I hope you don’t mind my posting these poems here. I owe you a PhD update and I will be giving you one soon. Today however like the last two posts I am posting a poem I wrote a few years ago. It forms part of my thesis, so in a way this is PhD related. It is very PhD related however because events happening in my motherland recently have aroused the hope and pain I had long buried and stifled in my heart concerning the land of my birth. I actually found myself distracted and unable to focus on my writing from the anticipation that things could change and the unreal expectation for a miraculous turn of events . We academics have a way to talk about nationhood and nations that is so far from how I have felt in the last few days. We reason things out with our heads, these are imagined communities and yes they are but there is an emotional dimension to this imagined world that is hard to make sense of.
I wanted to pray for change but all I could do was cry! Cry as I realised that I thought I did not care anymore but I do care. Cry as I let go of the denial and embraced the passion engulfing my heart about Zimbabwe. Then I remembered the 26 year old me who arrived in South Africa and tried to make sense of what it means to be Zimbabwean in South Africa. I have for a long time said to those who ask me, that my national identity is a tag that carries no purchase for me. Instead it boxes me and limits my belonging to that tiny piece of the world. I still think so, but I also carry these feelings of fondness. I carry the pain of my children not experiencing their childhood the way I did mine. So here is a glimpse into the mind of that girl who left and does not want to go back, but wants that to be a choice she makes when she could go back if she wanted to. #thisflag #Zimbabwemustbesaved
Is it my independence?
Is it my freedom?
18 April 1980
Victory heralds sounded
The war has been won
Celebrations and ululations
We have conquered the enemy
Have we?
How can this be?
Who shall I turn to?
My brother has risen against me
A father against his own
The future strength of our time
Twenty thousand valiant sons and daughters
Stolen from their time,
From our land, our hands
Is it his independence?
Shall I live on?
Can I carry this burden?
Our nation flourishes and thrives
Education, water, health to the people
The envy of our neighbours
The breast basket of Africa
But who shall heal these wounds?
War veterans?
Who are they?
They fought for freedom
They fought for sovereignty
Fifty thousand Zimbabwean dollars is their asking price
Perpetual damage to the Zimbabwean Dollar
An irreversible descending road for the economy
Is it their independence?
Is it their land?
How is it their land?
I stole their land, I should give back their land
The language they know is of their hands
They beat me up so I can hear
This is their land
I should leave it to them
What shall I do?
Who shall I tell?
My vote is my voice
But how can it be
My vote is stolen from me
The night is a terrifying place
It has hands that beat me up
Hands that make me disappear
Who shall I tell?
How can I speak?
What shall I say?
My voice is taken away from me
My mouth is eternally sealed
AIPPA and POSA
They have cut my tongue
I am damned, silenced from my view
Silenced from my choice
Am I the dirt?
Is my house the dirt?
Murambatsvina like a flood
Destroyed my house
Left me out in the open
Cold and hungry
Where shall I go?
Candid PhD Talk 