THE Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF), coming every year at the end of July and beginning of August is a special affair for writers, publishers, printers, booksellers, readers, academics, the whole literary world and its associates.
It has such a great potential to further the wealth that is generated by the mind via the pen and with that comes the power to educate, uplift and transform.
For us here in Zimbabwe, educating, uplifting and transforming are key issues because we fought a liberation war to ensure that the lot of the indigenous people of Zimbabwe, the Africans, is restored to its original and glorious status of being the owners of this beautiful rich land bounded by the Zambezi to the north and the Limpopo to the south.
This year’s ZIBF ran under the theme: ‘Growing the Knowledge Economy Through Research, Writing, Publishing and Reading’.
The first two days of ZIBF were dedicated to the Indaba which brings together writers, scholars, book publishers, printers and book sellers, readers.
As usual, there were so many presentations at the 2015 Indaba.
It was heartwarming to share ideas with our African brothers from Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya who had their own unique experiences to enrich us.
Among the contributions from here at home, I was humbled by a moving presentation by a lady with a librarianship background now pursuing doctoral studies at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Ms Sifundo Nkomo.
Shocked by perpetually hearing that children in Hwange Central District fail their ‘O’ Levels, she decided to investigate, she thought perhaps let me see what their reading is like, failing Ndebele over and over again, English, equally dismally is rather abnormal.
After some interactions with the children, she discovered that indeed they were almost illiterate, but that despite, whenever she could avail reading materials, the children were excited, eagerly accepted the texts.
She asked the children if they had ever read a novel, they told her they had never, their teacher had a novel and she would read to them.
The only texts they had seen were the few copies distributed by the Ministry, the UNESCO donations and these were left at school they did not have individual copies to take home.
These children walked 20 kilometres to school, leaving them so tired and making it even more difficult for them to ensconce when they got to school.
At the end of her presentation, she asked participants to donate books for children to read, no more to speak theoretically year after year, but to do something direct and practical.
The ZIBF was opened by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Lazarus Dokora.
In his address he invited writers to locate their place in the current curriculum process and to participate in the writing of books that speak to it.
He bemoaned the decadence that stalks schoolchildren under the guise that everything foreign is good and expressed the hope that it shall not be the pen of our writers which peddles such.
When the Minister was pressed to clearly locate the history of the liberation struggle in the secondary school curriculum, much as it had been mooted at the lower levels, he was rather testy.
He said that no-one could tell what was included under Heritage Studies until they saw the work that would still be produced at Darwendale.
He also took a swipe at a writer of a certain paper which he did not name, whom he said is quite vociferous, always claiming that the liberation struggle had been left out of the curriculum which claim he said was not true.
One wonders, however, why the liberation struggle would not be so explicitly stated when everything else in the proposed curriculum is so explicit.
Also from NUST, Ms Sibongile Jele presented on ‘Challenges and Opportunities of Enforcement of Copyright for Literary Works’.
Her analysis of the Zimbabwe economy as a background to her presentation highlighted a number of indicators such as the issue of vendors which to her was a sign that Zimbabwe had failed, also the liquidity crunch, but what was missing was the background to all this, fundamentally, the illegal economic sanctions which were visited on Zimbabwe to punish it for having honoured the promise for which the armed struggle was fought, to restore land to its owners, and that despite British intransigence on the compensation of the white farmers; what was also missing was the acknowledgement that Zimbabwe did not fail, but is suffering because it has remained resolute on the principles for which thousands of Zimbabweans died, from the war of 1890, through the first and second Chimurenga/Umvukela.
She quoted a newspaper which said that the vendors had said that the government should first give them jobs before asking them to leave.
One would expect an academic to educate the vendors about the true cause of their misery, the sanctions regime and its effects on their livelihoods and those of all other Zimbabweans, kuti vasaite shungu sedzegurwe rinopenga richidambura gumbo.
It is noteworthy that a few hours later, in response to the issue of having book pirates arrested and punished Ms Jele fiercely defended access by the public as the flip side to protecting the rights of writers and publishers, she then concluded surprisingly:
“When you create fear among people, you also create rebellion.”
This was rather unfortunate, this was the wrong platform, I felt.
There were other interesting papers at the Indaba, such as Milton Kamwendo’s scintillating presentation on the love affair between writers, publishers, and booksellers which is on the rocks, hopefully temporarily.
The presentations at the Indaba were spiced with beautiful poetry to whet the appetite of the participants to this great event and the most astounding jokes about the indomitable Zimbo wherever he is found across the globe.
The ZIBF week proceeds with an Indaba for the young, a writer’s workshop, book exhibitions and networking in the Harare Gardens, among other activities.
It is a special time, a special week.
Bon appetite!
Dr Mahamba is a war veteran and holds a PhD from Havard University. She is currently doing consultancy work.