Yesterday on my way home the gentleman who gave me a lift turned his radio on and there was this message “Thank you Zimbabweans for voting in peace”, and I wonder why, after 3-4 months since the March 29 harmonized and the presidential runoff, the media is still talking of elections.

The media should be publishing something that brings people together. Is the media aware of the historic agreement signed on Monday 15 September 2008? Were they not the ones broadcasting it live on our national TV stations and radios?

The message which they should be publishing, broadcasting and printing is something that brings people together. Like, ‘Thank you Zimbabwean political parties for signing the Memorandum of Understanding and the Political Settlement in Peace’. Think of the handshake of President RG Mugabe and the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.  Wasn’t that a miracle? Think that for the past 5 months these two main political figures were miles apart. Think of the horrible messages they used to preach at their campaign rallies.

It’s high time that the media did more to get the leaders messages to Zimbabweans living all over the country, especially the rural folks. Our God is a God of impossibilities, but miracles are possible with God. This is really a miracle, live on TV. We want reconciliation, healing and life of course!

Unity is the word we want to hear from the media.

I’ve been thinking lately about the ways in which politics – particularly Zimbabwean politics of late – is performance. These words from Tinashe Chimedza give voice to the concerns many Zimbabweans are raising about The Deal.

Pass me the cognac

The elites scramble for power and profit
The poor become footnotes
We write epitaphs ‘rest in peace Cde Tonde’
The bubbly flows
Pass me the Borboun
Am tired of the imported Cognac
More drivers, another motorcade
Four more motorcades
Another charade
Dish me my share of toil
‘Ndakadashurwa’ – any questions?
The rubble will eat tomorrow
Who wants to jump with them anyway,
The commoners, teach them culture first
Am waiting for my OBE
They are fodder, my cdes remind me
Lets dance ball room tonite
On the bellies of the filth

~ Tinashe L Chimedza

Watching
Mtunzini in September

We sat on the shores of the Indian ocean
watching the sun rise over the sea and set over distant Zululand hills
we walked the dune forest
fruit filled, bird sung, butterfly danced

walking the edge
between earth and ocean

time to sit still enough
to listen
to the silence
through which we learn the changing voice of the sea
hear it moulded by the wind
called back and forth by the moon
shaped by the lie of the land

We came home slowly
through rural Zululand
through mountains made of ancient larval flows
we sat on the edge of gorges
cutting vertically through time
calling memories of billions of years ago

witnessing something wider than the angst  of our souls

Coming home
10 September

It was 39 degrees at the bridge in the afternoon
so we decided to wait and cross early next morning
and stopped in the Soutpansberg mountains
listening to the news from Zimbabwe

Talk of the agreement to be signed?
compromises being made?
power sharing?

the Zimbabwean way . . .

The South Africans were cleaning up their border post
collecting rubbish, scrubbing walls
but the surly silence of the immigration and customs officials
(who were on a ‘go slow’ )
and the rudeness of the guard at the gate to the bridge
left a sour taste as we drove across the Limpopo

. . . into the strangely organized chaos
of the litter-strewn, dust-shimmering Zimbabwean border post

‘Welcome home’

despite the heat and noise and money changing and confusion
the immigration officer is smiling
‘today is a good day’

The armed policeman at the road block outside Beit Bridge
signal us on with cheerful wave
down the potholed, edge-tilting road to Harare
watching endless miles of bush unravelling

People we see walk slowly between villages
listless and thin

I find some muffins packed for our breakfast
and hand them to two small thin children wandering down the side of the road
In the rear view mirror we watch as they run excitedly to distant huts
- home to share this meagre bounty!

A small group of children are getting out of the back of a truck
and as it drives on, they laugh and dance and clap hands with glee
‘we got a lift!’

And I am glad to be back home
to witness the spirit of my people

Signed
Full Moon – 15th September

It has been done . . .
the agreement has be signed
the two leaders have spoken to the nation
one of ‘the depths of his hope for the future, running deeper than his scars of the suffering of the past, of the healing’
and the other about ‘enemies’ and ‘sovereignty’ and ‘the evil of colonialism’

and somewhere between these positions
a new way begins

and the Zimbabweans ask
‘can this be the moment?
. . . can it be that the fear is gone?
that background angst?
the possibility of imprisonment ?
even torture?
the constant silencing?’

. . . for loss of money and water and electricity are overshadowed by comparison

but today it feels strange
like an old habitual response to ‘authority’
a frisson of distrust
- there will have to be a re-learning
that we are free to disagree without being harmed

even this moment is done the Zimbabwean way
no instant singing and celebration in the streets
but a questioning –
‘what does this mean?’

can we speak of our lives?
tell our stories?
come home from foreign countries?
will we own what we earn?
can we start the healing?

I hung our name plate back on the gate – after 5 years
reclaiming our right to live openly
in our home

the fig trees are flushing and the paradise flycatcher has arrived back from Zaire
the planet is turning,
and the southern hemisphere begins to show its face to the sun
and the full moon and Venus fill the evening with light

Today at Kubatana we sent an SMS to our subscribers asking them what they think about this new deal. We wanted to be able to get a sense of what Zimbabweans are feeling and what they understand about the provisions of the agreement. We got some touching responses, some of which are below:

Real governing powers for MDC. No to cosmetic executive powers!

The agreement is a sad death of democracy & why vote when people can talk. I don’t think we’ll ever have confidence in any election in this country again.

As long as Mugabe does not believe that he is the cause of all the problems and repents, it is not going to work.

We want a working union but those who committed crimes should be brought to book.

Its like mixing fresh & rotten fish but the country has suffered so long maybe it will be better for us.

I think it could soften the blow of the sanctions coz I’m sure most foreign leaders are more than willing to deal with Morgie.

They should not allow Mugabe to retain the powers that he used to torture, kill and traumatize the masses between 29 March and 27 June thereby depriving us of democracy. Our fight 4 the past 9 yrs has been about democracy. So if R.G retains those powers, it’s a raw deal.

I hope the deal will hold & stop the suffering of the general populace.

That’s a good move for a change into a better future.

Ahoy Mr. Prime Minister Ahoy!!!! Congratulations to Mr. MT 4 doing it, now Zimbabwe can be on its feet again. Our hope has been revived now we can look 4ward.

As long the agreement serves the interests of the people and the paves way for free and fair elections in a period they agreed then its okay.

Nothing wrong with the deal but should consider change of the constitution b4 anything and implement what is in the agreement.

It’s the beginning of a long process of exiting Zanu pf, lets accept the deal, we will get there.

Well since it came after extensive consultation, l believe something positive is in the making.

At long last, singing and cheering have been the order of the day as I have been out for lunch trying to get some fresh air and to have a short break from the office.

People are relieved, by the signing, and that we have the office of the Prime Minister in Zimbabwe. For the first time members of the public can say their feelings and exchange their ideas openly with the members of the security forces without any harm.

May God bless Zimbabwe. At the cash queue people could not complain about the slow moving queue like they used to a couple of days ago. They were enjoying sharing this breakthrough from the crisis and some were busy texting and sharing the good, or rather breaking news.

The things people want to see solved soon is the availability of food, enough cash, and medication. Some were calling for a ‘Holiday’. People were saying now they can mix well with their relatives who are of the opposing side now that the newly installed Prime Minister has declared that people should unite.

However, it was a good 45minutes before I returned to the office having not eaten anything but I realized that people now are proud to be Zimbabweans at last.

Zimbabwe is a nation of beef.  People produce it and people love to eat it.  Perhaps you could say that beef is part of a Zimbabweans identity.  But the tides changed.  At Spar they sell­ not beef­ but beef fat.  Not a speck of meat included, just the fat.  And for the astronomical price of ZWD240,000 per kg.

Zimbabwe is a nation where liberation war credentials have long been considered essential in legitimizing a politician, part of their identity.  One of the many places this political ethos has been enshrined is through use of comrade in front of politician’s names.  Perhaps a new era is on the horizon. It will be interesting to see if the new government yields Prime Minister Tsvangirai or Comrade Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe is a nation whose literature has centered on the liberation war.  However, now it’s become harder to see this theme or any singular theme across Zimbabwean literature.  Thus, an identity crisis and the question: What are current works collectively trying to say and do?  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, a literary identity crisis.  In fact, topically wide-ranging literature emerging out of one nation is a sign of vibrancy and rich intellectual engagement.

Zimbabwe is a nation in which, not that long ago, donor funding was shifting.  Decreasing was a dependency identity; things were moving away from handing out of basic goods and services.  Increasing were activities and longer term planning to analyze and address the underlying issues driving need.  Focus was increasingly and effectively the bigger picture questions. These days waned as recent advocacy around lifting the ban on humanitarian aid made painfully apparent how dependent the nation has become on donor programmes just to meet basic needs.  As important as meeting basic needs will continue to be, equally as important is rejuvenating mindsets toward the bigger picture once again.

Zimbabwe is a nation waiting to see what directions the new government will go.  Will it be a peaceful process allowing people to return to their beloved beef?  Or will it be continued peddling of beef fat?  I’m going to present the optimist stance.  The challenges of how to get the beef (not the fat) are many and complex. Many of which revolve around (corruption-free) economic recovery.  At the same time, it seems an identity crisis is in the air.  It’s an awful lot, a real challenge for people to let go of past pains and broken promises, to trust and believe that the queues, shortages, black market, etc. culminating in the identity of resourceful survivor might be on its way out.  But it seems part of ushering in change involves embracing the pending identity shift.  To continue the fight and stand poised for beef­–literally and in the form of partaking in vibrancy and rich intellectual engagements, which, when not suppressed and repressed, are at the core of Zimbabwe as a nation.