One of the recurring trends I encounter as a pedestrian, runner and cyclist in Harare is the whistling, heckling, and unwanted comments from men. The other day, I’d Finally Had Enough. The “Hey baby” shouted at me as I cycled through the shopping centre car park was the last straw. I took several deep breaths to fight back the urgent desire to turn my bike around and plough directly into the man who’d just called after me. And decided instead to turn to dialogue, in lieu of violence.

Back in the office, I made these small flyers, which I’ve been handing out to men whose behaviour warrants it.

The act of turning to the man who’s calling after me, handing them a flyer, and then carrying on along my way seems to completely disarm them.

On making them, I had braced myself for the unwelcome emails and text messages I thought I might receive. Interestingly, I’ve had not one reply. But if any of you blog readers in cyberspace have some thoughts, feel free to share them.

I have to admit that I didn’t follow the US university shooting all that closely, but in my peripheral vision I caught bits of it.

A friend of mine was saying how apparently some of Seung-Hui Cho’s teachers knew he was a bit odd from long back, because it would take him something like 20 seconds to answer the most basic of questions. And even then, he would answer quite plainly.

Like my friend, when I first heard this, I thought maybe the teachers were being unfair, or too judgmental, or impatient Americans or some such. Until she said come, let’s try it. “What is your name?” she asked me. And then started to count “1, 2, 3, 4, . . . ” By 4 I couldn’t believe I hadn’t answered yet. By 16 I thought no this is ridiculous, and by 20 I could see that yes, if someone acted like this with me I’d think they were a bit odd as well.

I thought of all that this afternoon when I was coming from the shops and saw the lead bike in Mugabe’s motorcade come past. Fifteen vehicles and 20 seconds later, the whole thing had passed. I had time to unlock my bike, do up my shoes, ride across the car park and wait in the queue to turn right with the rest of the traffic before they had moved on.

Cho might not have been the world’s greatest conversationalist. But I’d still rather spend my 20 seconds waiting for someone to speak than waiting for one man to pass me on his way to work so that I can carry on along mine.

When I first heard about the Zimbabwe Republic Police’s (ZRP) Trail of Violence report, I was sceptical if it was even a legitimate document. But seeing a link to it on the Government of Zimbabwe Ministry of Home Affairs website gave me confidence in its existence as a document genuinely produced by the Zimbabwean Government. Even if big question marks still linger about its contents.

The report outlines the activities of “the opposition” in Zimbabwe in the form of the Broad Alliance which it describes as including:

• Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) anti-Senate
• Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) pro-Senate
• National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
• Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
• Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe
• Women/Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA/MOZA)
• Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU)
• Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
• Christian Alliance

It claims that the agenda of these organisations is to “mobilise people for regime change in Zimbabwe.” The leaders of these “opposition forces have been addressing numerous meetings across the country, drumming support for anti-Government activities and civil disobedience.” To prove this, they chronicle rallies, public meetings and demonstrations which these groups have put together.

It’s a thorough, careful and – aside from the petrol bomb side of things – accurate feeling report. The activities, recounted in excruciating detail, are clearly intended to portray “the opposition” as an organised, violent, ruthless force aimed at destabilising the government. It fits snugly into the government’s own propaganda strategy. It’s easy to imagine how they’ll roll it out at regional summits or in conversations with the likes of South African President Thabo Mbeki. It’s written to illustrate that the Mugabe government is under threat, and that any restrictions on civil liberties, human rights or freedom of movement are “measured and necessary” – even if this includes beating activists, arresting them and holding them indefinitely.

It’s hard not to laugh at the report’s desperation. What awful things have the Save Zimbabwe Campaign done? They’ve distributed flyers urging people to clap, hoot and shout for a better Zimbabwe. What mischievousness is the MDC up to? Well, they are holding rallies attended by thousands of people and discussing the need for a new Constitution. They are marching through Bulawayo with placards saying “Pay the Police” and “We demand Jobs.”

From one perspective it’s a record of an impressive array of pro-democracy activities. Between the MDC, NCA, ZINASU, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, ZCTU, the Christian Alliance and WOZA, hundreds of people have attended meetings or participated in demonstrations not only across Harare but in Bulawayo, Masvingo, Mutare, Kadoma and Gweru as well. Unsurprisingly, given that the ZRP wrote the report, a lot of attention is given to the alleged beatings and petrol bomb attacks on police officers. None to the beatings of opposition activists whilst in police custody, which have resulted in at least 225 people needing medical attention in the past month are mentioned.

It sounds callous, but the pictures of the allegedly petrol bombed women police officers aren’t in the least convincing. If you’ve just survived having a petrol bomb thrown into your home and your face and body are burnt to the excruciating extent they’re made to look, would you really be sitting up in your hospital bed with a nurse giving you tea straight from the cup? Wouldn’t your lips be too sore to sip?

Outside of critique and incredulity, what can we learn from this document?

The report spends several pages detailing the different ambassadors who have been seen in association with opposition activities. The Mugabe government falsely believes Zimbabweans are incapable of organising resistance without outside prompting or support. If the government is convinced of this, how useful is the presence of these ambassadors at jails, hospitals, courts, and rallies? What does it achieve, and at what cost?

Do any of the organisations which feature in the report have as thorough a record of their own activities? What can we learn from this documentation, and how can we use it to help enhance activities within and across civil society organisations in the future to develop strategies and grow membership?

Finally, one could read the report and get intimidated. It is 58 pages of names and dates and locations and events. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Most pro-democracy activists and organisations in Zimbabwe are aware of the potential for government surveillance, and the possibility of a CIO agent in every meeting. Mugabe wouldn’t be running a dictatorship if he wasn’t good at keeping tabs. Everyone knows this, but if activists are becoming a bit lax, the report reminds us that Mugabe government’s surveillance activities are alive and well.

I was disappointed to wake up on Tuesday 3 April, the first morning of the ZCTU two-day stay away, to find the traffic pretty much as heavy as normal for a workday. But, my optimism undeterred, I went out around 9am to see what was open and what was closed.

The night before, I had been speaking with some friends about the stay away. One woman asked, with over 80% unemployment, what is the point of a stay away, and how do you even support it if you’re not working. Another said, well, if you do have a job, or you vend or you work in the informal sector, you don’t go to work. And you don’t support those who are open – you stay away from the shops and the cafes and the beer halls. We discussed how powerful it was as an opportunity to exercise individual power and decision making. We discussed how, if you really wanted to stand in solidarity with the ZCTU in this action, you could choose to personally boycott all shops which had been open during the stay away – in protest of their lack of support for the action.

The good news is, if I took this approach on board, I could still get my bicycle fixed, I could buy some new clothes, and I could get some greeting cards and stationery. The bad news is, that’s about it. I would have to pull my money out of the banking system entirely; all the banks were open. I wouldn’t be able to go to the supermarket – TM and Bon Marche were both open. I would have to boycott music shops, the hardware store, the video shop, the pub, the food court and all cafes. That’s right. In the shopping centre nearest where I stay, exactly three shops were closed.

Apparently, in the industrial sites where workers are more formally unionised, the stay away has done better, with more factories and businesses closed there. I am surprised, though, at how little people are even talking about it in town and in the suburbs. At one house, the domestic worker was off – she’d heard about the stay away and decided to stay at home. But the gardener was on duty. He said he hadn’t heard about it. Working on the same property, they weren’t even talking to one another about it.

As the arrests and harassment and abductions and police brutality increase, this is one of my biggest fears – the ways in which we take on the role of our own oppressor – censoring ourselves, moving out the way of the oncoming police car without even being asked, going to work not because we’ve directly been intimidated but because we’re scared we might be.

Like Alice Walker said: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

One thing that’s been on my mind is this word “momentum” which I’ve heard quite often lately. Since the violence around the Highfields rally on Sunday 11 March, people have been asking how to keep up momentum, or build on momentum – how to leverage discontent and a seeming willingness to act.

I was reminded of this question of momentum when I was running the other night. I noticed my shoelace untied some 20 minutes or so from my destination. I knew I should stop and tie it, as I could feel my shoe working itself loose on my foot and I didn’t want to trip over the laces. But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to lose momentum. So I figured I’d wait until I got to a good place to stop.

Of course, when I did trip myself and landed splat in the dust with a skinned knee and damaged pride, that was a good time to stop – but not quite as good as a few seconds earlier might have been. I was reminded of the importance of taking breaks and adjusting to changing circumstances.

I’ve been thinking similarly about the stay away which the ZCTU has called for 3 and 4 April. Maybe it’s a change of tactics, an opportunity to deescalate violence, build confidence and move energies for another phase. I’d love to see a massive shut down of shops, banks and businesses, but I don’t know how well it will be supported.

The other morning, I stopped in to pick up some bread, and chatted a bit with the guy behind the counter there.

–How’s business, I ask him.
–Tight. No flour.
–It’s hard to run a bakery with no flour.
–It is, he shrugs.
–What do you think of this stay away coming up?
–He laughs and shakes his head.

I had a look at the minimum wages which were gazetted in January. The government agreed minimum wage for the highest level of domestic worker – a red cross certified disabled or aged minder – is Z$620 per day. A banana costs $1,000. One way transport from a nearby suburb into the city centre is Z$5,000. Things are seriously out of whack.

The Tiri-pa-tight Negotiating Forum may not be able to deliver solutions, but I think the reasons to support the stay away go much deeper than any hope of an instant pay rise or even sudden change of heart by the regime.

Like Trevor Ncube was saying in the Independent this week, “as Zimbabweans who believe in our country, we must begin to plot a way forward that is not dependent on Mugabe, Zanu PF or even the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).”

This stay away is about taking advantage of an initiative that’s been in the works since February, and using it to mobilise and inspire people, and giving confidence in the our ability to work together and get outside of party politics.

People I’ve spoken with in the past few weeks are concerned about the violence Zimbabwe has seen in recent weeks. Many have made comments about not wanting to see Zimbabwe go back to the bush, or back to war. If the options are violence or the status quo, it seems many would rather stick with the status quo.

This is one more reason to support the stay away – it is a change of tactics. It’s one more way to build participation and collective resistance, hopefully non-violently. I’d love to wake up next Tuesday to empty streets and shuttered doors.

Last week I went to a Regional Round table Discussion on Elections and Governance organised by ZESN the Zimbabwe Election Support Network. It was both humbling and inspiring to listen to civil society actors from all over the region share some of their experiences with democracy, governance and elections. They were familiar with issues in Zimbabwe, and empathetic to them. Listening to speakers from Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, I was reminded that Zimbabwe is not the first to face human rights abuses, flawed constitutions, ignored judiciaries, and livelihoods trampled over for the sake of power and personal or party advancement.

One thing that stuck out quite a lot for me was the extent to which the range of speakers repeated the refrain that democracy is a process, and that while elections are important they are only one part of what makes up democracy. Other things like respect for human rights, access to information, economic stability, access to health care and education, gender equality, an environment free of violence and intimidation, electoral laws and legal systems that make free and fair elections possible are also fundamental to democracy.

It was clear that so many people in the room are eager for elections in Zimbabwe to be held in 2008 – and not postponed until 2010 as has been rumoured and debated by some. But March 2008 is just a year away, and I know there is so much work to be done between now and then. A new constitution, a transitional government, international supervision, all of this and more would need to happen if the next elections are to have any chance of truly representing the people’s will, instead of being one more rigged election which legitimises a hollow charade of democracy.

You can read a summary of the ZESN meeting with audio files on the Kubatana site. ZESN has published the recommendations from the meeting as well as some of the papers which were presented (see the list below).