In our weekly Kubatana email newsletter we asked our subscribers to tell us what they think of our politicians going on fund raising trips when revenues from our natural resources are corruptly (mis) managed.

We received some interesting response. A subscriber called Miles suggests that we need a complete overhaul of how we do things in Zimbabwe rather than adopting this piecemeal approach we have to fixing our broken country.

Check out some of the response we got . . .

Yes of course our first step should be getting our own house in order first, but that would require brave actions from a lot of Zimbabweans and I’m afraid the will amongst the masses just isn’t there. I worked in the 2002 elections as a security man for Harare Central Constituency. I had flown out from the UK and volunteered to do a job which no one else wanted.There were a lot more Zimbabweans who just put their heads under the covers and hoped the whole awful situation would just disappear, there are, percentage wise, very few people like Jenni Williams and members of WOZA who are prepared to demonstrate with a physical prescence, rather than the masses who just blog sites like the  Zim Times and moan incessantly “why isn’t anyone doing anything”. Mugabe and his gang, which now should probably include many opposition members as well, should be overthrown by the people as soon as possible. Everyday we put off the inevitable showdown is a day which we give to the Chefs to hide their assets and benefit from Marange. Zimbabwe requires a new Leader; a man whose sole remit is to place the needs of the people before anything else. A person who will lead by example. The ZNA needs to be re-entitled the Zimbabwean Army of Reconstruction and all weapons to be replaced by tools to help rebuild the infrastructure. All members of the Youth League to attend re-integration classes and proper counselling before being allowed back into the community. All Foreign Bank Accounts of all citizens to be repatriated to Zimbabwe and a thorough audit of their origins to be determined. A Truth and Reparation Council to be established. Zimbabwe will never take a step forward until reparations are made to those who have suffered by the perpetrators of that suffering. It is shameful that people like the Mujuru family sell ten tons of Congolese gold whilst their bretheren starve. The times of Mammon must cease, Greed cannot continue and Violence cannot prevail. The time for a Massive General Strike must be now .The people must take to the streets and say “Enough and no further. Chinja Maitiro”. But are you brave enough Zimbabwe? Are you brave enough? Somehow I don’t think so and if that is the case you deserve all you get! – Miles

I found the HRW report incisive and your comment important in terms of grounding the discussion in our reality at home and in engaging the rest of the world. I think we should start moving beyond abusing our resources through such privatization of public funds as is shown in the diamonds case. This is a strategy that unaccountable regimes get donor funds and parade it as conditional and meager to address our challenges while robbing the family kitty behind barricaded walls. We need more information on other sectors so that we can strengthen domestic demand for change financed slowly, transparently and incrementally towards a democratically defined and shared future. – Kudzai

Do you think there are any diamonds left in Marange. I doubt very much. What about gold fields? Do we have any left? How about recovering money already looted by this mining? It does not cost anything only political will. Lets all work together to make this country better for future generations. Remember we  (SIT  UNDER A SHADE TODAY BECAUSE SOMEONE PLANTED A TREE MANY YEARS AGO) so lets stop the rot and all will be fine. All it needs is political will. – Wellington

I’m feeling rather ragged this morning after a night of tossing and turning.

I guess reading The Economist’s Book of Obituaries at 10pm didn’t help, but nor did the 4 gunshots at 11:23 or a suspected attack from a tick or other associated pet vermin between the sheets at 12:01. After shining my mobile phone torch between my legs and other interesting places and getting the all clear on the vermin front my mind settled back on Zimbabwe. I started thinking of Tom Soper, a young man recently severely injured in a car accident. It seems like, at this stage, he’s paralysed from the neck down. He’s 37, a husband and father of two. I don’t know the full circumstances of the accident but what I do know is that the traffic lights at the intersection where the collison occured had not been working for some months. Of course working traffic lights don’t mean no accidents but they certainly help make our roads safer. Over the last several years we’ve experienced a devastating failure of infrastructure and service provision and delivery in Zimbabwe. Non-working and malfunctioning traffic lights might seem a low priority on our long list of Things To Get Working Again but when you give a moments thought to Tom Soper and the many other people who have been injured or killed on our roads, traffic lights become a much more serious issue.

I get more than uptight when I think of Zimbabwean MPs demanding US$30 000 car loans when in the majority of cases a US$10 000 car would do the trick except perhaps for Mr MP in Binga. Because in order for us to get things working again in Zimbabwe we all need to be watching our behaviour, monitoring our greed, and instilling fiscal responsiblity in our lives – MPs included. How about some of the money for these oversized car loans going to getting our roads safer?

And of course those of us living in Harare realise that there is ONE traffic light that absolutely never malfunctions. It’s the one on the corner of 7th Street and Tongogara Avenue. I mean what would the guards at State House do if that particular intersection became congested and mayhem ensued like at numerous other spots in the capital city – they wouldn’t know which way to point their bayonets.

Momentum in the Constitution Making Process in Zimbabwe is building up. Last week, the Ministry of Women Affairs Gender and Community Development organised a Women’s Consultative Conference which was attended by women from various professional disciplines. The Conference sought to de-mystify the Constitutional Making Process and raise awareness on the steps the process will follow.

I found Honourable D. Mwonzora’s presentation during the Conference very useful to me. It answered a lot of questions I had about the Constitution Making Process. He explained how the process was going to flow right up to the time a referendum is tabled. Of significance is the Select Committee’s (comprises Members of parliament from ZANU PF and the two MDC formations) efforts to ensure a people driven process through Provincial Consultative Meetings through out the country. While the Provincial Consultative Meetings are a noble idea in ensuring that the process is people driven, the general public are not aware of the importance of participation and therefore may not involve themselves. Women are part of this group of people that I fear may be left out in the engagement of stakeholders in different provinces of the country. The Provincial Consultative Meetings are scheduled for 24 – 27 June 2009 and that leaves little time for awareness raising and for women in particular to organise themselves and select their representatives.

One other aspect that may not be clear to many people is the fact that contrary to what has been reported in the media, people of Zimbabwe are going to make a new constitution thus the importance of involving as many Zimbabweans as possible. People are not going to revise a draft that has been worked on by representatives from the political parties. It may be a challenge however, to get people to participate both in rural and urban Zimbabwe as most are worried about bread and butter issues whose effect is directly evident in their lives.

I am particularly interested in women’s participation as this is an opportunity for us to ensure that our social and economic rights are guaranteed in the new Constitution. For us to see change, we need to raise awareness among our female counterparts so that they understand the importance of a constitution and how it affects their lives. This period is indeed an opportunity for Zimbabweans, constitutions unlike leaders are not changed every once in a while.

Hello Zimbabwe!

Soon Kubatana will be launching an audio magazine available over mobile phones and landlines. You add – we multiply! We’d like you to join the conversation and get talking and share your views on various topics. When we launch our audio magazine we’d like to launch it with You . . . members of our very broad and diverse network. So, how about leaving us your opinion on one of the following issues:

Africans are the most subservient people on earth when faced with force, intimidation, power.
Africa, all said and done, is a place where we grovel before leaders.
- Kenyan corruption buster, John Githongo

Facebook / Sexbook
Some people use Facebook to meet sexual partners. In the age of HIV, is this a smart or reckless way of using the Internet?

National healing begins, the newspaper headlines read. But politically motivated arrests and assaults are still happening. What should Zimbabwe’s reconciliation process look like – and are we ready for it?

Be heard: get your digits dialing . . . call +263 913 444 321-4 and give us your point of view. If you leave us a compelling message we might share it with the rest of Zimbabwe so please tell us your name and where you’re from.

The lines close at 4pm Friday 26th June.

I’ve been watching the unfolding events in Iran with quite some envy. The protests following what is regarded as a stolen election are impressive, more so because they’re taking place in Iran which is consistently described as repressive. Footage being shown on major news channels show what riot police are like the world over – vicious and uncompromising. Yet, 6 days on, protesters are still going out onto the streets making their displeasure known and felt, and forcing the Iranian authorities to display their repression in all its ugliness. Really, we Zimbabweans have no excuse for our apathy and our victim mentality. The lament that we’d be shot or beaten if we protested over our (many) stolen elections has become a pitying whine. People have been and are protesting repression all over the world yet we cower in our littler corner of the world. If we’d behaved differently; if we had taken the courage that sustains us in our homes whilst we “make a plan” quietly suffering the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe, and used that courage to spill out onto the streets in the vast numbers that despise the small dictator then we’d be experiencing something quite different from this odious, half baked political arrangement that we currently have. As John Githongo, the Kenyan corruption buster recently said . . .

Africans are the most subservient people on earth when faced with force, intimidation, power. Africa, all said and done, is a place where we grovel before leaders.

Recently I was at a function in London when, upon introducing myself as a Zimbabwean, someone ventured to ask me a question I have become very much accustomed to now, ‘so, what has changed with this new government?’ In response I explained that as far as I was concerned, there had been no fundamental change in political direction and that the levers of power remain firmly in the hands of those who wielded power in 1980 and as such, we are not really in a new political dispensation as yet. The person who asked the question was clearly unimpressed, he pointed out that in fact he had information that ‘a lot of positive changes’ had taken place in Zimbabwe and cited the so-called miracle reduction of inflation from 231 million percent to just 1.1 percent as an example some of the positive changes that are not being highlighted. He then noted that Zimbabweans in the Diaspora and international media have a tendency of reporting only negative news on Zimbabwe because, he quipped, ‘good news does not sell.’ It appears this is a generally held view among some international observers which I wish to address in greater detail here.

Well, I do not see how my grandmother in Bikita would take comfort in the miraculous reduction in inflation because she still does not have access to foreign currency. The switch-over to use of foreign currency which cured inflation in one stroke may be significant to political elites but certainly makes little difference to ordinary men and women in Zimbabwe who continue to suffer. It is like focusing on improving working conditions for those who are employed when 94 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed!

Personally, and I am confident many other Zimbabweans share this view, I desperately desire to hold great hope and optimism that Zimbabwe’s future is bright and that political change has come. I want to be able to proudly tell the world that Zimbabwe is open and ready for business. I want to tell anyone who cares to listen that my country is a beacon of democracy and persuade investors to rush to Zimbabwe and do business with my countrymen. It is my wish that l should tell the world that violence, human rights abuses, police brutality and repression belong to the past. Unfortunately, sadly, that would be untrue; I would be telling blatant lies if I were to lay claim to such things. Creating false hope and false images of change does not bring the desired change to Zimbabwe.

It appears to be that the desire to be ‘positive’ about Zimbabwe and project a positive image of Zimbabwe may have led some of our erstwhile colleagues who now occupy high political offices to massage the truth and polish the rough edges of reality in their presentation of the situation in Zimbabwe. All of a sudden, themselves victims a compromised and corrupt court system, because they are now part of government, they believe there is rule of law and that their colleagues who face various politically motivated charges must face trial by ‘impartial courts.’ One minister from the smaller MDC faction, when asked why farm violent farm invasions were continuing unabated responded, ‘government is broke, we do not have financial resources to deploy police to stop the invasions.’ Was this not precisely the same political excuse given by the police in 2000 when farm invasions began?

Clearly, but for reasons as yet unclear to me, many former advocates of rule of law and democracy who are now in government have become shameless liars quite ready and comfortable to sing from the same hymn book with those who once persecuted them.

Being frank and truthful about the minute changes that have taken place in Zimbabwe does not make one a pessimist. My great hope and optimism for Zimbabwe lies in the hope that there are many who will realize that the struggle for democracy and good governance does not end when one gets a seat at the high table; that is precisely when the struggle begins. Only the truth will set our leaders free, and, in the same vein, set us all free.