In her obituary of Yvonne Vera, Ranka Primorac wrote: “The most courageous among them [her other books] is The Stone Virgins, the first work of fiction that openly exposes and condemns the government sponsored violence [Gukurahundi] against civilians in Independent Zimbabwe.”   Primorac goes on to praise its “stylistic mastery and political bravery.”  Yet The Stone Virgins has never been banned; Vera (who, curiously, received the Tucholsky Award of the Swedish PEN for a writer in exile or undergoing persecution) never went into exile, was never persecuted, never even harassed.  The novel was published in 2002 when the government’s policy of re-crafting and subverting the law to support its ideology of “patriotism” was in Operation [upper case deliberate].  How come they left her alone?  I can think of two reasons: first, that Primorac is wrong about Vera’s political courage; second, The Stone Virgins is a novel written in turgid English, and was never likely to influence the restless povo, for most of whom books are unaffordable, and English is very much a second or third language.

By blurring distinctions between dissidents, pseudo-dissidents, and soldiers; between war and massacre; by the timing of the atrocities described in the novel, Vera creates self-protecting ambiguities.  For example, the brutal murder of the shop owner, Mahlatini takes place in 1982, before the Fifth Brigade was officially mobilised.  His killers are called “soldiers”.  Just before he dies, the author puts a suggestive thought in his mind: “He did not want to see who was killing him, just in case he recalled something about the eyes, the forehead, the gait of this man.”  Just in case his killer was a local?

The saintly man, Cephas, associated with the mazhanje (umhobohobo) fruit of the eastern highlands, is Shona (his tagged on surname, Dube, notwithstanding); the diabolical man, Sibaso, associated with the marula fruit of Matabeleland, is Ndebele.  Dissidents and pseudo-dissidents did commit atrocities, some hundreds, mainly against whites and so-called sell-outs; but the Fifth Brigade, targeting innocent rural folk, killed, raped, and maimed tens of thousands.  Vera’s choice of perpetrator in this context seems somewhat skewed.  No wonder she wouldn’t allow copies of Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace, to be displayed in the Art Gallery shop when she was the Director – the same art gallery where Owen Maseko’s exhibition remains sealed off to the public.  So, Ranka Primorac is wrong – there is nothing in The Stone Virgins that” openly” condemns and exposes Gukurahundi.  On the contrary, it is full of lyrical self-censorship.

The second reason why the authorities might have left Yvonne Vera alone recalls the words of the writer, Stanley Nyamfukudza: “One of the best ways to hide information in Zimbabwe is to publish it in a book.”  The Board of Censors tends to overlook the written word because the vast majority of people in this country have little access to books, especially fictional books.  The visual arts, township drama, and performance poetry are another story!  The Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiongo was imprisoned not for his novels in English but for his plays in Kikuyu.  The authorities don’t want the masses to get too excited.

So, why Owen Maseko?  Again, I can think of two reasons: first, his exhibition is courageous to the point of recklessness in its exposure of what has now been officially classified as genocide; second, as a visual artist his work is immediately accessible to the restless povo.  It speaks a universal language.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network launched an observation report on the voters roll. In April 2010, ZESN undertook an audit to assess the quality of Zimbabwe’s Voter’s Roll. The research project sought to test the accuracy and completeness of the voter’s roll and to make recommendations for a cleanup of the voters roll.

In his remarks during the launch, Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network Tinoziva Bere said:

The people of this country and everybody concerned about the Voter’s Roll ought to have access to it, freely and easily. And any exercise in improving it or cleaning it, ought to be done publicly.

Observation of the Voter’s Roll was conducted using three tests: a computer test, a list to people field test and a people to list test. A systematic analysis of data obtained from these tests provides critical information about the quality of the voters than can inform efforts to improve the voter registration in Zimbabwe. Among the findings in the report were the following;

-    The list to people test revealed that 41% of registered voters were no longer residing at the address on the voter’s roll.
-    97% of respondents have not transferred to reflect the change in residential address against the 3% who had transferred to new wards.
-    More males (52%) were registered compared to females, who constituted 48% of the registered population. Population statistics for Zimbabwe indicate that women constitute 52% of the population. -    The computer test shows that only 18% of those registered to vote are youths aged between 18 and 30.

Among the recommendations ZESN makes to government and the Zimbabwe Electoral commission are the following:

-    Increase the transparency of the voter registration process such as deletion from the voter’s roll as the process is currently out of public scrutiny and the criteria for deletion is left to the Constituency Registrars
-    Voter education drives to inform citizens on the procedures for registration, transferring, objections, making claims and deletion of dead voters
-    Continuous maintenance of the Voter’s Roll is important to ensure that voters that have become ineligible to vote, for example by death, are removed in order to prevent over inflating the voter’s roll -    Voter registration must in it’s entirety be integrated into one office of ZEC and ZEC should have total control of voter registration and maintenance of the voter’s roll to ensure greater accountability for it’s state
-    Prioritise young people in the issuance of the national identity card to increase the numbers of young people who register as voters

In closing the launch, Jestina Mukoko of the Zimbabwe Peace Project said:

“I hope the media will note that ZESN has opted not to refer to the voter’s roll as being in a shambles but that they want to critically look at the various issues.”

Raphael Chikukwa from Zimbo Jam shares some information about a forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe:

Hope and Despair, a new exhibition at the National Gallery in Harare, features work from nine emerging artists and gives unique visual commentaries to and interpretations of Zimbabwean contemporary life, challenging you to rethink “the obvious.”

The nine artists are Calvin Chimutuwa, Muthabisi Pili, Tafadzwa Gwetai, Portia Zvavahera, Mercy Moyo, Richard Mudariki, Warren Mapondera, Zacharia Mukwira and Virginia Chihota.

The exhibition opens on January 27.

Find out more here

I was listening to the radio in the morning in the kombi I was in, from home to town. The radio was tuned into Power FM where Bridget Gavanga (‘Bubbling B’) and Dr Zobha were on the morning show. Just before the 8 o’clock news Bridget hit us with some interesting news. She said that a Russian Orthodox Church had said that Russian women dress like strippers because they wear ‘figure-hugging outfits and full-on makeup’, and those who drink and wear mini skirts are to be blamed if they are raped. To cap it all she carried on to say that those who dress provocatively can’t find decent husbands! Read the story here.

Before Bridget could even finish reading this she was receiving some remarks from her co-DJ Dr Zobha. People in the kombi also started to comment. Dr Zobha asked an interesting question, “Akazviona kupi?” (“Where did the Orthodox see this?”). Which she chose to ignore. The story swiftly shifted to focus on Zimbabwean women. All the female people in the kombi kept quiet including myself.

One gentlemen noted that some women wear very short skirts and dresses, such that when they are asked to bend to pick up something, the skirt will ride down to the waistline and their under garments will be revealed. (“Ukati munhu akotame anonge pepa pasi, ka skirt kaya kanoenda kumusuna pantie rongosara rakadongorera”). All the men did have a laugh. It was quite sad that I went mute. I belong to the school of thought that believes one should wear what they feel most comfortable in, period. But all that I know of ‘body politics’ just ran out and I kept listening. Another man pointed out in the kombis as a female passenger is drooping off, you find them trying by all means to pull down their tops to cover their backs which tend to be revealed as one bends to get out of the kombi.

But the Orthodox did condemn men too. Those who wear ‘shorts in the city or team tracksuit bottoms with flip-flops’ but no one said a word about this. The whole conversation focused on how women dress.

Now I was wondering and asking myself, why were I and all the other ladies quiet? Is it because it’s the truth?

Ethan Zuckerman recently published a great blog on Facebook. Here’s an excerpt, but read the whole post.

Algorithms, Unbirthdays and Rewiring Facebook

Tuesday was my birthday, and I spent the day largely offline. That meant that Wednesday morning, my email inbox featured hundreds of messages from Facebook, each alerting me to a birthday greeting on my Wall. (I’m an infrequent Facebook user, so I usually find these sorts of alerts useful and haven’t disabled them.) On the one hand, this outpouring of online affection was wonderful – I felt grateful to be remembered by people I’ve not spoken to since high school.

On the other hand, it’s basically impossible to respond to the flood of messages with anything other than “Thanks!” And, of course, there’s usually nothing to the message than the greeting itself – the message is symbolic, not substantive. Which left me thinking

-    I should be better about logging onto Facebook and sending my own symbolic, semantically void greetings
-
and then

-    I should write a Facebook ap that partitions my friends into 365 roughly equally sized groups and encourages me to say hi to that specific, small set of people on that day. I’d occasionally reach someone on their birthday (though I could add additional logic to pick only unbirthday folks.) Unbirthday notes would arrive on days when people weren’t overwhelmed, and might actually spark a conversation and a chance to catch up.

Socially transgressive, or a helpful hack for building actual conversations between out of touch friends? Would other people resist such a rewiring of Facebook and the social norms it embodies, or embrace it?

You see those fliers always strewn all over the place by pro-democracy activists be it about the constitution, elections or whatever? They could be dangerous to your health after all, and this not because they are environmentally unfriendly or anything of that sort.

I picked up one the other day under a tree where a friend was having his hair trimmed by those outdoor barbers who have become ubiquitous in Bulawayo. Also there chatting with the barber was a cop I am acquainted with. The guy helpfully says to me, be careful about just picking up these papers in the street and reading them. I give a knowing laugh that he is warning me that someone might have used it as toilet paper, but the guy says, no dude I’m serious. Then he explains, and it is not about hygiene considerations:

A man obviously minding his own business picked up one of these pro-democracy fliers just in front of the Western Commonage courts in Bulawayo – there is also a notorious police station here.  As he was busy going through the flier, two men approached and asked him to tell them what Tsvangirai was saying. The man was bamboozled. “Isn’t you have read this piece of paper, now tell us what it is saying.” The poor man was like “who the fuck are you people?” the two men were like, “we are asking you politely and you are saying such rude things.”

Turns out the two were plain clothes cops, and the cop under the tree tells me, these two wanted to take this poor man in and give him a thorough beating, but they “realised” the person they were dealing with was clueless about what they were talking about – and the gravity of the offence, I might add. So they let him off with a stern warning: don’t go about reading these papers put on the streets by unknown people or else you will die for things you don’t know [that’s a direct translation from the vernacular they spoke].

And to me the cop says, “When you see these papers and want to read one, just pick it up, put it your pocket and read it in the privacy of your home”! Why? But I answered it myself – to avoid being picked up by the spooks for reading “subversive” material. I thanked the cop for the invaluable “tip” but in my mind yelled, “Idiot!” I suspected he was one of the said cops as the chap is already known in the locality as a super patriot and moron.

There you have it folks, careful what you read, you may not exactly die of a misprint, but political zealots may just not like what you read and you may die of that dislike from people with apparent dyslexia!  The mind control could be working overdrive ahead of elections, after all, haven’t some people been beaten up in the not-so-distant past for reading the Daily News and other newspapers critical of Zanu PF? Certainly the Zimbabwe we do not want.