Kubatana.net ~ an online community of Zimbabwean activists

Bread, milk and toilet paper

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I’ve just been into my bank and the conversation went something like this

“Are you online?”
- yes

“Do you have cash?”
- no

“Is the ATM working?”
- no

As Comrade Fatso reminds us in his blog below, our streets are now our supermarkets, and our banks are dealers on corners.

Torn posters of presidential candidates on durawalls. At every intersection. At every street corner. It feels like something from the past, from another era. But this is the era we are in now. Still hanging on the sun-soaked slogans of these ripped-apart politicians. The fist and the fury is our daily bread, our breakfast. As we sit at the robots, the traffic lights. Still. Not moving.

As they decided to invade farms and arrest election officials this past that we are living in just became a worse future. The parallel realities we live in have become the only reality now. The other one is paralysed. So bread is now hustled on street corners for two US dollars. Like an illegal drug. Milk has also joined the list of ‘goods’ that are sold in our parallel economy. Not in the shops but on the streets. And if you’re looking for toliet paper then just drive to the nearest ‘Give Way’ sign, a Zimbabwean ‘Stop’ sign.

In our country survival was criminalised a long time ago. We don’t know what is upside-down or downside-up. Normal means no electricity and a drop of water from the tap. Yet our rulers fill the news with talk of the need for a re-count before Zimbabweans know the-count. Filling the news like cramming empty shop shelves with toilet paper. A disgusting illusion. A lie.

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