Mothers of the revolution

I have asked whose purposes does the book serve? Working against the brief of the Introduction, I have analysed and sifted in order to construct an overview; however, there is scope for much more detailed and different studies and the need, pointed out above, to situate the text rhetorically in relation to social and ideological discursive fields. It can be said that it is important to do this against the grain of a confessionalist mode as sanctioning amateur or supposedly non-appropriative readings. Furthermore, one cannot simply dispense with the question of interpretations because however much the women, with their first hand experience, may be taken to be the locus of truth, source of truth or truth itself,6 there is still the consideration that power resides with those who do the interpreting, shaping, packaging, because it is they, or we, who occupy positions of authority. That is, it is a question of access to the modes and means of representation and the circulation of representations. My purpose here, within present limitations, has been partly to indicate one possible lesson that might be drawn from the book, however in need of revision. The formulation or extraction of such a lesson requires the privilege of an overview or of having the whole book at one's disposal. With regard to this, my position, or that of the critic/scholar, or simply reader, literate person, is obviously very different from the women who are represented in this book. The point is the flow of information appears to be one‐way, or, more simply, the women appear to address 'us', but not each other. This suggests that it is the reader who stands to benefit in acquiring knowledge, in learning something, in (one hopes) understanding. The question remains 'What of the women?' Reading across the narratives, there is a sense that the women would have had much to share or debate with each other towards their own increased understanding of their individual and collective situations: The freedom fighters have forgotten us and how much we helped them. Carrying hot pots of food up the mountains is no joke. (p. 157) Mothers worked harder than the men...Even today Zanu acknowledges this as did the comrades when they used to say...'Forward with the cooking spoon.' (p. 302) The above, in itself, is indicative of a failure of communication lines, in the needed directions; or else, indicative of the opportunity for other forums. Of course, I speak from a certain perspective, at a remove from the scene of interviewing. I speak of the interviews as they appear in book form, while the book as an event has the capacity to generate a multiplicity of forums and other forms of 'get-togethers'.7 As it is, with reference to the cross‐referential meta‐narrative that the book affords, the implicit demand on the part of the women, in their contribution to a literature of war, would seem to be for a greater analysis or working out of what it means to be a woman in the aftermath of war. There is firstly the demand for a recognition of not only courage and strength, but also pain and grief; the demand for a 'working out' of this suffering, which is partly a question of the legitimation of a process of mourning.8 I am thinking particularly of the women, one of whom I cited earlier, who say they have been forgotten in their bereavements. However, it is not only a question of mourning, as a 'working out', but also one of an implicit demand for a collective analysis towards an understanding of what independence might mean for women. Mothers of the Revolution is important in initiating this process and in signalling these directives

Aesthetics · Amateur · Epistemology · Ideology · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Computer Science · Law · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

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