I went to Danhiko Project’s annual Paralympic Games for the first time. In attendance was the First Lady Grace Mugabe, the Project’s patron, several important looking Zimbabwean government officials, captains of industry etc. 81 clubs from all over the country attended, with athletes participating in a diverse number of sports including swimming, wheelchair basket ball, tennis, and a new sport to me, goal ball.

I have to admit to being impressed by what I saw. The cliché about disabled athletes being brave, spirited and determined is exactly that because it’s true. These are not people to be pitied, or looked down upon. Neither are they helpless. But in society that discriminates based on difference, that is what often happens.

There were a lot of journalists covering the story that day, as evidenced by the extensive coverage to be found in the Herald and on ZBC. It is unfortunate though, that the games, the participants and even the Danhiko Project were just a backdrop to a story framed as ‘what the First Lady did on Saturday’. For the majority of the time the cameras were on the First Lady and Government officials.

On the news in the evening what was shown was the First Lady giving a speech about how much she managed to raise for the games (any mention of corporate sponsorship was edited out, yet free advertising is what induces companies to sponsor events in the first place!), and footage of her and several government officials making merry on the dance floor.

What’s even worse is that for television the reporter who filed the story wasn’t even there. ZBC sent a cameraman and googled their way through a five-minute story.

To her credit, the First Lady did try to maintain the focus on the reason the event was held in the first place, for the disabled.

The banning of SMS messaging in Mozambique is but one of several signs that both SMS (short message service) and the internet are changing the way media creates a national conversation in African countries, writes Russell Southwood on Pambazuka.

Read this very interesting article on the use of new media here but take note that Kubatana did not provide the MDC with an interactive voice response system for its phone in information service.

“Enemy Number One,” featured a panel comprised of Zimbabwean writer Christopher Mlalaz and USC English professor Michelle Gordon and Wolf Gruner, a USC professor of history who holds the Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies. Speaking of his experiences with media censorship under the government of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, Mlalazi’s experience was skillfully included within the context of Feuchtwanger’s 1940 internment and escape from Nazi-occupied France.

Mlalazi, the recipient of the 2010 Villa Aurora Feuchtwanger Fellowship, gave the audience frightening accounts of Mugabe’s censorship tactics — including a description of the torture that the production manager of his satirical play, The Crocodile of Zambezi, endured after the show’s second night.

Mlalazi himself has received ominous phone calls since announcing his excitement for winning the Feuchtwanger Fellowship on Facebook. Just like Feuchwanger, Mlalazi lives in a constant state of fear.

Fear, however, is a double-edged sword: Although it paralyzes, it also motivates. Despite some apprehension, Mlalazi will return to Zimbabwe in December so that he can be with his friends and family — and to continue helping his people answer questions about themselves and their country.

Mlalazi is careful, however, to mask his social and political critique behind a veil of abstraction and metaphor.

“We will never be silenced,” he said.

More here

Okay so it’s official. Freshlyground have been banned from performing in Zimbabwe next month because of their Chicken to Change video. I know it’s official because I saw it on ZA News. Those puppets don’t lie.

Meanwhile, I’ve just made the Freshlyground Chicken to Change song my ringtone. Maybe now I’ll look forward to people phoning me . . .

You can download the ringtone here.

Now tell me. If in any given week we can have Freshlyground banned from performing in Zimbabwe, Owen Maseko’s work on Gukurahundi banned, and SW Radio Africa jammed, what’s the point of this inclusive government again?