Mothers as Flawed Revolutionaries

 

By Takura Zhangazha*

Mothers are correctly sacrosanct in Zimbabwean culture.  More-so given the  popular adage ‘kusina Mai hakuendwe, kune rima’ (where there is no mother, you do not go there, there is darkness) is deeply ingrained in most of our national consciousness. Especially as popularized by Simon Chimbetu  and the Orchestra Dendera Kings in the famous hit single “Kusina Mai”.      

Hence we revere motherhood.  No matter its circumstances.  Be it single, married, step or widowed motherhood. 

And whether you are female or male, you tend to hold your mother in absolute awe.  Both by way of your own personal history but also your present circumstances and your future (marriage, illness, wealth and even notions of the afterlife)

But there is a key consideration that we sometimes overlook.  This is the fact that mothers are at the heart of our national consciousness in Zimbabwe.

Be it in the past, the present and the future. 

If its in relation to the past we need not look beyond the first and second Chimurenga’s for an understanding of what ‘mothers of the revolution’ meant politically and socially.  With even the emblematic Nehanda Nyakasikana proving to be a major motivation for a subsequent struggle against the colonial Rhodesian state.  It was not just her femininity but also the assumed role of being a motherly spirit medium that embedded her to our national political consciousness. 

And this stemmed largely from a point where culturally we all know that the last stop for protection for a child is the mother.  And the first step of learning to walk, sleep or go to the toilet is in normal societal circumstances, the mother of the child. 

This applies to both the past and the present.  And will most likely apply to a nearer Zimbabwean future. 

In the present however, the meaning of motherhood has been shifting significantly.  Its no longer as cultural as it was in the past.  Its increasingly about both domestic work and also formal work where roles of motherhood and making money continually clash in our capitalist society. And where gender related vulnerabilities exploit motherhood to an extent that leads many to a path of assumptions that materialism is the only thing that makes the world go round.  Despite religious affiliations and loyalties.

This has been both empowering and disempowering.  The cultural norms that are traditional and the expected roles of mothers still obtain. Ones in which giving birth,  care, love, affection and being the last bastion of material and emotional refuge of children remain valued and important both to men and women in our society.  But mothers are also working women and therefore they have newer demands to who they are and what they are expected to deliver.

In other words they definitively have a double work load.  The traditional function of motherhood and the material importance of the same in modern times.  They are no longer expected to wait for their men/husbands to bring the money but also to earn it. 

This however comes with a consciousness dilemma.  Motherhood, from a distant analysis perspective is increasingly bout the fact of the material and the children.  It is less about what we are culturally attuned to about either agricultural activities and waiting for the father to send anticipated income. 

At the same time it is increasingly clear that these new nodes and regrettably religiously motivated understandings of what it means to be a mother are now more complex due to economic constraints.

This however does not change the indelible fact of our mothers as revolutionaries.  AS argued above they have taught us out most basic consciousness.  And will continue to do so.  They are both the harbingers of our everyday culture and also the ones that instill seeds of societal ambition in us. 

The key questions that emerge are however their ideological outlook of Zimbabwean society.  Or in some cases their lack of it. 

In most cases this is largely a materialist mimicry of mothers in the global north.  Without much argumentation.  Whether we look at it religiously or in the material sense. 

I know that this viewpoint may ruffle a few feathers but it is important to point out that our initial consciousness comes from our mothers.  Who we quite literally worship but in some cases forget that they are also human beings like the rest of us.

So we need to continually respect our mothers.  They are revolutionary because of what they made a majority of us becomes.  They also have their flaws as highlighted above but as Nkrumah once wrote, “Educate a Woman, You liberate a Nation”.   And this is for the future.   

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takurazhangazha.com  takura-zhangazhaa.blogspot.com)