BY Phindu Zaie Banda
When I attempt to define resistance and revolution,
my mind forms these images with a backdrop of silence:
baskets delicately woven to hold the fruits of the rebellion,
red lipstick on Black skin, shining with unapologetic defiance,
even as beauty standards pull us in every possible direction,
soft skin on limbs ending in calloused hands and cracked heels.
In a realm of smoke, mirrors, and uncertainty with every dawn,
the women hold space for a future in which humanity heals.
This thought has always danced around me, in times like these
not the uniforms of stoic men, brave despite their broken hearts,
but the women who quietly guard and nurture their communities.
This thought in itself is fuel for the fire of constantly keeping on:
it rises in defiance of the lies patriarchy would have us believe:
that a woman’s place is only in the kitchen, that she is negligible,
as though it is not women who come in throngs to political rallies
and public sector boycotts, soprano war cries joining those of our forefathers.
As though it is not women who have stood at the front for generations,
pushing for liberation, continuing even when others paused to catch their breath.
I said these words out loud for the first time when I, yet again,
walked solemnly behind my mother, her sisters, her mother’s sisters,
and many other women whose faces I had only ever seen in two expressions:
joy, at weddings and following the birth of a child; and
sorrow, at funerals and following the untimely death of yet another.
These are the women who have crafted songs to lift spirits,
who created codes to evade the oppressor’s menacing eye.
These are the women who have sustained the movements we now hail,
raising our fists to the heavens, calling for change to finally come,
pressing our heels into the earth we call home, despite the raining hell.
We, the swollen-faced, red-eyed warriors,
step into each day wrapped in our unfailing strength
before the sun even begins its treacherous ascent across the sky,
a sky we have often wished would open wide to swallow our grief whole.
This is our protection: knotted mpango (headscarf), black top,
tightly wrapped chitenje (cloth wrap), breathable socks, plastic “Sophia” shoes.
The attire of the warriors — women shaped for struggle since birth,
taught to walk with prematurely wrinkled faces and steady backs,
and to plant flowers in the space between peace and suffering.
Our staunch refusal to be silenced is both a sacred offering and sacrilege.
For generations, women have rebuilt their lives around wreckage,
even as storms swept over the gardens they tended.
They have found purpose and power in song and dance,
in poetry and prose, hailing revolution and refusing to harden;
choosing instead to hold each other close amidst the noise.
They have made widows smile in the midst of mourning,
and taught infants how to walk while the world ran out of solutions
to compounding strife.
They have untangled webs of tyranny
and discovered new ways of reclaiming the lives that were once theirs,
before motherhood became synonymous with heartache.
The women have carried on, daily, and will continue to do so.