Recently I was at a function in London when, upon introducing myself as a Zimbabwean, someone ventured to ask me a question I have become very much accustomed to now, ‘so, what has changed with this new government?’ In response I explained that as far as I was concerned, there had been no fundamental change in political direction and that the levers of power remain firmly in the hands of those who wielded power in 1980 and as such, we are not really in a new political dispensation as yet. The person who asked the question was clearly unimpressed, he pointed out that in fact he had information that ‘a lot of positive changes’ had taken place in Zimbabwe and cited the so-called miracle reduction of inflation from 231 million percent to just 1.1 percent as an example some of the positive changes that are not being highlighted. He then noted that Zimbabweans in the Diaspora and international media have a tendency of reporting only negative news on Zimbabwe because, he quipped, ‘good news does not sell.’ It appears this is a generally held view among some international observers which I wish to address in greater detail here.

Well, I do not see how my grandmother in Bikita would take comfort in the miraculous reduction in inflation because she still does not have access to foreign currency. The switch-over to use of foreign currency which cured inflation in one stroke may be significant to political elites but certainly makes little difference to ordinary men and women in Zimbabwe who continue to suffer. It is like focusing on improving working conditions for those who are employed when 94 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed!

Personally, and I am confident many other Zimbabweans share this view, I desperately desire to hold great hope and optimism that Zimbabwe’s future is bright and that political change has come. I want to be able to proudly tell the world that Zimbabwe is open and ready for business. I want to tell anyone who cares to listen that my country is a beacon of democracy and persuade investors to rush to Zimbabwe and do business with my countrymen. It is my wish that l should tell the world that violence, human rights abuses, police brutality and repression belong to the past. Unfortunately, sadly, that would be untrue; I would be telling blatant lies if I were to lay claim to such things. Creating false hope and false images of change does not bring the desired change to Zimbabwe.

It appears to be that the desire to be ‘positive’ about Zimbabwe and project a positive image of Zimbabwe may have led some of our erstwhile colleagues who now occupy high political offices to massage the truth and polish the rough edges of reality in their presentation of the situation in Zimbabwe. All of a sudden, themselves victims a compromised and corrupt court system, because they are now part of government, they believe there is rule of law and that their colleagues who face various politically motivated charges must face trial by ‘impartial courts.’ One minister from the smaller MDC faction, when asked why farm violent farm invasions were continuing unabated responded, ‘government is broke, we do not have financial resources to deploy police to stop the invasions.’ Was this not precisely the same political excuse given by the police in 2000 when farm invasions began?

Clearly, but for reasons as yet unclear to me, many former advocates of rule of law and democracy who are now in government have become shameless liars quite ready and comfortable to sing from the same hymn book with those who once persecuted them.

Being frank and truthful about the minute changes that have taken place in Zimbabwe does not make one a pessimist. My great hope and optimism for Zimbabwe lies in the hope that there are many who will realize that the struggle for democracy and good governance does not end when one gets a seat at the high table; that is precisely when the struggle begins. Only the truth will set our leaders free, and, in the same vein, set us all free.

I really still can’t get over the number of times that I have ridden a Mercedes Benz in the last few days. No, I haven’t bought myself one, and no, I haven’t found some rich man to take me on cruises in his Kompressor. The reason for this luxury is that I currently find myself in Germany – the home of the hallowed Merc.

Most taxis here are Mercedes Benz models – sedans, SUVs, station wagons – you name it. And boy, do the drivers know how to step on the gas. The top speed I have experienced thus far is 182km/hr. Now, the roads here are much better than back in beloved Zim; no potholes to avoid and so far, no drivers with a ‘kombi mentality’ ready and willing to swerve and slice their way through traffic. And apparently, there are no speed limits on certain stretches of road. But still, the ease with which the drivers step on the gas makes me whisper short prayers as my stomach ties up in knots.

I have been in Europe now for about 5 days – and my impression of it, thus far, is mostly good. What I especially like about Germany is that the people here have really managed to maintain the essence of their culture, of which I feel that language is a major constituent. Language of instruction within schools and general conversations are carried out in German. And so, almost all TV and radio stations, newspapers and street signs are in German. A classic example of my shock at this was when, at the airport in Munich, I tried to get myself something to read at the bookstore there. ABSOLUTELY nothing in there was in English!

And if you want to find your way around, you must always move around with a German. Not everyone one meets will be conversant in English, and a German speaker must always be at hand to help out.

That really got me thinking about local languages back home. If a person can only speak Shona or Ndebele, we tend to look down upon them as uneducated. Perhaps, this is because the main language of instruction within schools and the workplace remains English. And so, to not be conversant in the language implies that a person has not been to school.

But even more apparent – at least to me – is that many of us have grown to associate English with certain eloquence and status that we feel our own languages cannot offer us. Just think of the extra respect that the village elders get from other village folk if they can speak English, or dress in English-style suits. “He speaks the white man’s language so he must be wise and know a lot about the world,” is the mentality these folk tend to possess.

For me, this reasoning stems from the colonial legacy imbibed into people that makes us believe that expression in local languages cannot be erudite or eloquent.

Imagine if more local authors could publish in the vernacular, and if a market developed for their work. Imagine if there was a more diverse vernacular print media industry in Zimbabwe. Currently, the local language newspapers in Zimbabwe tend to be sensationalist and light-hearted. What if these media were used to raise the political consciousness of the masses, who are generally not so conversant in English and need not only to be entertained, but also to be informed and educated?

Just a few days in, and already a wealth of observations and contemplations on the difference between two fine nations.

This week started out with a few small signs of hope. Two public demonstrations were staged, with no arrests. According to a WOZA statement, on  Monday, “over 1,000 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise marched through the streets of Bulawayo, to articulate their demands to the power sharing government.” And according to SW Radio Africa, on Tuesday, “Law Society of Zimbabwe held a peaceful demonstration in the streets of Harare to protest continuing harassment of members of the legal fraternity.” – This despite the fact that the police had previously banned the march. In both cases, the police watched the demonstrations, but no arrests were made.

Surprised by this, we sent out the following text message on Wednesday:

Kubatana! Inclusive govt may be opening up democratic space. 2 successful demonstrations this week with no arrests. WOZA in BYO Monday and lawyers in HRE Tues.

One enthusiastic subscriber replied: “Ah, ko lets march to state house w a petition 4 bob 2 step down muone mashura mtHarare! kana kuenda kuRBZ 4 gono 2 go! Tinofa (or go to the Reserve Bank and tell Gono to go. We’re dying.)”

But Fambai was less convinced: “Kubatana puhleeze, what democratic space? Honestly we cant b celebrating the false benevolence of bloodthirsty riot police not using their baton sticks!”

Good point Fambai! Clearly two zero-arrest-demonstrations do not a happy democracy make. So. Is there any genuine change in the works, or is this all the same crocodile, just conveniently disguising itself for a bit?

We thought flight was easy -
A simple flapping of our fragile wings
Against the waves of air whirling us to freedom;
Then, we thought we were gods and goddesses,
Hallowed creatures haloed in light,
circling the skies – our own domain of royalty
where neither graveness nor gravity could ensnare us.

Then, we thought flight was
effortless and flawless;
And we didn’t realise that wings can be crushed and broken,
That winds can be brutal,
And that the kindly skies can sear too with rage and fury.

Then, we thought we were admired and revered,
Immortal and invincible:
Creatures of majesty sent to conquer the world
With our youthfulness and beauty,
But that was before we had fallen,
Before we had felt the pain of broken flight,
Thudding to the pitiless earth with wounds gaping with our own blood and bones;
That was before we had known that the elements are not always in our favour,
And that this flight and this life are a continual fight against fierce forces
That do not care for our raw dreams and determination.

The topic is rather vague.  I take it to mean, for the purposes of this discussion, not spiritual crisis or domestic crisis or epistemological crisis, but economic crisis brought about by the politics of cronyism and patronage.  Anybody with a sense of history can see that power corrupts so that today’s oppressed will become tomorrow’s oppressors.  Davids are Goliaths in waiting.  I believe it is my duty as a published writer to keep detached from this ugly cycle so that I can snipe at it.

Sniping is an appropriate figure of speech for writers because they attack from a distance, not like performance artists – actors, playwrights, poet-musicians, film-makers, who engage in hand-to-hand combat and who are, consequently, living a lot more dangerously.  It was his plays in Kikuyu, not his novels in English, that got Ngugi imprisoned.

It’s not only my genre that makes me feel a little safer in our police state.  Unless you’re a commercial farmer, being white still carries a few advantages in this country.  For example, you’re less likely to be searched at a road block.   And unlike Olympic swimmers and Wimbledon tennis players, serious white writers in Zimbabwe have, until recently, been dismissed as irrelevant.  While I used to find that hurtful, I also found it curiously comforting.  I believe my phone is tapped, and I have had some threatening calls, and my laptop was ‘disappeared’ by a senior police officer; but I have yet to see the inside of a prison, and my bones are still intact.

I said earlier that writers attack from a distance.  They work at home or at the town library.  They are seldom asked to read in public because the public find their readings boring.  They are physically detached from their books.  But I have created an even greater distance by the use of satire, a form of sniping which allows me to be disingenuous, to hide behind my irony.  However, this sometimes backfires.  For example, readers think I write sonnets and odes and sestinas because I am colonial-minded, but I write them to parody colonialism.  I reject for mine what Coetzee said about Pringle’s verse: “The familiar trot of iambic tetrameter couplets reassuringly domesticates the foreign content”

The artist is notoriously egotistical, a persistent self-promoter – crisis or no crisis.  The artist would do well to heed the almost daily heroics, in Zimbabwe, of vegetable vendors, certain bloggers, certain journalists, certain human rights activists, and those who wait outside jails.

They say art thrives in times of crisis.  Where then were the artists during Gukurahundi?  Were they still too intoxicated by the euphoria of Independence to take notice?  Where today have all the writers gone? – some into exile, some into silence, some into self-censorship, some into commercial farming!

Huge congratulations go to the team that staged the Harare Festival of the Arts (HIFA) 2009. There’s been such a buzz in downtown Harare over the last few days lifting many people’s spirits. The opening show was evocative. Much of the feedback I’ve heard is that it was a bit on the depressing side and that the producer should have balanced the dark with more light. The HIFA producers once again didn’t shrink from telling it like it is and at one point the thousands gathered in the Harare Gardens watched a giant screen scroll the names of Zimbabweans who have died in political violence during the last year. The state-controlled Herald newspaper published a photograph of the fireworks that lit up the night sky but avoided any mention of the political content of the production.

Political statement was found just about everywhere. Ben Voss the star of Beauty and the B.E.E. had the jam packed Reps Theatre rolling in the aisles with a cutting satire on South African politicians. He also set his sights on Robert Mugabe who he situated in a horse race with the likes of Zuma and Zille. Mugabe was riding Genocide and Zuma was on Corruption. He ended his time on stage with a very pointed eulogy to Mugabe. The basic message was just get out of here already. It was curious to sense the discomfort in the audience as Ben moved from generally criticising South African politicians to specifically gunning for Mugabe. Have we ever experienced such direct public criticism of Mugabe, where we Zimbabweans have been encouraged to laugh at the small dictator? Bare our teeth at him in public? It showed me how far we all have to go to shrug off the effects of decades of oppression. I reckoned that Ben might be deported before his next show. I lost the bet. And I’m pleased I did.

Meanwhile an old blind woman begging on Julius Nyerere Street outside the main HIFA entrance clanked her two US coins in her small metal bowl. Most people walked around her. On Seventh Street, home to one of Mugabe’s mansion like houses, a tramp trawling the sidewalk picked up an old Coke can, gave it a shake, tilted his head back and sipped what was left.

My enjoyment of both Victoria, a Canadian production on aging, and a double bill dance show was lessened by the weirdness of some of the Zimbabwean audience. They laughed in all the wrong places. Whilst the interpretation of performance is a very personal experience there’s just too much conservatism in some folk here. The stunning Spanish dancer was ridiculed from start to finish by the people sitting behind me simply because he started his performance in a dress.

Oh wow – so radical!

Allegations, a play that looked at the troubles of a white farmer and a displaced Zimbabwean farm worker, gave us pause for thought about how similar we all are and how Mugabe has trashed our dignity no matter our colour. It was an outstanding production and deserves to be seen in all corners of Zimbabwe. I’m really hoping that it won’t go from Harare to Berlin in one swift plane ride as happens so often in this country.

Way to go HIFA for your courage and energy.