Zapu is gender insensitive

With all due respect I have for the party Zapu, (I was born inside this party, both my mother and step father: Mr. Zephaniah Sihwa and Mrs. Louisa Sihwa were founder members of Zapu and they died unshakeably Zapu members) I find the emblem of Zapu disappointing. A black bull in a yellow T-Shirt is supposed to be an emblem that signifies strength. This black bull with its overly large gonads and a big penis hanging all in display on the front side of the Zapu-T-Shirt is not necessarily an insult to the women who wear those T-Shirts but wholly insensitive to the womenfolk. (A genital can never be an insult) Why do we wear them?

We women members in Zapu have worn these T-Shirt in all Zapu congresses, meetings and conferences and I wonder why it has never come to our minds that we should question this trade-mark symbolising manhood as the strength of the party all the time. Does it make sense in 2016 to still think inside the box, this stereotyping that strength is derived from a man and his phallic penis power? Please get me correctly; I am ashamed to have bought that T-Shirt to ascertain my Zapu membership. This bull with a scrutum hanging beneath the overly large testicles raises the spectre of meaning; there can be no humour it can demonstrate on the side of the woman.

My question is, why was this emblem not corrected in 2009 when we decided to revive the party Zapu and remove ourselves from Zanu-PF, the false marriage of 1987? This emblem may have served its purpose in 1961 but surely it is not serving any good purpose in 2016. Global politics embraces women as equal gender partners in all social, economic and political aspects of their development. Why did we just go along with such open man- chauvinism in Zapu for so long, the uncanny silence? I am not exonerating myself from this collective failure or oversight; I was once ZAWU Chair Person-UK and was wholly in a position to move the motion to remove the black bull from Zapu T-Shirts and categorically state the reason; male patriarchy, use of male genitals as a symbol of strength, its sell by date has long expired.

The nature and extent of a Zapu T-shirt is pornographic! The genitals of a bull are an emblem that signifies and symbolises those deeper recesses of desire and refracted emotional confusion consumed in silence by both gender. It is for this reason it has to be kept intact since 1961 and not removed. See this T-shirt on a woman, this male bull on the T-shirt will spread right across the two breast of a woman, the yellow colour of the T-shirt makes the black gonads of the black bull actually stand out, and the penis! They take the physical space of the woman where it means her most: the breasts. The male organs are exotic and are too the motor of consumption.

Did it ever cross our minds that this Zapu emblem is not an insult but very wrong political accounts contradicting what we stand for as women? Party emblems should be catalysts of female revolutions who are the embodiment of change! We did not need a black male bull with its whole self on display but some images of our respected revolutionaries e. g. Mrs. TV Lesabe, Ms Jane Ngwenya Mai Chirwa and all those fallen female heroes who were the cornerstone of the party Zapu.

Since 1961 the world has shifted; the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union, the pseudo independence of South Africa. We are mostly defined by the post-modern forces of globalisation and neo-liberalism. The UN Declaration for Human rights of 1949 recognises a woman as equal to men. The women of Zapu know this well. There are numerous other conventions that promote the rights of women. The women of Zapu know this. The Millennium Development Goals number three: 3. Promote gender equality and empower women emphasise the role of women and its major importance in the society. The women of Zapu know this.

The constitution of Zapu is eloquently written with a legal expertise and it professionally communicates with the party's ideology. Why is the Zapu's party emblem not speaking with the constitution and the political ideology? Izinto ezincane yizo ezidhala umehluko. (It is the small things that make a big difference especially in politics.)

We women should check and balance, critique social and cultural definitions around us, leave nothing to chance. Are we sure we can comfortably wear that Zapu T-shirt in conferences like the 1995 Beijing Conference for world women without being laughed at, how gullible! Let's challenge those taboos that make us a laughing stock as women. A Zapu T-shirt will make us a laughing stock in global women conferences. I hope in all honesty that I did not critique and touch the ineffable, the Zapu emblem. I should be exonerated for my scatter-shots, after all I am just a cog in the game of Zimbabwean politics!