From yesterday’s editorial in the Zimbabwean:

Zimbabweans are renowned for choosing to skirt hurdles instead of removing them. But this need not be so. Faced with the injustices perpetrated by public service institutions like Zesa and municipalities, we need to organise ourselves into vibrant and uncompromising lobby groups that fight for our civil rights.

These groups, divorced from political affiliation-for there is no water or ZESA with a Zanu (PF) or MDC colour-should strive to confront the authorities.

Strange, I thought that was the purpose of the civic society organisations operating in Zimbabwe. The real issues, water, power, education, health and poverty seem to have been lost in the tug of war between MDC and ZANU PF. Where are the lobby groups who are in the so-called grassroots fighting these battles with our legislators? Instead we are all preoccupied with a constitution that may never see the light of day and elections that have already been stolen.

Clearly, we are not doing enough.

I got a bit depressed this morning when I read The Herald article COPAC in gay storm. For all the bombast of the headline, and the frenzy around keeping gay rights out of Zimbabwe’s new Constitution, there really isn’t much of a story – which just makes the intolerance of the article all the more apparent.

The article references the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, where a non-discrimination clause provides that “Everyone has the right not to be treated in an unfairly discriminatory manner on such grounds as their nationality, race, colour, tribe, place or circumstances of birth, ethnic or social origin, language, class, religious belief, political or other opinion, custom, culture, sex, gender, marital status, age, disability or economic, social or other status.” It latches particularly onto the phrase “circumstances of birth,” and then proceeds to report feedback from a number of lawyers and analysts who acknowledge that yes, hypothetically, this could be used to make an argument to the courts against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Of course, depending on where you fall on the nature versus nurture debate, I suppose one could also make the same argument using the protection of opinion, custom, culture, or other status. But does this mean we must remove the broad notion of tolerance from our Constitution – because some group we might not like might use it to their own benefit? Racism, sexism and xenophobia remain prejudices in some people’s minds – which is why the Constitution explicitly protects people regardless of race, sex and nationality.

Regardless of whether it is used to make an argument in favour of tolerance for homosexuality, including protection against discrimination regardless of circumstances of birth demonstrates the sort of broad tolerance a Constitution should provide. This means it doesn’t matter whether your parents were married when they had you, if you were born in prison, on an inauspicious day, as the child of rape or incest, malnourished, premature and in need of extraordinary medical support, exposed to narcotics in utero, as conjoined twins, as an intersex baby, or any of the other myriad ways in which you might be different from others. You still have the same rights everyone else does.

All human beings are equal. That why they’re called Human Rights. We all get them, regardless. But all human beings discriminate. That’s why fundamental rights and freedoms are including in Constitutions, and why we need protection against intolerance – our own and other people’s. Finding yourself trying to take out a part of a clause designed to promote tolerance? Is all the more reason to work for its inclusion.

If you live in Greendale you might have seen fliers from the Greendale Seventh-Day Adventist Church littering the streets. On the one hand they want you to come and “be blessed”. And on the other they think nothing of chucking their literature on the streets leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. So spiritual …

During my stay at the El Mouradi Gammarth Hotel in Tunis, I’ve been surprised by the number of women walking around with bruised, bandaged faces.

To begin with I thought I was seeing the same woman each day, but gradually came to realize that in fact there were at least 4 different people staying at the hotel with what looked like similar injuries – a broken nose and bruised, swollen eyes.

On one night I stopped short at the eerie sight of a woman seated at a table in a dark corner, her bandaged face lit by the glow of a laptop computer. And on another occasion, a woman sat in the hotel foyer looking at her face in a hand mirror whilst she fiddled cautiously with the plasters covering her nose.

After a quick Google search I discovered that Tunisia promotes itself as a high quality and affordable plastic and cosmetic surgery provider.

Inflict enormous pain on yourself then recuperate poolside at one of Tunis’ holiday resorts.

Being a fan of classic movies especially those featuring big bands, swing, jazz and dance I couldn’t miss the opportunity to watch the Jazz Tap Ensemble at HIFA. The ensemble was established in 1979 by three dancers and three musicians. They have shared the stage with such tap legends as Savion Glover and Gregory Hines.

Tap dance originated in the 1800s, and has its roots in African-American dancing and Irish step dancing. It is believed to have arisen in minstrel shows which gained popularity at that time where white performers would satirize southern african-americans dances, and black performers in blackface would imitate the white performers imitating black dances. Likewise Jazz is also born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. Both art forms are quintessentially American, and symbols of the beauty that can overcome a painful past.

…’what is HIFA?’

Yesterday during the First street performances I asked some people in the crowd if they knew that HIFA had begun. None of the people I asked knew about HIFA. There were just happy to see a different kind of entertainment on First Street.