Struggling with Memories of the Zimbabwean Liberation War The Feature Film Flame and Some of its Controversies

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Struggling with Memories of the Zimbabwean
Liberation WarThe Feature Film Flame and Some
of its Controversies

• Hilde Arntsen
• University of Bergen
• Norway

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Flame

• Zimbabwe 1996
• Director Ingrid Sinclair
• Produced by Zimmedia
• Two young women join the liberation struggle
• Their fate during the struggle and after
  Independence in April 1980

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• Comrade Flame Joins the struggle after her
  father is abducted by the Rhodesian soilders
• Been to pungwes, and is the girlfriend of a
  freedom fighter, Comrade Danger
• Comrade Liberty Joins because of her friend Flame

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Comrade Flame

• Is raped by her senior Commander, becomes his
  girl friend
• Argues for rights of women freedom fighers in the
  struggle
• Looses her child in a bomb raid on the training
  camp
• Becomes legendary freedom fighter
• After Independence, marries and goes to to
  husbands homestead, rears children
• War skills no longer in demand

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Comrade Liberty

• Resists sexual offers of senior combatants
• Trains in typing while in camp
• Is not shown in combat
• After Independence, continues school, and gets a
  career as a secretary
• Tries to hide her status as a war veteran
• Succeeds in independent Zimbabwe, but is single
  and without children

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• Long history of war films from Rhodesian
  pespective, to deter Africans from joining the
  struggle
• Objective of broadcast media after 1980 to
  explain the objectives of the revolution, its
  history and the suffering the people went
  through
• No previous feature film about the liberation
  struggle
• Flame banned while still in production
• Box office hit when released
• Caused heavy public debate

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Flames agument

• The prespective of two women and their
  contributions to the struggle
• Questions the fate of the ex-combatants after
  Independence has been won
• Questions who gets benefits and recognition
• Questions the gender roles in Zimbabwean society
  in 1990s

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• Police in Harare seize negatives of film based
  on Zimbabwes liberation war, after allegations
  that it contained subversive information and some
  of its parts were pornographic. Police said they
  would seek the assistance of the Censorship
  Board, who are expected to view the film and
  determine whether it contains any undesirable
  scenes.
• 13 January 1996, Herald

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• Police have cleared the makers of feature film
  Flame of obscenity allegations, and returned
  rough prints seized last week saying there was no
  basis for laying a charge of obscenity.
• 20 January 1996 Herald

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• The Zimbabwe feature film Flame has been
  approved for general release in the country by
  the Board of Censors with a No under 16 age
  restriction.
• 23 May 1996 Financial Gazette

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• The film Flame will do enourmous injustice to
  the stature and reputation of the war It is
  and insidious attempt to cast the struggle as an
  aimless adventure
• The Herald

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The wrong Flame

• One of the biggest historical processes in Africa
  which some forces in our society and elsewhere
  would rather have undone and forgotten is the
  epic struggle waged by the people of this region
  for their emancipation. Yet we must keep telling
  the story as it was, because if we do not,
  activists other than ourselves will tell it in
  line with their own value judgments, prejudices,
  and psychological outlook, hostile to the
  interest of the majority. There are those who
  have already begun this re-writing of history in
  the name of "freedom of expression," in the name
  of "art" and "free flow of information". They are
  in this connection embarking on a campaign of
  distortion. The Sunday Mail, February 4 1996.
  Emphasis added

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• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Politcal history vs. public knowledge
• Perceived role of film
• The (re)writing of history
• Challenging the official version of the struggle
  based on politics and ethnicities, and competing
  organisations of the liberation movements

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• The Flame controversy illustrates
• who belongs to the nation,
• whose version of the past is lifted up to become
  History,
• whose version of the war will not (yet) be told?