A day at the bank...in hell
Zim Standard
sundayopinion by Bill Saidi
SHE fled the banking hall, snuffling loudly, as if pursued by a bunch
of ***-crazed savages.
I imagined them shouting obscenities at her as she made for the
escalator.
The accusation against her? She had jumped the queue. Among her
accusers were other women, joining in a chorus which I imagined made her
feel unclean, a soiled piece of humanity deserving only the rubbish dump.
There was no solid evidence that, in a court of law, she could be
convicted of queue-jumping - if such a crime exists.
One big, burly, tall, loud man had certainly jumped the queue, but
people found it easier to victimise the woman. For age-old cultural
reasons,
or out of the obnoxious motive that she posed no physical threat to them?
For me, this epitomised the semblance of a hell on earth, not for that
woman alone, for us all.
This was the climax of a day in hell. It was a day at the bank like no
other I had ever endured, even the one during which, years ago, the bank
manager had me twiddling my thumbs for an hour or so, in his office -
before
turning down my loan application.
This was a bank in 21st century Zimbabwe, a Zimbabwe so de****d of
almost any semblance of civilised conduct you expected to see the
spectacle
of cannibalism being committed before your eyes.
In this banking hall, normally, sober, well-suited, well-coiffured and
well-behaved men and women stand quietly, with the patience of Job, in a
queue.
This queue, of men and women left in the bank after its official
closing time of 3pm, looked desperate enough to tear, from limb to limb,
anyone suggesting "there is no more money" for them - from their own
accounts.
My suspicion was the bank staff, particularly the security guards,
were conscious of the potential for homicide among the depositors.
We, styled senior citizens, had been made to queue separately, outside
the bank, along with a dozen other younger depositors, on the opposite
side.
We had been there, hungry and thirsty, from past 12 to past three.
A bank official had explained it thus: One day, an elderly woman, in a
queue with younger people, felt so humiliated she tore off her clothes,
screaming blue murder, threatening mayhem if she wasn't given her money.
The sight of her half-****d body convinced them there would be
punishment for them from Someone Above if they didn't give the senior
citizens the respect they deserved.
Irrelevantly, I didn't think of Gideon Gono then, and how he would
react if a dozen women, stark ****d, burst into his office, demanding
their
money.
I thought, instead, of Julia Chikamoneka. She and her group went
starkers at Lusaka air****t during a visit to Northern Rhodesia by Iain
McLeod, Britain's colonial secretary.
It is said McLeod took one look at the sight and decided the former
colonial territory had to be granted independence forthwith.
In the bank, at one counter, a man had brought a sackful of bearer
cheques of all denominations. A teller was counting them. A senior
official
went over to him, whispered to him like a co-conspirator and suddenly we
were told that was the money we would be given.
It wouldn't be enough: if you wanted $20 million, you would get $10
million and so on.
I shall always remember that woman, though, fleeing the banking hall,
as if from a banshee. It was as if a crowd had threatened to stone her to
death for adultery, or riding in a car with a man who wasn't her relative.
In many ways, that experience confirmed Zanu PF's relentless campaign
to turn us all into a breed with hearts of stone, with consciences that
would not flinch or squirm from inflicting pain and suffering on others,
if
this served the party's purpose.
In other words, it is a campaign to turn us all into Zanu PF zealots,
if not through forcing us to carry their cards, then most certainly to
feel
and act as their members do - to act only in the interests of the party,
never mind who gets hurt in the process.
To turn a banking hall into a hell, with one helpless woman fleeing,
as if from baton-wielding, dope-crazed Green Bombers.
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