Here’s a pertinent piece from the ‘rebel journalist’ Tabani Moyo. Aren’t the MDC ministers having a swell time …

Luxurygate and the MDC’s false sense of ‘arrival’

By Tabani Moyo

The dust of the government’s hollywood lifestyle is refusing to settle down. It cannot settle down especially when the people are living in such a sea of poverty. However, the development has shown beyond reasonable doubt that the MDCs are stuck in an omnibus syndrome to governance. The mimicry politics have taken over the voice of reason as the so called ‘democratic change merchants’ stampede for the gravy train.

I happened to bump into three ministers one from the MDC and two from the MDC-T riding in their new filthy lucre. The windows where lowered, music loud as if to attract attention from the public in the exhibition of a newly acquired status. The status of a polished league of gentlemen/women I guess. I said god forbid. These are not business people who have the leeway to do whatever they want with their profits, but public officials ridding on the poor taxpayers’ hard earned income. What happened to the so called paragons of virtue, those who saw everything wrong about public officials abusing state funds on luxuries? The virtue seems to have sublimated during the ‘opposition’ times, as the train gets more gravy laced, the elements of virtue are crucified on the altar of public suffrage. As we stand no single minister has declined the offer of these fuel guzzlers, their consciences are clean and their declaration of intent manifest that they are still in a struggle for a better Zimbabwe!

Personally, I don’t have a problem with ZANU PF being implicated in this bangle, we as a people know of its heinous deeds. That’s why the people of Zimbabwe risked limb and life in forming and supporting an alternative vehicle to rid the rot in ZANU PF. It becomes confusing when the line between ZANU PF’s actions and those of the MDCs becomes blurred.

20 million on luxuries!

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) is set to increase the utility cost of delivering energy. The public hospitals have collapsed, children this summer shall die of mosquito bites, the industry performing below 30%, women failing access basic sanitary facilities and our education system turning into an elitist platform among other things.

With the above cacophony of problems, we have learnt that ZANU PF and the MDCs can actually unite in ‘looting’ from the poor. The current blame shifts between Minister of Transport, Infrastructure Development and Communication Nicholas Goche and the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti should not be tolerated to continue stealing our intellectual space in the papers.  The decision to purchase the goodies is a collective one from the cabinet which the three parties are represented.

In this process there is no room for afterthought. The three parties could not agree at cabinet level on the need to increase civil servants salaries but unanimously agreed to squeeze harder the drying pockets of the taxpayers.

As I stated before such are the pitfalls of proximity to state power it exposes the cravings which were going to manifest themselves soon after the ‘opposition’ takes total control of state power. We are better off with some of these happenings are unfolding at this juncture of our cultivation as a people. The MDCs only got into office two years ago; they are already leaving the lives of movie stars or the English premier soccer stars.

One can only remind the MDCs of the calamity of approaching this ‘struggle’ with omnibus gloves. It gives the impression of a false sense of ‘arrival’, a false sense of destiny. The ministers believe, their yearnings have been achieved, hence the need to amass as much as they can before sporadic cabinet reshuffles. These state trappings are dangerous for the same people who came up with these platforms or movements can still do the same and push aside primitive ‘accumulativists’ into political dustbins.

Tabani Moyo can be contacted at rebeljournalist [at] yahoo [dot] com

Last week I was part of a very interesting discussion with a few Zimbabwean tertiary students, from universities all over the country, on the issue of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions. The group was a balanced mixture of male and female students, and they were all in agreement about the existence and prevalence of sexual harassment in their different institutions.

They spoke of the large number of students being forced into sexual relationships with authority figures, especially lecturers. These students are often threatened with failure of courses, despite the quality of their work, if these sexual demands are not met. When given a choice between failing a course, which in many cases they have struggled to raise the funds for, and having sex with a lecturer to guarantee that they can continue their studies successfully, many young women, (and indeed a growing number of male students too), end up giving in for the sake of their education. This is not to say that all sexual relationships between students and lecturers are all non-consensual. There are indeed some female students who actively pursue lecturers in order to have relationships with benefits (but this not what we are discussing today).

One of the students made a powerful and startling statement with regard to these ‘sexual exchanges’ between students and lecturers, and introduced me to the idea of negotiated rape.

“There are many rapists now who can give you room to negotiate with them, even to use condoms.”

Negotiating with a rapist? Pretty hard to imagine! I guess maybe because I have never thought of the issue of rape in that way before; never thought that there would even be room or time enough to negotiate for anything in the heat of the moment. To me, the word rape has always dredged up images of brutal beatings; ripping of clothing; use of weapons; women being dragged off into the bushes and left for dead, all by unidentifiable monsters, or of uncles or teachers etc,  taking advantage of young children in private and threatening them to keep it a secret. However, from the way she put her point across, I got the distinct impression that the encounters she was describing were quite “civilized”, a far cry from the way I have always imagined rape.  Both parties appear to get a chance to talk things over beforehand, and there also appears to be quite a bit of flexibility on the part of the ‘rapists’. It fells quite strange to be using the words rape and negotiate in the same phrase, but the more I think about it, the more sense it seems to make. I’m also not sure if other people, or relevant organizations are seeing things in the same way as this young lady, but I hope that they are paying attention and at the very least feel prompted to further investigate the matter. After all what is the real meaning of rape anyway?

Maybe we should begin by exploring the meaning of the word ‘rape’ and the issue of consent. According to Wikipedia rape can be defined as the act of having sexual intercourse with a person without their consent. It can be carried out with the threat or use of physical force, duress (coercion), abuse of authority (e.g. sexual harassment) or with a person that is incapable of giving valid consent (a minor).

So, given this definition of rape, can we say that these lecturers are rapists, or is this sexual harassment? The problems with concluding whether, the incidents in our nation’s universities can be classified as rape, or just sex, lie within the issues of consent and duress, and how the latter usually affects the former. I mean, how does one prove that they have or have not given their consent, in a situation where they have been given no other choice but to consent? It seems to me that the line between rape and sex within this context is becoming even more blurry. Even though the women I speak of are not treated brutally/monstrously as we most times imagine is the case when we think of how rape occurs, are they still not, in essence, being raped?

In some way, I feel that most of us, (male and female), have gotten into a comfort zone about how we now define rape. This has to change! We must update our thinking so that our ideas on how to solve these problems can continue to be current and relevant to the situation on the ground. I’m also not sure if other people, or relevant organizations agree with the concept of negotiated rape, but I hope that you are paying attention, and at the very least, feel prompted to further investigate the matter.

First stunning thing this week. Information that the Zimbabwe government may deport the Libyan Ambassador for flying the rebel flag.

Stunning!

I mean, denial is a wonderful place. I go there often. ‘In denial’ is usually the note that goes with my blank stare and far away look. However, I think this really takes the cake for life with your head up your ass! They are almost as ‘lost in space’ as Gadaffi himself, the man of the HUGE floor mural that people are now pissing on in Tripoli! And who issues radio statements that he is going to fight to the last against the cockroaches, and die in Libya, and … he is nowhere to be found. Even the cockroaches do not know where he is. But he is defiant! From some safe hole where he is doing his Saddam/Gbago impersonation. While he lets others die for him. And it appears he let others kill, (in great numbers) for him too.

Now there is a real man for you!

And the second stunning bit from that same information. The GNU has ‘unified’ and come to a decision to deport someone! This must be a first – a government decision! But I suspect someone gave out the wrong information. Who actually said this? I really do not think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Prime Minister, (the government) made any statement. Some ignorant hack in the President’s office (living in denial, and in the past, with his head up his ass), or some other executive type person (army or police), may have said something, but not ‘the government’.

First off, the government is the majority party in parliament, headed by the Prime Minister. They make the laws of Zimbabwe. And I suspect they made no law about deporting ambassadors. The President is the head of the Executive, the chief civil servant. And the Executive is the body of people that implement, or carry out, the laws of Zimbabwe. They do not make them. They are bound by them, and must do what the Government tells them to do. They must enforce the law. (Or be lawless, undisciplined, warlords.) And they do not make policy. Let alone ‘deport’ other people’s ambassador’s.

Then, more stunning (but ‘slow burn’) information. 100 prominent South Africans sign some letter protesting NATO’s bombing of Libyan killers (tanks, and other mechanisms of ‘civilian’ control). Why? Who are they (and don’t tell me the names, I can find that myself)? They cannot sign any letter 10 years ago to say, “please help the people suffering under this evil murdering dictator most foul”. But now they can sign a letter against the ‘will bomb for oil’ boys. So who are these people who can only see what they want to see? But seem quite incapable of looking around and calling out evil wherever they see it. The can only look around and call out evil when it suits them. So who are they, and why should we listen to them? Seems their ‘values’ are a bit suspect.

And the Africa Union (that organisation founded and consisting of Heads of State and Government) wonders why it has been ‘marginalised’? Well, what did happen to the peer review mechanism? Are you also unable to see and deal with evil? Except when it suits you. Or are you really only a body to represent African heads of State, and have nothing to do with African people.

Dear AU. You are marginalised because you only deal with marginal issues, and even then, at the margins. If you took a stance, had some values, and pursued them, you would not be a marginal (holiday trip) body.

On doublespeak, I hear on the BBC, interviews with foreigners in Libya and Tripoli, wanting to get out. Why? The new power in Libya is killing Africans (or might kill) people who are suspected as being Gadaffi mercenaries. But hang on, Libyans are Africans! After all, Libya is in Africa, and Gadaffi is one of the main founders/movers of the African Union. Oh, does the BBC mean ‘blacks’? It seems quite clear that all blacks are not Africans, and all Africans are not black. So why can we not speak properly?

And Zapiro’s cartoon also had me laughing and smiling for some time. His, “Signs of Libya”. NATO planes over head with banners, ‘Will bomb for oil concessions’. His Zuma character on the street corner with the sign, ‘No coherent foreign policy, Please help’, and the wall poster behind him ‘lost, road map’ and to contact the AU.

And now, big (but not really) scandal on Shell Oil spills in the Niger delta. Over the past 20 years, or more. Compare this to the small spill, over months, in the Gulf of Mexico. I have no desire to go back to my earlier blog on the USA, their gross oil over consumption, and how their backyard contrasts with our backyard. And the one response I got, “fuck you”. But I would like to ask, “was I right?”, or “was I right?”. The ‘will bomb for oil boys’ are, without doubt, a bad bunch. But where does the buck stop? At producers, or consumers? They will bomb for oil, and poison whole nations of people, but not in their back yard.

Rather than arguing about what social media can’t do, focus on what it can, urges Aaron Bady writing for MIT’s Technology Review this week. He looks at the role of tools like Twitter and Facebook in the Egyptian revolution, and without giving credit to them for “starting” the revolution, or even “causing” the revolution, he makes a thoughtful, reasoned argument for appreciating what they can do. He counters arguments from the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, that social media organising revolves around ‘weak ties,’ by suggesting that sometimes weak ties are exactly what you need to keep people working together – and not getting bogged down in disagreements over the detail.

Read more here – It’s worth it.

We held a discussion group this morning with a vibrant and energetic group of students from several tertiary institutions across the country including the University of Zimbabwe, Harare Polytechnic, Africa University and Harare Institute of Technology. In some respects things haven’t changed much since I was a student; they worry about the same things I did then. But while getting a degree and wondering if it will be good enough to guarantee a (high-paying) job is an obvious and universal concern, I think our tertiary institutions are letting their students down by not addressing the social issues that affect them.

Sexual harassment of women students by men in general seems to be one of the biggest problems. In the period when the UZs halls of residence were closed, numerous students had to find alternative accommodation close to the university. One student reported cases of women students staying with gardeners in Mount Pleasant. In addition to paying rent, the women students would also have to give them sexual favours.

Women students are also exploited by their lecturers, and what concerns me most is that the students themselves were unable to even imagine a possible solution for addressing this. The newer institutions like Africa University seem to have the correct structures in place for reporting and investigation, while the older ones like Harare Polytechnic and the University of Zimbabwe simply discourage it by not having or not informing students of the channels in place for bringing up this issue with administrative or faculty staff. Alarmingly, all our women participants reported a lack of faith in any attempt to seek redress by reporting to school authorities. In one story a student reported harassment to a departmental head, who was a woman, but nothing was done to help the distressed student or investigate her claims.

When asked to estimate how many women students got their degrees because they had sexual relationships with lecturers, the average was 80%. The general consensus was that while this relationship was not desired at all by the student, it was in the student’s best interests to endure and make the best of it. One woman student who attends the University of Zimbabwe said: ‘We know that as girls we just have to accept some of these things. If she reports him [for harassment] he will fail her and stop her from getting her degree by talking to all his friends in the faculty.’

Zimbabwe boasts thirty-one government funded universities and colleges whose purpose is to be bastions of knowledge and enlightenment. Instead they have become a playground for the sexual exploitation of women, where every man with so much as a modicum of power seeks to manipulate his way in to gaining sexual favours. Equally culpable are lecturers, department heads and faculty staff; men and women who are aware of this situation but for whatever reason choose to do nothing. It is not enough to protect your own daughter, every woman is someone’s daughter, and every woman has the right to gain an education without harassment. Shame on you!

Let’s hear it for Ocean Marambanyika. Writing for The Standard Ocean suggests that well-managed diamonds can make a difference – to the lives of the citizens of Zimbabwe. It really is time for Zimbabweans to reject nontransparent and unaccountable political leadership.

Well-managed diamonds can make a difference

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/

Sunday, 21 August 2011 14:36

The discovery of the Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe should be a milestone in the history of the nation. The discovery should NOT be a catastrophe.

Various media reports point out that the Marange diamonds might be roughly
20% of all global diamond deposits. If this is true, then it is a God-given chance to turn around the fortunes of the country, especially considering that the global economic crisis favours minerals such as gold and diamonds.

The Earth Times reported that, “The hugely prolific Chiadzwa fields are regarded as the world’s biggest diamond find in more than a century”. The New York Times quoted a United Nations-related expert Mark Van Bockstael as saying: “This (Marange) is a world-class deposit, no doubt about it.” He added, “The deposit is a freak of nature.”

If this is true, then imagine how wonderful it would be if the diamonds were properly managed and put to good and transparent use. Maybe Zimbabweans can learn from how other nations managed their precious resource finds. There are many examples that we could learn from. We could take for instance the discovery of oil in Norway and how the Norwegian government managed its oil resources.

Oil has netted in billions of dollars for Norway and as the United Nation index says, Norway is rated as the country with the best living standards in the world. This is mainly due to its oil and gas revenues.

Zimbabwe does not need to waste time thinking about how to manage the diamonds and the gold for the benefit of its citizenry.  It can simply learn from examples such as Norway. The lesson is that Zimbabwe should have ownership of its strategic resources. By Zimbabwean ownership, it is meant a transparent, democratic system accepted by and accountable to the citizens of the country through constitutionally recognisable provisions.  Below are some quotes on how the oil structure works and benefits Norway.

In 2009, Norway’s petroleum sector accounted for 21% of value creation in the country. This is three times the value creation of the manufacturing industry and around 22 times the total value creation of the primary industries.

By revenue, Norway’s oil utility Statoil was last year ranked by Fortune Magazine as the world’s 13th largest oil and gas company, and the largest company in the Nordic region by reveue, profit, and market capitalisation.

From oil history and oil management in Norway, people can learn that significant resources like diamonds and gold must be state-owned in partnership with private investors who have the expertise. Success depends on transparency and accountability and the ability of the majority of the citizens to accept the laws governing the natural resource industry. It is critical that laws governing significant natural resources like oil, gold and diamonds are seen as moral and beneficial by the majority of a country’s citizens.

It is rare for citizens to reject government control of a country’s natural resources as long as the citizens feel that they are benefitting through infrastructural developments, improved standards of living, better salaries, better education, health and liberty, among other things. Foreign control of significant and strategic assets like oil, gold and diamonds will rarely develop a nation. Local ownership is a preferred model only when it benefits all its citizens and not a select few. All hopes are that Zimbabwe will strive to exploit the diamonds to uplift the standards of people’s lives in rural areas as well as urban areas.

About the Author Ocean Marambanyika writes from the University of Oslo, Norway.