20s or early 30s, and it had been over five years since we’d last met or spoken. So a natural curiosity came over both of us to know what the other had been up to during this long … Continue reading What Young Zimbabweans Have Lost, And Continue To Lose
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When Zimbabweans invoke memories of “the good old days” of the country’s rise and prosperity, a range of popular culture symbols and metaphors are often associated with this harkening to what seemed a perfect past. Witty television advertisements are reconstructed, the allegoric music of that time is replayed and incisive characters from literature and film are re-membered. Also not far from many Zimbabweans’ memories is … Continue reading The Dream Within The ‘Dream Team’: Football As A Zimbabwean Metaphor
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A friend and I begin a Twitter chat. I have picked up from her most recent tweets that she has been violated; a man has touched her inappropriately in a public space and has laughed back at her. “I hope you won’t say this is sexual harassment,” he states. I apologise to her; a helpless apology because, as she reassures me, it is not my … Continue reading Societal Privilege Does Not Protect Women From Violence
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A surge of heat courses through my blood as soon as I see the email with a simple but foreboding subject line. ‘Elaine’, it reads. Warily, I open it and take in its words, my body quickly collapsing into disbelieving heaves and sobs. “No, no, no.” I repeat the word as though a chorus of my protest will undo what I am reading. As though … Continue reading Rest In Love, Dear Elaine Rosa Salo
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A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post I titled, ‘Silence Does Not Suit Me’, an exuberantly defiant ode to my right to freely express myself as I chose. In it, I observed of the the self-doubt that often accompanies speaking up about things that are deemed unpopular or supposedly best left unchallenged, “You start to think that maybe they [the silent people … Continue reading This Silence Cannot Be All There Is
