Likely many Zimbabweans feel stuck and maybe slide into complacency. The current election crisis has left people feeling frozen, like there’s nothing that can be done to bring positive change. Also, issues such as vulnerabilities to HIV, domestic violence, gender inequalities, and others at times carry self-acknowledged complacency often due do a difficult to shake feeling that reality only allows for complacency. A couple things got me thinking about complacency and possible ways to make complacency productive.
First, I saw a Zimbabwean film The Bitter Pill and there’s complacency everywhere in the film. A married couple feels helpless they have not been unable to conceive a child. The frustrated husband goes to Canada. The husband’s best friend, a wealthy entrepreneur, pursues the wife. You feel his complacency – forex is the only way to make money and belief it’s his right and obligation to pursue any women he wants because that’s what men do (particularly wealthy ones). The film portrays a possible reality. After having sex with the entrepreneur, the wife becomes pregnant, and through meeting one of the entrepreneurs other girlfriends, the wife discovers the entrepreneur is HIV-positive. It struck me that HIV is a prominent element in the film. However, as is an accurate reality, HIV is barely discussed. Not only are the characters complacent, but the film itself, given the way HIV is engaged (or rather is not discussed), potentially perpetuates complacency. Thus, the all important question: What’s attached to disseminating the film? In a move to find productivity in complacency, the International Video Fair intends to use the film to facilitate discussion. Importantly, part of discussions will be seeing that silence around HIV may be a common reality, but silence is not the only option.
My second set of thoughts about complacency developed while reading Charles Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain. First published in 1975, the book is a timeless classic. Additionally, I found it interesting to think about the complacency of the father-son characters Tongoona and Lucifer; they both are struggling with a feeling that many things remain unsaid. At the same time, the characters are not at all complacent. I’m fascinated by the ways Tongoona and Lucifer are, individually and in conversation, immersed in self-reflection – about life, family, opportunities, change, etc. Perhaps this is a way of reading thought processes as an example of productive complacency. Many things in the world can and do remain unsaid, yet the thought process around why they are difficult to be said is just as crucial to efforts to bring positive change. Delving into Tongoona and Lucifer’s thoughts serves as a reminder that reality has long made many people feel stuck and limited actions, but complacency to the point of being void of thought is not a place many people have ever resided.
