Eight years ago, Cynthia Boaz, assistant professor of political science and international studies at the State University of New York, found herself “telling a passionate, proactive, socially conscious student that his choice to vote for Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election was both irrational and counterproductive. I heard myself suggesting that in the future he seriously think about sacrificing his principles for a little common sense. I was suppressing my usual idealism for the skepticism wrought by the bleak reality of American presidential elections.”

She is referring here to the American electoral college system which makes it impossible for an independent candidate to win an election. The result was that Nader split the opposition vote, Gore lost and George W Bush was foisted upon mankind. Now let’s turn our gaze homeward.

Our election pits two opposition candidates against the incumbent. This argument assumes that if you are reading this, you are not in the 21st February movement. That leaves you with two candidates: Simba Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai. You, of course have the right to choose the candidate of your choice. It is the making of your choice, though that I would like to discuss.

Since Zimbabwean society has not yet got to the stage of deliberately spoilt ballots to make a non-point, it is safe to say that many of you had a choice before the election date was even announced. Your choice was anything but RGM. The problem with “anything but RGM” is you may or may not have ended up with a Frederick Chiluba as none other than Dumiso Dabengwa was quoted as pointing out in The Standard on Sunday. That, up to now, was a real possibility since Morgan Tsvangirai has been accused of various un-democratic tendencies by his erstwhile closest colleagues. We have also seen him prevaricate between participating in elections – the Senate fiasco – and making a power grab – agreeing to participate in the Presidential election. What has changed? We have seen him try and create space for his new found friends and their spouses in the Women’s Assembly fiasco while he asks RGM to take the plank of cronyism out of his eye. This was our anything but.

Now there is a new kid on the block, although he has been around for a while and has the experience that Hillary Clinton boasts of (not that it will help her). He is a proven moderate (does not make statements like “Mugabe will be out by Christmas” or “we will remove you violently”). He is a seasoned administrator and is respected internationally. For instance, he would not fall for a Ben Menashe. So now you have a real choice between two opposition candidates.

I must point out that Morgan has “suffered” for the country but then so did RGM, and you go in Zimbabwean politics knowing you will suffer. So that cannot be held up as a yardstick for qualification for leadership. In fact, both Morgan and RGM have visited suffering on others as Trudy Stevenson and Dumiso Dabengwa will readily testify. Everyone has “died” for Zimbabwe.

So what is the common sense decision? To go for your original choice of “anything but” for President or for the reasoned choice of the new kid on the block who represents the best possible opportunity to haul our beautiful country out of its self-inflicted mess?

Think about it.

So we’re four weeks away from the Mother of All Elections, but in some ways, the country is only barely starting to come to life around it.

IRIN News reports that you wouldn’t know there’s an election coming. And a friend of mine working out in rural Mutoko, Mashonaland East, tells me “there hasn’t been much talk of it out in the sticks here.”

At the shops by our office here, Zanu PF posters have been up for weeks. They look exactly like they did last time around. Same old picture of Cde Bob in his Chimurenga gear, same stark design. I was joking with a friend of mine that of course Mugabe had to run as Zanu PF president again – they had all these old posters from 2002 that they have to use up!

For a while, these Zanu PF posters were the only ones around, but my colleague just came back from the bank, and she said she’d seen some MDC youths putting up posters all over the show – with an energy and enthusiasm for their work that she really enjoyed.

Meanwhile, my workmate went to Guruve in Mashonaland West on the weekend, and he found people in MDC t-shirts, and walls plastered with MDC posters the whole way from Mvurwi to Guruve – but none for Zanu PF.

Apparently MDC (Tsvangirai) Secretary General Tendai Biti reckons that “there is no government in this world which can win an election when inflation is over 100,000%, 80% unemployment and three million of its people are living abroad. Victory is certain for us.”

Tsvangirai’s crew might think that victory is certain, but it’s good to see they’re putting some effort into campaigning all the same. What’s even more certain than their victory is that this election is going to be stolen. So is the MDC ready to talk about victory? Or to work for it, come April Fool’s Day when they find it yet again snatched from under their nose.

I’ve been trying to make a bit of sense of the candidate lists for this upcoming “harmonised” Presidential, House of Assembly, Senate and local government election on March 29th. With 210 House of Assembly constituencies and 60 Senate seats up for grabs, there’s a lot of names to get one’s head around.

The official list of nominees has been published in a government gazette, but it doesn’t necessarily make much sense. In some constituencies, there are multiple candidates nominated for the same party. In other constituencies, it’s not clear which is the MDC (Tsvangirai) candidate, and which is the MDC (Mutambara) candidate. In a few places, both MDC’s have fielded candidates whom I would have considered to be quite senior, or popular, in the same place – surely this might lead to vote splitting? In other places, Zanu PF is dealing with its own issues of internal discipline. A handful of Zanu PF candidates in Masvingo, for example, have been instructed to withdraw, because the party has decided that someone else should be the candidate there. The Herald has yet to publish the complete list of nominees because, it claims, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission hasn’t released it yet. This, some suspect, is because Zanu PF is still busy trying to get some people to back down so that others can stand as the single Zanu PF candidate in a given constituency. When I phoned the ZEC to ask for the list, they said I could ask them to tell me who the candidates are in my constituency – but they wouldn’t give me the list for the whole country. What is this? A democratic election? Or a state secret?

Fortunately, there are a few moments of light relief. Like the fact that one of the candidates in Gokwe-Chireya is named Chemist. Whilst a candidate in Gokwe-Sengwa is named Cowboy. It takes all kinds.

And, curiously enough, barring the instances where there is more than one candidate listed for a given party, one constituency stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of the most hotly contested. I asked my colleague yesterday – what constituency do you think has the most candidates? Where is it that most people want to be the MP for? Harare Central, she guessed. The seat of business and government, culture and sport. Nope. Gwanda Central. Six people are vying for the privilege of representing Gwanda in the House of Assembly. “What’s in Gwanda?” my colleague asked when I told her this. Indeed.

Last year, a friend of mine sent us a link to this fabulously uplifting Nickelback video on Youtube. Of course, Zimbabwe being the failed state that it is, when I try and watch the video now, it tells me that I can’t view this video from my country. Save me! But luckily, someone else has spotted it here.

Anyway, in the meantime, we’ve gotten ourselves the DVD, and have been sharing it with our subscribers and in mobile video screenings. The song is called If Everyone Cared, and the theme of the four minute music video is the amazing, impressive and even world changing impact passionate, committed individuals can make when they take action on the issues that inspire them.

Last week, my workmate and I took our laptop and DVD to meet a friend for coffee. We set up the computer on a table at the café under a tree, and turned the volume up as high as it would go. Our friend loved it. When the video was over, he had the biggest smile on his face, and said he wanted to get up and join the nearest demonstration.

On the weekend, we took the laptop round to another friend’s house for a home screening. Eight people crowded together around a sofa in the lounge, and watched. Much of the discussion afterwards revolved around the upcoming elections, of course. But more than that, people discussed the sense of frustration they often feel when looking at how far things in Zimbabwe have declined. They spoke about this sense of “What can I do?” that they often experience and encounter in conversations with others.

To answer this question, one person said “get informed.” A woman described the newspaper reading club she’s started in her neighbourhood. A group of people pool together to buy two or three newspapers each week – a mixture of the state and independent press. They then all meet at one person’s house, and read the different papers and discuss the articles in them, trying to get underneath each paper’s bias to decide for themselves what they think of the news.

Other answers to this question “What can I do?” included:

• Help a friend
• Help a stranger
• Write a letter to the newspaper
• Pick up litter
• Smile at a child

Simple, little ways in which we can all start to “be the change we want to see in the world,” as Gandhi put it.

All this reminded me of an opinion piece we recently posted on Kubatana – Albert Gumbo’s thoughts on a new African citizen. Gumbo calls for a citizens’ movement across Africa. This movement isn’t so much about politicians or ideologies as it is about standing up for oneself and demanding the basic minimum of service and respect from a government. He suggests basic demands such as:

• I pay my rates, and I therefore demand that the municipality empties the dust bin outside my house.
• I pay school fees, and I therefore demand that the schoolteacher turns up, teaches my child and marks her work.
• I pay taxes, and I therefore demand that the government builds roads, schools, hospitals and delivers clean drinking water to me.

One of the lines in the Nickelback song is “If everyone shared and swallowed their pride / Then we’d see the day when nobody died.” Somehow, with the momentum of looking out for one another, standing up for ourselves, and demanding a basic level of human dignity from and for everyone, there is the potential to create an entirely different people’s movement for change. This movement isn’t about politics, politicians, or parties. It’s about living with integrity, treating everyone with respect, and harnessing the power of outrage at injustice that can motivate us into action. Like Viktor Frankl said, the world is in a bad state. But it will keep getting worse unless we all do our best.

If you’re in Zimbabwe and you’d like to invite the Kubatana team around for a home viewing of the Nickelback video If Everyone Cared, or you’d like your own copy, please write to us on info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw

I am a voter. Thus far, I see a struggle for power and little to convince me that you wish to serve me and my country.

You are counting on my vote. You are counting on the fact that I am fed up with the state of the economy and the every day hell I am going through as a Zimbabwean member of the electorate. Well you must think again. I am fed up by more than that. I am also fed up with the basket case that Africa has become as its leaders continue to take its people for granted. I am fed up about the stories coming from Chad, Kenya and before that Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria and just about every where in Africa. I am fed up with the raping of the African people by a power hungry elite.

I have seen what the Zambians did when they were tired of Kaunda, only to bring in a person who exacerbated their suffering, selling off the country to investors who enjoyed a business boom but left the people behind. I do not want to be left behind after 29 March. I want to vote for men and women who are serious about creating a positive sustainable future for posterity and for the country, not for people who are looking for positions so that they too can get on the gravy train. Are you worthy of my vote? The reason for the breakdown in re-unification talks in the MDC was over who would take which seats! Fighting for power before they even have it! It is a disgrace and a betrayal to the cannon fodder they used in the name of democracy and Christianity. It is a betrayal to all the youth who braved tear gas, beatings and torture over the last seven years, the older men and women who endured similar situations and more; losing their children to the oppressor’s bullet in the fight for democracy.

While I would never give my vote to Zanu PF, I am challenging you, the opposition to convince me not to withhold it from them either. My vote is sacred and I am not prepared to hand it over to an opposition that is displaying the classic symptoms of the men and women who have driven millions of Africans to despair. My heart is pained but I cannot and will not aid and abet a crime against the Zimbabwean folk. Simba Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai; you need to take heed and take stock of what I am saying. For my suffering and the suffering of our people to finally have meaning and a purpose, you must do the right thing and present one face of the opposition. A week is a long time in politics and it is, therefore, not too late to do the right thing. The country and the people come first.

Although I love music, I never used to think of it as a big thing until I interviewed a couple of local musicians when I was still a journalist for the national newspaper. They made such shocking revelations about the industry that they loved and had chosen for their careers. They gave testimonies of how they and their colleagues had been tortured, jailed, exiled and even killed, banned or denied airplay because of their music. I began to wonder why certain forms of music attract so much discomfort and therefore silenced. I recall even then that when I submitted their story to my editor, it was considered to be not newsworthy and never saw light of day on the broadsheet.

South African musician Johnny Clegg once said: “Censorship is based on fear.” Fear of what? Music is a free expression of the ideas that may express musicians’ hopes and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, or simply how they see things. However these expressions often conflict with those of people in power. One wonders whether they genuinely feel threatened by (healthy) criticism or they simply do not like or appreciate music at all? In Zimbabwe it seems more like some are threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas. Musicians form a critical aspect of social commentary – what my lecturer used to call the social conscience. They, like everyone else, have rights to certain levels of freedom of speech. Music censorship is a threat to the future of music around the world.

Today, Monday, March 3rd is Music Freedom Day, an annual global event advocating freedom of musical expression. Musicians and broadcasters worldwide will focus on music censorship.

I bet most people, music lovers or not, have no idea what kind of hell most musicians go through. Often, when we talk about human rights defenders, only groups like WOZA, human rights organizations and other direct protesters come to mind. Protest musicians, with their subliminal, often subtle messages are often forgotten but constantly face the wrath of the powers that be for being too vocal.

It might open your eyes if somebody reminded you of how government has arrested, banned and harassed people for simply expressing themselves through art and music whilst trying to make a living as artists.

• South African DJ Cleo has apparently been banned from ever performing in Zimbabwe because he uttered “bad things”. What DJ Cleo allegedly uttered was a critical comment about President Robert Mugabe’s economic mismanagement. According to DJ Cleo, the ban came after he made a joke on the radio about his trip to Zimbabwe.
• Raymond Majongwe’s music has been banned from the Zimbabwean radio. The government has been uncomfortable with Majongwe’s music because it is too critical. Although he is still battling it out with the government, people distribute his music on the streets thus some play his music in the comfort (safety) of their cars or homes.
• Thomas Mapfumo, of Chimurenga music style, exiled and most disliked by the Zim government, has made the US home after facing a complete blackout of his music in Zimbabwe.
• Do you remember also, our childhood favorite DJ on the former Radio 2, Brenda Moyo, who suffered under Jonathan Moyo’s regime. She was forcibly retrenched after she had played two blacklisted songs and generally failing to play according to Moyo’s tune.
• Maskiri, an urban grooves rapper with an explicit and cutting tongue has been forced to change the title of his upcoming album, ‘Vuka Vuka’- meaning ‘Aphrodisiac’ or a sexual enhancing drug- in order for him to get airplay from the state broadcaster. His music is considered explicit content.

There are many others- the likes of Chiwoniso Maraire, Hosiah Chipanga and Andy Brown who’ve rubbed certain people the wrong way with music considered either too critical or simply illicit.

Music censorship is a very real threat to most musicians’ careers and lives. This threat heightens especially towards elections- like this very period we are in. But as poet Chirikure Chirikure once said, “Elections come and go, but a poem or a song lasts a century.”

Some of the questions to ask ourselves are: should critical/protest musicians/ offensive content musicians be silenced even if they have specific audiences who would like to listen to them? Shouldn’t it be up to the individual to select and listen to particular content for themselves rather than have it censored on their behalf? Does censorship really work? For instance, in Zimbabwe, musicians manage to evade censorship by creating songs with double-meanings. And they often get away with it. Musicians like Oliver Mutukudzi, although well respected, have almost been in trouble with the government for songs perceived to indirectly refer to and mock the president. Although Mutukudzi himself never once said the song Bvuma Wasakara (loosely translated to mean, Admit it: You are now too old) referred to the president, his audiences deduced meaning for themselves. Well, a member of his stage team had initially beamed a light on the portrait of Mugabe while the song played amid cheers from the crowd. This is what set the ball rolling on the inquiry about the song which Mtukudzi defended by saying it had been derived from his personal family experiences and only talked about domestic issues – not anything political. That’s the beauty of music, people make sense of it in whichever way they like. The song is still blacklisted to this day.

Music can be banned but the voices of the singers will never be silenced. Above all, people will always be eager to listen to the banned music. Banned music, like pornography, always finds a way of circulating.

Let us know your thoughts. Should certain music be censored? Who should decide this? Tell us about some of the music/musician you’ve loved and why, but has been censored for some reason. Leave a comment here, or write to us on info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw or phone us on +263 4 776 008. Kubatana will put together and publish the various thoughts of our readers.

For ideas on how you can participate in advocacy for music rights and the right to freedom of expression in general, visit the Freemuse website. Freemuse is the World Forum on Music & Censorship, advocating freedom of expression for musicians worldwide.

And if you thought music wasn’t such a big thing, did you know that the Taliban in Afghanistan are trying so hard to stop everyone there from playing music, blowing up CD-shops with bombs, and giving fines to people who play music in their cars? Imagine the possibility of a music free generation, doesn’t that scare you?

Go ahead, play a controversial song, interview a censored musician, or dedicate your next song to freedom of musical expression on Monday, 3 March.