Vatengesi is an interpretive adaptation of Hannah Kroner and The Jüdische Kulturbund who used their art to stand up to the Nazis and save dancers from being sent to the labor camps.
Vatengesi (the sellouts) is a term that is used to mock, monsterize, dismiss, vilify, and abuse anti-oppression fighters in Zimbabwe. By working from a point of empathy, vulnerability, and openness we are hoping that Vatengesi will then help us understand ourselves, our trauma, our fear of standing up against oppression, and our complicit mindsets towards oppression. Not only oppression and trauma in Zimbabwe but also globally. The victims and survivors of the Holocaust were deemed subhuman and accused of being “sellouts”, many other people around the globe are persecuted on the basis that they are deemed by the political elites not “patriotic enough” so they are condemned.
The political elites and their proxies have effectively and efficiently introduced the policy of persecution by prosecution.
Those who speak truth to power are in trouble. They are always met with real strong consequences, imprisonment, torture, rape, and murder. Very little is done for their families. In terms of counseling and other support structures that can help them cope with losing a family member to the rogue state, especially if that member is the breadwinner. The question then becomes: Is being complicit the better option? At what cost? Are the gods laughing at us?
You fight and become a “hero” but at what cost? Is losing your life for the greater good of humanity worth it when oppression and repression have been normalized? Especially when your fellow citizens are drunk deep into Stockholm syndrome? When gaslighting the agents of Truth is the order of the day.
What does it mean to be a hero? Do you have to die first to become a hero? Why do you have to die first to become a hero?