I had the unusual pleasure of masquerading as a designer on the closing night of Zimbabwe Fashion Week. The stress of not really knowing what was going on was overcome by the excitement of being part of a real fashion show. Well done to the organisers for being the first to bring the glamour of international fashion to Zimbabwe. Pictured above is the fabulous Denise Mutsamwira.

I’ve noticed around Harare the billboard above advertising The Herald: News packaged to your taste. And I’ve been wondering if it is actually a terribly clever subversive undermining of the state media by whomever they hired to do their marketing. Because I don’t know about you but the image used – a crusty day-old bread roll, a bit of polony, some wilted lettuce and a few slices of that tasteless, processed, pre-sliced, plastic orange stuff that tries to pass as cheese – doesn’t exactly leave me salivating to by my latest copy of The Herald and tuck right in. But then again, I’ve always found The Herald pretty tasteless – in both senses of the word.

The Book Café Carpark, Harare
Friday 9 September, 6-11.30pm

This week Sudanese hiphop star EMMANUEL JAL lands in Harare for a whirlwind hiphop collaboration with Zimbabwe.  A mega performance in the Book Café car park on Friday 9 September from 6pm will headline Jal and his 6-piece band, following a star line-up of some of Zimbabwe’s best – feisty mbira star Chiwoniso Maraire, ‘Comrade Fatso’ and Chabvondoka, and ‘Outspoken’ and The Essence.

Emerging from a vicious background of child-soldiering in Southern Sudan, and after escaping to Kenya, Jal fell in love with hiphop and felt it could provide the easiest and most effective vehicle to express his story.  Emmanuel Jal’s music grew in Kenya, reached the word through the airwaves, and he is now an internationally renowned hiphop artist, with a strong message of peace for the world.  “Jal set the hip-hop bar higher,” wrote the Washington Post in 2008.

Despite his accomplishments in music, Jal’s biggest passion is for Gua Africa, a charity that he founded. Besides building schools, the nonprofit provides scholarships for Sudanese war survivors in refugee camps, and sponsors education for children in the most deprived slum areas in Nairobi.

Jal, whose own childhood was robbed from him, aims to protect the childhood of others through music. “Music is powerful.  It is the only thing that can speak into your mind, your heart and your soul without your permission” he said.

Jal will be making powerful music on Friday 9 September, alongside Zimbabwean artists who also have a story to tell, gifted young musicians, songwriters and poets who have achieved some acclaim in the world, also gracing stages from New York to Berlin and Capetown to Zanzibar.  The open air concert kicks off with the Zimbabwean artists, followed by Emmanuel Jal at 10pm.

‘War Child’
A documentary film about Emmanuel Jal called ‘War Child’ was made in 2008 by C. Karim Chrobog.  It made its international debut at the Berlin Film Festival and its North American debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Cadillac Audience Award, and an autobiography under the same name was released in 2009.

As part of the Emmanuel Jal programme, ‘War Child’ will be screened on Thursday 8 September, at the Mannenberg Film Club

I drove past a Herald newspaper billboard today. The headline was something like “Prisoners gobble $1.7 a month”. Well first off the majority of Zimbabwean prisoners are starving. They don’t even get to gobble fresh air. Then there’s the issue that the reason why a great many of our prisoners are incarcerated, is because our economy has been so trashed by the political hierarchy, that stealing has become the one of the most common forms of “employment”. And then there’s our failed judicial system that keeps people in prison for much longer that they need to be because of the lack of capacity to take them to trial, on time. Never mind our prison population is really large so if you actually divide the $1.7 over the number of prisoners it would come as no surprise that this amount is no where near what’s needed to keep people from becoming ill or starving. Meanwhile a few ministers get $20 million to purchase luxury vehicles. Now that’s gobbling.

First stunning thing this week. Information that the Zimbabwe government may deport the Libyan Ambassador for flying the rebel flag.

Stunning!

I mean, denial is a wonderful place. I go there often. ‘In denial’ is usually the note that goes with my blank stare and far away look. However, I think this really takes the cake for life with your head up your ass! They are almost as ‘lost in space’ as Gadaffi himself, the man of the HUGE floor mural that people are now pissing on in Tripoli! And who issues radio statements that he is going to fight to the last against the cockroaches, and die in Libya, and … he is nowhere to be found. Even the cockroaches do not know where he is. But he is defiant! From some safe hole where he is doing his Saddam/Gbago impersonation. While he lets others die for him. And it appears he let others kill, (in great numbers) for him too.

Now there is a real man for you!

And the second stunning bit from that same information. The GNU has ‘unified’ and come to a decision to deport someone! This must be a first – a government decision! But I suspect someone gave out the wrong information. Who actually said this? I really do not think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Prime Minister, (the government) made any statement. Some ignorant hack in the President’s office (living in denial, and in the past, with his head up his ass), or some other executive type person (army or police), may have said something, but not ‘the government’.

First off, the government is the majority party in parliament, headed by the Prime Minister. They make the laws of Zimbabwe. And I suspect they made no law about deporting ambassadors. The President is the head of the Executive, the chief civil servant. And the Executive is the body of people that implement, or carry out, the laws of Zimbabwe. They do not make them. They are bound by them, and must do what the Government tells them to do. They must enforce the law. (Or be lawless, undisciplined, warlords.) And they do not make policy. Let alone ‘deport’ other people’s ambassador’s.

Then, more stunning (but ‘slow burn’) information. 100 prominent South Africans sign some letter protesting NATO’s bombing of Libyan killers (tanks, and other mechanisms of ‘civilian’ control). Why? Who are they (and don’t tell me the names, I can find that myself)? They cannot sign any letter 10 years ago to say, “please help the people suffering under this evil murdering dictator most foul”. But now they can sign a letter against the ‘will bomb for oil’ boys. So who are these people who can only see what they want to see? But seem quite incapable of looking around and calling out evil wherever they see it. The can only look around and call out evil when it suits them. So who are they, and why should we listen to them? Seems their ‘values’ are a bit suspect.

And the Africa Union (that organisation founded and consisting of Heads of State and Government) wonders why it has been ‘marginalised’? Well, what did happen to the peer review mechanism? Are you also unable to see and deal with evil? Except when it suits you. Or are you really only a body to represent African heads of State, and have nothing to do with African people.

Dear AU. You are marginalised because you only deal with marginal issues, and even then, at the margins. If you took a stance, had some values, and pursued them, you would not be a marginal (holiday trip) body.

On doublespeak, I hear on the BBC, interviews with foreigners in Libya and Tripoli, wanting to get out. Why? The new power in Libya is killing Africans (or might kill) people who are suspected as being Gadaffi mercenaries. But hang on, Libyans are Africans! After all, Libya is in Africa, and Gadaffi is one of the main founders/movers of the African Union. Oh, does the BBC mean ‘blacks’? It seems quite clear that all blacks are not Africans, and all Africans are not black. So why can we not speak properly?

And Zapiro’s cartoon also had me laughing and smiling for some time. His, “Signs of Libya”. NATO planes over head with banners, ‘Will bomb for oil concessions’. His Zuma character on the street corner with the sign, ‘No coherent foreign policy, Please help’, and the wall poster behind him ‘lost, road map’ and to contact the AU.

And now, big (but not really) scandal on Shell Oil spills in the Niger delta. Over the past 20 years, or more. Compare this to the small spill, over months, in the Gulf of Mexico. I have no desire to go back to my earlier blog on the USA, their gross oil over consumption, and how their backyard contrasts with our backyard. And the one response I got, “fuck you”. But I would like to ask, “was I right?”, or “was I right?”. The ‘will bomb for oil boys’ are, without doubt, a bad bunch. But where does the buck stop? At producers, or consumers? They will bomb for oil, and poison whole nations of people, but not in their back yard.