Reading Lenard’s blog on recent protests around the world made me think of our Zimbabwean context. I was out running over the weekend and besides seeing an increased presence and movement of police across Harare, I also noticed that the 2 of the 3 water canons that the Zimbabwe government has in its armory were zipping along the streets. And I thought that water canons in Zimbabwe are For Display Purposes Only. Because as Lenard points out, we’ve endured a lot of unemployment, corruption, and abuse of power but we limit our uprisings to grumbling into our lagers in the pub.

Usually a revolution comes with a change of government or system and some revolutions have even produced another wave of repression. From Tahrir Square in Cairo to Gezi Park in Taksim now Viva la Revolución in Brazil. 84% of the people taking part in the in the protests or civil obedience in Sao Paulo, Brazil are not aligned to any political party. They are educated and most of them are first time protesters. 53 percent are under are under 25 years of age and 22 percent are students. I guess they are also tech savvy. These statistics are quite similar in almost every country where uprisings have been witnessed. The images coming out show young people in running battles with police. Maybe the young people are the hardest hit by the soci-economic and political injustice world over.

Some say the protests were started over an increase in transport fares but this is just part of why they are protesting. Some of the grievances include police brutality, inequality, corruption, dire public services and the extravagant preparations for next year’s World Cup. The cost of hosting the World Cup is now taking its toll on ordinary citizens just like happened in South Africa 2010. If a small increase in fares could make people go out on the street in thousands what about a country with over 80 percent of the population unemployed and where water and electricity have become luxuries?

A country whose politics makes a tradition of tragic deaths through suspicious automobile accidents can only have very little to claim as an “open society.”

Zimbabwe’s roads after independence are littered with deaths of prominent individuals who everyone knows had become a pain in the ass of the oligarchs. These were individuals expressing their version of the truth as opposed to the “official” line peddled by spin doctors and apologists of the political establishment. The dead men’s crusades would be perfectly in order in any country that is not North Korea.

That this continues to happen long after independence where Africa’s liberation struggle was short-circuited and chaos-riddled by ideological wars defined by the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A and went on to claim anyone from Patrice Lumumba to Amílcar Cabral to Thomas Sankara, to Zimbabwe’s own revolution that ate its own children from Josiah Magama Tongogara to Sydney Malunga points to a political tradition that is inimical to the very ideals the “new democrats” purport to espouse.

In Zimbabwe no accident that claims a prominent politician is an accident at all. It is just one of those things we have come to accept.

What is disturbing is that despite this, it still remains the chosen modus operandi of eliminating perceived opponents.

This cannot be belaboured here, yet the impunity is troubling.

Small wonder that many people here await the day not of healing political wounds but a day of retribution where those fingered in these acts of political assassination will have their testicles squeezed in the people’s angry court.

That Zimbabweans have an “insider” tipping prominent individuals that they are targets of assassination only makes this more disturbing because apparently there is very little or nothing these people can do to avoid what is increasingly their inevitable demise.

It’s only recently that one “powerful” Zanu PF don said of Energy Mutodi’s claim that the don wanted Mutodi killed: “If I wanted him (Mutodi) killed do you think he would still be alive?”

This morning I went to get my national ID so, eventually, I can register to vote, however this is easier said than done. Outside Market Square there are long lines of people, some had been there since 9 o’clock the night before, sleeping on cardboard boxes outside the office – just to get basic documentation!

The actual process only takes about 5 minutes per person; they take a picture, your fingerprints, and ask you to sign some papers, then you are done! Yet you still have to queue the entire day for those few simple processes. It seems an unfair waste of people’s time and energy.

Possibly the hardest is for people trying to get birth certificates. There are dozens of women with new born babies tied to their backs, standing in these horrendously long queues just to get a simple piece of paper for their babies. It is not so bad for families who can support and help each other, but single mothers really have it hard. Opposite me were two mothers, both with tiny babies, they had a friend with them to help, but to sit in that queue, on the dirty benches for hours on end with a child that young is unfair and insulting to the new mothers. If anyone should get privileges, it should be the mothers with their children, who are already suffering from post maternal stress, and need to rest, rather than stand in the cold for the whole day.

Zimbabwe continues to be the destination of choice for refugees fleeing the troubled Great Lakes region, says the UNHCR, and this is because many of the refugees believe Zimbabwe to be a peaceful country where they can easily assimilate.

Refugees from the Great Lakes region remember Zimbabwe from its participation in the second DR Congo war back in the late 1990s.

This came to light during a talk by Ron Mponda, the UNHCR Zimbabwe Senior Legal Advisor to commemorate World Refugee Day in Harare.

There are presently around 7,000 refugees in Zimbabwe, with the majority of them coming from the DRC, while others come from countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Somalia.

Mponda explained that not all refugees are confined at Tongogara Camp in Chipinge as some can be found in Harare and Bulawayo where they have assimilated and have jobs.

Part of that assimilation has seen some being employed in Ministry of Justice for example where skilled refugees are working as lawyers. Mponda some says are also working in the Ministry of Health as doctors.

Since Zimbabwe got its independence in 1980, thousands of people fleeing civil war in their respective countries have landed here, and it is interesting that Mponda explained that under international law refugees are afforded the same rights as locals such as the right to universal access to primary education.

And indeed out of tribulation comes triumph. Mponda explained that students at the Tongogara Refugee Camp are some of the brightest in the country as shown by their pass rate, and this at a time some government schools are recording abysmal results!

It is sad however that the UNHCR says it continues to receive unaccompanied minors deported from South Africa, and this has become a major highlight of the plight of Zimbabweans living in SA.

It must be an unfathomable decision for anyone to abandon one’s flesh and blood and a minor at that so that the parent can continue their illegal stay in a foreign country.

Yet it does foreground the tough choices some are forced to make, all based on economic survival.

I still find it ironic that the popular refrain for many is that all the toiling humankind does is ultimately for their children, and unaccompanied minors continue being deported?

It’s always tough trying to understand people’s personal circumstances but as Mponda said, being a refugee is not an easy life, and Zimbabwe’s own economic refugees certainly know this only too well.

This year’s refugee commemorations were held under the theme “*1 refugee family without shelter is too many*.”

UNHCR reports that there are 45.2 million refugees worldwide, which is an 18-year high.

In Syria alone for example, the UN says the civil war has produced a staggering 1,5 million, and these are people living under tents and some in the open exposed to the elements.

The UNHCR says “if the number of people fleeing the Syrian conflict continues to increase at such a rate every 10 weeks there will be more 3.5 million Syrian refugees, or 15% of total population of Syria, by the end of the year.”

In Africa, there are “more than one million Somali refugees in the East and Horn of Africa and some 1.36 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia, the country remains at the centre of one of the worst humanitarian crises UNHCR has faced.”

And we only have to recall the treatment the Somalis have received from South Africa and the xenophobic attacks they have endured, never mind all claims that refugees should under international law enjoy all protection from their host country.

A participant in the Mponda talk asked if the UNHCR was looking for the root causes of the refugee crisis in the first place than merely trying to deal with assisting them and it was a telling question about African politics and the quest for power at all costs.

Solving conflict is certainly one area the UN in its 68 years of existence has been found wanting.

Recently, in Washington, it was ruled that human genes may not be patented. This is a huge step forward in genetic research, as it will disallow privatisation of information on important genetic studies. This court case was mainly concerned with the company Myriad Genetics, which in the 90s, won two patents on the human genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, which if varied can significantly increase breast and ovarian cancer risk. This patent allowed them to offer an exclusive test at high prices (over $3000). However, with the new court ruling, others will be allowed access to the information and therefore allow further research and cheaper tests for cancer risks.

Whilst this is a huge step forward for genetics research, it seems ridiculous that these large companies can have so much control over our very make up, and that they can control and sell important knowledge. It seem unfair how they claimed a patent on something they did not make (as it is natural human DNA) and then charge ludicrous prices for a test, especially as most of their data which allowed them to discover the genes came from the public database.

Yet the battle for the research is not over. Although the patent has been removed, there are still problems with access to the data as the company holds it as a trade secret. These kinds of closed policies in the pharmaceutical field are really slowing down valuable research, which could save lives, all for the need for profit.