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August is here. The bodies of womxn, slaughtered by South Africa will come into the psyches of many, for a moment.
After the public holiday, the commemoration day of the womxn’s march in 1956, many will move to squabbling about which statistics on violence are valid, and the names and bodies of the womxn South Africa has killed and sacrificed to maintain the status quo will live only in the hearts of those of us unable to sleep as we weep for them, remember them and contemplate our vengeance for their lives.
The names of womxn killed at the hands of intimate partners and complete strangers will be called out by us. Those of us consistently looking at the linkages between poverty, violence, and power will point how public institutions kill womxn.
August will be a contemplative and competitive month. Companies are already selling us things that we do not need at discounted prices, nightclubs have womxns’ rights specials and the ANC Women’s League – who still need to account as to why they keep defending misogynists – will scream a hollow sounding Malibongwe! Civil society formations of all persuasions will launch reports, have marches, host dialogues and together we will all coordinate to capture the imaginations of people, places and institutions we wish to change.
In the midst of it, I remain deeply concerned about the many ways in which the labour, trial and error of black womxn is constantly questioned, demeaned and thrown aside. As the voices from all corners of society that demand justice for womxn will be given more airtime, so will the scripts to delegitimise these voices recentre themselves.
One of these tactics is a favourite script that we like to go to. I call it a script because, like when putting up a show, it is defined, practised and it lives as a standing narrative. Those who pick it up may tweak it a little, but not enough to change the essence of what the lines say.
It is the script of the compromised and non-radical non-governmental organisation worker, the script of the ungrateful and ahistorical young feminist womxn, the script of the nonradical older feminist, the script of the divided and nonexistent womxns movement.
I, too am critical of non-governmental organisations. I have spoken out a number of times at the problematic ways in which age is used in our struggles, and how those who are younger can sometimes feel and act like we discovered things. I am very clear as to the problems in our movement.
I occupy the complex space where I am labouring for justice in very many formations, some which we start and cannot sustain, some spaces where we lose energy, and some that just become too difficult. I am not really a youth any more, but not an elder, and part of my labour for justice is compensated from within a non-governmental organisation.
I am very excited that in my current place of work, we are, turning our heads, our wills and all that we are to the celebrating of the activism of womxn and being in conversation with womxn.
The narrative of a broken and fractured civil society, of an apathetic desktop and donor driven activism, and strategic civil society must be met with the reality of beautiful, brave, funky and fabulous tireless work happening at every corner of this our South Africa.
We are asking also within this moment to take some time to reimagine a country that we want to live in and reimagine how we want to get there.
One of the feminists at Oxfam SA, Sipho Mthathi, started the conversation on how to imagine the country we want to live in.
In her opening remarks, for a two-day session, she took us to a sobering reality, summarised as follows.
If we are serious about fixing what is broken we must step back, shut up and listen to the womxn. I may be simplifying a very beautiful delivery but therein was the essence. She did this through celebrating the forces of nature, those alive in physical form, together with those who have descended who are womxn and who have been leading us, and who we refuse to listen to.
She took us on a journey of honouring womxn like Virginia Magwaza, Pregs Govender and Prudence Nobantu Mabele and the various gifts they gave and continue to give us, leading us in this re-imagination project.
When we think of some of the first ways that the descend and consolidation of neoliberal SA was fought through the antiprivatisation forum, we must celebrate Virginia. In responding to HIV, a patriarchal economy and the arms deal, Pregs often stood as an MP alone. Prudence showed us through how she lived, fighting for joy and living in truth, often at great cost to her personhood, being at the forefront and apex of multiple forms of oppression, as a black, same-gender loving womxn living with HIV.
There are so many of us, we are building where we are, from what we have and doing our best every day. Capitalist patriarchy demobilises and captures and frustrates and strangles us.
One of my pleas this August is that we try our best to stay away from the usual script, that likes to deny the work of black womxn in all the spaces and positionalities that we occupy.
It would assist us to be careful about the additional burdens, the unnecessary angst, created and terrible guilt that womxn organising in non-governmental organisations, young womxn, older womxn, middle-class womxn, working class womxn get subjected to through this script.
The script comes through, as if, ours is not the work of justice, as if the same complications facing the complicated existence of being Black and womxn in SA is not enough, as if there are organising spaces so pure and so grounded that they do not suffer the burdens of everyday living.
Our institutions that we labour for, our collectives and our individual work can be deeply problematic. They can also be spaces of great freedom. Our spaces can be places where, when we are lucky enough we share compelling and radical ideas. They can be places of learning, growth and community. They can be places of service and healing.
The scripts are useful only when they inspire us to increased accountability, integrity and openness. When the script gets thrown in, without criticality, it can be demobilising. It is us Black womxn with the answers, if only you will listen well, and not listen just to demean and devalue.
• Kwezilomso is a gender head at OxfamSA
