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(TALKZIMBABWE) New writers or lost souls, not Marechera definitely!

New writers or lost souls, not Marechera definitely!
By: Tendai Midzi
Posted: Friday, June 18, 2010 11:50 am

DID anyone read an interesting story about a Zimbabwean author, Tendai Frank Tagarira, who was offered a "safe haven" in Denmark to write against the Government of Zimbabwe, or as they say it, to deal "with the effects of the Robert Mugabe dictatorship in Zimbabwe”?

This story was troubling for many reasons.

Tagarira has lived in Namibia and Botswana for the last four or so years and has published six books so far from these countries, why did he need a Western country "to offer him refuge"? Starting as a fictional writer, Tagarira must have run into financial trouble and like many authors and journalists, he found his cash-cow: writing ill about the Government of Zimbabwe.

His dream of getting into the Guiness Book of World Records as "the first author to publish thirty books by the age of thirty" was running into trouble, so he found a way to achieve that feat.

In two years he achieved something that many seasoned writers like Marechera didn't. He published five books, which have not yet received any critical review: Beyond Money, Self Help; Savoring the Moment &Monologue of Consciousness, Literature Fiction; Trying to Make Sense of it-Memoirs of a Zimba- (Biography); Land Grab!; and Parable of the Pumpkin Seeds.

He writes about the "autocratic President Robert Mugabe and highlighted the problems in the once-prosperous country" as SAPA reported. How much of that "once-prosperous country" does Tagarira know at a tender age of twenty-six and how could he publish his biography at that age?

Such stories on Africa are becoming too commonplace and many brilliant young people are being hijacked by the West and their talent captured and modified by these countries. Receiving a grant of US$1,600 a month and free accomodation for two years, Tagarira has to pay back somehow. The Danish city of Arhus will find a way to recoup, in kind at least, their investment.

Remember Hopewell Chin'ono who did a brilliant film on HIV/AIDS called Pain in my Heart, and then went on to do a documentary for the BBC vilifying the Government of Zimbabwe? Chin'ono also told the West that he was "banned from practicing journalism" in Zimbabwe. Today he is a recepient of many so-called "prestigious awards".

Anyone who wants to fast-track their career might as well write about how bad the Government of Zimbabwe is or how bad President Mugabe is. Maybe Africa should start giving "prestigious awards" and scholarships to those people who criticize the murderous ways of the West in the Middle East and other places.

African journalists and writers often get used and abused by these literal agents and these people who give them "prestigious awards". They should ask Tsitsi Dangarembga what she got out of the West as a writer. Glad she is now back home working with Professor Mutambara's MDC for the good of her country.

Dambudzo Marechera never ran away from his country; yet he criticised some of the policies of government. Although he won some of these "prestigious prizes" and got to Oxford, he never lost sight of where he was from or who he was. In fact he had trouble adjusting in cold and individualistic England. The conception that everything western is good is a flawed one.

I hope these new journalists and authors have their mind and soul at the right place. The future is not so lenient and people never forget or forgive easily.

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Tendai Midzi is a lecturer in economics at the London Metropolitan University.

Labels: PROPAGANDA

posted by MrK @ 4:49 PM