A message from one brave woman

A temporary lull in bloodletting in the troubled land of Gaza following a 72-hour truce between Israel and Hamas was shattered by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and “retaliatory” airstrikes from the Israeli airforce.It is back to square one for the women of Gaza before they could even say “Allah”.

An even greater tragedy manifesting the dangers of American greed and unilateralism is unfolding in Iraq.

Last week I wrote on this subject, lamenting the silence of Zimbabweans in particular but also women in general for their lukewarm reaction to the plight of women in Gaza. I said women were letting each other down.

This is what I said in part: “Closer to home, it has been left to President Mugabe to raise a dissident voice on a continent which has been so badly compromised by the economics of dependency that it cannot speak against the criminal behaviour of America which is actively supporting Netanyahu’s war.

“I have deliberately slanted my argument against women because I believe they are letting themselves down as part of peace builders in a world ravaged and weary of man-made war disasters. The global media, despite their own biases, have done their best to focus the spotlight on the plight of women and children in Gaza.

“Instead, it is the women who have demonstrated to the world that they are not together, that when not led by men, they are prepared actively or tacitly to conspire against fellow womenfolk, they are ready to play spectators in war.”

A number of women were offended by my observation. There were nasty posts on Facebook.

Why should it be women preaching peace, they wanted to know. The charitable ones referred me to the good work they were doing and the petitions they were making.

After the flagellation, the message was, “we hope he will write a more informed piece next week”.

Perhaps that would have meant me apologising or trying to justify myself.

Luckily there is a lady in Greendale, Harare, who apparently has no access to Facebook, and — if she has a computer — probably doesn’t have a printer.

So she sat down and diligently wrote, all in long hand, her reaction to my article.

To those angry women out there, I am happy that another woman, away in England, shared the grief I had expressed about the women of Gaza that she resigned from the British government in protest at its stance.

Well done Madame Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.

Below is a reproduction of the letter from the Greendale lady, not because she supported my point of view. I was touched that in her “isolated world” she took her time to write, that she is one of our many readers, but most importantly, she raises a number of pertinent issues about the media in Zimbabwe and the way they treat women.

I hope this shall prove such a provocation it will spur other women to introspect. We are an open forum.

(She wrote on the envelope “Private and Confidential”. Since there were no contact details to check if she wanted to go public, I shall not publish her name, after all, it’s her views that matter.)

Here we go:

I would like to thank you for your article “Women have failed the women of Gaza” published in the Sunday Mail on 3 August.

I agree with everything that you said about my fellow women. We have indeed been very disappointing in many ways than one. The women and children of Gaza truly need our support and sympathy but unless our Zimbabwe women, myself included, change their conception to life, they will forever remain dormant — unable to uplift themselves, let alone other women from other countries.

In Zimbabwe, we have failed to take a stand on many issues affecting women, children and the disabled.

Most of us hide behind churches. The churches to which we seek refuge do not cater for our earthly needs.

Emphasis is put on the life after.

There is a very famous slogan by church women: “Tinongozviisa kuna Mwari.” In other words all this suffering (which mind you can be avoided) is left to take its course because it is meant to be, and that our reward will come when we die.

Our own women’s organisations, as you rightly mentioned, are so splintered that although their cause is one, they do not work as one.

Information is very important. We need a newspaper which is sensitive to women’s needs. The Press must adopt an affirmative action approach whereby a page is devoted to women’s issues.

Newspapers devote pages and pages to sport with large pictures which take up a lot of space. If some of this space could be allocated to women’s news!

Some of us have tried to write about women and children to either The Herald or The Sunday Mail but your editors feel that anything written by women about women is not newsworthy. After a few rejections of our articles, we usually give up.

Of late we have seen a page devoted to relationships where Mai Chisamba operates an Auntie Roda-like half-page and someone called Mainini Beatrice on love.

If you ask me, that page should be given space in H-Metro or some other paper which is not a national paper.

If our Press thinks that those are the topics women should be discussing then we will never rise to the occasion.

We definitely need men like you to remind us of how powerful we can be if we stand together as a movement, not just small organisations.

As I write to you, I hear one Baroness Warsi, a foreign office minister in the British government, has resigned from her office in protest to her government’s policy on Gaza.

That’s taking a stand for me.

I hope you continue the good work. I read everything that you and my other favourite writers write.

God bless.

That is the message from one brave woman someone in Greendale, Harare.

As the nation commemorates the lives, sacrifices and achievements of our heroes, both men and women, I hope our women shall “take a stand” on the future of our country.

We need to hear women tackle up issues which not only are affect them but which also contribute to the overall well-being of Zimbabwe.

By Joram Nyathi GROUP Political Editor