06/08/2022
Our most awesome event yet! We brought together traditional healers and researchers with some wonderful, exciting, inspiring and thoughtful creatives at Theatre in the Park. There were many young people just starting out on their creative careers, alongside some well-established and wonderful stars from the worlds of film-making, literature and acting. We shared our thoughts and feelings, and told our stories, about the roles of spirits, especially ngozi spirits, in reconciliation processes.
What were some of the main take-away points?
- The SADC 2013 Maseru Declaration on a Framework for Peaceful Development in Southern Africa states that ‘Member States shall reinvigorate and integrate indigenous and traditional methods of healing, reconciliation, and alternative dispute resolution into local and national efforts.’
- Problems that lead to ngozi cases are rooted in bigger societal problems. If we only start paying attention at the point where there is an ngozi case, it is dealing with symptoms, not causes. Chivanhu as a system needs attention: how do people build good relationships with each other, with the environment, with the spirits?
- Legal systems and Christian cultures are stumbling blocks for the restoration of traditional and indigenous systems. Colonialism is at the root of the problem, bringing in
*individualistic and punitive legal systems,
*a form of Christianity that framed protective spirits as evil
*a narrative that only European ideas about wealth, religion and education have value
- Legal systems don't resolve spiritual problems like ngozi - fines and imprisonment don't appease ngozi; the legal system only deals with individuals, while ngozi cases affect whole families & communities.
- People know about spirits and everyone has stories to tell. But how will people learn about the ways to 'reinvigorate and integrate indigenous and traditional methods of healing, reconciliation, and alternative dispute resolution'?
- Formal education is standardised and un-African in its approaches. Learning about spirits should start in the family and be specific to the contexts of the learner. There will be many variations. But it should happen in all families in Zimbabwe, urban or rural, Christian or traditionalist.
- Even within families, people disagree about whether or not it is good to engage with spirits. But it's hard to have open conversations about this, especially within the churches.
What can creatives bring to the process?
- Maybe it would be useful to have documentaries that explain key issues and systems, such as why mombe yemai matters, and how ngozi can be used for harm as well as good.
- But there is a danger of didacticism, which no-one enjoys. Young people want to engage with music and film and video games, and don't want to be told what to think.
- We need artistic output that opens up questions and provokes constructive dialogue within and between families and communities - not telling people what to think, but making them want to, and feel empowered to, have the conversations
- There are many ways to tell stories, and creatives must play to their strengths. Many stories and storytellers are already informally keeping knowledge alive.
Some ways of telling stories need money, some don't. What is the audience you want to reach? Identify the right resources for the size and level of the audience that you want to reach and the story you want to tell.
The youth were full of questions for the ZINATHA elders about systems that they knew about but had never really learned about, and many stayed on long after the event was supposed to have finished, to ask them more.
Many thanks to Theatre in the Park for hosting the event, and to everyone who came with their whole being - mind, heart and spirit - to take part in the conversation.
