Twins in court over loin cloths
2006-01-15 16:58
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Harare - Twin Zimbabwean brothers were charged with indecent exposure after strolling to an up-market Harare shopping mall wearing only traditional goatskin loin cloths, reported a state-run newspaper on Sunday.
Tafadzwa and Tapiwanashe Fichiani, 22, returned recently from several years in Britain, vowing to promote an authentically African lifestyle, reported the Sunday Mail.
They were arrested at their home in Harare's plush Mount Pleasant suburb after complaints by indignant shoppers about their revealing attire, said police spokesperson Andrew Phiri. They were released pending prosecution.
Tafadzwa told the paper they would continue wearing the loin cloths, known as nhembe, regardless of the penalty, a maximum fine of ZIM$25 000 (about R1.80).
"We do not care what people say or think about us because we regard them as colonised," his brother, Tapiwanashe, was quoted as saying.
Won't sleep on Western beds
"Why do they laugh at someone wearing nhembe, yet their ancestors wore nhembe before they were colonised?"
Despite coming from a wealthy family, the two refuse to sleep on Western-style beds and are vegetarians.
They plan to move out of their expensive house in what was, until 1979, a whites-only suburb, to continue "God's work".
By opting for traditional Zimbabwean attire, the brothers are breaking with fashions set since independence from Britain in 1980 by the always-immaculately dressed President Robert Mugabe, 81.
Mugabe was noted for buying his suits from London's Saville Row tailors until the United States and European Union imposed targeted sanctions in 2000 curbing his right to travel in protest at alleged human rights abuses.
- AP