{"id":813,"date":"2020-03-06T20:09:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T20:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jikinya.com\/?p=813"},"modified":"2020-03-06T20:09:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T20:09:16","slug":"tsitsi-dangarembga-opens-up-on-being-raped-challenges-callous-mnangagwa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=813","title":{"rendered":"Tsitsi Dangarembga Opens up on Being Raped, Challenges “Callous” Mnangagwa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Tsitsi Dangarembga (Image: Zimbabwean Voice)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Onai Mushava<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zimbabwean soldiers allegedly raped 17 women and brutally assaulted many others on sensitive organs during the state crackdown on protests against a 150 % fuel price increase last month. Government has denied the claims of the women, who are currently in NGO safe houses, citing that only one of them has made a police report. Legendary writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga has weighed in on the side of the alleged victims, while opening up on her own experience.<\/p>\n

Dangarembga has opened up on being a rape victim, as she challenged President Emmerson Mnangagwa\u2019s denial of rape allegations against members of the security forces. The feminist firebrand considers her unreported experience of sexual abuse in 2004 as having emboldened her resolve to be a socially relevant filmmaker.<\/p>\n

Bringing attention to her experience as an example of the trauma and repression rape victims struggle with, Dangarembga described as \u201ccallous\u201d President Mnangagwa\u2019s dismissal of claims that soldiers raped women during the crackdown on protesters last month. Mnangagwa dismisses the alleged rape victims who took refuge in NGO safe houses as stage-managed pawns in political score-settling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAm beyond shocked by the denial of rape by President Mnangagwa. ZRP have publicly said it can take 8-10 years for a rape victim to come forward. In my case I only faced it after 12 years, and still don’t know where or how to report. The callousness exhibited here is mindblowing,\u201d Dangarembga tweeted.<\/p>\n

During a recent\u00a0France 24<\/em>\u00a0interview, Mnangagwa denied that the army raped and killed civilians in extra-judicial retaliation to the January protests against the increase in fuel prices.\u00a0\u201cWe have, both through print, media, radio, and TV, appealed to those victims to come forward and report to the nearest police station. If you\u2019re not comfortable to report to the nearest police station you go to the nearest church and report the abuse you underwent. There\u2019s only one single case that has come up,\u201d Mnangagwa claimed.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with\u00a0This Is Africa<\/em>, Dangarembga said Mnangagwa\u2019s narrative is conveniently one-sided. \u201cMy understanding is that rapes did occur during the crackdown,\u201d insisted the author,\u00a0whose feminist bildungsroman,\u00a0Nervous Conditions\u00a0<\/em>was named one of the 100 greatest books of all time by\u00a0BBC<\/em>\u00a0in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment has produced a few NGOs, including Musasa Project and the\u00a0Adult Rape Clinic, who have supported the government position that rape\u00a0did not happen.\u00a0There are many NGOs working in the area, for example, Zimbabwe Project and Counselling Services, to name just two, that tell a\u00a0different story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

State media has challenged NGOs providing medical and counselling services for the alleged victims to also help them report to the police. Government insists that the women are being paraded to give Zimbabwe a bad rap and justify the imposition of sanctions. Subregional bloc SADC has rubberstamped the government\u2019s denial of responsibility in the crackdown that allegedly left 12 people dead. One of the alleged rape victims who anonymously spoke to\u00a0Newsday<\/em>\u00a0cited fear of reprisal as her reason for not reporting to the police.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Mnangagwa has cited the absence of police reports to absolve the state apparatus of violence against civilians. Last year, during a largely successful international PR crusade, the president used the same reason to show\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0that there was no political violence in 2008 elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fair, very fair. Where is the evidence for violence? Not a single case was taken to the police,\u201d Mnangagwa argued. NGO and private media estimates that more than 270 suspected opposition supporters were killed in 2008 as Mnangagwa\u2019s party was smarting from its first electoral defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Zimbabwe Republic Police has released information\u00a0in the public domain concerning crimes, including rape, whose\u00a0investigation is not being facilitated.\u00a0The crucial question is why\u00a0does the partisan guerrilla government, as exemplified in a recent
\ninterview for French media by Mr Mnangagwa, ignore all these sources and
\nonly point to those that corroborate their stance?\u201d Dangarembga queried.<\/p>\n

She also gave a long-run perspective of rape as a political control mechanism in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. \u201cRape has been a tool of\u00a0intimidation, coercion and establishment of dominance through practising\u00a0violence on women’s bodies since the liberation struggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has never\u00a0been dealt with in the history of Zimbabwe.\u00a0 Those who tried to engage\u00a0with the issue of rape by state agents have often been silenced or
\nmarginalised.\u00a0An example of someone who was silenced and marginalised\u00a0in this way is late poet Freedom Nyamubaya,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nyamubaya was a Second Chimurenga veteran and author whose efforts to use her platform to tell the story of women, like herself, who were raped during the liberation struggle was not entertain by gatekeepers of the national narrative during the Robert Mugabe adminstration. Accounts that women in Matebeleland and Midlands were raped by soldiers during Gukurahundi are yet to be dealt with by the successive Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy own experience\u00a0occurred in 2004.\u00a0 But I was not able to engage with it for a number of\u00a0reasons, including the circumstance of the abuse.\u00a0 I do think, though,
\nthat this was a subconscious driver for my engagement with sexual
\nviolence against women in my work as a socially relevant filmmaker,\u201d Dangarembga told\u00a0This Is Africa<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Dangarembga\u2019s artistic confrontation of the structures of abuse, however, predates her experience of rape, starting with her disgruntlement with the gendered social programming of her siblings when she was a child. \u201cMy identifying as a feminist when I was in my twenties just and a student at the University of Zimbabwe, just after Zimbabwe’s independence, was important for me as it exposed me to feminist discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how I learnt to understand the systematic nature of patriarchal oppression in which violence against women is a strategy of silencing, indeed the violence visited upon those who are not white male heterosexuals in so many ways.\u00a0 I began to see this happening during the early 2000s as Zanu-PF starts losing support,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The accomplished filmmaker described the Zanu-PF government\u2019s illiberal chokehold on media institutions as a Nazi-inspired form of\u00a0Gleichschaltung<\/em>\u00a0that sustains a culture of silence. \u201cGovernment controls all media in the country, except some\u00a0social media and other digital platforms.\u00a0 The internet outage that took\u00a0place in January this year reflected the government’s attempt to\u00a0introduce\u00a0Gleichschaltung<\/em>\u00a0on internet news as well.\u00a0Gleichschaltung<\/em>\u00a0was\u00a0the Nazi strategy of ensuring that all media presented the same\u00a0narrative,\u201d Dangarembga said.<\/p>\n

It is this information blackout which propelled her towards the direction of film. She, however, worries that the \u201cpartisan guerrilla government\u201d has also captured the creative industries, as evidenced by a resource war favouring establishment narratives in the film sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like myself, who work to\u00a0speak truth to power, often find ourselves sidelined and unable to tell\u00a0the stories that we see need to be told,\u201d Dangarembga said, noting the importance of critical and commercial support for artists who seek to dismantle the structures of abuse.\u201dAs it is, young women will see the way\u00a0that potential role models like myself are sidelined and will decide\u00a0that it is not a good idea to follow in my footsteps,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dangarembga recently gave a keynote address at Berlinale Africahub Talk, themed\u00a0Inclusive Network Building: African Women<\/em>.\u00a0She is set to curate the African Book Festival in Berlin from 4 to 7 April this year.<\/p>\n

Originally appeared in This Is Africa<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Onai Mushava Zimbabwean soldiers allegedly raped 17 women and brutally assaulted many others on sensitive organs during the state crackdown on protests against a 150 % fuel price increase last month. Government has denied the claims of the women, who are currently in NGO safe houses, citing that only one of them has made a police report. Legendary writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga has weighed in on the side of the alleged victims, while opening up on her own experience. Dangarembga has opened up on being a rape victim, as she challenged President Emmerson Mnangagwa\u2019s denial of rape allegations against members of the security forces. The feminist firebrand considers her unreported experience of sexual abuse in 2004 as having emboldened her resolve to be a socially relevant filmmaker. Bringing attention to her experience as an example of the trauma and repression rape victims struggle with, Dangarembga described as \u201ccallous\u201d President Mnangagwa\u2019s dismissal of claims that soldiers raped women during the crackdown on protesters last month. Mnangagwa dismisses the alleged rape victims who took refuge in NGO safe houses as stage-managed pawns in political score-settling. \u201cAm beyond shocked by the denial of rape by President Mnangagwa. ZRP have publicly said it can take 8-10 years for a rape victim to come forward. In my case I only faced it after 12 years, and still don’t know where or how to report. The callousness exhibited here is mindblowing,\u201d Dangarembga tweeted. During a recent\u00a0France 24\u00a0interview, Mnangagwa denied that the army raped and killed civilians in extra-judicial retaliation to the January protests against the increase in fuel prices.\u00a0\u201cWe have, both through print, media, radio, and TV, appealed to those victims to come forward and report to the nearest police station. If you\u2019re not comfortable to report to the nearest police station you go to the nearest church and report the abuse you underwent. There\u2019s only one single case that has come up,\u201d Mnangagwa claimed. In an exclusive interview with\u00a0This Is Africa, Dangarembga said Mnangagwa\u2019s narrative is conveniently one-sided. \u201cMy understanding is that rapes did occur during the crackdown,\u201d insisted the author,\u00a0whose feminist bildungsroman,\u00a0Nervous Conditions\u00a0was named one of the 100 greatest books of all time by\u00a0BBC\u00a0in 2018. \u201cGovernment has produced a few NGOs, including Musasa Project and the\u00a0Adult Rape Clinic, who have supported the government position that rape\u00a0did not happen.\u00a0There are many NGOs working in the area, for example, Zimbabwe Project and Counselling Services, to name just two, that tell a\u00a0different story,\u201d she said. State media has challenged NGOs providing medical and counselling services for the alleged victims to also help them report to the police. Government insists that the women are being paraded to give Zimbabwe a bad rap and justify the imposition of sanctions. Subregional bloc SADC has rubberstamped the government\u2019s denial of responsibility in the crackdown that allegedly left 12 people dead. One of the alleged rape victims who anonymously spoke to\u00a0Newsday\u00a0cited fear of reprisal as her reason for not reporting to the police. This is not the first time Mnangagwa has cited the absence of police reports to absolve the state apparatus of violence against civilians. Last year, during a largely successful international PR crusade, the president used the same reason to show\u00a0The Economist\u00a0that there was no political violence in 2008 elections. \u201cIt was fair, very fair. Where is the evidence for violence? Not a single case was taken to the police,\u201d Mnangagwa argued. NGO and private media estimates that more than 270 suspected opposition supporters were killed in 2008 as Mnangagwa\u2019s party was smarting from its first electoral defeat. \u201cThe Zimbabwe Republic Police has released information\u00a0in the public domain concerning crimes, including rape, whose\u00a0investigation is not being facilitated.\u00a0The crucial question is why\u00a0does the partisan guerrilla government, as exemplified in a recent interview for French media by Mr Mnangagwa, ignore all these sources and only point to those that corroborate their stance?\u201d Dangarembga queried. She also gave a long-run perspective of rape as a political control mechanism in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. \u201cRape has been a tool of\u00a0intimidation, coercion and establishment of dominance through practising\u00a0violence on women’s bodies since the liberation struggle. \u201cIt has never\u00a0been dealt with in the history of Zimbabwe.\u00a0 Those who tried to engage\u00a0with the issue of rape by state agents have often been silenced or marginalised.\u00a0An example of someone who was silenced and marginalised\u00a0in this way is late poet Freedom Nyamubaya,\u201d she said. Nyamubaya was a Second Chimurenga veteran and author whose efforts to use her platform to tell the story of women, like herself, who were raped during the liberation struggle was not entertain by gatekeepers of the national narrative during the Robert Mugabe adminstration. Accounts that women in Matebeleland and Midlands were raped by soldiers during Gukurahundi are yet to be dealt with by the successive Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations. \u201cMy own experience\u00a0occurred in 2004.\u00a0 But I was not able to engage with it for a number of\u00a0reasons, including the circumstance of the abuse.\u00a0 I do think, though, that this was a subconscious driver for my engagement with sexual violence against women in my work as a socially relevant filmmaker,\u201d Dangarembga told\u00a0This Is Africa. Dangarembga\u2019s artistic confrontation of the structures of abuse, however, predates her experience of rape, starting with her disgruntlement with the gendered social programming of her siblings when she was a child. \u201cMy identifying as a feminist when I was in my twenties just and a student at the University of Zimbabwe, just after Zimbabwe’s independence, was important for me as it exposed me to feminist discourse. \u201cThis is how I learnt to understand the systematic nature of patriarchal oppression in which violence against women is a strategy of silencing, indeed the violence visited upon those who are not white male heterosexuals in so many ways.\u00a0 I began to see this happening during the early 2000s as Zanu-PF starts losing support,\u201d she said. The accomplished filmmaker described the Zanu-PF government\u2019s illiberal chokehold on media institutions as a Nazi-inspired form of\u00a0Gleichschaltung\u00a0that sustains a culture of silence. \u201cGovernment controls all media in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nTsitsi Dangarembga Opens up on Being Raped, Challenges "Callous" Mnangagwa | Blockspace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=813\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tsitsi Dangarembga Opens up on Being Raped, Challenges "Callous" Mnangagwa | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Onai Mushava Zimbabwean soldiers allegedly raped 17 women and brutally assaulted many others on sensitive organs during the state crackdown on protests against a 150 % fuel price increase last month. Government has denied the claims of the women, who are currently in NGO safe houses, citing that only one of them has made a police report. Legendary writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga has weighed in on the side of the alleged victims, while opening up on her own experience. Dangarembga has opened up on being a rape victim, as she challenged President Emmerson Mnangagwa\u2019s denial of rape allegations against members of the security forces. The feminist firebrand considers her unreported experience of sexual abuse in 2004 as having emboldened her resolve to be a socially relevant filmmaker. Bringing attention to her experience as an example of the trauma and repression rape victims struggle with, Dangarembga described as \u201ccallous\u201d President Mnangagwa\u2019s dismissal of claims that soldiers raped women during the crackdown on protesters last month. Mnangagwa dismisses the alleged rape victims who took refuge in NGO safe houses as stage-managed pawns in political score-settling. \u201cAm beyond shocked by the denial of rape by President Mnangagwa. ZRP have publicly said it can take 8-10 years for a rape victim to come forward. In my case I only faced it after 12 years, and still don’t know where or how to report. The callousness exhibited here is mindblowing,\u201d Dangarembga tweeted. During a recent\u00a0France 24\u00a0interview, Mnangagwa denied that the army raped and killed civilians in extra-judicial retaliation to the January protests against the increase in fuel prices.\u00a0\u201cWe have, both through print, media, radio, and TV, appealed to those victims to come forward and report to the nearest police station. If you\u2019re not comfortable to report to the nearest police station you go to the nearest church and report the abuse you underwent. There\u2019s only one single case that has come up,\u201d Mnangagwa claimed. In an exclusive interview with\u00a0This Is Africa, Dangarembga said Mnangagwa\u2019s narrative is conveniently one-sided. \u201cMy understanding is that rapes did occur during the crackdown,\u201d insisted the author,\u00a0whose feminist bildungsroman,\u00a0Nervous Conditions\u00a0was named one of the 100 greatest books of all time by\u00a0BBC\u00a0in 2018. \u201cGovernment has produced a few NGOs, including Musasa Project and the\u00a0Adult Rape Clinic, who have supported the government position that rape\u00a0did not happen.\u00a0There are many NGOs working in the area, for example, Zimbabwe Project and Counselling Services, to name just two, that tell a\u00a0different story,\u201d she said. State media has challenged NGOs providing medical and counselling services for the alleged victims to also help them report to the police. Government insists that the women are being paraded to give Zimbabwe a bad rap and justify the imposition of sanctions. Subregional bloc SADC has rubberstamped the government\u2019s denial of responsibility in the crackdown that allegedly left 12 people dead. One of the alleged rape victims who anonymously spoke to\u00a0Newsday\u00a0cited fear of reprisal as her reason for not reporting to the police. This is not the first time Mnangagwa has cited the absence of police reports to absolve the state apparatus of violence against civilians. Last year, during a largely successful international PR crusade, the president used the same reason to show\u00a0The Economist\u00a0that there was no political violence in 2008 elections. \u201cIt was fair, very fair. Where is the evidence for violence? Not a single case was taken to the police,\u201d Mnangagwa argued. NGO and private media estimates that more than 270 suspected opposition supporters were killed in 2008 as Mnangagwa\u2019s party was smarting from its first electoral defeat. \u201cThe Zimbabwe Republic Police has released information\u00a0in the public domain concerning crimes, including rape, whose\u00a0investigation is not being facilitated.\u00a0The crucial question is why\u00a0does the partisan guerrilla government, as exemplified in a recent interview for French media by Mr Mnangagwa, ignore all these sources and only point to those that corroborate their stance?\u201d Dangarembga queried. She also gave a long-run perspective of rape as a political control mechanism in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. \u201cRape has been a tool of\u00a0intimidation, coercion and establishment of dominance through practising\u00a0violence on women’s bodies since the liberation struggle. \u201cIt has never\u00a0been dealt with in the history of Zimbabwe.\u00a0 Those who tried to engage\u00a0with the issue of rape by state agents have often been silenced or marginalised.\u00a0An example of someone who was silenced and marginalised\u00a0in this way is late poet Freedom Nyamubaya,\u201d she said. Nyamubaya was a Second Chimurenga veteran and author whose efforts to use her platform to tell the story of women, like herself, who were raped during the liberation struggle was not entertain by gatekeepers of the national narrative during the Robert Mugabe adminstration. Accounts that women in Matebeleland and Midlands were raped by soldiers during Gukurahundi are yet to be dealt with by the successive Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations. \u201cMy own experience\u00a0occurred in 2004.\u00a0 But I was not able to engage with it for a number of\u00a0reasons, including the circumstance of the abuse.\u00a0 I do think, though, that this was a subconscious driver for my engagement with sexual violence against women in my work as a socially relevant filmmaker,\u201d Dangarembga told\u00a0This Is Africa. Dangarembga\u2019s artistic confrontation of the structures of abuse, however, predates her experience of rape, starting with her disgruntlement with the gendered social programming of her siblings when she was a child. \u201cMy identifying as a feminist when I was in my twenties just and a student at the University of Zimbabwe, just after Zimbabwe’s independence, was important for me as it exposed me to feminist discourse. \u201cThis is how I learnt to understand the systematic nature of patriarchal oppression in which violence against women is a strategy of silencing, indeed the violence visited upon those who are not white male heterosexuals in so many ways.\u00a0 I began to see this happening during the early 2000s as Zanu-PF starts losing support,\u201d she said. The accomplished filmmaker described the Zanu-PF government\u2019s illiberal chokehold on media institutions as a Nazi-inspired form of\u00a0Gleichschaltung\u00a0that sustains a culture of silence. \u201cGovernment controls all media in the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=813\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-06T20:09:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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Government has denied the claims of the women, who are currently in NGO safe houses, citing that only one of them has made a police report. Legendary writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga has weighed in on the side of the alleged victims, while opening up on her own experience. Dangarembga has opened up on being a rape victim, as she challenged President Emmerson Mnangagwa\u2019s denial of rape allegations against members of the security forces. The feminist firebrand considers her unreported experience of sexual abuse in 2004 as having emboldened her resolve to be a socially relevant filmmaker. Bringing attention to her experience as an example of the trauma and repression rape victims struggle with, Dangarembga described as \u201ccallous\u201d President Mnangagwa\u2019s dismissal of claims that soldiers raped women during the crackdown on protesters last month. Mnangagwa dismisses the alleged rape victims who took refuge in NGO safe houses as stage-managed pawns in political score-settling. \u201cAm beyond shocked by the denial of rape by President Mnangagwa. ZRP have publicly said it can take 8-10 years for a rape victim to come forward. In my case I only faced it after 12 years, and still don’t know where or how to report. The callousness exhibited here is mindblowing,\u201d Dangarembga tweeted. During a recent\u00a0France 24\u00a0interview, Mnangagwa denied that the army raped and killed civilians in extra-judicial retaliation to the January protests against the increase in fuel prices.\u00a0\u201cWe have, both through print, media, radio, and TV, appealed to those victims to come forward and report to the nearest police station. If you\u2019re not comfortable to report to the nearest police station you go to the nearest church and report the abuse you underwent. There\u2019s only one single case that has come up,\u201d Mnangagwa claimed. In an exclusive interview with\u00a0This Is Africa, Dangarembga said Mnangagwa\u2019s narrative is conveniently one-sided. \u201cMy understanding is that rapes did occur during the crackdown,\u201d insisted the author,\u00a0whose feminist bildungsroman,\u00a0Nervous Conditions\u00a0was named one of the 100 greatest books of all time by\u00a0BBC\u00a0in 2018. \u201cGovernment has produced a few NGOs, including Musasa Project and the\u00a0Adult Rape Clinic, who have supported the government position that rape\u00a0did not happen.\u00a0There are many NGOs working in the area, for example, Zimbabwe Project and Counselling Services, to name just two, that tell a\u00a0different story,\u201d she said. State media has challenged NGOs providing medical and counselling services for the alleged victims to also help them report to the police. Government insists that the women are being paraded to give Zimbabwe a bad rap and justify the imposition of sanctions. Subregional bloc SADC has rubberstamped the government\u2019s denial of responsibility in the crackdown that allegedly left 12 people dead. One of the alleged rape victims who anonymously spoke to\u00a0Newsday\u00a0cited fear of reprisal as her reason for not reporting to the police. This is not the first time Mnangagwa has cited the absence of police reports to absolve the state apparatus of violence against civilians. Last year, during a largely successful international PR crusade, the president used the same reason to show\u00a0The Economist\u00a0that there was no political violence in 2008 elections. \u201cIt was fair, very fair. Where is the evidence for violence? Not a single case was taken to the police,\u201d Mnangagwa argued. NGO and private media estimates that more than 270 suspected opposition supporters were killed in 2008 as Mnangagwa\u2019s party was smarting from its first electoral defeat. \u201cThe Zimbabwe Republic Police has released information\u00a0in the public domain concerning crimes, including rape, whose\u00a0investigation is not being facilitated.\u00a0The crucial question is why\u00a0does the partisan guerrilla government, as exemplified in a recent interview for French media by Mr Mnangagwa, ignore all these sources and only point to those that corroborate their stance?\u201d Dangarembga queried. She also gave a long-run perspective of rape as a political control mechanism in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. \u201cRape has been a tool of\u00a0intimidation, coercion and establishment of dominance through practising\u00a0violence on women’s bodies since the liberation struggle. \u201cIt has never\u00a0been dealt with in the history of Zimbabwe.\u00a0 Those who tried to engage\u00a0with the issue of rape by state agents have often been silenced or marginalised.\u00a0An example of someone who was silenced and marginalised\u00a0in this way is late poet Freedom Nyamubaya,\u201d she said. Nyamubaya was a Second Chimurenga veteran and author whose efforts to use her platform to tell the story of women, like herself, who were raped during the liberation struggle was not entertain by gatekeepers of the national narrative during the Robert Mugabe adminstration. Accounts that women in Matebeleland and Midlands were raped by soldiers during Gukurahundi are yet to be dealt with by the successive Mugabe and Mnangagwa administrations. \u201cMy own experience\u00a0occurred in 2004.\u00a0 But I was not able to engage with it for a number of\u00a0reasons, including the circumstance of the abuse.\u00a0 I do think, though, that this was a subconscious driver for my engagement with sexual violence against women in my work as a socially relevant filmmaker,\u201d Dangarembga told\u00a0This Is Africa. Dangarembga\u2019s artistic confrontation of the structures of abuse, however, predates her experience of rape, starting with her disgruntlement with the gendered social programming of her siblings when she was a child. \u201cMy identifying as a feminist when I was in my twenties just and a student at the University of Zimbabwe, just after Zimbabwe’s independence, was important for me as it exposed me to feminist discourse. \u201cThis is how I learnt to understand the systematic nature of patriarchal oppression in which violence against women is a strategy of silencing, indeed the violence visited upon those who are not white male heterosexuals in so many ways.\u00a0 I began to see this happening during the early 2000s as Zanu-PF starts losing support,\u201d she said. The accomplished filmmaker described the Zanu-PF government\u2019s illiberal chokehold on media institutions as a Nazi-inspired form of\u00a0Gleichschaltung\u00a0that sustains a culture of silence. \u201cGovernment controls all media in the","og_url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=813","og_site_name":"Blockspace","article_published_time":"2020-03-06T20:09:16+00:00","author":"hardsouth","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"hardsouth","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=813#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=813"},"author":{"name":"hardsouth","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0"},"headline":"Tsitsi Dangarembga Opens up on Being Raped, Challenges “Callous” 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