Beyond the construction of crises: the voice of an ordinary Zimbabwean

Abstract

This issue of the African Identities journal is devoted to understanding the Zimbabwean crises, and many more books on the crisis tend to rightfully focus on secure institutional sites such as the economy, governance, politics, culture and human rights. While these have received a fair amount of attention, what has not been explored is how resilient ordinary Zimbabweans are surviving and leading successful and fulfilling lives. This reorientation of focus does not belittle the fervent and highly engaging critiques of the crises. But when voices of people who bear the burden of the crises are not captured, the danger is that writing about the crises may lose some of its richness and usefulness. In this article I make the modest implication that research needs to redirect itself towards the local and explore the experience of those worst affected by such crises who display not only survival but also success and fulfilment. To this end I interview a Zimbabwean artist, himself an ordinary as well as a not-so-ordinary person, in the sense in which the word is used in Marxist circles to refer to being part of the masses. The focus of this paper is to report on the hands-on efforts I have witnessed in this artist's (Albert Chimedza's) contribution to the Mbira Centre in Harare. There are many like Chimedza, living the crisis who are not always involved in ‘land politics’ or governance politics'. These are some of the voices that organize themselves outside the constant and corrosive, gnawing quarrels of the state, which is responsible for the crises, or the ethereal critiques of scholarly works attempting to describe the crises, in the arena of the local and the ordinary. I argue that what is now needed in Zimbabwe is less describing of the facets of the crises and more engagement with how some resilient Zimbabweans themselves are successfully addressing the effects of the crisis and living in a way that we can all learn from.

Keywords:

• Zimbabwean crises
• Albert Chimedza
• Gonanombe Mbira Centre
• Mbira Centre
• mbira
• ordinary voices

Notes

1. First interview held on 5 November 2002 and 4 August 2003 at the Gonamombe Mbira Centre, Highlands, Harare. Interviews carried out by Mai Palmberg of the Nordic Africa Institute. Reproduced with permission of Albert Chimbazi.

2. Second interview was held on 14 October 2009 through email questions. Interview carried out by Fungai James Tichawangana of the online magazine Zimbojam, http://www.zimbojam.com

3. Third interview was carried out by Adebe Zegeye through questionnaire via email on 14 October 2009.