BREAST INTENTIONS
Hugh Russell on why women in Zambia
are parading topless in the name of decency and good government
Lusaka NOT counting what might happen in my personal life, I don't normally see a bare boob from one month to another. In the UK, of course, one gets to see bare boobs all the time — on television, in the movies and, of course, in the Sun, which, as Kenneth Horne used to say, I buy for the crossword puzzle. But Zambia is a moral country, and, if your adolescent image of African women is drawn from those wellthumbed pages of the National Geographic, you are much mistaken. There's no topless sunbathing here. No bare-breasted pin-ups, no soft-porn posters. None of that televised Denise Van Outen-style in-yer-face tit-waggling.
At least that was how it was until about a couple of weeks ago. Now suddenly bare boobs are everywhere. It seems you can't turn round without bumping into a wellrounded naked bosom. Virtually speaking, of course, Not literally. Not yet.
It all began in the wake of what, despite emerging evidence of ballot-box-stuffing, bribery and intimidation, we still call our 'election', Leading the protest against the election result, which re-established the ruling MMD party in power, is, of course, the man who came second — Anderson Mazoka of the United Party for National Development.
The other week some of Mr Mazoka's female fans chose to emphasise their indignation by removing their tops and marching bare-breasted through the streets of Lusaka — with, of course, the press photographers marching backwards some three or four yards in front of them. A government spokesman, when he had got his breath back, was deeply shocked by this display of semi-nudity. And, perhaps ironically, he suggested that if anyone should take off their tops in public, it should be Mr Mazoka himself and his immediate family.
Before I could get a good look at Mrs Mazoka and judge whether such an event might be worth turning up to watch, something else happened, unrelated to the UPND protest but resulting once again in naked women. This time the impetus came from groups of Lusaka 'call boys', No, call boys are not a Zambian version of call girls. They are, to be boringly factual, touts. They drum up custom for our chaotic minibus transport system.
Now the call boys have apparently gone political. They have decided that the new President, Mr Levi 'the Cabbage' Mwariawasa. is their man. They look on his programme for Zambia, known rather unimaginatively as the New Deal, as Holy Writ. And somewhere in it, among the smallest of small print, they claim they have found an edict denying women the right to wear miniskirts, tight trousers and other accoutrements emphasising their sexuality.
Inspired, they set out in packs, hunted down offending women and stripped them of their garments, leaving them naked in the streets. They then rather detracted from the moral tone of their action by beating the girls, pulling their hair and stealing their belongings.
This shocked everyone, including, one must say, President Mwanawasa and his government, and those youths who could be found were arrested. No doubt they are now undergoing sessions of political reeducation at the hands of our caring and sensitive police force.
But this didn't stop a tidal wave of protest, particularly by radical feminists — yes, we have them here too. One such lady, climbing on a very high and rather Godivaish horse, declared that if the action of the call boys did not stop, she and her colleagues would gather on the steps of State House (the President's official residence) and, yes, you've guessed it, they would remove the top half of their clothing. They would protest about women being stripped naked by stripping half-naked.
Funny stuff? Well, perhaps. But as with everything African. there is more to this than meets the eye — even when what meets the eye is so riveting. Feminine nudity — or rather. half-nudity — carries a major cultural significance in Zambia. In southern provinces it is a sign of mourning. In other circumstances it can involve the possibility of a curse. More usually, however, it is — or was — a sign, and indeed a weapon, of protest.
Zambians with long memories recall a time 40 years ago, when the Brits ruled the place, and the people were fighting for their independence. Zambian women joined in the movement for freedom, and to get their points across, as it were, they paraded in public bare to the waist. The servants of the Empire, the bwanas in their bush-hats and their khaki shirts and shorts and their neat knee-high socks, found themselves faced with row on row of magnificent, heaving and highly rebellious bosoms. There could be only one outcome. Zambia was granted independence in 1964.
Since that historic date Zambian women have kept their tops on, and the custom has fallen into disuse. Apparently, in almost 40 years there hasn't been anything sufficiently unacceptable to warrant that degree of protest. Until now.
Previous page
