Girls Have Power, Girls Have a Voice!
“We do not deserve this”
“We need you to trust us”
“Girls must stand together”
…echoed, using the people’s mic (human voice-powered amplification learned from Occupy Wall Street), by each of the 60 or so young ones in the procession, to the mass of neighbors, and folks from outside the township, who’d come out to march with us on this Saturday afternoon that threatened heavy winds and rain (but waited).
Our banners proclaimed…
“Boys Suport Girls”
“Do Not Break the Mirror You See Yourself In”
and...
“You Are Not a Real Man if You Rape”...
…which are some very bold statements to make in an environment in which we don’t talk about such issues, where the consequences of addressing them are discouragement enough.
But we decided that there is strength in numbers. One act, one march, does not a full reversal make, but the subtle shifts that occur when we join together, as a community, to question what we have come to normalize, and to begin to envision and practice alternate responses, is profound…
How we got to this point was no small miracle. Our first few days with Thokozani, devoted to creating a safe space and to building trust, were powerful but, again, growth certainly doesn’t happen in one steadily ascending line, and the work of becoming conscious of the ways we relate to ourselves and to each other (and, by extension, to the larger forces in the world) is ongoing.
the circle: where no one is greater or less than anyone else
Unlike last year’s project highlighting food issues, the success of this year’s procession (with its express focus on girls’ empowerment) would be dependent upon each girl being able to feel ownership of the content and process, to feel that her voice was heard.
We finally reached consensus in what we wished to create only after an afternoon spent stitching together pieces of blue fabric to form a river, having decided that water was an essential element in our procession, a symbol of the transition from girlhood to womanhood, and of washing off what is not ours to carry.
And then, suddenly, everything fell into place at the eleventh hour. We formed a drum section...
We rehearsed, refining the structure of the narrative and creating the performative elements…
We were kindly granted another radio spot on KQ FM 97.0, a community-run station in Zwide, to speak about our procession…
We were interviewed by the Port Elizabeth-based Bay TV, and received coverage in the local press.
And here’s what it looked like on the day-of…
Thokozani joined us. The directors of the Thuthuzelakani Care Center, a rape crisis organization, saw fit to join us. Photographers were present, including one from the Herald.
We marched through the roads, singing. People came out of their houses to watch, to cheer in support, and also to join the procession, until we were a band of some 150 people.
At open spaces, we stopped to perform scenes from our narrative. And the structure for it that we found together was this: we used masked characters and the large-scale articulated puppets we’d built to enact each of the wounds we’ve received, at home, in school, in our communities, each with its own simple choreographed movements that told our stories. Following the Theater of the Oppressed and Forum Theater techniques we’d learned, the action of the oppression (a teacher beating students in a classroom, a mother finding money for alcohol but not food, a would-be rapist taking advantage of a young girl’s vulnerability) was performed in silence, without voice, until that moment when someone from the group yells “Stop!”
At this point, everything now becomes real, as actors replace both the oppressors (the puppets) and the oppressed (children behind masks), who now are without masks and with voices. Each unmasked child’s declaration (“We do not deserve this!”, for example), an interruption of what has become normalized, is mic-checked, of course, allowing ALL present to own these words.
But possibly the most meaningful part of the entire procession came at its close. In our final scene, we report the rape that has occurred, clearly pointing to the willfully blind eyes of police and family that we confront, yet act in the face of nonetheless. It was at this juncture that the girls began to facilitate a speak-out, a forum where members of the community were invited to ask questions and to share comments. And in the midst of unequivocally naming names, the girls were met with only fierce support for their actions, and for their message. Elders, especially, who might very well have found this a disrespectful challenging of what needs to remain private, spoke of the girls’ courage and right to be safe in their own homes and roads and, further, themselves challenged the willful blindness of many family members as being an unarguable part of the problem.
And it was just about then that the potent winds for which Port Elizabeth is renowned decided they had waited long enough. We battled our dusty, hilly, way back up to the school, song having become an impossibility in those insistent gusts.
What is so significant to me, to us, is that the story does not even end here, the actions of this day, and the weeks leading up to it, did not go to rest with the concluding of this march; they were merely the seeds of something that is growing its own legs, so to speak.
And more on this shall follow…