Maria McCloy
`THAT’S not the exact history, it has to be corrected,”says Margaret Dongo of Flame, the movie exploring the part played by women – particularly combatants – in Zimbabwe’s war of liberation. Flame opened in South Africa in April. It has already won six international awards, been screened at Cannes and has broken box office records in Zimbabwe.
Yet Dongo, Zimbabwe’s most famous woman liberation combatant – she first went to war at the age of 15 – and the most respected voice of opposition in the oppressive state, is not particularly happy with the film. She is especially offended that the main character Flame’s driving motivation in joining the struggle is to follow Comrade Danger, the man with whom she’s in love.
“Look at the introduction. She’s already talking about looking for a husband.” She thinks this negates the important role women have played in the war. “Many women did not go because they were invited by a boy.” They wanted to fight for their country or they went to battle because of unfairness in land ownership and education.
Dongo believes the film’s focus “looks down on women” because women aren’t seen to be involved in strategising, training, policy making and leadership.
There is a scene in the film where Flame is summoned to a soldier’s get-together. She gets raped but later forgives her attacker and becomes his lover. Was the abuse of women during the struggle also watered down in Flame?
Dongo agrees that there were cases of such behaviour by male soldiers, of young girls getting raped or offering sex for food and basic supplies. But she believes the film did not portray the full brutality of rape. In addition, the film ignores the fact that rape was used as a weapon of war against women in reserves by Rhodesian soldiers.
She makes disparaging reference to the kind of men who say: “I raped because she was wearing a mini.” Dongo thinks similarly unenlightened people will say of Flame: “What do you expect? That’s what she went looking for. She’s always looking for men.”
Although Dongo feels the abuse of women should not have been the central focus of Flame, she stresses the film’s failure in exposing the crucial roles played by women and many of the hardships they endured.
Before they were combatants the women had to carry ammunition to the soldiers. They were forced to drink urine when there was no water, and there were no sanitary pads and tampons.
In addition, women were forbidden contraception. If they fell pregnant and had an abortion, the punishment was a beating.
Yet the film is not without its strong points, she says. She likes how it shows Flame participating in major ambushes. Also how it realistically portrays post-war scenes where women were “sent back to their kitchens” and still live in submissive dependent positions.
When the film was released in Zimbabwe last year it caused a storm of protest from politicians. There were even those who tried to stop its release. Dongo was not among them.
The politicians wanted to stop Flame because it was launched during elections. Even before she saw the film she fought alongside director Ingrid Sinclair to bring it out. “It should at least be seen first, and then criticised,” she says. “Sinclair should be commended for her boldness in releasing the film in a one-party state where there is no freedom of speech.” The film has generated debate, she says, in future veterans should be involved in such films, that part of the reason things are left out of Flame is that the people Sinclair spoke to may have censored themselves because of fear of victimisation.