I’ve been watching the first season of Sex and the City and, despite season one being more than ten years old, the money-power-sex issue is still one that goes unresolved.

In an episode titled the Power of Female Sex, the girls have the following conversations:

Samantha: Women have the right to use every means at their disposal to achieve power. Miranda: Short of sleeping their way to the top. Samantha: Not if that’s what it takes to compete. Charlotte: But that’s exploitation! Samantha: Of men, – which is perfectly legal. Carrie: So, you advocate a double standard. Women can use their sexuality to get ahead whenever possible, but men should not be allowed to take advantage of it? Samantha: No, I’m just saying that men and women are equal-opportunity exploiters.

Samantha: What are you getting so uptight about? I mean, money is power. Sex is power. Therefore, getting money for sex is simply an exchange of power.

Men have the money, women give sex in exchange for money, who has the power?

Yesterday I attended a presentation on Human Security by Farai Maguwu, a Zimbabwean human rights activist.

Over the years, many states have focused their security strategies on defending and protecting their nation through the use of the military. In Zimbabwe the defense Ministry has done exceedingly well in this regard, considering we have never been attacked by any state since independence. However, the blueprint surrounding the word security has since embraced a new aspect, which is human security. Human security expresses the basic needs of an individual in terms of secure systems of education, health, shelter and job structures.

Thus the ‘security’ that nations should provide for their citizens should go a long way beyond having safe borders to protect the nation at large to having individuals needs met within that secure environment. Human security in Zimbabwe is dilapidated. This is evident in the number of Zimbabweans living in the Diaspora who have failed to get a job in their own country, who have failed to get medical health care, who seek better education systems and whose freedom of expression has been violated. It is also evident from the number of street kids we having living in the streets, who have failed to secure a shelter over their head, a basic birth certificate (which is a right), education, and food to mention a few examples.

I personally fear that one day I might fall ill and fail to pay for my medical bills. Student at universities fear not getting a job after completing their studies. Pupils in schools,, both primary and secondary, fear that one day their parents will wake up to tell them there is no money in the house to pay for their fees or examination fees. The internally displaced communities and a majority of citizens have failed to put a roof over their heads. This, like the presenter put it, will lead to structural violence which he defined as the slow death of an individual through being deprived access to basic material needs.

What measures should we undertake as a nation to make Zimbabwe secure?

“The country’s policies on indigenisation will not be there forever, hence the need to grab the chance now and not wait. There is no reason to wait as opportunities might elude you…the challenge I see with most people is that they want to commit to investing home when things are OK, but when things are OK, there would be no opportunities to talk about,” Affirmative Action Group president Supa Mandiwanzira, Business Chronicle, 11 January 2010.

And when Zanu PF critics say the party goons smelt their exit with the advent of a vibrant political opposition and went on looting overdrive, who will argue when Mandiwanzira openly makes such declarations? If all is okey-dokey it means you have a functioning state with checks and balances that make looting criminal, so strike the iron while it’s hot; use bad laws to create wealth; loot as much as you can such that when good men appear on the horizon to take charge, who gives a shit, coz dude, we got it made!  And the rest of the “lumpen proletariat” who continue to wallow in misery? Well, they empathised with the enemy and chose not to heed the call to arms, that’s what Mandiwanzira and his confederates will say when asked by St. Peter to justify how they got so fabulously wealthy and forgot the old Christian stricture “what does it profit a man…?”

Having a textbook on a desk in most schools in Zimbabwe is now deemed a privilege. Pupils have to scramble for the limited resources and in some scenarios the teacher’s copy is the only one available for use. However with the injection of 13 million textbooks being delivered to schools by the Ministry of Education the scenario is going to change. Hopefully along the way teachers will get a boost to their salaries as well! Read more from Voice of America

Attending primary school was really tedious for me as a youngster. As Grade 7 pupils we had to be the first at school so we could write some tests before the teacher came. We were the last ones to leave too, in order to attend the remedial classes. We knew no holiday as most of it was spent at school reading and preparing for the final examinations.  My school’s hymn was, “The light that shines so bright”. However, in as much as we sang the school hymn with great energy and enthusiasm that could awaken the dead, we still failed to reach the top of the Grade 7 pass rate in the region.

What amazed me the most was the same school came tops for the years I spent in my primary education. Their pass rate was always high and you really wondered what teaching method was being used that other schools were failing to implement to achieve high pass rates. Word on the street had it that they opened the exam papers and gave them to the pupils before they sat for their final examination. Thus maintaining the same outstandingly high pass rate.

Today The Herald published a story that proves that headmasters and their administration might well do nasty tricks to get their pass rates high. In this particular story the headmaster (61) actually sat for different papers on behalf of six pupils. The accused headmaster had this to say in court, “The school development committee and parents had given me a last chance to improve the school’s pass rate and I agreed with my administration staff that we would help our best pupils to improve the pass rate”. Emmanuel Manokore of Nyamakate Primary School in Hurungwe committed this crime.

Now I am really wondering what that school did to keep tops despite all the efforts we made to try and beat them. Did they really open the examination papers? Or did the headmaster sit for examinations on behalf of the pupils?

Imagine a man who was soliciting for change from drivers on the street became an Internet hit and all of a sudden several big companies like MTV, NFL and countless radio stations are now on the hunt for the man’s golden voice.

This an example of a life changing story for man who had spent couple of years on the streets begging. Captured on a video in the streets of Columbus in America Ted Williams narrates his story as former radio announcer who fell on hard times and he is looking for help. When the video was posted on the Internet indeed help did come and overnight Ted has become an Internet star.

I watched Ted’s video on Sky News and ooh God the man does have a voice. He is just one person you would want to wake up early in the morning and listen to on the radio or TV.  With a background of alcohol and drugs some people would have written Ted off but thanks to the help and generosity of others he can now live his dream. By just listening to him you can easily see that he is motivated and he has passion for his work.

With a life-changing story like this happening in America it got me thinking on how much talent we may have over looked here in Zimbabwe. We have people on the streets and some of them are so talented and nobody is taking time to give these people a second chance to live their dreams. Due to different circumstances we have a lot of people in the streets especially in Harare and in most cases it’s not by choice that one ends begging on the streets. If you go down along First Street in Harare right now you will find people begging and some of them end up singing and performing plays so that they can get the attention from the public and get a few dollars so that they can survive. But besides begging we should also look at the talent some of these might have. Some of these people have perfected their begging skill to the extent that one would think that they have been rehearsing.

Who knows, we may wake up one day to hear that the guy who used perform walking on the wire along First Street is featuring on the latest blockbuster movie directed by Steven Spielberg. To a lot of people Ted has proved that in life you don’t have to give up.