Mind blast; what artists want in the new constitution was the title of a recent Book Café forum that was calling artists to come and air their views and contribute to the industry that has so much potential in our country. But there were no artists to be found much to my disappointment. The artists that were there did not even fill my hand, they were just a spot of them in the venue that so fills with artists when there are events like the Sisters Open Mic and Bocapa just to name a few.

I really must repeat that I was disappointed. The place should have been buzzing with artists; we should have failed to fit in that space but eeish. One other thing I noticed is how late the discussion started, almost an hour late. In my mind I was thinking that if the Arts Industry is to be taken seriously then we must start being professional. The reason why people do not understand us artists is that we have stepped up to the plate that labels us as shady and doing it because we enjoy it and not because it’s a profession.

One speaker said that artists take it for granted that the society knows that art is a true expression of our culture. How are we going to change people’s minds when we don’t want to change our own? I tell you if artists had come to that discussion many could have left with a different mentality and start to place real value on what they do and whom they are.

One speaker described artists as practical people and I agree with him one hundred percent but that’s not how it looked at the meeting. A lot of artists were not practical enough to come to a forum that sought to find out from them what they want so that it is worth their while to be in the arts sector.

Enough of the disappointments though. I left early so I guess I too acted like a typical artist leaving before I would at least hear what other artists want from the constitution. One thing that one of the speakers talked about was that artists want all the rights, liberties on expressing their religion, views, tradition, identity and aspirations. I think many artists should have been there to applaud and nod their heads and say indeed that’s it, that’s what we want.

Only serious democrats must have celebrated the parliamentary boycott by more than half of MDC-T legislators on Tuesday 2 March 2010, against their leader’s call for the lifting of sanctions. For one, this incident is pregnant with meaning for our fumbling democracy and besides, the honourable members have a right to react in the manner they see fit.

This understanding could have been marred by the ZBC News reporter who had gone there to cover the story, but decided to give the nation his opinions instead, about the members of parliament involved in the fray. The language used against the legislators was harsh and to the effect that they were useless and did not deserve to be members of parliament.

It is clear this incident has ruffled a lot of feathers. Very few people will realize that it might not have been Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s wish to call for the lifting of sanctions, at least not for now. Even his speech suggests that it is a case of somebody holding a gun onto his head.

Certainly everything proves the matter is not top priority on MDC-T’s agenda. Nobody knows for sure that much has been done in breaking down the old order. There is still a lot of intimidation, and suspicion. What ZANU PF will have to realize though, is that while MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai has played his role, even against such stern rebuke from his subordinates in the Global Political Agreement, it is the ZANU PF party now that will have to do most of the enormous work by providing sufficient, authentic evidence that all the suspicions are false and reports of acts of a criminal nature are without a basis, with guarantees that indeed there is no return to the party’s known terrorist ways.

And above all ZANU PF will have to convince their counterparts in government that they are doing something that deserves MDC-T support in calling for the urgent lifting of sanctions. It is ZANU PF that will have to mollify the aggrieved scores of MDC-T legislators whose memories are still fresh and thus are not ready to see things the ZANU PF way.

And to the honourable members of parliament who were brave enough to walk-out, you have made democracy work for the country. It is important to emphasize the vital point that there are thousands of Zimbabweans out there, who do not feel, like you do, that ZANU PF is tame enough to allow for the removal of the sanctions and for the holding of a free and fair democratic election. A lot more has to be done in stemming the levels of human rights abuse,  still prevalent in our society including giving Zimbabweans a truly democratic environment.

What we need not lose sight of is the fact that those whom we are calling upon to remove the so called sanctions were given compelling, graphic evidence that was used in the crafting of the legislation that put in place the said embargo.

The Government of National Unity will have to come up with an equally compelling dossier of facts that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Zimbabweans are actively involved in the full implementation of the terms of the Global Political Agreement without a fear or favour.

But still, the situation has put a lot of pressure on ZANU PF, to prove to the international community that the party will never sink to the same stinking levels that it sank to in the years leading to the 2008 harmonized elections. ZANU PF will have to undergo a serious public sanitization exercise to rid itself of the stink that has associated with its image, if it is serious about courting the support of the electorate in the next election. For who, in his right frame of mind, would vote for a party that beats up its citizens, maims them, or even kills them for harboring views different to its own.

Unfortunately ZANU PF is not capable of change. The party and its leadership will not apologize to Zimbabweans for what it has put them through since it assumed power at independence, in 1980. It will not apologize to the people of Matebeleland and indeed the entire country for the horrors of the Gukurahundi genocide, not even for the untold human suffering caused by the destruction of people’s homes in the crazy state sponsored Murambatsvina program, or that of the economy or even the orgy of violence millions of Zimbabweans were subjected to in the run up to the 2008 disputed election.

Zimbabweans do not know that these people are sorry, or that they wont let these things happen again. A lot of people are still reportedly being harassed for making public their opinions. Public space is still being used exclusively for ZANU PF propaganda. Corruption and the politics of patronage is still the order of the day. The public is not convinced it is the sanctions that are solely to blame or that we should be crying about. ZANU PF will have to account for the collective administrative incompetence that led to the collapse of the once jewel of Southern Africa. And the party’s elite will have to explain their apparent affluence against the state’s bankruptcy. Somebody must be guilty!

No, we do not know that the Government of National Unity has done enough, in implementing the terms of the Global Political Agreement. As such, we cannot all be seen to be calling for the removal of targeted sanctions whose real impact on the masses remains public speculation.

To celebrate his 50th birthday this year, Rejoice Ngwenya has launched the 2010% campaign. Read and listen to some of Rejoice’s ideas here. Below, he explains more about the campaign:

In my native siNdebele language, when a woman delivers a baby it is said: ‘Sekhululekile!’ literary translated into English – she is free!  I have proof that chiKaranga version is ‘kubatsigwa’, meaning ‘to be helped’.  In retrospect, I do appreciate and thank my mother, who exactly fifty years ago this September  will have heaved a sigh of relief after being ‘freed’ with a set of twin boys, one of which is me. This gift had an even deeper meaning coming many years after this wise rural woman married to a sophisticated primary school teacher had had a human avalanche of five baby girls before then. The man was so elated – because those days it was considered  ‘taboo’ not to have baby boys – he showed his ‘rejoicing’ by sticking that label on my birth certificate! What cheek, now everyone who sees my name thinks I am one of those … girls. You are forgiven, Old John. May the God of Abraham remember to keep a place for you in the New Jerusalem!

And so it is for this reason that one Robert Mugabe says that he single-handedly ‘freed’, or ‘helped’ us Zimbabweans from the miserable pregnancy  of nauseating colonialism. We now supposedly collectively owe him a favour, having had tolerated his thirty-year grip on abusive  political power without so much as raising an eyebrow of resistance. “Zimbabwe is 100% free,” he bellows, “and this you ungrateful citizens owe it to me and, and, and my party ZANU-PF.” I’m like No! Old man, all you did was to change the colour of the skin of the tenant at Zimbabwe House from white to black, and that don’t make me free. If you, in 1980, gave me this defective form of ‘100% freedom’, I want the real thing. 2010% will do just fine, and so good bye. Take a break, a long break and nobody will even remember you were once part of my rugged political landscape. The more you hang around, the more I will remember Gukurahundi, DRC, land invasions, Murambatsvina, one billion percent inflation, empty supermarket shelves, poverty, hunger, oppression, petrol queues, AIPPA, POSA… and that’s not very healthy.

If you claim to have ‘delivered’ me from Ian Smith, how come three million of my friends are still hiding in exile? You claim you are free, but travel in a mile long convoy surrounded by Uzis, AK-47ns and ugly m*****f*****s?  Quiet some freedom, Old Man. I want to make it official now, there is no democracy around here, and I might sound so dam crazy! Elections every five years are not the best litmus for democracy. Sadam Hussein had elections too! They have them in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the DRC, but that don’t make their democracy cool.

For now, democracy seems to be at the bottom rung of my ladder of priorities. Freedom first. No, your retirement first, then perhaps my freedom. Even great football players did retire – Edison Pele, George Best, Maradona, Roger Mila, Doctor Khumalo, Kalusha Bwalya, Zinadine Zidane and Peter Nyama. So what’s up with you Mdala?   You say Zimbabweans, or more accurately, ZANU-PuFfed Zimbabweans will decide when you should retire. Nice try. Fortunately, they are such a small proportion of the voting population, because at the last count in March 2008, you comprehensively lost. Here’s the deal: next time you look out of your tinted Mercedes Limousine escort car, you will see the ‘real’ Zimbabweans in T-shirts, caps and car stickers giving you five cool reasons why you should retire. Peer through the tint and marvel at the number of citizens waving the 2010% free flags. Ask your receptionist, she might even have 2010% free as her screen saver, then you know it’s time to hang your …. Manifesto.  Ses’ khululekile!

Rejoice Ngwenja rocks.

Kubatana.net recently interviewed him and you can read and listen to his views on a variety of critical issues in Zimbabwe on www.kubatana.net

In the meantime, below we carry an article by him entitled Scorpion in my Shoe, published by www.africanliberty.org

Thanks to Robert Mugabe’s reign of record-breaking incremental destruction, my country is struggling to redeem itself from the abyss of infrastructure collapse, so much that even hardcore urbanites like me have to make do with irritating wood smoke just to have a warm plate of sadza [Zimbabwe’s staple maize meal paste].    And that was without additional injury to the back breaking exercise.   A week ago, I was stung by a small black scorpion on my big toe as I chopped firewood to beat Zimbabwe’s notorious power outages.

The sting, while irritating, passed off just like any other experience of living in modern-day Zimbabwe under the Jurassic governance of the primeval ZANU-PF.  Thinking back, I imagined that Morgan Tsvangirayi was persuaded to take Robert Mugabe into his political boot, wherefore the old trickster settled at some dark corner until MDC fell into a stupor of artificial comfort.  But now, Tsvangirayi has been inevitably stung while he least expected.

Instead of focusing on the business of building high yielding relations, Mugabe continues to conspire evil against our nation hiding behind questionable legalism.  According to a recent Zimbabwe Situation news online report, “…. Mugabe is entitled under the law to assign functions to ministers, [but] he still has to consult his partners in government on the allocation of the ministries, according to the GPA”.  In complete defiance of this noble proposition, Mugabe unilaterally takes it upon himself to strip MDC-held ministries of essential powers.

Apparently, the biggest challenge confronting Tsvangirayi is not the quality of Zimbabwe’s coalition government, given that most such arrangements are products of large-scale compromise.  Agreements are made on the basis of partner credibility, honesty, consistency and transparency – traits which ZANU-PF is not exactly endowed with.  Most progressive analysts will agree that Tsvangirayi knew exactly the nature of the partner he was committing himself to, that is why he needed to have a comfortable stock of antidotes to deal with Mugabe’s chicanery.   More importantly, ZANU-PF is a completely discredited partner, headed by one Robert Mugabe who comprehensively lost the March 2008 Parliamentary Election, only to be ‘salvaged’ by an equally discredited one-man masquerade in June of the same year.

According to Professor Arthur Mutambara, the Global Political Agreement [GPA] is the only source of Mugabe’s ‘presidential legitimacy’.  In fact he would have proceeded to add that had SADC taken the right decision to call for a more organised, African Unity-supervised presidential re-run, Mugabe would now be confined to overdue retirement at his Zvimba rural home.  It therefore is astonishing by what authority Mugabe cherry-picks ministerial responsibility, if it were not that he is of a tyrannical genre obsessed with power.  I have argued time and again that our Zimbabwe government is too big and expensive, hence the shifting of ministerial powers would, on any other day, have little impact on service delivery.  And yet if you really put Mugabe’s juggling under the spotlight, he is only interested in ministerial adjustments that entrench his hegemonic hold on political power.

What is left now is for both Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirayi and his deputy, Arthur Mutambara to place an inexpensive political device that should shatter once and for all, Mugabe’s life-presidency ambitions. Both MDC cadres must come out of their friendly accommodative shells and tell Mugabe to fulfill all the provisions of the GPA. This is the opportune time for both men to stop making excuses for the aging dictator and embark on three-dimensional activism. The more sensible side of government – MDC – must promulgate statutory instruments to licence all applicants for radio stations and newspapers.  The democratic parties must dispatch all ambassadors, governors and appoint deputy minister for agriculture Roy Bennet.  Morgan Tsvangirayi and Arthur Mutambara must repeal all anti-democratic laws while all pubic appointments not sanctioned by the GPA must be nullified, including that of attorney general Johannes Tomana and central bank governor Gideon Gono.

The gist of my argument is that Robert Mugabe lost the election, thus has no moral high ground to play god.  Five million Zimbabweans have given both MDCs the mandate to govern, so the one-man political dance of the discredited Robert Mugabe has no authority or legitimacy to give five million voters a single sleepless night.  If both Tsvangirayi and Mutambara are weak, they should immediately hand over their power – Nigeria style – to more capable members of their parties.  This weakling image of subservience they are portraying does not augur well with our expectations.  It could also endanger their 2012 electoral standing in their constituencies.  Mugabe’s unpopular mandate expired in 2000, so any compromise on the part of Tsvangirayi and Mutambara is blight on the noble fight against ZANU-PF fascist dictatorship.  Luckily, we now know there is a scorpion in our boot.

Zimbabwe is in a process of formulating a new constitution. The process is already reportedly marred by disgruntlements emanating from different lines of divisions ranging from political to gender. It is sad and highly unexpected of an educated populace as Zimbabwe’s. The tensions reflect massive misconceptions not only of the process leading to the constitution but also of what the constitution is and its short term and long term objectives.

If people really knew what they were doing, we would not be having outcries over political rallies and the consequent political violence, which we hear of, or over who constitutes the select committee to spearhead the constitution making process. It is not the role of any political party to inform its people of the constitution but of an independent neutral body, or of other informed citizens.

The constitution is a document much more important than any political party, it should live beyond ZANU PF, beyond MDC and beyond Ndonga or any political party yet to be formed. It is the national bible to determine the conduct of the government and other stakeholders including people. What it implies is that it is the key to control the birth, survival and death of political parties. It should therefore come from the people in general, irrespective of their political party allegiances. Everyone should wear the coat of a citizen and take off any identification with a party in the process.

The select committee to spear heard the constitution making process is not there to influence the outcomes of the process. What we want collected are the views of the people as raw as they are and not views doctored along short term political interests. The same can be said of gender issues. We want people’s views and not those of whoever is part of the committee. People should be educated and to take heed of such elements that are bent on influencing the process to make the constitution their pocket parcel or baby.

People should stop viewing the constitution through political party lenses and rather jointly come up with a constitution that benefits everyone. What is important here is political and social neutrality.

The Southern and Eastern African Political and Economic Series Trust (SAPES) is hosing a weekly seminar series, alternating between policy dialogue, and discussions on the Constitution. To kick off their series, the first discussion was on the Land Question in Zimbabwe.

Renowned land policy analyst Mandivamba Rukuni lead the discussion, sharing his thoughts on the challenges facing Zimbabwe, and what role land policy played in that. He warned the audience that he would be controversial, and indeed he was. Some of his more controversial points included:

• The four causal reasons for Africa’s problems are organised politics, organised religion, formal education and economic policies based on greed, individualism and selfishness
• Government needs to strengthen the traditional tenure system, not weaken it
• Most African governments don’t believe that rural traditional people know anything about anything. We are just as bad as the colonial masters

Read more of Rukuni’s thoughts, and listen to excerpts of his talk here.

Join the SAPES discussion series every Thursday from 5pm-7pm at 4 Deary Avenue, Belgravia, Harare. This week, Lovemeore Madhuku will lead the discussion, on the topic Constitution-Making in Zimbabwe: Re-inventing the Wheel or Learning from Precedents? Admission is $10 (free for SAPES members). For more information, email admin@sapes.org.zw