“What happened in Egypt is sending shock waves to all dictators around the world. No weapon but unity of purpose. Worth emulating hey.”

- Vikas Mavhudzi’s post on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Facebook wall. Mavhudzi is facing charges of posting offensive messages (Source: Mail & Guardian)

At a OSISA brown bag discussion on the role of new media in the pro-democracy struggles in southern Africa on Friday, one participant discussed a current tactic in use by organisers in Swaziland.

He explained that they have launched a cultural boycott, along the lines of the one which deterred artists and athletes from travelling to South Africa during apartheid.

As he described it, a number of artists had already agreed to boycott the Bushfire Festival held over the weekend, including Baba Caiphus Semenya. However, he noted that Oliver Mtukudzi was billed to perform at the festival, and activists had been unable to get in touch with him to advise him not to come. He informed the meeting that Semenya had been tasked with appealing to Tuku directly to encourage him to join the boycott. However, he said, he knew Tuku was a democrat, and he had every confidence that he would heed the boycott call. He said a separate event in South Africa was being planned, to support the artists who had honoured the boycott with a different source of performance revenue.

But a statement released on Tuku’s website Friday afternoon shared that some Swazi activists had allegedly “threatened to harm Tuku with unspecified action” if he performed at the Bushfire Festival. On his website, Tuku said:

“Those who are threatening my life actually need healing themselves and I will ensure my music heals their anger and help them think properly. That is the purpose of art. Music must be a remedy in times of strife and artists must be given a chance to fulfill that obligation.”

He explained that he would be performing at Bushfire as planned, and that:

“The threats don’t deter me from doing my job as an artist. I have a responsibility to help heal where there is conflict. I must unite people where politicians are dividing us. It’s the business of politicians to separate people, as usual, and I am not surprised by the threats. All my life my music has promoted love, peace, tolerance and human rights and must be viewed as such. Thinking otherwise would be unfair.”

Radio VOP reported that Tuku performed on the weekend to around 15,000 people.

Whilst musicians may indeed be able to unite societies and create spaces for dialogue instead of conflict, I can understand the value of a cultural boycott. Amongst other things, it denies a government the revenue, and legitimacy, that international events can provide. The success of the South African example has inspired others to take a similar stance – for example in the Israeli / Palestinian conflict.

As Desmond Tutu said:

Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong for Cape Town Opera to perform in Israel.

In fairness to artists, it’s important that calls for a boycott be clear and consistent. In this case, there was some back-and-forth about whether the boycott was still on, which the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) dismissed as an attempt by the Festival organisers to misinform people that the boycott had been lifted.

Certainly, threatening someone’s safety should they come and perform falls more in the category of blackmail than persuasion.

But activist organisations like the Swaziland Solidarity Network insist the boycott is on, and will remain until Swaziland is democratised. For years, Zimbabweans have asked others in the region to support our efforts to democratise. With artists like Caiphus Semenya, Professor, L’Vovo Derrango, and Deep House DJ Black Coffee supporting the Swazi boycott, what will it take for artists like Tuku to follow suit?

A subscriber shared this information with us on current events in Europe:

Please pay some attention to the peaceful revolution that is taking place in Spain, France and elsewhere. 3000 people were teargassed in Paris yesterday outside the Bastille. It’s the first time in years people are waking up and in just 2 weeks the movement has already come up with proposals the politicians will have to listen to. There are meetings in the main squares which we are trying to decentralise into districts. People of all ages though a lot of young people. Small & large assemblies which are slow but give us all an idea of what a real democracy would be about. The international media are trying their best to ignore it. We want worldwide demonstrations & camps against inequality & lack of political representation of citizens worldwide. Date of reference is 15 May, next 15 June and there’s talk of trying to get a worldwide demonstration happening on 15 August.

- Here is a link to Plaza del Sol, Madrid
- Read more about these events here

Is apathy Zimbabwe’s worst enemy?

Tendai Marima’s Mail & Guardian Thought Leader blog makes some very good points. You can read some excerpts here:

Stories of villagers being terrorised by soldiers patrolling the diamond fields of Marange in eastern Zimbabwe are enough to scare off any revolutionaries dreaming of a Chimurenga-style uprising. But it’s not only the very real obstacles of violent repression that could prevent Zimbabweans from fully catching the protest fever currently doing the rounds on the continent and the Middle East. The nation suffers from a grave illness: apathy.

It’s difficult to cite books or social scientists diagnosing this to be the Zimbabwean condition but personal lived experience suggests this is the case. To an extent, academics like Brian Kagoro and Glen Mpani, who have explored the reasons for Zimbabwean passivity and indifference, confirm this. In their respective works, both researchers argue that the post-colonial condition of political apathy has its roots in decades of living under a one-party state. The multiple interlocking burdens of living under an increasingly authoritarian, economically regressive regime have resulted in a population which “normalises the abnormal” as a coping strategy. In other words, it’s become so normal to hear of opposition members being beaten and jailed that it’s hard to be concerned. Indifference makes it easier to be dismissive and say “it doesn’t happen everywhere”. Because of this standard response, its sometimes difficult for the “law-abiding” rich and poor to connect their economic woes to the absurd imprisonment and torture of someone or the shortage of medicines and medical expertise in hospitals.

…

If any lessons are to be learnt from the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions by Zimbabweans, it is that dictators can be overthrown by the people; security and stability be damned. But before any fantasies of popular uprising or ousting Zanu by the ballot can be organised by serious activists and non one-hit wonder online revolutionaries or used as campaign rhetoric by a formidable opposition party (yet to be seen) Zimbabwe needs a zenga zenga revolution, to remix Gaddafi’s words.

A revolution of conscience in every city, every street, every house, every village and every hut. Zenga zenga; every nook and cranny must be cleansed of the viral strains of apathy that allow evil to flourish and culminate in an inability to equate human rights with the right to pursue prosperity and live in a relatively stable country. If Zimbabweans truly want a change in the status quo or “no other but Zanu, but without the violence” as some desire, then it begins with this critical mass realisation. Legitimate desires for stability and prosperity can never justify indifference towards the unjust persecution of another Zimbabwean. Just as the apolitical urban middle and working classes deserve to live in peace, so too do the villagers of Marange. As do praying parishioners. And White Zimbabwean, Zimbabwean Indian and Nigerian traders and business owners harassed in the name of indigenisation. As Zimbabwe continues to discover the highs and lows of 31 years of independence, may the spirits of past liberators bless her with the realisation that indifference to the suffering of others can be cured at the church of born-again humanitarians by St Conscience, the Empathic One.

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Does our president ever stay in his own country? Silly, but well, it has been asked before, and I am asking it again this week.

A few years ago he was panned for trotting the globe, traveling the world and cartoonists had a field day as he was saddled with the unflattering sobriquet that borrowed the name of that well-travelled explorer Vasco da Gama.

Today our president “arrived” from Nigeria where he had gone to witness the swearing in of President Goodluck Jonathan. A few days ago he had “arrived” from Addis Abbaba, “arrived” from Namibia, “arrived” from Uganda, a few days before that “arrived” from…

Of course as “Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief” who wants the best of everything without regard of that starving Makokoba, Madlambuzi, Mhondoro granny you would expect this.

Yet Biti has already complained about the country ill-affording the “pleasure trips” of government officials with the poor taxpayer bearing the costs.

Of course it predictably will be claimed that the Dear President travels on official state business or whatever, but then we all know about other presidents who skip any jaunts and have made less foreign travel one of the defining  matrices of their tenure.

I liked it when Karikoka Kaseke – for the first time perhaps – opened his mouth and spoke sense when he complained recently that it is unfair to expect the impoverished taxpayers who will never in their lifetime board a plane to continue bailing out Air Zimbabwe when it is rich people who travel by air. And by rich, you just have to read “government officials!”

If we are to count the trips “His Excellency” has made since the beginning of 2011, keeping in mind of course the “medical tourism” to Asia, you have to seek Biti’s opinion about the justification of these travels.

Perhaps Biti might as well retort, “why ask me? Ask him!”

But we ask, how much have the taxpayers forked so far as we hit the half-year mark? The Singapore trips alone are already known to cost the taxpayer USD3 million according to press reports. Go figure.

Hopewell Gumbo shared this update on the case of Munyaradzi Gwisai of the International Socialist Organisation (Zimbabwe) and five others who had been charged with treason. In a victory for the accused, the treason charges have been dropped and the bail conditions have been relaxed.

Monday May 30, 2011, at 1030hrs, our application for the relaxation of bail conditions was heard before Justice Kudya. We had sort the return of our passports and the removal of stringent reporting conditions. The judge has concerted to the altering of reporting conditions and has granted us to report once every last Friday of the month a major leap from the three days a week we were yoked to. The state has also indicated that the Treason charge has been dropped and would prefer one of Subverting a Constitutional Government when the trial opens on the 18th of July 2011 in the Harare Regional Magistrate’s court. The judge however did not grant the return of passports and ruled that the court can only do that in the event of the production of credible itinerary for intended travel. This we will abide by and we feel the struggle continues as we go towards trial and seek ultimate freedom. But ultimate freedom will only come when the full trial is completed, but the solidarity and support cdes all over the world have given will continue to drive our will to fight oppression and is key in smashing the equally spurious Subversion of Constitutional Government Charges. Do not tire in fighting for total freedom through the actions you have continued to organize.