On Tuesday morning, June 1st, the police blocked public entry to Doon Estate in Msasa because a Chinese Delegation was visiting the sculpture garden housed in the same venue. People trying to get to the restaurant, as well as the coffee and curio shops were turned away and told to come back at 3pm.

This illustrates the kind of abuse of power and position that we have come to experience in Zimbabwe. The authorities showed a total lack of awareness, appreciation and respect for the business owners in this complex who consistently service the few tourists that still come to Zimbabwe, rather than infrequent “VIP” delegations.

The shop owners and business people in this complex already have to contend with power and water cuts – they shouldn’t have to add spontaneous closures on account of delegations to their list of challenges.

Email the Chinese Embassy in Harare (chinaemb-zw@mfa.gov.cn) and ask for their comments on this incident.

A while ago I was invited to go on a trip to Victoria Falls. A friend’s mother was visiting and the Falls is a Must See. So we booked a visit for Saturday through to Monday afternoon. We got to the airport in good time for the midday flight on Saturday and as soon as we sat down in the departure lounge an Air Zimbabwe representative sought us out to tell us that they had cancelled the return flight on Monday, so would we like to come back on Tuesday? Well, we have jobs, so Tuesday was pushing it a bit and we settled on Sunday afternoon, cutting an already short trip, even shorter.

The departure time of noon came and went. The plane was sitting on the tarmac outside the terminus in all its sooty glory, and much activity was happening onboard, but 1pm rolled around and we were still twiddling our thumbs waiting to go. At no point did an Air Zimbabwe representative tell us what was going on and why the flight was so delayed. Eventually, as our trip got even shorter we decided to re-book for the following weekend.

The majority of people waiting to board the flight were tourists presumably like us with activities planned in Vic Falls, which were being ballsed up by Air Zimbabwe.

Yesterday, my in-laws were booked on the 9am Air Zimbabwe flight to Gatwick. They got up at 5:30am to get to the airport for 6:30am. The plane finally left at midday because of technical difficulties.  Imagine the fatigue of these 80 year olds, and the missed connections and the buggared up pick-ups.

Sure, technical difficulties do occur but the majority of people flying Air Zimbabwe complain of delays.

The Zimbabwean authorities bemoan the lack of tourists visiting this country; and lately they’ve been cajoling 2010 football supporters to come sample Zimbabwe’s delightful tourist destinations, like Vic Falls. But the stark reality is that service organisations like Air Zimbabwe are not professional and deserve a major kick up the arse.

Often in Zimbabwe, its difficult to separate fact from fiction; this place can be one big rumour mill. However a woman I work with had a horrible experience last night. Because of the lack of rule of law together with a very unprofessional police force, we’re all left shaking our heads as to What To Do. We thought about getting hold of the MDC seeing as they have Mutsekwa as co-minister in Home Affairs but we’re pretty cynical about whether he’ll actually do anything (just look at the circus called the Beitbridge Border post). Still, we’ll give it a bash.

So, here’s a first hand account of her treatment at the hands of the Zimbabwe Republic Police:

I had a nasty incident with the cops last night, when I was driving home from dinner on my own.  10 officers pulled me over, just outside Borrowdale School, and 2 of them threatened me with a gun, saying I hadn’t listened to the order to pull over, despite the fact that I stopped a few meters away from where they flagged me down.  They said that they were going to take me to jail, and that I had a weapon (which was actually the car fire estinguisher).  I managed to remain cool, calm and very polite throughout; and they finally let me go after about 30 minutes of aggressive intimidation and harassment from their side.  I hear that similar incidents have happened to others recently; and recommend not to go that route on your own at night.

Here’s a really interesting article from Radio France Internationale on the subject of burqas:

Burqa fashion show by Majida Khattari

By Zeenat Hansrod

Morrocan artist Majida Khattari has been working for some time on the theme of the veil worn by some Muslim women. Khattari uses her artistic perspective to take a refreshing, provocative look at why this piece of cloth fuels so much passion in this country.

Majida Khattari doesn’t look like a feminist who’ll readily burn her bra. Born and raised in Morocco, but currently living in France, she is petite, with large, deep, black eyes and soft-spoken. And she loves to laugh. She, Majida, defies stereotypes. So does her work.

Her work is interesting not only because it is sometimes a political statement but also accomplished by a consummate artist, liberated from the history of art and free to play with it.

The Martine and Thibault de la Châtre art gallery  is showing a selection of her photographs and an installation called The Houris until 19 June.

One of the photographs at the gallery revolves around the issue of the burqa. On 19 May, a bill calling for a ban of the burka in public places will be reviewed by the French Council of Ministers. The burka has been at the centre of much-heated debate here in France.

The burka refers to the veil worn from head to toe by some Muslim women and which completely hides their body.

As an artist, Khattari wonders about the world around her and wants to make people think through an artistic process. “Art is provocation. And we need provocation to move forward. I’m trying to highlight the ambiguity and the complexity of the situation,” she says.

Her capacity to lay bare ambiguity is one of the reason gallery owner Thibault de la Châtre is currently showing Khattari’s work. He also values her ability to fuse her own Moroccan cultural heritage with a thorough knowledge of Western art.

That’s apparent in the collection of photographs inspired by the Orientalists. De la Châtre insists that Khattari was not selected because of the prevailing acrimonious socio-political context in France around the burqa. One of the photographs at the gallery, Partage (Sharing), shows two women facing each other, one naked and one veiled.

For de la Châtre, Partage is not provocative: “In art you can do everything. Picasso used to make the head on the bottom and the bottom on the head. Everybody was shocked to see the human body destroyed like that. But he showed what was going to happen. [And as for Khattari], she sees what is going to happen tomorrow. So, you know naked people and veiled people are going to live together, they must, they have no choice.”

Khattari’s most impressive work on the theme of the veil was a fashion show last April at the Cité Internationale couched as performance art. She says it is her fourth and most radical show. Heavily veiled women and men walked down the catwalk while nude white women wearing large turbans and high heels walked up on the opposite side. This meant that the two models faced each other at one point.

The pace was slow, the nude models all looked alike, and the all-body veils were like sculptures, each one different from the other. One model would discard the layers of veils as if peeling off its skin, while another veiled model moved in an erratic pace, struggling to get out of the garment.

“These are extreme situations. I voluntarily worked on those two extreme images to extract the issue of the burqa and that of captivity outside the religious realm,” says Khattari. “Because women are not subdued because of religion only. We also have to comply and conform to aesthetic norms to look young and beautiful, always,” she added.

Art critic Pascale Le Thorel has followed the work of  Khattari for the last 10 years. She says the originality of Khattari’s work around the veil resides in her ability to link performance art and body art.

“It’s important to say that Majida is the first one to approach this issue. She has really broadened the issue within the context of the study of the body itself, on nudity, obviously on women but not only as she’s used men in her shows. She’s very much part of this ongoing discourse which goes on between one artist to another, which is a very good definition of what history of art is itself,” says Le Thorel.

Khattari doesn’t understand why, in France, laws must be passed to decide how people should be dressed. “It’s absurd to create laws to tell us that veils need to be banned in public places. After all, we are in France because it protects our freedom.”

“It’s as if you’re saying that women not capable of making their own decisions and you’ll decide for them. Or that they must have chosen to wear the veil because they are completely dominated, that there could be no other reason for such a choice. I’m sorry, there are many women who wear the veil out of their own free will,” says Khattari.

One would imagine, now that fatwas are so readily thrown at artists, that Khattari may have been threatened by radical groups. But that’s not the case. The only objection came a few years ago from a French women’s rights group, Ni putes ni soumises, who thought she had an agenda.

As far as Khattari is concerned, all the commotion around the burka goes beyond that piece of cloth. It’s far more complex and she successfully brings the audience to look at her interpretation.

According to Arkmore Kori, a Kubatana subscriber, our Constitution making awareness programme is focusing on unimportant issues. He suggests that issues such as homosexuality and gender are clouding more major concerns relating to governance and leadership. Here’s his article:

Zimbabwe is being administered by an undemocratically elected government largely because of some constitutional challenges that have made elections worthless. Of course, we already know the election ‘winner’ if elections are held under the present constitution. Thus the current constitutional making process was mainly conceived to allow for free and fair elections so Zimbabweans would be governed by leaders of their choice.

Despite a lot of resources being channelled towards new constitution making, it is unfortunate that two relatively trivial issues – homosexuality and gender – which can’t retrieve us from our leadership and governance crisis, have dominated the constitutional awareness campaigns.

Although most claim homosexuality is alien to Africa, there is evidence it was practiced in Buganda (now Uganda) in the 19th century particularly by Kabaka Mwanga who assumed kingship (or Kabakaship) at the age of eighteen in 1884. This is no justification for legalising homosexuality in the new constitution because who should care what people do behind closed doors? By and large, homosexuality is a bedroom issue, which does not influence the leadership and governance in this country.

Similar concerns can also be raised on gender, which is repossessing the fame it had soon after its invention, although gender sensitive legislation such as the Domestic Violence Act have been passed. Perhaps gender activists are justified to complain about gender legislative implementation and of course, more and more women opportunities, regardless of competence. But constitutional advocacy for women’s rights have been used to shroud discussions on the main issues as if the new constitution is largely intended to address gender imbalances.

Among others, the current constitution gives the Executive too much power. This has stifled democracy, good governance and the rule of law. The President’s power to appoint the Attorney General and the Chief Justice, for example, has compromised the judiciary’s independence and consequently, election processes and outcomes.

The release of the March 2008 election results, for instance, were unlawfully and deliberately delayed. Court appeals by the opposition were ignored.  Political activists have been incarcerated and arbitrarily arrested whilst some have been tortured or murdered by known people who have never been prosecuted because the judiciary has not yet been given the instruction by its proprietor.

Similarly, one would expect discussions on the Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA) to top the constitutional discussion agenda ahead of gender or homosexuality. The electronic media has been a monopoly of the ruling party, and has enabled it to spread its election propaganda at the expense of other political parties. Its polarization and the extent to which its owners dislike a new constitution have been shown by the absence of constitutional awareness information on both radio and television. If ‘station identification songs’ were composed for Fast Track Land Reform Programme and bearer cheques awareness raising, why can’t the same be done for the new constitution?

This prejudice is augmented by the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), which has seen major election meetings of the opposition being indefinitely postponed or called off. Historically, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been fearless to take up such ‘sensitive’ issues. Unfortunately they are receiving binding instructions from the state controlled community entry points. Permission into communities for constitutional discussions is given on condition NGOs and communities do not talk about anything concerning the Executive’s dictatorial powers, President’s term of office; the Kariba Draft, AIPPA, and POSA. Possibly, this is why some have turned to ‘soft’ issues such as gender and homosexuality.

In Zimbabwe because of the lack of US and Rand coins shoppers are offered their change from purchases made in a variety of forms. These include bubble gum, suckers, packets of 3 minute noodles, dodgey looking chocolates from other failed states and bananas. Last night a friend told me that she recently got her change in headache tablets – Paracetemol I think she said. Maybe we should lobby for headache tablets all round as change because of what we have to put up with in Zimbabwe. A good example is Morgan Tsvangirai’s latest idiotic statement. He reckons that Zimbabwe is no longer at risk to investors and that the political crisis that destroyed the economy no longer exists. I wonder what he makes of the latest bid on the part of the Government of Zimbabwe to take over businesses, or the massive failure in our health and education systems or the continued farm invasions and the ongoing decimation of our agricultural sector? Never mind the ongoing political violence and disrespect for the rule of law. MT clearly needs a wake up pill or two. But then again both he and Mugabe are desperate for money from international sources to make right the wrongs of the last decade, so they’ll say anything. And meanwhile, who gets to keep the money made from diamonds and Zimbabwe’s other natural resources? Zvakwana!