Angel of Hope Listens to ‘Coloured’ Inclusion Pleas

They came. They saw. And, what about us?

“They” is government and “us” is the mixed race community in Zimbabwe in general and Arcadia in particular. And their future . . . ?

That is the question on Layla Jacobs’s mind as she listens to the conversations going on around her.

“I don’t know,” Layla, a receptionist at a printing company in the nearby Graniteside  industrial sites, replies earnestly.

“They have never showed their faces here. You people all believe Makaradhi anonetsa! (Coloureds are trouble),” she says, emphasizing that is the attitude of people about the mixed race population in the country.

According to the last national census in 2012, mixed race people, called “Coloureds” in the country, account for 0.5% of the population. The term is a Southern African phenomenon (mostly South Africa and Zimbabwe). White Zimbabweans account for less than 1% of the country’s population, and most are of British origin with small numbers of Greek, Portuguese, French and Dutch.

Born to a South African couple of mixed race in the country’s second largest city of Bulawayo’s mixed race area of Barham Green in the 1980s, she moved to the capital after secondary school.

But the question that only time will answer lingers on in her head on what government is going to do about her and other mixed race groups in the country.

She has her own explanations for the “sidelining” but feels the new administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa at least is listening to every citizen and the First Lady’s had accepted an engagement with the Coloured community in Arcadia.

Layla really feels society and government have been very “unfair to us even during the colonial period”.

Her views only tell half the story.

Enter Angel of Hope Foundation. This is First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa’s non-profit organization whose mission is providing access to healthcare, social services, education and economic empowerment initiatives with particular emphasis on women, youth and children through supporting the most vulnerable in society.

Built of the strong African traditional and Christian values of love and unity the foundation works in partnership with international partners like the Merck Foundation that aims to empower women through access to information, education, and a change of mind sets.

And last week, Layla was a witness as the Mrs Mnangagwa visited Arcadia – one of the most well-known Coloured areas in the country. And she stayed on until the end – and it wasn’t for the refreshments – but for what she concluded was “an element of positivity”.

During one of the breakaway sessions, Mrs Mnangagwa reminds the girls not to indulge in pre-marital sex or early sexual debuts.

“If you sleep around without protection, what will happen?” the First Lady asks.

“You get pregnant” they answer in unison.

“You get disease!” they chime.

“You are right!” says the First Lady, adding: “And you will destroy your future!”

Mrs Mnangagwa explains to the various groups that in most cases the men responsible deny responsibility and the girl is left on their own,

She emphasises that girls should respect themselves and their bodies and say no to sex before the time is right!

“The burden is now left with your parents to fend for you and your baby!”

Applauding the First Lady, Layla says access to sexual reproductive and health rights is critical to empowerment of women and girls.

If our girls are health and stay in school, they can learn, work and care for their families and reach for their dreams!”

Commenting on the engagement, a long-time resident of the suburb, Mrs Mahmooda Khan, described the conversations as unprecedented.

“We are grateful for the First Lady for bringing this to us,” she says.

“A lot of us are of mixed blood and inherited Shona, Ndebele or other background – this programme allows us to learn more.”

And Auntie Glenda Laurie, whose parents were some of the pioneers in the suburb, spoke with passion about good parenting and urged behaviour change among the rebellious youth of today most of whom are into alcohol, drugs and immoral behaviour – “giving our race a bad name”.

Professor Kelly M. Nims, in her 2013 doctoral study in Zimbabwe under the United States Columbia University graduate School of Arts and Science, argues the mixed race community in Zimbabwe are major perpetuators of racial differences in the post-colonial context “and value Coloured identity above either Zimbabwean identity or continental African identity”.

In her work, The Goffal Speaks: Coloured Ideology and the Perpetuation of Category in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe, Prof Nims says despite being regarded as inferior to whites in the racial hierarchy before 1980, where Rhodesian policies were based on a sense of racial superiority and permeated the entire white settler colonial project at every level, Coloureds were considered superior to blacks and were, accordingly, granted some privileges which were denied the indigenous population.”

“Most still hold on to the ideological value of the social status of the past,” she concludes.

“For instance, they did not have to carry passes and had easier access to urban areas and were not confided to the locations (ghettos), until the passage of the Land Apportionment Act of 19309 after which they were required to reside in segregated areas and Ian Smith’s rabidly racist  Rhodesia Front  removed these  crumbs from the table in 1969!

And now, 42 years after Independencecategorized as socially  delinquent.

But all hope is not lost, as Layla says.

“Maybe not today but . . . at least the guys up there know we exist,” she says.

“The other guys before ED (President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa) just ignored us and were biased against us and labelled us “makaradhi anonetsa (mixed race people are a problem) and up to no good. They don’t like nothing but  smokes, beer, and drugs!”, she says.

As people depart after the event, Layla has the final word.

“At least someone is listening. Hope is in the air:

By Patrick Musira

TAN