The death threats? Too numerous to count. The serious attempts on his life ranged from make-believe doctors offering potentially fatal “medicine” to a traffic accident that was no accident at all. In his native Zimbabwe, Chenjerai Hove has been ranked as high as No. 17 on the government’s Enemies of the State list. Read more

It has become normal in Zimbabwe to find two organizations doing the same business, and sharing the name but then suffixed somehow with another word to mark a difference. For example, ‘MDC T’, ‘MDC M’, ‘ZINASU Magwini’, ‘ZINASU Chinyere’, ‘CAPS FC’, ‘CAPS United’, just to mention a few. Even Churches have not been spared: ‘Johhane Marange’, ‘Johanne Masowe yeChishanu’, ‘Johanne Masowe yeMadzibaba’ and ‘Johnane Masowe yeVadzidzi’. One wonders why these divisions are happening. Even in these seemly intact institutions, its normal to hear of ‘this faction’ and ‘that other faction’. Many times conflicts are unavoidable, but is separation always the best answer? In every set up since time immemorial, there has always been a provision for dispute settlement. Conflicts are not new in our lives, our failure to handle them should labeled as such: FAILURE.

And this does not only happen at institutional level, but even at social and family level, you find those that were strong bonds now being totally disjointed. Friends, who were friends, are no longer. Parents who shared everything including children are now enemies for life. It is high time that we stop this trend and resort to amicable dispute settling mechanisms, which do not culminate in divisions. We all know that there is power in unity and a unified body is more dignified that its sub-parts. Even the bible makes it clear that “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Matthew 12:25). Even the Shona say that “Shumba mbiri hadzibvutirwi nyama,” which literally means that one cannot take away meat from two lions. Recognising this power of unity, and recalling past experiences were disunity has cost us, it should be a lesson to throw out division forever.

The question is, what kind of precedence are we are setting for our future generations, in terms of professionalism, leadership qualities, comradeship, brotherhood and unity of purpose? The bottom line here is to bring things together when we see them falling apart.

I was more interested in reading the comments on an article about the postponed New Zealand cricket tour to Zimbabwe on NewZimbabwe.com, than the actual article itself. The assertion by David Coltart that Zimbabwe is safer than the UK and other countries is resoundingly accurate. That is if you’re a member of a visiting sports team. But if you’re a human rights defender, an information activist, or a member of the general public who wants to wear an MDC t-shirt, you’re in big trouble. One of the readers who commented on the Coltart article likened Zanu PF to a terrorist organisation. How right, or wrong is this suggestion? Another reader berates Coltart for flip-flopping because until fairly recently, Coltart would have grabbed with two hands, any excuse for a sports boycott whether the grounds for the boycott were defendable, or spurious. Then again, I’d be interested to know whether this same reader who thinks Coltart has flip-flopped would praise Coltart for calling for a boycott of any international soccer team that wanted to play in Zimbabwe? I think not. New Zealand is using security as an excuse. They don’t want to tour Zimbabwe because of the Mugabe regime. And perhaps they have issues with Mugabe being the patron of Zimbabwe cricket. In which case they might well have to stand to attention on the green grass of Harare Sports Club and shake Mr M’s hand. And of course, Coltart, in a bid to woo the Kiwis, like many other politicians, suggests that the GNU has replaced a dictatorship when it clearly hasn’t.

Check out the blogs on New Internationalist if you want to access some refreshing reading. Blogger Jo Lateu recently shared some words of wisdom on homophobia from Desmond Tutu. Of course, the hysterical homophobic elements of society are likely to be as reactive as ever, but more fool them. If there are any pearly gates, the haters among us are certainly going to struggle to gain entry when they pop their sandaks.

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity – or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

It is time to stand up against another wrong.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counselling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Uganda’s parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding – away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offence is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said ‘love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones’. Gay people, too, are made in my God’s image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

‘But they are sinners,’ I can hear the preachers and politicians say. ‘They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished.’ My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin colour, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

The article first appeared in the Washington Post.

The past times that I have put my thoughts on paper I have been talking woman on this and that. You will have to forgive me for that. I know no other life. If I was a guy, sure I would write about guy issues, but I am not. I am going to write about what I know best which is being a woman and its challenges, and boy are there many in this day and age. We are still pretty much in the stone age if women are being married by a dozen to one man and some women still don’t have a choice about whom they get married to, let alone what age they get married at.

I have come to realize in the past month that I have come back to work at Kubatana that there is more to life than what meets the eye. I did not know that I had so many misconceptions about marriage until it was shown to me. For one, your husband does not need a good reason to want a divorce from you. He can say that he has grown tall and he doesn’t want to stay with a wife who is not growing as tall as he is, for all the court cares. There is no way you can say that’s a silly reason. The court will call it irretrievable breakdown and just like that you are divorced. For those that have not caught my flow I am just trying to highlight some misconceptions that we have as women when it comes to marriage.

The other thing that happens during divorce proceedings is that fifty fifty song that has been sung to us, is quite misleading. When you divorce you don’t get fifty percent, you take what you worked for, and what has your name on it. The fifty percent comes when the two of you had duel ownership. If he was buying cars or bought the house you lived in and your name appears on the title did then you get fifty fifty? And don’t think because you are the mother of the children that you automatically get the kids. The court looks at who earns the most money even though it’s advisable for a child to stay with its mother. For those who did not know, when your husband commits adultery you can file a lawsuit not against him, but his partner. Now how many court sessions are you going to go to, if he is a born cheat? How many women are you going to sue in the lifetime of your marriage?

Crazy isn’t it.

Zimbabwe is just emerging from its worst time ever and though people are not yet content, and are still in the air of uncertainty as to what the future holds for them, it is worth acknowledging that the previous year has been a great relief to many of us. In as much as we wish for the betterment of our country in every walk of life, it is sad to note that the qualities, attitudes, and tendencies that we developed during this negative time are still haunting us. Below are some examples:

- Every morning and evening as people come to and from work, transport operators who demand double the normal fair rob them of their dear dollars.

- Now that it is the season for selling tobacco, farmers are flocking into the city with their produce, and prices of goods in town have gone up.

- It is not even surprising to see people wasting production ours loitering in town, doing absolutely nothing. Yes it was possible to make money out of nothing during the past but now its different.

- If you lend money to someone you find it very difficult to get it back. Not because he/she does not have it, but only that one thinks one day it will be forgotten, just like that.

- If one needs to change from one currency to the other, the bank is the last resort. First people try the next-door, then the street.

- Towards month end it is common to see people spending to the last cent, because inflation scared them that far.

- Even national service providers are still charging speculative prices.

- Everyone has multiple bank accounts, but only a few use even one, fearing that if you deposit cash one day you might not be able to withdraw it. If you close the accounts: ” pamwe ku’burner’ kuchadzoka”.

- Every teacher’s home has a classroom.

- If you commit a crime you just share the proceeds with a policeman.