“If you watch cartoons these days you get this depressing feeling that it’s all been done before and it’s not new, and I think my idea takes a different angle. And how many movies do you get by an African screenwriter? How many cartoons do you get by an African screenwriter? I think Africa is a market that the West needs to tap into right now. ” – Mirirai Moyo, on why she wants her story, Belonging made into an animated film.

She went on to say:

“The government gives so much money for soccer or sports events and this is only 90 minutes and then it’s over. You invest in art, literature, for example, lasts forever. The government needs to invest in the arts. There are so many kids out there who can write. One of the things that I find frustrating is the way people treat writing like a hobby. I was watching a movie with a friend, and at some point the main character says he’s a writer and the old lady who lives upstairs goes; “Isn’t that a hobby?” then my friend says ‘Yah, but I’ve always thought it’s a hobby’. But I’m like you think that at some point I’m going to fold up my books and do something serious, are you implying that this is not serious?’

We need to appreciate that people can make a living from art. Not everybody wants to be a professor, or lecturer or an accountant. People want to do different things and we need to invest in the creative industry. And you know ZIFA has got ZIFA village, all they need to do is start a writer’s village somewhere. I mean why is it that they don’t want to invest in the arts? What are they afraid of?”

- Mirirai Moyo on government investment in the arts

From Bulawayo Agenda:

A leading academic and analyst, Dr Lawton Hikwa, said journalists need to be sufficiently resourced so as to avoid being used by politicians. Hikwa said for journalists to be sincere, fair and unbiased in their reporting they do not have to ask for favors, especially from politicians who he described as manipulative. Most journalists in Zimbabwe are not adequately resourced by their media houses. This has led to them being bailed out by politicians, who in turn demand that they do not report against them

Black History Month is the month set aside to honor the past achievements and on-going contributions of African-Americans and people of African descent.  The theme for this year is African-Americans and the Civil War.   The U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section invites you to celebrate Black History Month through video screenings of a selection of videos from the 19th Century through the civil rights to present day.  The screenings will be followed by a 30 minute Q&A facilitated by Assistant Public Affairs Officer, Andrew Posner.  Tea & Coffee will be served.

Thursday, February 3
Film: Fredrick Douglass Biography
Time: 1500 hrs
Venue: PAS Auditorium, 7th Floor Goldbridge,
Eastgate Mall, 3rd Street & R, Mugabe Way

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Synopsis
As a young man, he experienced the brutality of slavery first and as an outspoken leader of the abolitionist movement, he became one of the most powerful voices in America. This inspiring biography chronicles Douglass’ remarkable life: from his childhood in slavery to his crucial work on behalf of former slaves following the civil war.

Thursday, February 10
Film: Sound Track for a Revolution
Time: 1500 hrs
Venue: PAS Auditorium, 7th Floor Goldbridge,
Eastgate Mall, 3rd Street & R, Mugabe Way

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Synopsis: Tells the story of America’s civil rights movement through the freedom songs that protesters sang as they fought for justice and equality- with performances by John Legend, Wyclef Jean and others.
www.soundtrackforarevolution.com

Thursday, February 17
Film Neshoba
Time 1500 hrs
Venue: PAS Auditorium, 7th Floor Goldbridge,
Eastgate Mall, 3rd Street & R, Mugabe Way

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Synopsis: The story of a Mississippi town still divided about the meaning of justice 40 years
after the murders of three civil rights workers, the film explores whether healing and
reconciliation are possible and demonstrates how Americans move beyond scars of the past.
www.neshobafilm.com

Thursday, February 24
Film: Trouble The Water
Time: 1500 hrs
Venue: PAS Auditorium, 7th Floor Goldbridge,
Eastgate Mall, 3rd Street & R, Mugabe Way

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Synopsis: A young African American couple survive the flooding of New Orleans, failed levees, bungling bureaucrats and their own less than perfect past and manage to endure through love, hope and courage.
www.troublethewaterfilm.com

Yesterday I had a treat, listening to poems recited by members of the Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights (ZPHR). The forum was in line with celebrating Black History Month, which is in February each year. In Zimbabwe, ZPHR will be celebrating Black History Month under the theme, “Black Poetry and the Struggle for Black Self-determination.” Poetry has the power to motivate, give confidence, and lift us up during difficult times so its an important communication device.

Members of ZPHR performed three poems from American poets. These were then open to the forum for discussion. The poems recited were Maya Angelou – Still I Rise, Gwendolyn Brooks – Say to them and Sir John Betjeman – Diary of a Church Mouse. Betjeman’s poem was much debated as the audience sought to contextualise it’s meaning to Zimbabwe.

The local poets then took the stage to perform their own original poems. There is such talent out there and I left the forum truly acknowledging that ‘poetry is a verbal war for freedom”. Interestingly a poet performed a poem dedicated to Nelson Mandela who had been reported to be ill in the past week. The poem generally looked at the greatness of the celebrated hero. A poet named PSP performed his own poem titled, “Rhythm of Device, the System Suffers Violence”. It was a poet’s story of how they struggle each day. Almost all the poets performed poems that show their day-to-day struggles and inspirational ones on how they want to be vehicles for change. I was particularly moved by one gentleman who recited a poem entitled, “Zimbabwe has not come”. It was really thought provoking and it left me deeply in thought.

For more please make a date to listen to these poets as they celebrate Black History Month at The Book Café, on Saturday the 5th of February 2011 from 2pm to 5pm.

But what is the lesson of the recent events for southern Africa? In particular, what lessons does the wave of protests sweeping the Middle East have for Zimbabweans?

The most important lesson to come out of Egypt and Tunisia, it seems to me, is that revolutions cannot be outsourced. There has been something rather obscene about the ways in which some human rights activists, Zimbabwean and non-Zimbabwean, have presented the problems in Zimbabwe as if they are entirely SA’s or, to be exact, Thabo Mbeki ’s. One got the impression sometimes that these activists wanted Mbeki and South Africans in general to march on Harare. Some even suggested SA invade Zimbabwe.

What these hysterical calls did was absolve the prodemocracy movement in Zimbabwe of the responsibility to take the lead in the fight against Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship. Why is it, for example, that none of us who want to see Mugabe out of office and on trial for all sorts of crimes have bothered to ask why the Movement for Democratic Change, whose roots are supposedly in Zimbabwe’s labour movement, has yet to organise a successful strike, stayaway or other form of popular protest?

None of this is to ignore the brave men and women, journalists, lawyers, farmers and ordinary citizens who have protested against Mugabe’s rule and paid with everything from their lives to their limbs and property. The actions of these people must be recognised and honoured. But they cannot and should not be the exception.

Zimbabweans cannot outsource their revolution. They cannot leave the fight for their freedom to others. Sure, they need support, solidarity and the knowledge that the rest of the world is on their side. But they cannot expect the fight to be led by outsiders. That, for me, is what the Egyptians and the Tunisians have taught us.

Mubarak has one of the most formidable repressive machineries in the world but that has proved worthless in the face of popular protest. Voting with their feet, as the millions of Zimbabweans have done by moving to SA, Zambia, Botswana, Canada, Australia, the US and the UK, must have been a difficult thing to do. But it is by no means courageous. Courage is staring down a dictator, telling him to go and standing your ground. That is what the North Africans have done. Let us hope Zimbabweans learn from them.

Read the whole story from BusinessDay here

“The idea that I can reach out and take a person’s voice and help yield it up to that many people — I’m proud of that,” he says. “That’s really more interesting to me than my own voice.”

Be inspired by John Scott-Railton:

When the Egyptian government blocked the Internet last week in response to demonstrators’ use of social media like Twitter and Facebook to organize mass rallies, it not only cut off communication between ordinary Egyptians — it also muted their dialogue with the rest of the world.

For John Scott-Railton, a graduate student at University of California-Los Angeles, that silence was a personal blow. He had been visiting Egypt since 2006, going over there to see a close friend, and as the country accelerated towards revolt, he had been following the news on the Internet. Suddenly his connection was gone.

So Scott-Railton decided that if Egyptians couldn’t communicate with the world, he would do it for them, and set out to replicate the cacophony of voices he had been so drawn to. Reaching out to friends in Egypt by telephone, he started gathering updates from different neighborhoods and posting them online at his Twitter account @Jan25voices, named for the day the protests began. When he heard that Egypt’s mobile-phone networks were likely to be shut down, he drew up a list of people he knew with landlines. Over the roughly 24 hours on Friday when cellular communications were turned off, many journalists struggled to file their stories on the protests. But anyone following Jan25voices knew what was going on. “Some of the updates I was getting were from people’s aunts standing at the window, holding their phone out so I could hear what was happening,” he says.

In an earlier age, Scott-Railton would have had no choice but to wait, perhaps as he searched the dial for mentions of the events in Egypt. Today, the 27-year-old Michigan native is in the middle of the information flow, one of a host of bloggers and Tweeters who are — in many cases — doing as much as professional journalists to deliver news the Egyptian government is struggling to contain.

Scott-Railton’s Twitter account lists him as having just over 4,000 followers, but that considerably understates his influence, as his tweets — which he posts at a rate of around 50 a day — are visible to all those who search for information on the protests. Blake Hounshell, managing editor of Foreign Policy Magazine, subscribes to his posts, as do the editors of several other major news publications. And Scott-Railton says that the BBC, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera and the Wall Street Journal have all reached out to him for analysis or help finding Egyptians to interview. “In years past, the idea was that you could only understand the situation if you were on the ground,” says Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of digital media at Columbia Journalism School in NYC, who has been tracking the developments in Egypt. “What we have learned though is that there is a real role for social media for people who are far away from the action to bring context, understanding and analysis.”

Scott-Railton, who speaks rudimentary Arabic and has mostly used English — and occasionally French — in his reporting, has no training as a journalist. And yet, “a lot of the questions of journalistic ethics are now on my mind,” he says. “How do you confirm information? How do you avoid echo chambers? How do you substantiate?” When new sources began emailing him after his initial postings, he insisted they provide contacts, preferably in the U.S., who could vouch for their identities. He says his goal is to provide the “human component” of the story, “to make it feel as exciting and as relevant as the pictures of tanks rolling around.”

Once, news organizations spent years, if not decades, building up institutional credibility so that their viewers felt comfortable trusting them. Scott-Railton has had a week. “I’ve definitely taken a side,” he says. “I’m tweeting the voices of protestors. It’s not like I’m tweeting the police. But the tone I’m trying to take is not breathless. I’m trying to be careful — especially because the medium pushes you in the other direction.”

“Can you hold on a second?” Scott-Railton interrupts our interview to share another scrap of news. “I have people [in the Middle East] watching different news networks and feeding me information,” he says. And indeed not much more than a second later, it’s there on his Twitter feed: “Arabeya [sic]: Closure of Egyptian Rail #Egypt #Jan25.” In the language of the uninitiated, he’s told all those watching Twitter for news on the protests that the Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel has just reported that country’s rail-lines have been shut down.

Since he first set up Jan25voices, Scott-Railton has expanded his efforts, recruiting partners in Egypt and around the Middle East to monitor what the Arab-language news channels are reporting. Sometimes he doesn’t just post the information he receives from a phone call, but also the call itself. One recording of a young Egyptian talking to him from inside the protests has been listened to more than 275,000 times. “The idea that I can reach out and take a person’s voice and help yield it up to that many people — I’m proud of that,” he says. “That’s really more interesting to me than my own voice.”