National Healing, Integration and Reconciliation in Zimbabwe by Ezra Chitando

Author:Ezra Chitando [Chitando, Ezra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032176178
Google: jeyQzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2021-09-30T04:59:34+00:00

10 Theatre, grassroots civility, and healing/reconciliation

A critique of Heal the Wounds

Nehemiah Chivandikwa, Kelvin Chikonzo, and Tafadzwa Mlenga

Introduction

This chapter draws from Heal the Wounds by Stephen Chifunyise to examine how theatre design might be a site to foster grassroots/ society-centric civility on healing/reconciliation in political conflicts that result from the use of violence in political contestations. In essence, Heal the Wounds presents tensions in balancing between on the one hand, civility in dialoguing political conflicts/reconciliation, and issues of justice on the other. In this chapter, civility is understood in broad sociocultural and political contexts that include; equal dignity, justice, rights to disputation and free speech, and tolerance/respect in public political life. The foregoing aspects of civility are understood in relation to political contests/disputations and conflicts (Wagmore and Gorringe, 2019). More specifically, the chapter recognizes that civility does not only belong to elites in state and civil society organizations. The play under consideration presents civility from the perspectives of grassroots communities, as well as elite forms of civility. Political violence is a reflection of a crisis of incivility, because violence shows failure to manage modes of political contestations. In such a context, adversaries are treated as enemies (to be beaten or killed) rather than antagonists of the same collective political community (Mitchell, 2018). Extant works in Zimbabwe (e.g. Chikonzo, 2014; Chivandikwa, 2012; Mhako, 2014; Seda and Chivandikwa, 2016) are largely concerned with how theatre as an agent of elite civil society might reform the state and engender civility within the Zimbabwean political system. Sadly, in Zimbabwe, political contestations have at times involved uncivil practices such as vote buying, corruption, and political violence (Seda and Chivandikwa, 2016). However, this chapter examines Heal the Wounds (2009–2011) as a site for promoting grassroots or society-centric civility and healing. The study is guided by the following questions:

1 How and in what ways does the level of aestheticization in theatre design enhance or complicate the function of theatre as a site for advancing grassroots or communitarian civility and healing in Zimbabwe?

2 What opportunities and/or dangers are embedded in the use of theatre as site for dialogue on national healing and reconciliation in relation to political violence?

Recognising that theatre performances have both mimetic and analytical qualities (Wright, 2006), the chapter contends that theatre performances both reflect and (re)imagine civic engagement in ways that may positively inform desired civic interactions that may heal wounds emanating from political violence. The findings of the article suggest that given the right level of aesthetic investment, theatrical productions can create a public sphere that nurtures progressive grassroots civility that can complement/subvert existing state-centric forms of civic engagement and democratic practices in order to address political ills that saddle the Zimbabwean polity.

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