I woke up to a text message this morning telling me that Morgan Tsvangirai, president of Zimbabwe’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had been arrested. Checking the news as I write this, I see he’s been released.  Tsvangirai was taken by the police for questioning, in relation to a demonstration which the MDC has planned for today. The state has banned the protest. Police were already on alert in town at 7 this morning when I went through, and I watched the water cannons roll out in anticipation.

Zimbabwe’s “harmonised” Presidential, Parliamentary, Senate and Local Government elections are likely to be held in March this year, despite protests from opposition parties and civil society organisations that March is too soon for an election to be held that would truly be free and fair. Some have hoped that, with amendments to repressive legislation such as the Public Order and Security Act, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and the Broadcasting Services Act, there is some potential for a genuinely democratic election – if only these amendments were given enough time to operate, so that people could operate in a more open social and political environment before the election.

But incidents like Tsvangirai’s arrest challenge this optimism. In theory, Zanu PF has an interest in making these elections seem more democratic – it would legitimate the victory that they’re certain to claim. So why not just let the MDC’s demonstration go ahead, as a sly show of good faith, and to muffle the opposition’s claim that the ruling party isn’t playing fair?

It doesn’t really matter whether the election is in March or June. The outcome has already been decided, and it won’t have anything to do with what people put on their ballot papers. The amendments to the above mentioned legislation are paltry. Journalists and media houses weren’t consulted in relation to the AIPPA amendments which affect their work directly. The amendments to POSA make public meetings sound marginally more possible. But as we’ve seen today, so much of law is in enforcement, not just legislation.

The machinery around this upcoming election makes it susceptible to rigging – there will reportedly be more than 16,000 polling stations. The opposition, and civil society organisations, will be looking to recruit monitors into every polling station to keep an eye on things. Even if they find enough volunteers, with shortages of everything from food to cash to transport to candles and stationery, how will they get them to their polling stations, and how will they ensure they’re looked after and can do their jobs?

And, of course, there are the far, far more subtle ways in which this election will be rigged. Those same obstacles which will make it even more difficult for the MDC to monitor the polling stations also make it hard to campaign. How do you get your flyers distributed if you can’t get cash for bus fare? And how do you hope to get participation at your rallies if people are too busy queuing for cash, bread, sugar, or mealie meal to come? You could try a spontaneous campaign at a shopping centre, to take advantage of the captive audience. But wait, that would also be in violation of POSA . . . .

What is a ‘Cash Baron’? How does one become so? Does the King knight you? Is it a hereditary title, or is earned by you alone during your life? And is there a pecking order? King, Lord, Duke, Baron, Earl, Knight (of the bath, of the garter, of the $500 000 note, of the running sewage?) Squire . . .

How much do you need to get to each level? Does a Lord have $ 765 quadrillion in cash? And then a Duke has $ 852 trillion billion, a Baron $ 573 million billion, an Earl $445 million million and a knight (venerable order of the overflowing raw sewerage pipe) a hundred million? And the rest of us multi millionaires are venal peasants? Owing homage, soccage (or scrutage), or ‘you must stop for the sirenage’?

If you can print as much as you want (or more than you can possibly dream of), then you are the King, and if you do the printing you are the King’s flunky.

This is, of course, why we cannot ‘dollarise’. The King cannot print those. And since they have destroyed the economy, there is no revenue coming in (pay tax on what?) so you have to print the money to pay the army so it will not rise up and kill you. Did anyone else but me learn of the ‘diamonds and water syndrome’ for ‘A’ level economics? I have it all wrong of course, but that is the fault of illegal western sanctions.

Last Monday evening, a friend of mine heard that sugar had been delivered to the TM supermarket near his house. So he left home at midnight, and spent a mercifully dry night outside queuing for sugar with a host of others. He got to the front of the queue at 11:30 that morning, and gave it to his sekuru as promised.

Tuesday, he heard that sugar had been delivered to the Bon Marche also near him. So at 2am on Wednesday morning he went to the Bon Marche to spend the night. On my way to work, I went to find him and bring him a flask of (unsweetened) tea. He was delighted and, he reported later, my dash-it flask delivery services ended up entertaining the queue long after my departure. A hot beverage. And some light relief. Not bad for 7am.

When he’d arrived at 2 in the morning, he’d found himself number nine in the queue. Brilliant. At the time, he reckoned he’d be served and home by 10. But as dawn approached, there was a power cut. Bon Marche didn’t switch on their generator till after 11. When they finally opened their doors, the police came – ostensibly to impose order on the queue. But instead they disrupted the numbering system those waiting all night had established among themselves, and started accepting bribes from people to get to the front. My friend ended up far back in the queue. It dragged forward slowly, and when he was fifth from the front, the diesel in the generator ran out, and the super market closed for the day.

When I saw him that evening, exhausted from two nights outside, he looked fed up and worn out. He knew some people would be taking their sugar and selling it on the black market for four times the price or more. All he wanted was a bag for his family, and one to send back to the rural areas. He said if he went back to the shops one more time he might be among the lucky few, but he was too tired and discouraged to bother – rather, he figured, hold out for another queue.

Nelson Chamisa, the Movement for Democratic Change spokesman is recently quoted as saying

“You saw and heard what happened in Kenya. It’s nothing compared to what we will have here if Mugabe rigs the elections again,” said the Movement for Democratic Change’s secretary for information, Nelson Chamisa.

“You can’t have a thief rob you twice and let him keep his hands,” Chamisa told hundreds of party supporters at the launch of their election programme in a suburb of Harare.

Utterances like this illustrate the MDC’s political immaturity. The Kenyan Red Cross has estimated that nearly 600 Kenyans (so far) have died in violence following the country’s rigged election. Countless others have been injured, hundreds of thousands displaced, women have been raped and shops have been looted. The post election violence that Kenyans have meted out has been on each other. The looting has been described as being opportunistic, with looters, for example, ransacking electronics shops over others with less valuable merchandise. Instead of channeling their frustration towards the Kibaki government and its pillars of support (police stations etc), Kenyans took their anger out on each other.

Pausing for a moment we have to ask ourselves what good has come from the post election violence in Kenya? Kenya has called in its third mediator. They don’t seem vaguely close to a re-run of the election. Odinga has declined to form a government of national unity. Yes the violence did make the rest of the world sit up and take notice but to what end? Will other African or western governments think twice about rigging their elections? Possibly, but most certainly, the overriding observation is that we must do whatever we can to avoid such heartbreaking violence.

So quite honestly I shudder when the spokesman of Zimbabwe’s most prominent opposition party suggests that the same will happen here in a seemingly welcoming tone. The Movement for Democratic Change should rather, in true statesmanlike fashion, be encouraging Zimbabweans to do their utmost to avoid bloodshed and violence during and after our next election. The MDC should use the Kenyan example to reject violence in all its forms. This is not to say that they should ignore or marginilise the acute frustration that we are experiencing in this country after years of dictatorship. The MDC’s challenge, which is a difficult one, is to provide visionary leadership to a nation that is vulnerable and depressed. Resorting to violence to solve our problems is admitting defeat.

As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

The New York Times ran a very interesting article in December on street cleaners in Iraq. Street cleaners are given a “bonus” of US$8 if they agree to clean up a bomb site. A street cleaner had this to say

Although we get US$ for each bomb, we do not want to see explosions, we don’t want to see this. They are Iraqis, Sunni, Shia or Christian, they are all Iraqis.

Of course the question on everyone’s lips is “so what do we do then, if we don’t violently express our outrage and discontent.” It’s certainly a hard question to answer but the solution does not lie in encouraging or facilitating the harming of each other, no matter what tribe or political party we belong to or support.

Note: subsequent to this blog the MDC thought it wise to set the record (sort of) straight

I’m a bit of a Starhawk fan. It’s worth activists and organisers in Zimbabwe reading her essays on activism. Have a look at her web site. And below is some really useful, and inspiring advice (I think).

Strategic nonviolence lets us mobilize broadly around actions that are more than symbolic, that actually interfere with the operations of an institution of power. Unions and NGOs, and at-risk groups can support and participate in such actions, which contain many necessary roles at varied levels of risk.

Committing to nonviolence as a strategic move for a particular action allows us to organize openly, without security culture and with broad participation in decision making. While open organizing means we lose the element of surprise in our planning, we can take that into account. The worst failures in actions are those that depend on security that is rarely tight enough to actually foil the authorities, but often too exclusive to let us do wide outreach for an action. Transparency allows us to actually educate, mobilize, and inspire people to join us. While security culture may be necessary at times, it works against empowerment and direct democracy. People can only have a voice in the decisions that affect them if they know what is being decided and what the options are. Transparent organizing also undercuts the power of infiltrators and provocateurs.

Open organizing means that we accept the risk of identification by the authorities and even arrest, not because we want to be martyrs, but to free up our thinking and let us do things we otherwise wouldn’t do. A commitment to nonviolence means that our actions fall under at least some constitutional protections, and gives us some leverage against persecution. Large numbers and prior planning also let us develop jail solidarity strategies that can minimize the consequences of arrest.

Disruptive nonviolent direct action is not easily organized as a last-minute substitute for a “red” action we decide we can’t pull off. It requires time to educate, mobilize and prepare people, to form and train affinity groups, to organize home support and jail support, to wrestle with fear and weigh the consequences of taking risks.

The hypocrisy in international cricket is mind boggling.

David Miliband, Britain’s Foreign Secretary has joined Flash Gordon in stating that Zimbabwe must not be allowed to tour England in the summer of 2009. Miliband is quoted as saying

“The situation in Zimbabwe is deeply concerning – I think bilateral cricket tours don’t send the right message about our concerns,” Miliband said. “This is something that needs to be discussed with the ECB and others.”

Now what if we substituted Zimbabwe for Pakistan in this argument?

As recently as July 2006 Pakistan was welcomed with open arms in the United Kingdom. Pakistan is variously described as repressive, violent and a dictatorship. The political opposition in Pakistan is either forced into exile, killed while campaigning, placed under house arrest or they have their rallies violently disrupted. If the England cricket team were scheduled to play in Pakistan it would be the fear of Monty and the gang getting in the way of a suicide bomber that would stop the tour. It wouldn’t be because England dislikes Mr Musharraf’s repressive regime.

Pakistan and Zimbabwe are probably as “bad” as each other. The difference is that Zimbabwe is a light weight in international cricket. Pakistan, on the other hand, with the backing of the Asian cricket heavy weights, would very quickly put England in its place if threatened with a boycott.

Personally I’ve been very supportive of a complete sporting and cultural boycott of Zimbabwe as a non-violent method of isolating the Mugabe regime and drawing attention to the abuse of human rights in this country. I’ve also participated in, and worked towards the boycott of cricket tours to Zimbabwe.

However I do think that its important to criticise Britain’s selective show of concern and their refusal to host the Zimbabwean cricket team.