“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

Having a coffee with a friend of mine today she said that not much has changed under the Unity Government in Zimbabwe. We used to have Zimbabwe dollar repression, now its US dollar repression she mused. Sure the shops may be full but the prices are jaw dropping. And if we measure our freedom against packed shelves we’ve got many years of dicktatorship ahead of us.

According to the Herald of the Friday, 1 October 2010, President Mugabe clarified a position that people have for long been struggling to understand. He made it clear that the idea of the National Hero’s Acre has every link to the liberation war and nowhere else.

Quoting the herald, the president said,

“…Nharaunda ino… inharaunda yevanenge vakaone-kwa kuti ava ndivo vakaisvogonesesa pahu-tungamiriri hwavo, pabasa ravo reChimurenga, rekurwira nyika. Saka inharaunda yevarwi veChimurenga….Haisi nharaunda yevanhu vanongonzi vatsvene. Vakawanda vatsvene, vakawandisisa vanobatsira vanhu . . . Asi pano patiri panodiwa veChimurenga saka kana tava kuda vatsvene vamwe vanogona zvakatikuti, tada magamba orudzi urworwo totsvagawo rimwe gomo ndipo potoisawo vatsvene verudzi irworwo. Pano ndepevemutupo weChimurenga ndozvatakaitira nzvimbo ino.”

Translated, the above quotation means,

“This place is a place of those that will have been proved to have done well in their leadership during the liberation struggle, so it is a place for the freedom fighters. This is not a place of any other people, there are so many good people who help others…But on this place we need people of the Liberation struggle, so if we want any other forms of heroes we have to choose another hill to lay such people. This place is for those of the Chimurenga totem.”

Over the past thirty years, this clarification was only enshrined in the closed quarters of the politburo, which deliberates on who to call a hero. This might mean that there are several day-to-day words and questions, at the political front whose definitions and answers are yet to be made public. Such words might include: ·    Who should be the president of the country? ·    Who should contribute to the constitution making process? ·    Who should get the largest share of land or part of the national cake?

Just as has been the case with that term “hero”, people attach some general meanings yet events position these questions in some predictable contexts, and no public clarification has been or will ever be issued.

It is therefore essential for political players and the public to be aware that some meanings that we reluctantly attach to some words and phrases in the political sphere are not necessarily the same as ones held by those in power.

I recently attended a press conference held in Grahamstown in which the topic was the proposed Protection of Information Bill and Media tribunal. The question being addressed “is  the media under siege?” There was a panel made up of various authorities including a member of the ANC  regional executive Mabhuti Matyunza.

Many people perceive that the ANC is putting a “squeeze on the media” and the introduction of the Protection of Information Bill would enable the government to prevent corruption from being exposed.

One of the panellists convincingly argued that that the things we want to keep secret are those things we are ashamed of, not the things we are proud of. He further argued that the government are in fact our employees. They are spending our money; they are elected by us to represent us. “I hope you like your ministers cars coz you pay for them!”

Many of the panellists agreed that the Protection of Information Bill would be taking South Africa back to the apartheid era. I completely agree with this argument as the Promotion of Information Act that was implemented post apartheid was put in place to prevent government from being corrupt. It was put in place in order to prevent and expose corruption. With the introduction of this Bill it will become almost impossible to expose corruption.

Another panellist commented that what you need for a “Healthy Public Sphere” is an opinionated society. We see the importance of this when we look at Zimbabwe where many ministers are able to get away with corruption because there is no freedom of expression. Does South Africa want to head down the same road as Zimbabwe where they will live under the complete control of government?

I was shocked at the attitudes of the ANC in response to the outcry against the proposed Protection Of Information Bill. President Jacob Zuma said something along the lines of we are the people who brought media freedom to this country you cannot tell us about media freedom. This statement sounds remarkably similar to the ideology Mugabe expresses when he argues that ZANU-PF liberated Zimbabwe and therefore they can do as they wish. Mabhuti Mtyunza the ANC regional executive seemed to avoid the issue being discussed and continued with his own agenda of how the ANC has done so much for the country. He argued that the media is “denting” and “destroying the country” and “working for the opposition” and as a result needs to be “monitored and guided”.

Does South Africa not realise that the platform of democracy is freedom of the press and freedom of expression. South Africa seems to have failed to learn from Zimbabwe’s mistakes, once there is no freedom of press corruption thrives and ministers are able to exploit resources as well as people.

Landlords, I will be most reliable when it comes to paying rent. I promise to pay rentals on or before the 26th of every month. I am looking for a one/two bed flat in the avenues and would want to pay $250-$300. So please just text me I will call you back if you have one. I will be very reliable and smart and will make sure your flat is kept nicely. Also note that my family is too small it’s just me and my beautiful, smart wife.

Dips please help me, Eddie.

No joke, the above is an advert that appeared on Dipleague Vol 27, Issue 123 of yesterday. For those who are not on it or do not know it, it is an email based community platform, originally tailored for those in the ‘Diplomatic’ and NGO community to post adverts for goods and services offered or requested, among other things.

When I saw the advert above, I couldn’t control my laughter for at least 2 minutes. That’s because I have been at that level of desperation where you’ll say anything, including the ridiculous – to make your case stand out among the throngs of other desperate home seekers mushrooming in Zimbabwe’s capital. After moving into a beautiful flat in April this year, I was gutted when a few weeks later I discovered that the ceiling has cracks that frequently leak water onto my floor and property from the flat above. It is such a nightmare because both my neighbor upstairs and absentee landlord does not seem to give a rat’s ass about it.

I found Eddie’s email particularly fascinating because it symbolizes the desperation of the condition of those of us who are home seeking, are of no fixed abode and not yet at a stage of affording one’s own property. Trying to capture the sympathy of prospective landlords is the one thing we all have in common and many a times, I have come across things like: young married couple with no children, looking for accommodation…or, mature white lady seeks flat to rent in town or Avondale, or young single man working for NGO seeking flat.

It is that bad, and what it means is that this has astronomically pushed up rentals, which is likely to worsen the urban accommodation crisis. What also contributes significantly to the problem is that today’s young working class prefer to live in areas closer to the central business district for the convenience they offer in terms of transport and availability of utilities like water and electricity.

Although the dollarized economy has created a new caliber of noveau riche, this is also ironically a time when the young middle and working class earn the greenback but cannot build homes for themselves because just getting a stand (and in the right area) is next to impossible; the banks simply aren’t up to lending (especially without collateral outside one’s salary) or it is just too expensive to build. The only other option is to rent and this has ultimately left tenants at the mercy of landlords.

Those who have been fortunate enough to own property at a very young age I guess will just never know what it feels like to live a nomadic life.

Being among this working class, I have constantly found myself thinking about the future and wondering if, like my parents, I will ever own a place of my own. Seeking to understand what is different now from the time they were young and home seeking too reveals that if anything, they earned far less than what we earn today. I realize now that it was about systems that worked; banks that lent, with low interest rates and gave you many years to pay back and most importantly – a government preoccupied with and committed to alleviating the housing problems faced by its citizens. That is what changed.