Peace prize winner Tsitsi Dangarembga charged in Zimbabwe – Culture

For Tsitsi Dangarembga, everything changed in the last week of July 2020. For better or for worse. Only three days after her novel This Mournable Body was nominated for the prestigious Booker Prizethe Zimbabwean writer found herself in prison in Harare.

A peaceful roadside protest preceded her arrest. Along with her friend Julie Barnes, the author, playwright and filmmaker hung placards protesting against state corruption and for the release of imprisoned journalist Hopewell Chin’ono. “We want better” and “reform our institutions” were the slogans on Dangarembga’s sign. A peaceful call for reform, then. That was enough to charge the two women: for inciting public violence and violating the Covid 19 regulations.

Although Dangarembga was released on bail the following day, the regime of authoritarian President Emmerson Mnangagwa has since taken legal action against the unwanted writer. The process, which has now lasted two years, is a farce: the judge changed three times, the two women were summoned to court several times and sent away without having achieved anything. When the first witness for the prosecution, a police inspector, finally testified on May 31 of this year, Dangarembga’s lawyers embarrassed him in cross-examination. Not only did the public prosecutor’s office have to withdraw evidently manipulated evidence. The witness also confirmed their manipulation: he could see neither anything obscene nor an incitement to violence on the original posters.

“The grueling drill Tsitsi and Julie are going through,” wrote Fungisai Sithole, a court observer from Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which is involved in local education, “is a reminder of our government’s persistent efforts to protect freedom of expression and protest criminalize.” An example is being made of Dangarembga and Barnes to deter any potential protesters. Amnesty International had also protested against “the attack on human rights defenders”. In early 2021, in response to her arrest, the PEN writers’ association presented Dangarembga with the “International Award For Freedom of Expression” for her “courageous work as a writer, filmmaker and activist”. In the autumn of the same year, she accepted the Peace Prize of the German book trade in Frankfurt.

The Zimbabwean writer – her books are published in Germany by Orlando Verlag – has hardly been able to work on new projects in recent years due to the physical and psychological stress associated with her trial. At the beginning of May she managed to emigrate to Germany to join her husband, the German filmmaker Olaf Koschke, and their three children. A court in Harare is expected to decide on Monday 27 June whether the charges against Dangarembga, who faces a multi-year prison sentence, should be dropped at the request of the defence. She cannot talk about the ongoing process.

SZ: Ms. Dangarembga, on the day of your arrest two years ago, the opposition in Zimbabwe had called for mass protests, which were then nipped in the bud by the government’s security forces. What is the situation in your home country at the moment?

Tsitsi Dangarembga: The economic and social crisis in the country has been worsening for a long time: the health and education system is falling apart, domestic industry is collapsing – and that also means that there are fewer and fewer jobs. According to some calculations, Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world. The fight for human rights seems to be of secondary importance to many of my fellow citizens.

As a writer, you nevertheless explicitly took the side of arrested journalist colleagues and called for freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Many people are unaware that demands for jobs, health, education and a better quality of life can only succeed if there is a culture of respect and upholding human rights.

Does that mean that the fight for freedom of expression is primarily being waged by the country’s urban middle class?

As a writer, I feel obliged to bring these ideas into the public discourse together with other intellectuals. The demonstration call on the day of my arrest was directed against corruption. I can identify with that. After all, corruption is responsible for people’s misery. We, on the other hand, advocate honesty, accountability of government and respect for its citizens. As a writer, I serve society. If I don’t stand up for social values, I can’t do my job.

You are considered the best-known writer in your country and the first to dare to write in English. In the West, your books have received critical acclaim. What is your status at home?

At least my countrymen know my name. I assume that everyone who went to school in Zimbabwe has read at least one of my books.

Her novels are always about militant women who, against all family and political resistance, gain education and respect in society. Does this commitment to women’s rights make you a thorn in the side of those in government?

I don’t think my books are politically dangerous. But there are people in Zimbabwe who dismiss them as too feminist. Because for them, feminism is a Western idea that doesn’t belong in Africa.

Reason enough for the regime to want to silence you?

Certain circles in Zimbabwe also bother my recognition abroad. They call me the doll of the west. So they hope to discredit me.

Because the West has been blamed for all of its own failings ever since the reign of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Robert Mugabe?

Yes, even if the president has a different name today, the same party still governs with the same blaming the West and its alleged machinations. It’s all pretty hypocritical. Because the same politicians who are pointing the finger at Europe and America have well-filled bank accounts there themselves.

Political observers speculate that the government would be perfectly fine with you remaining in exile. What will you do if you are acquitted?

I hope the court will drop the charges against me on Monday. Then I will definitely return to Zimbabwe. As a Zimbabwean, I want to get involved in life, in the daily struggle for justice. This is my country and I will not be expelled.

Do you have any hope that things will change for the better in your country soon?

My hope for Zimbabwe depends on the people there. I want them to understand that we live in a global society that depends on human, democratic values. That it is not about accumulating as much property as possible as individuals – but about living together as a community in good agreement.

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