Zimbabwean social and political commentator Rejoice Ngwenya discusses protest consumerism in his article entitled “Citizens are the real heroes” . . .

I am not a street activist, but more from the irritable pool of intellectual key-punchers who hope that Robert Mugabe and his cronies are literate enough to notice how collective resentment and hatred for shameless, fascist dictatorship is better expressed in the written word. This I say because there is a fallacy pervading Zimbabwean society that the number of times and period that one is beaten and arrested is the only means of verifying serious political activism.  And perhaps there is precedence to this malnourished viewpoint, given that the icons of Africa’s liberation struggle have, at one time or other, had a bruising encounter with local justice systems.

The tragedy is that nationalists, like Mugabe, have used this as a basis for extended stay in power, arguing that long periods spent in colonial gaol gives them the right to oppress their countrymen.  Critics of Professor Arthur Mutambara have raised the same argument that he never received as much political bashing and detention as Morgan Tsvangirayi, thus his claim to political fame is flimsy and frivolous. The good news is that this viewpoint is devoid of good judgement and destined for extinction.

In awarding Magodonga Mahlangu the coveted Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, United States President Barack Obama mentioned that the firebrand Zimbabwean activist has been arrested more than thirty times. No doubt all progressive cadres of the struggle against Mugabe’s ‘scientific’ tyranny will and should applaud Mahlangu’s recognition, but I am one of the few who do not particularly subscribe to the theory that the number of times one is convicted for a good cause emits a force equal to or equivalent to the motion towards liberation. Moreover, the struggle  takes a further mortal knock when one, like Mahlangu does,  goes further to justify activism purely on the basis that his or her parents, friends, neighbours and relatives were at one time or another, victims of Mugabe’s Gukurahundi genocide.

More often than not, we Zimbabwean activists exaggerate our encounters in the struggle.  ZANU-PF has always been reminded that everyone fought against colonialism, thus heroism is not only a preserve of former Mozambican and Zambian exiles, members of the Central Committee or victims of post-independence detention and genocide.

Girl child activist Betty Makoni is currently exiled in England, advancing, like many of those Zimbabweans who inhabit that land, another case of persecution by the ZANU-PF government for exposing alleged ministerial girl-child abuse. No doubt she is in line for another award of recognition for her ‘struggle’ against tyranny. There is no doubt that other cadres like former political hostage Jestina Mukoko, human rights lawyer Otto Saki and constitutional activist Dr Lovemore Madhuku deserve all the accolades they get from the world movement for democracy. A crucial part of the struggle against oppression is confronting and defeating ZANU-PF it in its natural habitat – in the streets, but to limit recognition of this struggle only to the number of times one is arrested from the trenches belittles greater good.

My point is that the struggle to unseat tyranny is not about ‘rented’ college students doing street push-ups, old women and lactating mothers sacrificed on the altar of fiery fury of the dragon, merely to score political points. More often than not, strategic partners of governance and democracy have been accused of supporting only institutions that ‘raise hell and dust’ in running battles with Mugabe’s uniformed sympathisers in the alleys. This is a narrow view of resistance, for there is more like us who find pride in pounding tyranny from the keyboard. It may not be glamorous, elicit blood or swollen foreheads, but the message spreads far and wide. Street activists accuse us of ‘conference room activism’ because there is no glitz and glamour accrued from making interviews for CNN from hospital beds.

The moral of my argument is that when seminar attendance registers and police charge sheets become the only genuine evidence of political activism, strategic partners have taken the eyes off the ball.  ‘Anniversary’ day activism manifested in protest handbills and posters, glossy advertisements, angry press statements and red roses handed out at street corners are part of the continuum of the struggle against ZANU-PF dictatorship.

However, the demands of modern day transformative revolution require that we shift the gear from mere defiance to a higher pedestal of popular resistance. The answer lies in paralysing the business supply systems that keep the ZANU-PF dragon bite venomous. Restrictive and targeted sanctions are part of this exciting high-yield strategy; the other is embedded in protest consumerism.

Mr. Rejoice Ngwenya writes for AfricanLiberty.org.  He is founder of Coalition for Liberal Market Reforms, a Zimbabawean think tank.

Just in from the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU):

Today’s Alert (03-12-09)

There is chaos and pandemonium at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) after college authorities barred students this morning from entering the examination room over nonpayment of tuition fees. The end of semester examinations started today, 3 December 2009 and security guards have been placed on all entrances to the examination halls. This has prompted the ZINASU leadership comprising of the President, Cde B. Dube, the Secretary General, Cde L. Chinoputsa and other general councilors from various institutions in Zimbabwe to swiftly intervene in the dire situation and is trying to meet the College Vice Chancellor, Proff Levy Nyagura to reverse the absurd decision and allow all students to write examinations irregardliness of whether they paid or not. Failure to reverse that will lead to a serious riot by students.

The Ministry of Higher Education reiterated on Saturday, 28 November 2009 during the ZINASU All Stakeholders Conference on Higher Education reforms that no students should be barred from writing examinations over nonpayment of tuition fees. The tuition fees charged in most state instititutions are exorbitant ranging between USD150- USD850 and the majority of students cannot afford these steep fees.

About 42% of the students at UZ failed to pay the inflated fees and if nothing is done to solve the crisis it means the future is gloom for almost half of the students from the biggest and oldest institution of higher learning in Zimbabwe.

We’re in the midst of the yearly 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women. The annual event has prompted public events, film screenings and discussions across Zimbabwe, as elsewhere. Last week, 600 men marched against violence against women in an event organised by Padare, the Men’s Forum on Gender. Journalists like Charlene Smith in South Africa have used the period to highlight their own experiences and that of others. Initiatives like Take Back the Tech create an international advocacy, support and campaign forum.

All of these initiatives are useful and important. But the basic fact is that beyond the events, features and media attention that the 16 Days generates each year, violence against women remains endemic – and we remain pitifully unable to prevent it, much less to offer the support that women need after they have been through this violence.

We got this email from a subscriber today:

i am a man aged 23 and i have a passion for helping young people going though tough times. i have six people in need or urgent help. but of most importance is a girl (19) raped and destitute, very bright in school and she dropped out of school because she has no one to pay for her fees.

Every day, a single clinic in Harare treats an average of 20 children who have been abused. And yet the counselling, medical, and other support services available to help people through abuse – much less to help them get out of an abusive situation and rebuild their lives afterwards – are pitifully inadequate. If we can’t do enough to help those most in need even during the 16 Days of Activism, what about the other 349 days of the year? And how many more years of 16 Days do we need before stories like this 19-year-old’s become the exception, not the rule.

Recently a group of “experts” (whatever that means – what makes an expert?) held a meeting in Harare to discuss a wide range of current concerns in Zimbabwe, including whether the Interim Government (IG) is “working”. A report of the meeting has been published by the Research and Advocacy Unit and IDASA and we’ve just put it up on the Kubatana web site. You can check it out here.

The report gives us a lot of food for thought especially in regard to civil society and the general public getting sucked into the “make believe politics” of the IG. According to the report “It was suggested that the donors had contracted what was referred to as the MDC disease of “GNUitis”. The donors thus appeared to a large extent to be setting the agenda, and an agenda which was not one that was required. This went to the extent of organisations such as the UNDP duplicating, and, to some extent, thus commandeering projects already being undertaken by the civics. ”

Below is an extract from the report:

The group noted that the State media, MDC media releases, and politicians from all signatory parties to the GPA were at pains to emphasise that the IG “is working” albeit with “unsurprising” “teething problems”. There are various facets to these statements:

* “Working” could be merely existential in the sense that the IG is intact and has not dissolved in the face of the divergent objectives of, and acrimony between, the signatories.
* “Working” could mean that some governance is taking place which is responsible for bringing a modicum of economic, social and political stability to Zimbabwe after a period of extreme turbulence in all of these spheres.
* “Working” could mean that the MDC’s stated objective of returning Zimbabwe to the rule of law and democratic governance is being incrementally realised.
* “Working” could mean that ZANU PF’s stated objective of “removing illegal sanctions” is a work in progress and the, probably unstated, goal of achieving legitimacy after unrecognised 2008 elections with a consequent easing of international pressure had been achieved.

The group noted that very little power had accrued to the MDC through the GPA, and that the MDC appeared to be reluctant to exercise the little power that it had. This led to an unpacking of the MDC’s concept of a “working” IG. In particular, the MDC argument that, while it recognised that the GPA was highly flawed and left Mugabe’s powers almost completely intact, it had little choice other than to sign and enter the IG. Failure to do so would have resulted in a formal or de facto coup by the security sector and a continued and intolerable humanitarian crisis. This had been avoided by the GPA and the tactic had thus “worked” to this extent. A corollary of this tactic is for the MDC to demonstrate that it is not a threat to ZANU PF – achieved in part by not seeking to exercise power in any sphere which ZANU PF regards as its exclusive domain – to thereby ameliorate the acrimony between the parties, calm the political waters, and for there to be a mutual “re-humanising process” to reverse the dehumanisation that had preceded the accord. This approach was designed to gradually “change the mindset” of ZANU PF stalwarts, and the MDC, simply by virtue of being in the corridors of power, would increase its leverage and be able to open up democratic space sufficiently for free elections to be held under an improved constitution. The approach demanded that the MDC claim that the IG was “working”. The group gave this approach the moniker “make believe” politics.

The arrogance of African politicians is legendary, and one can only point to the powerlessness of “we the people” to do anything to determine the course of national politics. The ballot has already proven to be a useless vehicle for change anyway as unelected men and woman still find their way into the corridors of power, perhaps that’s what has bred this unmitigated arrogance. Perhaps.

These politicians open their loud mouths, say whatever they want when criticised and get away with it, with “we the people” only cursing why and how the hell we allowed ourselves to have these arrogant men as government officials. Examples are too numerous to mention, but it got me thinking the other day when I read about Welshman Ncube calling his coalition partners from the MDC-T idiots or something to that effect, at least according to a SW Radio interview with Violet Gonda.

The issues bordered on what others in the coalition and indeed in the public arena perceive as deliberate stalling and endless postponements of meetings of GPA negotiations. Justifiably, the MDC-T felt the frustration of having meetings postponed and with Ncube and his MDC-M colleagues endlessly engaged in “national business” visiting “world capitals” thereby forcing the postponements. And then Ncube says as far as he is concerned, SADC did not put a deadline on the resolution of outstanding issues but rather provided a framework (according to his dictionary, he said) for the negotiators. All these allegations being levelled against the MDC-M are “nonsensical and idiotic,” Ncube suggests. “That is a creation of those who grandstand and who are masters of deception. There never was a SADC deadline. Those who want to believe there was, is their problem not mine. SADC provided a framework.”

It says a million things about what is wrong with this marriage of inconvenience where a coalition partner addresses his counterparts –primarily the PM who has raised some of the issues – as such and get away with it. It paints a graphic – and horrific – picture about the progress or the lack thereof with this albatross around our neck when we all know that all this gamesmanship – or feeble attempt at it – is only being perpetuated at the miserable expense of the ordinary man, woman and child who at the turn of the century had imagined a Zimbabwe with one political party to steer it to the prosperity we all deserve.

It is interesting that during one of the delays, the MDC-M negotiators were out of town on government business with one of Zanu PF negotiators at Chirundu border post. Cynics will argue that there you already had a meeting of negotiators though not official! Does it then come as a surprise then that we have a guy like Ncube simply dismissing with an epithet-filled tirade that which would only be expected from Zanu PF?

It would increasingly appear that MDC-T is waging a battle for a better and new Zimbabwe with both Zanu PF and MDC-M on the opposite corner, otherwise how else would we read such disturbing attitudes to the coalition from the same people who we expect to make this beast (GNU) work?  It takes us back to the arrogance of African politicians. A guy thinks because he is minister he is above reproach, forgetting that he has no claim over representing any constituency. Yet if there remains an absence of sincerity and nation-centric rapport among these coalition partners then we can bet Jacob Zuma will just be winking in the dark with these latest efforts to resolve the so-called outstanding issues and rescue the coalition from what the doomsayers say is an inevitable…well doom.

It is also interesting however that Zuma would be expected to read the riot act to Ncube and others despite the family ties that bind Mr. Ncube and Mr. Zuma. Is it not all a travesty? In a court of law no doubt Zuma would be called to recuse himself as mediator as he cannot be expected to objectively preside over this circus because of the Ncube factor. But then, “we the people” apparently have once again resigned ourselves to a situation where we leave our fate to the gods only because the men who should be steering this ship to placid waters render it a waste of time putting the “we the people” first.

- When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle – edmund burke, political philosopher – 1770.

I was watching Private Sessions on The History Channel featuring Seal. During the interview, Seal was asked about whether he was surprised by the success of his first album. He, very modestly and without any arrogance, responded that he wasn’t. He proceeded to explain that he had long visualised that moment from the time he decided he was going to be a musician. At age 11, his teacher had asked him to sing a Johhny Nash classic, I Can See Clearly, at a school assembly. He says he sang with eyes closed, trembling inside but in the end there was applause. From that day on, he began to visualise himself as a successful musician. Not visualising it in the sense of forcing it to happen as some books seem to suggest, but simply believing that he could be it and visualising it as if it already was. He used the word ‘birth right’ several times to describe why he should be successful.

The next day, I watched the very opposite mindset in The Firing Line, a documentary on freelance news cameramen who risk their lives bringing us stories that often make a difference by alerting us to atrocities taking place the world over. Firstly, of course, one celebrates the courage of these men and women who follow the same strong dream that Seal describes in getting the story. Juxtaposed with this, however, are the stark stories they expose from the bombing of a UN school in Gaza, the conflict in the DRC, Orphans in Burma, conflict in South Ossetia to children branded as witches in Nigeria. The documentary features cameramen such as Rory Peck Award winners Kazbek Basayev, and Joost Van der Valk. There is a common thread of despair in the subjects being filmed that remind one of Maupassant’s characters. There is a woeful hopelessness in the documentaries. In one of the inserts, we witness an Afghan father selling off his son to a wealthy woman to save his other children from starvation. It is the second son he is selling. In Van Der Valk’s insert, it is the harrowing story of children branded as witches in the Niger Delta. Though the filming of these scenes raises public awareness, which leads to action being taken as a result of public pressure, one cannot help but wonder how many more societies are locked in the vicious cycle of conflict, poverty and ignorance far from the intervening eyes of determined cameramen. At a personal level, how many individuals are trapped in personal circumstances they would rather not be in? What is their birth right?

What is your birth right? Have you sat down and decided what you rightly deserve from life or are you, at best, a victim of circumstance? I was a guest speaker on Thursday last week at the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) national leadership training workshop in Johannesburg. I spoke to about 200 students from South African universities and their faculty advisors and told them about people like William Kamkwamba, who at 14 years old defied his dire circumstances to determine his destiny by building a windmill at his parents’ home in his village in Malawi. He simply acted upon his sense of choice and changed his life completely. Google him! Is everyone destined for greatness? Not in the materialistic sense of the word, I think not. However, I am of the belief that everyone can act upon their circumstances and move, even if it is for an inch, to step away from hopelessness. That one step, invariably leads to another which may or may not end up in success. Greatness is not in the outcome though. Rather, it is in the ability to and the act of making that effort to step out of the shadows. When you do that, you will find you are ‘lighting a candle, instead of cursing the darkness.’ It is all in the mind. It always has.