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Raisedon Baya
I STARTED writing mainly because I was excited about seeing my name in print or on a poster. I remember the first days seeing my name in the newspaper under this paper’s short story column and some people in my neighbourhood passing by my place and shouting that they had seen my name in the newspaper. I remember the look on my mother’s face when people started telling her your son writes for the paper and how it has always been difficult to tell people that I really don’t work for the newspaper but that I’m just a regular contributor.
My passion for writing dates long back. My love for stories started at primary school, first as a form of escapism and later as some form of positive entertainment. I lived in a neighbourhood that had too many distractions. Poverty. Sex. Drugs. Crime. Sometimes I look back and wonder how I survived all that. I grew up watching many young people throw their lives away by making small, stupid decisions. Our choices were very limited. I’m glad I discovered the library and it was so generous to me it ended up saving my life.
Later when I realised that all I wanted to do was write I started asking myself serious questions about why I write and for whom. The answers to these questions started shaping my writing. I write to provoke, to probe, and sometimes to shock. I write because my writing helps me understand the people and what’s happening around me better. I write because if I don’t I will go mad, insane. Writing keeps me grounded. I write to keep records and later remind people what happened years back. I write to give direction or at least point towards the right direction. Most of my writing, especially for the stage, can be termed political and I have no problem with that tag. Ngugi Wa Thiongo says every writer is a political writer, the only difference is whose politics. I write to give a voice to the voiceless, people around me, people whose stories and life inspires my work. Most importantly I write because I have something strong to say. If you have nothing to say don’t bring people together. Only bring people together when you know you have something to say. I believe every writer must say what they want to say with conviction and passion.
Some years back I consciously and deliberately wrote The Taking, a play about the land struggle and its politicisation. For the first time I struggled with the question “why am writing this story?” I really had to be sure what I wanted to say first. And it was not easy. The issue was too sensitive. But writers have no taboo subjects or sacred animals. Writers say what must be said, even though there are risks of stepping on people’s toes. With The Taking my major focus was to show how violence had suddenly become part and parcel of the country’s land distribution and also how the opposition was then pandering to white farmers and trying to portray itself as a pro-white and pro- democracy party. The beauty of writing this play was in being able to stay in the middle, say what had to said but without the obvious biases.
For a writer there is always the excitement of meeting an appreciative audience, especially those who would have been touched and inspired by your work or just the horror of being misinterpreted and wrongly labelled. Years back I wrote a play on lesbianism called Shadows. It was more about corrective rape as a violent and brutal form of homophobia. Last year I followed up on the same issues with Fragile. Again the critical issues was corrective rape. On both occasions I had people asking me whether I was gay and if not why was I sympathetic to their cause. A writer does not have to be gay to write about LGBT issues. Similarly a writer does not have to be a drug addict or dealer to write about drugs. In my creative life I have lived with LGBT people, worked with them and done lots of creative stuff together. They are amazing. Colourful and very creative. They are human beings with rights like all of us.
Inspired by the life of former president Robert Mugabe (I must say his rule was very dramatic and he inspired quite a lot of writing) I penned The Witch-hunters. With this one I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want to write an obvious straight forward play. There are many plays in Zimbabwe that journalists have labelled satires when in fact they are not satires. I believe a satire should take time to be connected to the real subject. To the students of theatre I work with I have always said Animal Farm is the best example of a satire. Remember the real subjects of George Orwell’s stinging attack was not those pigs in that farm. It was something else more serious. So I wanted to write a satire about the removal of Mugabe from power. I didn’t want to locate my story in any political environment and so I chose a village and the subject of witchcraft to tell my story. We all have someone to blame for our failures. That’s a fact. In the last 20 or so years many Zimbabweans have, rightly or wrongly, blamed Mugabe for their misfortunes. So in the village of Mbonqane an old woman is accused of witchcraft and bringing misfortune to the village. They want her dead or out of the village. Several people that have seen this play have come out with different interpretations of the play, something I found very exciting.
So now I write to provoke, to celebrate, to question, and to stay sane.
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