The passion is gone

When two women?s groups were approached recently to help support an independent woman political candidate, the first response was silence. After writing again, a response finally came back saying that they planned to help all women candidates (irrespective of their values and ideologies, I suppose) an obvious signal that the donor funds received were stipulated for all women candidates and not one with roots in or links to the women?s movement.

When two women’s groups were approached recently to help support an independent woman political candidate, the first response was silence. After writing again, a response finally came back saying that they planned to help all women candidates (irrespective of their values and ideologies, I suppose) an obvious signal that the donor funds received were stipulated for all women candidates and not one with roots in or links to the women’s movement.

Donor driven structures that hinder rather than facilitate; organisational plans that leave no room for activism; reports that are written according to what the donors want rather than the real situation on the ground; and gender technicians working as staff members, have become the bane of women’s groups. Also, most of the organisations are owned by a few people, and there is no room for other voices.

Gone are the days when women marched and spearheaded fiery campaigns and other activities without thinking much about donor budgets, their structures, and packing their activities into neat logical frameworks. Passion seems to be a rare commodity these days. When one talks about passion, she is accused of being unprofessional.

Yet managing an organisation in a professional way does not mean that there cannot be room for activism and passion, for political consciousness, and for a considerable amount of imagination and concrete analysis of the conditions of those the organisation is meant to assist.

Women’s organisations can no longer articulate their policies, because if the truth be told, policy is set elsewhere by those who control the purse strings. Constantly dancing to someone else’s tune leads to the “local counterparts”, as women’s groups are called, mounting stage shows for a long list of stakeholders, some of whom do not have a clue that the said NGO speaks and works on their behalf.

If we can’t organise for an individual female candidate, how then can we organise for many?

In Zimbabwe, these days, most NGOs’ strategic plans are based on an ideology of human rights, and its related offshoots such as rule of law, good governance, poverty alleviation, etc. It does not matter if the organisation has a constituency or not. If it uses some key words, it becomes the darling of the donors.

Without a constituency that knows that it is a constituency, sustainability beyond a beautiful office and a few cars, is impossible. Is it surprising then that some organisations seem to be on perpetual life-sustaining machines provided by donors? If an organisation is ailing, it should be rescued by the ‘beneficiaries’ and not donors alone. If it dies, it should be buried by the beneficiaries who at the same time should carry out the post mortem. It is difficult to move a huge agenda like women’s empowerment without a power base.

Women’s organisations also need home-grown strategies, intellectuals and thinkers. And, one can be a leader/director and an intellectual activist; the two are not opposed to each other.

Overall, we need to question the way we organise as women activists. Can we change the situation of women without creating a mass movement, without a power base and a clear constituency? Can bureaucratised organisations, driven by the donor ideologies bring about real changes? Do the strategic plans we formulate respond to the needs of the people we claim to represent? The challenges ahead call for women’s organisations and the women’s movement to do some soul searching.

Hope Chigudu and Dudziro Nhengu are feminist activists based in Zimbabwe.

This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.

janine@genderlinks.org.za for more information.