On meeting Pastor Evan
Evan Mawarire became a leader against Mugabe and ZANU-PF’s oppression in Zimbabwe, but at what personal cost?
Pastor Evan. Image credit This Flag Citizens Movement.
April 19, 2016—It’s night-time in a small, fluorescent-lit church office. A man sits alone, anxious and ashamed. He cannot provide for his family. His rent is due and so are his children’s school fees. He has a knack for fixing things, but not this. Not when his country’s economy has collapsed. Not when its President—in power for thirty-six years—rules with an iron fist. In the man’s office hangs a flag. He reaches for it as he considers the promise that a nation’s flag represents. He drapes the flag around him, picks up his phone, and begins recording. Hunched in front of the camera, hands toying with the ends of the flag, words pour out of him with passion and urgency. He ends his lament on a call to action:
“This is the time that a change must happen. Quit standing on the sidelines!”
Posting the video to social media would be preposterous, he knows. People in his country have been beaten, imprisoned, and disappeared on the mere suspicion of dissent. But a few hours later, he does it anyway. He uploads the video to Facebook and tags it: #ThisFlag. By morning, his four-minute video has gone viral and soon virtually everyone with a cellphone in his country, as well as many thousands who have fled the country, will see it. This hitherto unknown man is now a marked man.
