out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing
there is a field
I’ll meet you there
rumi

Last week the Tree of Life held workshops in the granite rocks of Mutoko
sheltering from the October heat under Mahatcha trees
as they dropped their ripening fruit into the circles

30 people had walked from their homes 1 to 2 hours away
all from the same community
headmen, councillors, community leaders and activists
victims and the perpetrators together in the same circle

victims who had become perpetrators
and perpetrators who had become victims
brother against brother
father against son

a community who have been carrying the brunt of political conflict and social upheaval in the centre of their families

but in this place
where they told their stories
they began to speak of something different
of their need to stop the violence
and to reconstruct their lives
to see beyond fear
into the eyes of their brother, neighbour, friend
and recognise that peace was more important

(there was even the space for humour
as one man said to the person who had burnt his house and stolen his chicken.
“the house I can understand – but my hen?
did you think she had a vote?”)

and when the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about
rumi

Thursday 8 October is a day that I will remember this year with bitter memories. This is what happened on the night of October 8. I was coming from a neighbouring township with my mzukulu at a round 2015hrs, and as we were about to cross the street that joins the two townships, a speeding car suddenly stopped in front of us. An armed cop apparently dressed for peace keeping duty in Kosovo jumped off the back of the vehicle with the agility of a ninja. He approached gun in hand, and boy was I stunned.

“Get in the car now!” he barked without giving us a second to understand what was happening. I obviously tried to protest, and the enraged cop further barked: “You are the people who go about raping women and killing them.” I thought, this is becoming surreal. Maybe I’m dreaming. Is this the Zimbabwe we want? There is GNU for Gods’ sake and should we be subjected to this treatment, I mused in the privacy of my thoughts – and under the cover of the dark night that managed to camouflage my obvious rage.

We were then shoved at the back of the truck where about twenty bitter men sat huddled like those miserable illegal immigrants trying to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar. “I was picked up when I was coming from church. Look, here is my Bible.” “I was picked up right in front of my house.” “I was picked up when I was giving way to the police car.” Their grumbling went on and on, and one female cop who proved to have been particularly miffed by something that some guessed had nothing to do with carrying out her duties went into action.

She liberally lashed her sjambok above our heads in the dark and I saw grown men wince in pain. “You think because I am a woman I cannot use this sjambok on you?” she snarled. Soon we were at the Nkulumane Police Station. I told myself, we are leaving this wretched place soon as we explain we were on our way home as law abiding citizens, but then I was to learn later rather painfully that you cannot reason with an unreasonable man – or worse yet cop. Soon, were told to line up. As we were led to the holding cells, the baton stick was again recalled and each of us got pretty violent and very painful lashes on our buttocks. I actually asked one stupefied cop to add more as he had no clue what the hell he was doing and for what reason.

These cops did not bother to tell us why our rights were being violated like that. Then we were told that anyone who did not want to spend the night in the filthy cells must pay USD5! For what? Are we living in a police state and not aware of it? Wrong question! As we were pushed into the cells, a visibly – and understandably bitter guy said: “I am not paying for a crime I did not commit you can bet on that.” Then the cop said something I still recall today and wonder what the hell he was talking about: “So you think you are the Prime Minister? You will rot in there if you think we are here to play.” He spoke in Shona and appeared aggrieved by something which only some seer and someone blessed with ESP could have deciphered. I wondered like everybody else where the Prime Minister fit in here and in what context. But then it has been said the GNU has many enemies! The cop just let the sentence hang and it was up to the crowd to fill in the gaps. Spend the night in the cells we did, 20 of us.

I wondered about my two young boys back home. They were obviously waiting for their dad to tuck them in, but they were to spend the night with their young minds wondering where the old man was. Talk about feeling like an absentee dad! In the morning, we were asked if we had the money to pay a fine. Again back at the “charge office” we were subjected to more ridicule. So we were being offered our freedom, but we had to tell the cops what we had been arrested for. “You tell us, isn’t you are the one who arrested us,” I said to the cop who sat on a high bar seat literally feeling high and mighty.

“If you do not know why you were arrested then we are returning you to the cells so you can wait for the cops who arrested you to tell you why you were arrested. Or even if you still insist you did not do anything, we throw back in the cells so you can go to court and plead your case.” I instantly hated the guy. He was enjoying it, and in his own warped mind he was doing us a great favour by offering us an option to pay a fine. I wondered: is this the Zimbabwe the GNU is promising us? It certainly isn’t the Zimbabwe we want. “So you think you are the Prime Minister” those words kept ringing in my angry mind. “We cannot just accept your fine when you do not know what you are paying for,” the cop reasoned. To a cut a long story short as I was increasingly being infuriated by someone, others in the cells had already called a “Border Gezi graduate,” I said fine we were arrested for public drinking. That seemed to rile the cop.

“We are not playing here. We will throw you back in the cells until you tell us why you were arrested.” “Okay,” I said. “We were crossing the street about a hundred metres from here (meaning the police station) when we were picked up and thrown into the cells.” “Okay then. You were arrested for loitering.” Boy was I stunned! Then my nephew asked what I still think was a clincher. “So there is a curfew then?” “Huh?” the cop was baffled. What the heck is he talking about? I saw it written on the bamboozled cops face. “So there is a curfew then,” my nephew repeated. “Huh?” Turns out he did not know what a curfew is! “Asivanhu havatshavumidzwa ukuhamba ebusuku?” the young lad asked, lacing his broken Shona with Ndebele. It was only then that the cop responded, but only to expose the nature of the intellectual aptitude of these people tasked with protecting law abiding citizens. Another guy on the other side of the counter asked: “So the curfew is that no one moves around after 9PM?” “Even 8PM,” the cop replied. And we all burst out laughing despite our circumstances. So as you may imagine, we parted with USD10 and for what? I still do not know. But I did tell the cops who rained that sjambok on my buttocks: “God bless you.”

Even as I write this I have difficulty sitting as my backside is still painful. It also got me thinking about something: when you are assaulted or mugged, doctors always ask for a police report before they treat you. Now, I was sjamboked by cops, who do I get the police report from for me to get treatment? Great country ain’t it? But then this is not Europe or the States where you can sue these cops and expect to be awarded damages. After all, these are the same chaps who over the years have literally got away with murder. For me the least I can do is tell the world about it. Perhaps we are living a lie under this GNU animal. These are times we are living in when so many of us had imagined police brutality was confined to the pre-GNU years. Two weeks later I read in the Chronicle newspaper (Wednesday 14 October 2009 p.2) that the country’s Number One Cop Augustine Chihuri had urged promoted officers in the Midlands province to respect human rights. I laughed bitterly.

The trouble with trying to be clever is that you run the risk of idiocy. This maybe complete nonsense, or it could be a good blog. Let me know.

A very long time ago, before I was born anyway, Bob Marley came to Zimbabwe and sang ‘Get up stand up’ in front of thousands of Zimbabweans. Locks bouncing, his backing band doing their very best to keep up with his energy, Mr. Marley gave our country a soundtrack. The atmosphere was electric. Anything was possible. We had gone from telling all the mothers ‘No Woman No Cry’ to ‘Stirring it Up’ in the ‘Uprising’. But the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ had returned and this was a new beginning. This, after-all, was the new Zimbabwe. For a few hours that night, there was no black, no white, no man, no woman, no child, just Zimbabweans. For a little while that night, and even after that, we were all one, united in singing ‘Songs of Freedom’.

Independence came, and went, but we were ‘Jammin’ together. Our President was hailed as a one of the great African Statesmen, a ‘Legend’. Zimbabwe couldn’t be prouder. Some of us had settled into a wonderful way of life. The ‘Sun is Shining’ we thought, as we happily braaied and drank Castles. Then the cracks began to show. All of a sudden the people started murmuring that we needed to ‘Stir it Up’ once again. The ‘Exodus’ of the best and brightest began in earnest, the word ‘Survival’ on their lips.

They left; the skilled, and the unskilled. Going to ‘Babylon by Bus’. And we who remained ‘Caught a Fire’ and became ‘Soul Rebels’. They resisted the lies, the bribery and finally the violence, quietly. ‘Time Will Tell’ we said. Those who dared rise up, ended up in the ‘Jailhouse’, while more and more people began to hum the notes to ‘Trenchtown Rock’. Abroad, the Diaspora yearned to know the ‘Real Situation’ and often they were told it was ‘War’.

‘So Much Trouble in our World’, quasi-fiscal became another word for instant impoverishment. Zimbabwe was weary, and hopeless, until the Global Political Agreement was signed. Until then we thought we had been ‘Waiting in Vain’, but, our ‘Redemption Song’ seemed to have been written at last.

Bob Marley died in 1981, a few months after we celebrated the first anniversary of Zimbabwe’s Independence. His music still lives, as do the people of Zimbabwe.

The Mass Public Opinion Institute conducted round 4 of the Afrobarometer survey in Zimbabwe in May 2009. The purpose of the survey is to compare public opinion about various economic civic and social issues across African countries.

The survey was supposed to have been undertaken in 2008, but the political instability prevalent in the country at the time made this impossible. Further, the sample size is based on 2002 Census figures, which are projected to 2008 figures with consideration being given to issues such as mass migration and displacement.

Despite many criticisms at its formation the majority of respondents expressed a belief that the Inclusive Government was the best way forward. Added to that 57% of respondents said that they would vote for MDC–T in the next election, as compared to 10% for ZANU PF. The popularity of the MDC is also mirrored in the high approval rating for Morgan Tsvangirai and his work in the Inclusive Government. Interestingly, Mr. Tsvangirai’s job performance is viewed positively by members of both parties.

It may be inferred that hope was restored to the public because 71% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the way government was managing the economy. Despite this, day to day issues were also seen in the survey, with the majority of respondents ranking management of the economy as the most important problem facing the country. Second to this were the issues of unemployment and education. Interestingly, a majority of respondents expressed greater satisfaction with the current state of the economy as compared with other years including 2004, 2005 and most notably 1999.

Issues of contention which arose during the survey presentation included the survey sample being based on 2002 census data; the fact that more respondents expressed greater satisfaction with the economy in 2009 as compared to 1999 and what the terms ‘economic policies’ and ‘economic management’ meant to the respondents.

What is most evident from the survey is that the formation of the inclusive government has restored hope in people. While many acknowledge the challenges in their own lives, they are optimistic that the country’s fortunes are on their way up.

Only time will tell if this hope is well founded.

I cannot help but notice, in great wonder and sometimes exasperation, how some politicians, who are now well past their sell by dates, now spit out the phrase ‘regime change agenda’ with all the  innuendos and insinuations that it is either treacherous or outright treasonous for a Zimbabwean to even think of regime change.

Recently, when confronted with a quite innocuous question from a journalist, the Head of State and Government, and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces, His Excellency, cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe angrily cut him off, “now you are asking a regime change agenda,” he snapped.

The basic idea underpinning the concept of democracy is that ordinary Zimbabwean citizens have a fundamental right and should be entitled to freely decide who should govern them. In other words, the right to change a regime if they so wish. The process of translating that choice to reality is accomplished by way of voting, which is often done periodically, to enable ordinary people to make a clear statement about their leaders.

Another tenet of democracy, consistent with the first above, is that potential leaders must be able to, through various – peaceful means, present themselves, and their ideas through manifestos to the people – marketing themselves as the best leaders to govern and make policy decisions for the country. In this noble battle of ideas, whoever has the better idea should, ordinarily, following a vote to confirm them, be the new leaders of a new regime taking the country in a new, and hopefully better direction. The primary purpose of an election is to change or renew leadership. Even in situations where the incumbent is retained, the process of an election would have offered the public an opportunity to reaffirm his leadership.

This vital process, which I will, with Fungai Machirori’s recent, brilliant blog in mind, refer to as the nation’s shedding off of its old skin of failed policies and broken promises to reveal a new skin of hope and expectation, has been suppressed in Zimbabwe for the past 3 decades. Leaders are in denial – attempting to do the impossible – to defy nature. They vainly attempt to banish all evidence of the passage of time, tucking away strands of white hair and sagging skin, tragically locking the nation in a time warp. Imagine the snake clinging to its old skin, refusing to shed it off and make way for newness, for rebirth and revival?

For these leaders, elections are but a mere formality, their objective must never be to deliver regime change, but to endorse the status quo. Since elections are not really meant to deliver regime change, then it follows that it is not necessary to ensure free space for the contestation of ideas and free space for leaders of different political formations to market their vision for the country. The very concept of democracy would become, as a colleague is fond of saying, anathema to defenders of the indefensible status quo.

To ensure that the ideals of genuine democracy are defeated various instruments are deployed by incumbent regime. When the risk of losing power is deemed low, then the regime would simply fiddle with figures, rig here and there and ensure and outcome that restores prevailing balance of power. For good measure associates of the regime are deployed to oversee the counting of votes. For this reason, in African politics the counting of votes is much more important than the actual voting itself.

The bottom line for all these shenanigans being that power must be retained at any cost. While alternative democratic voices are denied space in national media to articulate their views, the incumbent regime is granted full coverage to propagate its ideas, which, often enough, it does not do but devotes its attention squarely to denigrate, demonise and abuse those advancing alternative views.

Where the risk of losing power is deemed greater, then there is no hesitation to deploy the threat of violence and violence in an attempt to alter the workings of democracy in the incumbent regime’s favour. On June 27, 2008, the day of the ill-fated one-man presidential runoff election, I offered a lift to a ‘war veteran’ who gave me an insight into this thinking. Quite unbidden, he commented on the election process,

“Holding elections is utter madness, how can people think that, by merely putting an ‘x’ on a piece of paper they can remove a president from power? How can a pen and paper have such an effect? We (presumably talking on behalf of so-called ‘war veterans’) will not allow people, just with the index finger (the one dipped in indelible ink as an indication that one has voted), to effect regime change. If that happens we will take our guns and go back to the bush.”

I believe the ‘war veteran’ gave and accurate diagnosis of the disease plaguing Zimbabwe – that the incumbent regime does not respect the concept of democracy and its corollary of regime change. After realising that indeed the wish of the people, as reflected in the March 29, 2008 elections, was for the country to renew its leadership and try fresh ideas, patrons and benefactors of the old regime quickly moved stop any peaceful transfer of power. Instruments of coercion were quickly activated to crush any dissent and ensure that the status quo is maintained at all costs.

The present arrangement, which primarily retained the status quo, albeit with a modicum of space at the high table for the true victors in the elections, derives its authority, not from tenets of democracy, but from undemocratic negotiations that the main political parties entered into in order to deal with a crisis triggered by a refusal to peaceful transfer power in accordance with democratic principles.

Although this arrangement dealt a severe blow to the development of our embryonic democracy, it by no means crushed the ideals of this enduring ideology. Even within ZANU-PF the institution, there is now a realisation that chickens of authoritarianism are now coming home to roost. Media reports indicate that elections in both ZANU-PF’s youth and women’s leagues were characterised by chaos and violence. Quite ironically, reports indicate that Mugabe pleaded with the youth league to respect election results and appealed to losers to magnanimously accept defeat in polls!

The creature called power-sharing government is only transitional; it can never replace the concept of true democracy and the right of every Zimbabwean to fully participate in the election of leaders of their choice. This fundamental right to regime change is recognised in article 13 of the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights and in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose article 21 provides that Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives, and more importantly, further that, the will of the people (as expressed in periodic, genuine elections) shall be the basis of the authority of government.

Relentless propaganda against regime change seeks to create the false impression that it is wrong to seek regime change, or to seek leadership renewal. It is not. It is a natural process that cannot be stalled indefinitely. It is a reality that, though it is temporarily denied, will surely come to pass.

Despite the hype about the liberation struggle and all, ZANU-PF came to power through the ballot box. In 1980 people were free to make a democratic choice. Likewise, Zimbabweans today should have the freedom to choose whosoever they wish as their leader. The right to regime change is a fundamental right that must be respected and be cherished by all.

Temporary setbacks and spanners being thrown in the works by elements resisting change cannot be reason enough to lose faith in the enduring power of the idea of democracy. Rather, it these challenges should spur activists on and strengthen their resolve to ensure that they exercise their right to vote, defend their vote, and ensure that the vote is counted and counts.

Author and playwright Steven Chifunyise never fails to tickle the funny bone in me. Last night I was at Theatre in the Park, excited at the thought of getting a dose of political satire from his new play, Heal the Wounds and equally excited about the opportunity to unwind in the cool breeze of the evening while breathing in the garden’s fresh soil and grass. While we waited for the play to start, the breeze was indeed cool, but it also transported the stinks of urine and other forms or human waste thanks to the vagrants who often use the park for ablution facilities. Thankfully the play was not as disappointing. It featured two brothers who, because of their different political orientations, could never be imagined as friends but at some point find themselves working and sitting together in a committee of national healing and reconciliation.

Sophisticated terminology, concepts and all, they are seen trying to sell the idea to their elderly rural parents who seem skeptical of the Global National Unity and the process of healing. Forgiveness is the gospel they both vociferously preach and believe to be the only ‘practical’ way forward to achieving healing and forming the basis of national development.

The parents believe that it is so simple for the people in Harare to just forgive and move on because they didn’t lose any cattle and their houses weren’t razed for perceived differing political orientation. The parents use an old metaphor to ask their sons how any healing is possible if lots of people in the village were still walking around with axes stuck in their heads. Of course the ‘masalad’ sons took the literal meaning, discarded it as ludicrous and soon started to argue between themselves about which party did what, in the violence of 2008.

Their short display of ‘disunity’ invites the mockery of, and convinces the old men that nothing reasonable was being done in the ‘committee healing national’ as one of them kept confusing it. The long and short of it all was that this process is out of touch with the people and is not being done in as inclusive a way as it should be, that is by involving all stakeholders. The gospel of forgiveness that is being preached by politicians, some of who were themselves responsible for the atrocities surrounding the June 2008 elections, (abductions, rape, torture and murder), is just not enough for ordinary Zimbabweans.

The old men towards the end of the play prescribed 10 panaceas that they felt needed to be presented to the committee in order to allow real discussions about national healing to begin. In short, they described a number of transitional justice mechanisms, some of which are not practical, and seem very silly to the sons, but actually do lie buried deep in the hearts of many.

The emotional weight carried by most Zimbabweans from the many violent episodes since independence are the axes Chifunyise refers to. They are a constant reminder, which cannot be wished away, and they lie so deep they cannot just die a natural death at the prompt of forgiveness, especially coming from the highest offenders. Known offenders need to apologize in public; property-grabbers have to return the cattle, chickens, wives and whatever else they stole, to their rightful owners. In the rural areas, some people live with the reality of seeing their livestock in the stock pens of their neighbors.

People want to freely bury and mourn their dead, have a chance to be heard, to tell their story and to create a record so that there is a certain measure of closure. They want a commission of inquiry; but nothing like the joke that was the Chihambakwe commission of the 1980s. Insulted chiefs want to be apologized to. So do parents whose sons and daughters insulted them because of differing political views.

This all sounds petty, but could it be that the real journey towards true healing begins at the grassroots level and that the answer lies in each one of us finding a way of shedding the axes that we each carry in our heads?