Even after the battle is over and the dust has cleared, there remain struggles and disappointments that come with post-independence. Struggles like gender inequalities, class division, and neo-colonial oppression. These struggles are dramatized in plays like I Will Marry When I Want written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and films like Flame directed by Ingrid Sinclair, Neria directed by Godwin Mawuru and Uncovered directed by Zuko Nodada. Each film and play has its unique response to these struggles, but the conclusion remains the same throughout, people of the community will continue to be resilient and defy these obstacles, and the fight will never truly end. 

Gender struggles is a theme that appears in all the movies we’ve seen and plays we’ve read. Although, it is a problem that is most discussed in the films Neria directed by Godwin Mawuru and Flame directed by Ingrid Sinclair and the play I Will Marry When I Want by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Each filmmaker and author finds their way to respond to these struggles. In their unique fashion, they find ways to react to these hardships and show defiance, they show that women are powerful and should be treated as equals. In the movie Flame, Florence (who turns into Flame) and Nyasha (who turns into Liberty) face sexism from the men in the army who try to control their minds and bodies regarding fighting in the war. Flame also gets raped by Che and must find her way to deal with it. When Che apologizes to her for his actions and tells her to leave, she stays in his room and comforts him, she will no longer live on his terms or leave on his terms. She decides to stay and comfort him because it is her choice, he cannot control her anymore. Women’s solidarity is a huge proponent of women in power in this movie. Not only do they come together to tell the men they should be allowed to fight but they come together to comfort Flame after her rape and tell her to keep going. Fighting the patriarchy together. Once Flame has Che’s child, he tries to tell her he has a name picked out, but Flame is in control and tells him she’ll think about it and make her decision. After Che and her child die, both Flame and Liberty throw themselves into the war and become amazing fighters. Flame ends up marrying Danger, who tries to tell her she can’t work, but she refuses to let him or any man dictate her life, and goes to stay with Liberty and work, reuniting in female companionship and following her dreams.

In the film Neria, Patrick and Neria are married and see each other as equals. They have a loving partnership and are comfortable in their life. They decide to build a house together, which signifies the making of African modernity. This house is a project in which they are working towards with one another, and they do not make big decisions without consulting one another. Once Patrick has died and his brother, Phineas, is trying to take Neria’s estate and children, she decides she will not marry him and fight for her life back, creating her narrative. There is a huge cultural site in this film. The workshop where women come together and make money, discussing and working through things in their life with the help and advice of other women in their community. The women help Neria realize she needs to get a lawyer and learn the law to protect herself. Connie, who is Neria’s closest friend, represents the new narrative and a different view of modernity, one of equality and women representing themselves, she helps Neria find a lawyer. The lawyer helps Neria with her case and in the end, the judge upholds her case and responds to this sexism and control from Phineas with a new modernity. These stories not only show the power women have and how they should be treated equally. They also show that women and men are not enemies, but sometimes men need to be corrected. There can be allies in each other, only when men want to sustain the narrative. 

Class inequality is a problem that arose due to neo-colonial influences. It’s a particularly important battle because it divides people of the same community. We see class struggles and the resistance to it mainly in I Will Marry When I Want by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Uncovered directed by Zuko Nodada. In I Will Marry When I Want, the main characters of this play are Kĩgũũnda and his wife Wangeci, who are two poor peasants living in Kenya. They are waiting for a visit from Kĩoi and his wife, Jezebel who are very wealthy. The gap between the peasants and elites is wider than ever at this point in Kenya. The elite class has also taken on the economic standpoint of the rich British. They hold their money over the poor and judge them based on their African views and traditions. We can see this when Kĩoi and Jezebel are not respecting their marriage because they have not converted to Christianity and haven't had a Christian wedding. Kĩgũũnda and Wangeci go to the house of Kĩoi and Jezebel and are treated extremely rudely. They aren’t even allowed to eat with them, physically separating themselves from the poor. Once they finally agree to a Christian wedding and their desire for that life, the rich couple is satisfied. Kĩgũũnda and Wangeci discuss that they want to go through with the wedding but do not have the money to have this wedding, another example of how the rich and poor are divided, even if the poor want to transition to the rich lifestyle, they cannot afford to do so. They ask Kĩoi and Jezebel if they can borrow money to pay for their wedding, they are met with laughter and taunting in response. The rich couple tells Kĩgũũnda and Wangeci that they are wealthy due to the fact that they get paid more than the other peasants and have a title deed to lots of land. Kĩoi says he will get a loan at the bank for Kĩgũũnda, taking the title deed from him as collateral. Once they have a proper Christian wedding and convert, they believe this will allow their daughter, Gathoni, to marry rich and escape their life of poverty. They are willing to completely convert in the hopes that they can make at least their daughters' life better. The rich elite are using religion as a ruse to take the poor people's money. Money that these poor families don't have to waste. Gathoni gets pregnant with John’s baby (the son of Kĩoi and Jezebel). They go to the rich family with this news, thinking they will be met with congrats and celebration but Kĩoi is livid. He calls Gathoni a whore and says that John is not responsible for anything. Showing that the rich elite don’t feel any responsibility to people they deem “lesser” and would never raise a family with those who are poorer than them. After nearly killing Kĩgũũnda, Kĩoi uses his wealth and power at the bank to call in the loan, which takes away Kĩgũũnda's titles to their land, and then buys it so a foreign company could build a factory on it. Taking away the last of what Kĩgũũnda had and leaves them with nothing. In the end, the reader would believe that this would be the time to give up or try to strike a deal with the rich, instead, the author gives the reader the character of Giccamba who represents the resilience of the African people in times of struggle. Giccamba is a radical and tells all about how the wealthy are horrible people, who take from the poor, and they need to rise up together and fight back. The ending to the story is the most important, a song of the poor is played, an homage to the real community of Kenya. It speaks of the fight that will never end until the poor are treated with the respect and justice they deserve, the trumpet of the poor has been blown, and together they are strong. In Uncovered, the struggle of the rich against the poor is more subtle but still strong. In Uncovered, Frank Drake is a rich, white man who is the CEO of Shift Inc., who, in their want for more money, has no regard for the people of Somkhele, where they cause mass blackouts in this poor community and cause tons of environmental damage. Shift Inc. is a western business that has been mining the Mkhuze mine, and they would rather pay the fines of the damage to the community and the earth they’ve done than fix the problems they’ve caused. Shift Inc. represents the rich elite that have no respect for the poorer community that they are draining of value. Shift has completely devalued the Mkhuze mine and now they are selling it back to the community of Somkhele and taking their money. They are taking the rest of the community's funds and leaving them with a usable source of income and value. Mr. Gumede is a poor man who is very ill from the mines and has received no reparations or help from Shift. In the end, Mr. Gumede is killed and his wife goes to the signing of the mine from Shift back to the community. Instead of ending on this note, the filmmaker decides to show that there is power in community and numbers. With Mrs. Gumede leading the people, they fight back against the rich elite trying to use them and demand justice and refuse to buy back the mine. They come together and show that they refuse to be taken advantage of any longer. 

Neo-Colonial struggles appear in many films and plays we’ve seen. It is one of the biggest themes we encounter and as African writers and filmmakers it is one of the most important aspects in their narratives’ lives to tackle. These creators remain on the side of the fighting against the colonizers and those who are on their side, they believe the fight will never end. We see neo-colonial struggles most prominently in I Will Marry When I Want by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Uncovered directed by Zuko Nodada and Flame directed by Ingrid Sinclair. In I Will Marry When I Want, we see the influence western ideologies have had on the people in this community. Christianity is a western religion and came when the British tried to colonize Kenya. Kioi, Jezebel, Ndugire, Helen, and Ikuua have all converted to Christianity and even in this post-independence time, its ideology holds onto the elite classes’ mind even way after the British have left Kenya. Those who have fallen into this western rules way of life have become rich and elite, and those who hold onto African culture and tradition are struggling and poor. The rich elite who are Christians look down upon those who have not converted. These Africans use religion as a ploy to take money from the poor people even further, using these western ideologies to further try to colonize the people who haven't strayed from tradition. The rich elite even tell Kĩgũũnda and Wangeci that their marriage is invalid because it was done the “Kenyan” way. After Kĩgũũnda and Wagneci get their money and property taken from them, and they feel defeated, they are reminded by Gĩcaamba to keep fighting. Gĩcaamba urges his people to remember how Christians were complicit with the colonizers and enemies of the Kenyan people during their independence struggle. Gĩcaamba represents the resilience of the Kenyan people and the refusal to back down from the western ideologies continuing to infiltrate their lives. Ngugi ends with the song of the poor, which represents how the revolution has never been over and a new wave is coming, and that they will not back down. Gĩcaamba reminds his people that there is power in numbers and they can prevail if they do not stray from their culture and fight together, as one. In Uncovered, the pressure of western powers and neo-colonial struggles presents itself through Shift Inc. trying to take advantage of the community of Somkhele. Aluta works for Shift Inc. in hopes of becoming the next CEO, she hides her natural hair and speaks English mostly and allows her white, rich, male boss, Frank Drake to make digs at her, her fellow employees and the people of Somkhele. Nomusa is the presidential candidate “in bed” with Frank Drake and is on the side of the western company to further her funds and campaign. She is tricking the people of Somkhele so she can get their vote without actually doing anything for her people. Nomusa represents the people who have lost touch with their culture and tradition and have fallen into the neo-colonial mindset. Pumla, who is Aluta’s sister, represents the neo-colonial resistance, she has a hunch the mine is useless and that Shift Inc. is scamming the people of Somkhele so she decides to do an internal investigation, even losing her life in the process. Aluta is changed by her sister's death and decides to carry on her investigation and bring down Shift Inc. We discover that Aluta and Pumla’s parents were killed because they were also trying to bring down western companies trying to hurt their community, these two sisters are continuing their culture and legacy of their parents fighting for their people. Shift Inc. is attempting to sell back this worthless mine to the people of Somkhele and is causing blackouts for the community. After Aluta is able to tell the people that the mine deal is a scam, they all rise up together and do not allow Shift to sell the Mkhuze mine back to them and demand justice. When Nomusa and Shift Inc. tries to reason with them, the wife of fallen Mr. Gumede proclaims, “This is a community decision, not yours!” Showing that the only people allowed to discuss their land are the people of Somkhele, and they are reclaiming their power as a community, and are finding strength in numbers and in their culture. In the end, after the community has regained control, Aluta visits the graves of her family, speaking her native language and wearing her natural hair down. She realizes that western things like money, clothes, and power don’t matter and wants to fight for her community and culture, telling her family, “'I'll never stop fighting.” Flame is about the physical fight for independence and power in Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe). The Africans launched a guerrilla war for liberation, and the two main characters, Flame and Liberty, are two strong female fighters in this was,r and take back power from the white minority. Flame is fighting for many reasons and has been different battles (like that of gender inequality) embedded into the larger fight for liberation, but she continues to push through hardships like rape, gender mistreatment and loss because she knows the larger battle for countries freedom is most important. Even in Flame’s struggles, after the death of Che and her child, she throws herself into combat and becomes an amazing fighter and friend in the war. A lot of the struggles she and others went through (the gender and class struggles) were defined by colonialism and could only be helped by Flame and her comrades continuing to fight. As the films close, years after the war is over, Flame and Liberty attend a Heroes’ Day party in modern day Zimbabwe, which has become more corrupt. As they greet others at the party, they recite an African slogan “A luta continua”, meaning “the struggle continues.” This shows how despite the physical war being over, these people will never stop fighting for their equal treatment and liberation and never stop opposing neo-colonial ideals. 

Dramatized through plays like I Will Marry When I Want written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and films like Neria directed by Godwin Mawuru, Uncovered directed by Zuko Nodada, and Flame directed by Ingrid Sinclair, we are able to see struggles defined by post-independence modernity. Even though these are fictional characters, it rings true for a lot of communities and people in Africa today. The multiple struggles of colonialism have not gone away and as shown through these works of art, these people will continue to fight for their culture and tradition, as the war against oppression is never really over until all are treated as equals.