Good writing begins with syntax, and nothing weakens a sentence more than the comma splice.  Look at an example:

This device, far from interfering with the law of the Pendulum, in fact permitted its manifestation, in a vacuum any object hanging from a weightless and unstretchable wire free of resistance and friction will oscillate for eternity.

Here the comma splice occurs between “manifestation” and “in”; the result is a fused or run-on sentence where two independent clauses have been joined without an appropriate conjunction or punctuation mark.  There are three ways of correcting this: replace the comma with a full stop and start a new sentence; replace the comma with a semicolon; follow the comma with an appropriate conjunction.  The writer of that sentence, Umberto Eco, chose the third option: his comma is followed by the conjunction “for.”

Pick up any newspaper or magazine, and you will find comma splices galore.  They occur even more frequently in the compositions of school pupils.  Look at this example:  “Suddenly there was a knocking on the door, I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, the knocking got louder and louder, I went downstairs clad only in my flimsy pyjamas.”  I drew the pupil’s attention to the three comma splices, and he corrected them thus: “Suddenly there was a knocking on the door.  I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, as the knocking got louder and louder.  I went downstairs clad only in my flimsy pyjamas.”

I suspect that the main reason for the proliferation of comma splices in popular writing is the near demise of the semicolon as a punctuation mark.

Last night in an effort to fall asleep I took a gender mentality quiz from a recent FEMINA publication. The quiz was titled, “Do you think like a man”. The questions got more interesting as I got to understand what the author considered ‘male behavior’ that ‘normal’ women supposedly shouldn’t ordinarily display.

You had to strongly agree, agree or disagree with listed statements in the quiz. Some of them were: I can programme the remote control for my TV all by myself (of course I can!). I understand how a parliamentary system works. I know the basic rules of most sports including golf and tennis. I didn’t cry when I watched the Titanic (me, I didn’t really.) I know what an AC/DC transformer is and silliest of all; the angle between the floor and all four walls of any room is probably 90 degrees. Duh! I scored a lot of strongly agrees and at the end of the quiz, fell under the category of uber-male, i.e without any hint of womanly thought and susceptible to the same kind of weaknesses of the male mind in being unable to empathize with others and communicate needs effectively. What utter rubbish. Just because I understand a few things makes me male minded? I was surprised certain things were considered a preserve only for male species.

Anyhow, there was probably an element of truth in some of the things because for instance, here in Zimbabwe, how many women actually understand or even want to understand how the parliamentary system works, let alone the constitutional reform process that is currently staring at us?

At a Gender Forum meeting I attended recently, it was noted that a trend developed amongst women during the 1999 consultative processes. The women tended to boycott such processes because they simply either did not understand the processes and the constitution itself or recognize its immediate relevance to their lives. Some women are generally ‘technophobic’ and far removed from the language used in the constitution. Others simply do not care probably because they do not think their participation would make any marked difference anyway. These factors have presided over the oppression of women for a long time.

The chance to once and for all do away with the authoritarian 1979 Lancaster House constitution that has been amended at least over 15 times is here, and it would be such a disservice if women did not grab this opportunity to advance their interests especially in line with the many loopholes that dog the current constitution.

I believe it is up to civil society to point out to many an ignorant woman that a constitution determines how they are governed, and that our current constitution does not provide for things like reproductive health and sexual rights or guarantee women’s equal access to ownership and control of property. It also has sections like the S111B that prevent the automatic application of international human rights treaties like CEDAW. This would be an opportunity to lobby for the inclusion of women in parliamentary sub-committees and also ensure that the lack of a guarantee of security of a person’s bodily and psychological integrity is done away with, especially in view of the fact that there is a lot of justice outstanding from the violence that accompanied last year’s harmonized elections.

I believe it is up to all of us as individuals to take it upon ourselves to encourage and educate our neighbors about partaking in this critical process and attend consultative meetings. It is about time we set the precedent for our own possible Obama-like election hopefully to be called in 2011. The South Africans have just had something of a democratic election, and they boast one of the most democratic constitutions on the continent. It would be nice for once to stop wishing and thinking  when we too shall see democracy skate across our land. Only we can make it happen if we start by being or neighbor’s keeper.

For many years now, you have been witnessing for us all
the strange process this Zimbabwean experience has been.
Your listening ensured that we never lost our voice
patiently and kindly assuring us
we are being heard and supported.

And there has always been the question
when do we begin to speak of the other side of this story?
when do we step beyond the fear of drawing unwanted scrutiny
and speak of the seeds that are being sown?

When can we name the women and men who fix the bodies,
and who run the websites,
who stand outside jails,
who take care of the orphans,
feed displaced and aids victims,
who sell vegetables on the side of the street to feed their children,
who write the records and take the pictures?

When is the turning point
when we walk beyond our fear?
and bring the invisible into the eye of the world
and speak of who we are and what we have been part of?

Zimbabwe’s story of resilience  has been built on the individual efforts of the Zimbabwean people who, in the face of un-edited punishment, have stood their ground.  Within this chaotic process there has been a slowly growing pattern, a chaordic movement, small circles of creative action.

The Tree of Life circle has decided that it is time to tell our story and to speak of the new forest emerging from the trees planted during these years of chaos.

This is only one of many stories. There are circles of resilience and hope built around health clubs and herb gardens and football clubs and churches throughout Zimbabwe, and they have all played their part in the bigger picture.  Beneath the darkness, a strong light shines and we would like you to see it.

Ali van Baba could moralise at length on the subject of pork; on the subjects of alcohol and adultery he was a little more circumspect.  For you and me pork is no big deal; it’s a sausage or a slice of polony or a side of bacon; but for Ali van Baba, Bulawayo’s first, and to date, only suicide bomber, pork was a very big deal.  Okay, it divideth the hoof and cheweth the cud, like cows and sheep and goats; but did cows delight in filth and dung?  Did sheep?  Did goats?  No, people who eat pork live for the lusts of the flesh.  Pigs are insatiable.  They ejaculate by the pint. They gobble up everything you put before them.  How did that poet, whatsisname, put it:

They chop a half-moon clean out.
They eat cinders, dead cats.

What’s more, they are carriers of the hairlike nematode worm, which causes trichinosis in humans, and in Ali van Baba’s view, any human who eats pork deserves the affliction.

Offensive books like Mein Kampf and The Satanic Verses and The Da Vinci Code couldn’t hold a candle, in Ali Van Baba’s opinion, to “The Three Little Pigs”, not to mention all those stupid nursery rhymes that cutesified the abominations: “And there in a wood a piggy-wig stood….”   Sick!  Ali van Baba had a mantra, and it went like this: “and he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew their house down”

It was his disgust for pork (and for other things about which he was a little more circumspect), which turned mild-mannered, retiring Ali Van Baba into a suicide bomber.  And he it was who invented what has now come to be known as the strapless bomb.  The explosive he made from an old IRA recipe and he attached the device to the front of his body by means of three suction pads, one on each nipple, and one, somewhat larger, on the belly button.  He shortlisted three possible targets: the mosque on the Harare road (because its onion domes were painted a lurid green), the synagogue in Kumalo (because they wouldn’t allow him to pee in their flower bed) and the Blood of Jesus Christian church on the Old Esigodini Road (because it looked like a miniature Jaggers Wholesale building, which is constructed not of straw, nor of sticks, nor of bricks, but of state of the art zinc).  Then he applied the pork test.  Muslims eschewed the flesh of swine; Jews too, the tempting aroma of grilling bacon notwithstanding; but Christians, most of them anyway, loved it.  So pork made him decide, finally, on the last named institution; pork – and practicality.

You see, Ali Van Baba had decided on the wooden horse trick to lure his victims to their destruction.  If he chose the mosque, he would leave outside its gate a styrofoam camel on wheels, with him hidden inside.  If he chose the synagogue, he would leave outside its gate, a giant bagel, with him inside (the cream cheese, so to speak).  He couldn’t, at first think of an equivalent lure for the church.  A giant jar of home-made jam?  No.  A giant pot plant?  No.  A giant braai pack?  Maybe.  Then it came to him… of course… two birds with one stone… a giant piggy bank.  Most Christians ate pork; and judging by the Pajeros and double cabs that patronised this church, they weren’t averse to money.   A piggy-bank wooden horse would be easier to construct than camel or bagel wooden horses, so he set to work, and before long he had constructed a piggy bank large enough for him and his strapless bomb to hide inside.

Sure enough, it worked.  One dark Saturday night, under cover of an overcast sky, whispering, ‘he huffed and he puffed, and he blew their house down’, Ali van Baba, wearing his strapless bomb and a matching pair of blue overalls, wheeled the porcine contraption all the way from his home in downtown Bulawayo to the gate of the Blood of Jesus Christian church.  It took him hours, and along the way he psyched himself up by repeating his mantra, and by muttering: ‘Three cheers for the big bad wolf!  Down with the piggywig who was willing to sell his ring for a shilling.  Down with Porky.  Down with Petunia.  Down with the old person of Bray who fed figs to his pigs.’  He climbed into the piggy bank through an ingeniously constructed trap door under its curly tail.  Then he made himself as comfortable as possible and waited, eyes fixed on the coin slot above him, which grew progressively lighter.  The first service would begin around 8 a.m. the next day.

He must have fallen asleep because the sound of excited voices took him by surprise.  Then he began to move: through the gate, along the ground a way, up a ramp – the voices were growing in number and volume – into the warehouse of a building, and then up towards the holier end.  He began to fondle the button, which would detonate the bomb.  ‘He huffed,’ he whispered, ‘he puffed… and he blew their house down.’ There was a commotion about him.  Suddenly a loud voice called for order, and order there was, and in those seconds of awed silence, Bulawayo’s first and, it is to be hoped, only, suicide bomber, pushed the button.  Damn the IRA!  Only the detonator went off, blowing Ali Van Baba out of the trapdoor, the pig’s vent, where he was received with rapturous applause by the congregation.  Then that same voice, which had silenced the flock, announced in tremulous tones that the Second Coming was at hand.

Will the new South African president, Zuma, break into spontaneous dance whenever he delivers a speech to the international community?

So far ( as far as I know), he has managed to keep his rousing rendition of the now out-of-context Umkhonto we Sizwe war cry ‘Mshini Wami’ confined to national fora such as political rallies and other platforms he has been provided to defend his innocence against the many charges levelled against him in the recent past.

The reason I ask is simple. Beyond his amazing agility and moves to rival Michael Jackson in the prime of his musical career, Zuma doesn’t seem to offer much else.

Now, to be sure, I have serious problems in looking beyond the misgivings of a man who claims that taking a shower after unprotected sex with an HIV-positive person can prevent transmission of the virus. That statement will forever stick in my mind whenever Zuma’s name is mentioned to me.

But after all his run-ins, and let-offs by the rule of law, I thought it only decent of me to give him an ear at the last ANC rally held last weekend in Johannesburg.

I will admit that I haven’t listened to many of his speeches, but called the Siyanqoba (We shall conquer) rally, and the last that the ANC held prior to elections that Wednesday,  I expected Zuma to give the  most rousing speech of his political career.

But oh, so drawl and monotonous was he that I dozed off a few times, as I watched. Was that un-emotive expressionless list of promises to make South Africa a better nation really what the people wanted to hear?

And when he promised to fight corruption, I couldn’t help the smirk that instantly appeared on my face. More transparent tendering processes and less misappropriation of public resources?!

That sounded like a page out of a Grimm’s fairytale.

While functional, apart from clever little statements like stating that South Africans ought to “put sport back into our national psyche” in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup, I found his speech drab and quite banal. Nothing in it would give anyone a shiver down their spine, which is what good speeches tend to do.

While he will never be an Obama in terms of his oratory, Zuma needs to start sounding a bit more convincing that he is a changed man and not some reluctant school kid forced to stand up and read his short story to the rest of the class.

His political persona already doesn’t look so good – what with a trail of corruption cases behind him – and other near-miss charges he has managed to worm his way out of.

Speech has power to convince. You only need look at the immortal place that Martin Luther King Jnr holds in history because of his ‘I have a dream’ speech.

And though more sinister, no one can deny the power of Adolf Hitler’s oration in convincing the German masses of the ‘goodness’ of Nazism.

For me, there’s nothing to savour about Msholozi’s political character yet – until, of course, he breaks into that ubiquitous theme song and jumps across the podium belting out “Mshini Wami, Mshini Wami.”

Have you ever noticed how the South African media focuses so intently on this aspect of Zuma in its coverage of him? With dance moves that crisp, he could put many a young man less than half his age to shame. Yes, that forms part of his ‘everyman’ appeal. But that should not become the hallmark of his persona.

Zuma has to appeal to a larger audience than just South Africans who have recently become disgruntled with the ANC and thus see him as the agent of necessary reform.

He has to appeal to regional and global audiences, to represent South Africa, and Africa as a respectable statesman in the mould of his predecessors who include Nelson Mandela.

And sadly for him, he will have to do all of that without the dancing.

For me, my greatest hope for Zuma’s reign is that he can combat the HIV epidemic that is currently wreaking havoc in South Africa and sending shock waves throughout southern Africa. For one who himself peddled gross misinformation about ways to prevent HIV transmission, this would represent the greatest victory in overcoming the very ignorance that continues to kill so many.

I sincerely hope that come May 9, at the presidential inauguration of Zuma, I will become more convinced by this man who holds the hopes and destiny of not only his nation, but the whole region.

Life’s too short to not investigate all of your potential. This is why I have boldly taken to wearing colour of late. Orange, pink, yellow, purple, tie-dye; you name it, I wear it!

And it’s the most liberating thing that I have done for myself recently.

Why?

Because, I suppose I grew up at a time when wearing bright colours was either considered crude, or a sign of low class and taste – at least if you were any age above 16. Yes, even today, anyone who dares wear vivid colours will elicit one or two taunts for their braveness.

But I just don’t care what people say anymore, which is why it is so liberating to dress as I please. In my opinion, far too many women spend their lives being overly modest with themselves. They won’t try different things to help redefine their image and thereby get stuck in a hole they aren’t so happy to be in.

Now, I am not saying that constant change is for us all. But if you, like me, are the restless type who gets bored with having just one look, then all I can say to you is, “Do something about it!”

As one of my university lecturers used to warn us, “Time is moving and frankly, none of us is getting any younger!”

Too true – none of us is getting any younger. So, the way I see it, go for it! If you’ve always wondered what green and purple look like together, buy clothes in those colours and find out! If you’ve always wanted to get extravagantly coloured hair extensions, get them!

There’s nothing like a woman developing a safety zone and choosing to always wear ‘safe’ colours – like white and black, and brown – to avoid ever standing out in a crowd.

The world is not an entirely safe place, so why should your wardrobe be any different?! That is unless ‘safe’ colours are the only ones that you have a particular leaning towards. If not, I would suggest that you learn to live a little more on the fun side.

And what’s the worst thing that could happen?

A few people might voice their disapproval, but the one thing I have learnt in my relatively short trek on planet earth, thus far, is that OTHER PEOPLE DON’T MATTER!

It is often ‘other people’ who try to bring you down, or make you not go for the things that you really want in life. They naysay about everything and anything, just to make you feel uncomfortable about having an opinion and an individual identity.

And these kinds of people will always be around us. The only real solution to overcoming their negativity is to nurture a true sense of yourself and go for what you want, regardless of what anyone might say about you. Liberate yourself from the group mentality.

Oh, I could go on and on about the fun side of colour. There’s no greater joy than discovering that your six year-old blue scarf, the purple earrings you bought yourself recently, your pink jersey and black skirt all come together to make a uniquely beautiful combination and celebration of colour.

It’s so much fun, too, to watch the passing crowds around you stop and stare and wonder where you are from because of your unique colour coordination.

For myself, my enjoyment has nothing at all to do with vanity, but rather a deep sense of appreciation that the wonderful kaleidoscope of colours I present to the external world represents the same world of living rainbows swirling inside of me.