Zimbabwean Lives Matter

My friend Wina is the kind of poet whose spoken word leaves audiences sobbing in their seats.

White people half wailing in the aisles. Black folks nodding with knowing.

She’s quiet for the most part and until you get to know her but Wina’s very being is a roll of thunder. Her greying, shoulder length dreadlocks lending her an ancient and mystical gravitas that seems to elevate the atmosphere in tight, literary enclaves as does her penchant for silence.

It’s a different story when Wina stands on stage. When she has left her residence early and walked over to the venue slowly because there is a problem with her stomach and a scar that protests when it’s cold.

Once arrived, Wina breaks her silence with a casual exploding of rooms, readings and world literature classes, carefully gathering us all in the palm of a steady hand before bringing us to our knees.

In these rooms Wina transforms into chapels, she sings and whispers, chants and tells stories of her life in Zimbabwe. Of a mother, a government and a life that is ever under pressure.

Wina’s poems are laments but they are also her super power. A way to float high above the things that are, the things that have been and the things that are yet to come while gathering strength for a struggle she sees coming.

When the Zimbabwean people rise up to fight for their human rights, harnessing the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter to draw attention to the nation’s failing public health system, economic crisis, police brutality as well as the arrest of ordinary citizens, journalists and lawyers in response to protest and dissent, I ask Wina if she is okay in the dead of a swollen night. Two hours later, Wina’s WhatsApp reply brightens my phone screen as it hurries from Harare.

“The year of the locusts and there is nowhere to run to.”

Covid-19 has closed many borders and Wina, whose talent has carried her across the world and to the place where we met, will have to sit pretty.

She says she has been trying to avoid the news but this month has been the hardest.

The arrest of award-winning Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga – detained for calling for institutional reform and to free detained journalists – has gone viral and every day more and more people in Zimbabwe and across the world have taken to social media to tweet what we know to be true.

This is not a hashtag I mention in my conversation with Wina because, in Namibia, precedent has not shown this to be entirely true.

Not when we consider Namibian law enforcement’s scot-free killing and the shameful repatriation of the remains of Zimbabwe’s Fambauone ‘Talent’ Black, nor when we are haunted by the spectre of street vendor Hlaisanani Zhou beaten to death in the Otjozondjupa region and transported home in an open trailer.

My heart is with Wina but a niggling shame stops me from typing out the hashtag even though I believe it.

Wina’s life matters.

Her poetry and her well-being matter.

Her safety, dignity and ability to thrive matter.

Her right to free speech, to dissent and to live freely in the country of her birth matter.

As the world rallies to call out the Zimbabwean government and law enforcement’s human rights abuses, the stifling of freedom of speech, the intimidation, the economic crisis and the police brutality, I hope Namibia and her leaders will stand tall and with Zimbabwe’s ordinary citizens.

The people who don’t necessarily want to leave home.

The Zimbabweans who envision a future in which their country is prosperous and the envy of all the places that have made its citizens feel unwelcome or sent them home dead in an open trailer.

People like Wina, who reaches for my message in the middle of the night, imagines locusts, imagines running, selflessly imagines my own small trials and tribulations and tells me – alive, well and worrying in Windhoek – to keep safe.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.