As Bev blogged the other day, in a recent meeting Harare East residents argued that if the government of Zimbabwe made land available for free under the land reform program then why should a dead corpse be made to buy land from the City of Harare?

We thought they had a point, so we asked our SMS subscribers for their opinion.

The 100+ responses fell broadly into two camps, with about 30% of respondents suggesting that charging for a burial plot was fair – the belief being that these funds should go to servicing the cemeteries, paying grounds people, and so forth.

Unfortunately, many Zimbabweans have lost a lot confidence in their government and elected officials – and thus are cynical about whether burial fees would be appropriately used. This is one of the reasons why around 70% of respondents agreed with the Harare East residents, that there should be no charge for burial plots.

Responses seemed to divide cleanly along the lines of whether the respondent thought the money would get put to relevant use – and not pocketed or politicised. Thus, it’s worrying that 70% of respondents were opposed to the charging of burial fees; it suggests that 70% are also sceptical about the integrity of government and our elected officials.

Read a sampling of replies below:

• I think they must pay since that land needs to be serviced, but the rates must be affordable.
• If land was given for free, this also means grave yards are also land. So land is for free. Corpses should not pay.
• My answer is City of Harare have no right to charge them. Burial fees because the land was given free. They mustn’t search for money with an axe on their shoulder.
• We have to understand that our leaders are gold diggers. We must not pay for the dead. Never.
• Grave yards need to be maintained so payments is required.
• Land Reform Act: free land yes I don’t think we pay for the land but for the service done by City Council, however they should cut the current cost to half thus how I think.
• I think burial fees must be paid because that piece of land will never be used again.
• We are not supposed buy land for burial if land is ours.
• How can dead person pay something?
• It’s right to pay for all services in the city. It’s not right to extend the land issue to things like these.
• Free land, free burial.
• If land was parcelled out for free during land reform, then burial should be free, after all the fund won’t benefit residents no charges for your birthright please!
• Is it not a way to raise revenues? Also I’m not aware of the city’s by-laws.
• People are cheated and robbed of their hard earned cash in broad daylight.
• They should not pay.
• I think that’s a challenging question to their MP. These guys take people for a ride. They use people for them to benefit. It’s bad.
• In fact the sense’s not about land but its all about fundraising of the city council. That’s where they get their salaries. That’s what l think.

I’ve just watched this amazing video of Egypt’s 25 January Day of Anger protests. In the face of an oncoming water cannon one man turns and stands before it, blocking the spray and inspiring others to also stand up to it.

With the objective of obtaining information about the implementation of the Global Peace Agreement and to provide support to civil society organizations in disseminating information on the Inclusive Government to as many Zimbabweans as possible, the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI) conducted a public opinion survey in Zimbabwe.

The survey, which was conducted in August 2010, had a sample size of 1000 people and it focused on the following issues:

- Performance of the Inclusive Government

- Media

- Inclusive Government’s policies and priorities

- Constitution-making

- Parties’ commitment to the Inclusive Government

- Macro and economic evaluations

- Performance of State Institutions

- Partisan Affiliation

In its efforts to restore the economy, results show that 48% of people interviewed think that the Inclusive Government is doing well in terms of restoring the economy. A lot of people felt that the economy had improved in the past twelve months and one in ten people think the economic condition had deteriorated.

But on free political activity, 35% had a negative view on the government’s performance.

In 2010 COPAC embarked on constitution making consultations around Zimbabwe and a lot of people acknowledge that they heard about COPAC but in terms of giving education to people on the constitution, people felt that COPAC failed dismally as 69% of people say they did not receive education on constitution making process.

From the observations, 51% of the respondents had a negative view about the trust they have in the security forces as protectors of human rights. 32% view the performance of the security forces in a positive light saying that they are executing their duties in a fairly good way.

The much publicized Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act has gained popularity especially among males, recording 32% people saying it’s a good policy.

Though a lot people can receive radio signal, in some parts of the country some people still can’t access a TV signal. With ZBC still exercising its monopoly on the airwaves and the continued bombardment of political messages from ZANU PF the survey showed a lot of bias towards one party in terms of fair play on campaigning material being played on radio.

To measure the response on political affiliation, MPOI asked: If you were to vote for a Parliamentary candidate of choice, which party will that candidate belong to?”  Since this issue is very sensitive most people in the survey were not comfortable to have their views shared in public. 24 % of people responded saying their vote is their secret and 17 percent did not want to comment. In this category MDC T commands 32 % and ZANU PF has 18 % though when asked who has real power it came out that the President still has a lot of power in the GPA

According to each sector touched on by the survey it shows an information gap where people who profess ignorance on issues related to the Inclusive Government also lack the freedom to express their views in public.

I believe the organ on National healing and reconciliation still has a long way to go in making its work known by people since only 11% of people interviewed think the organ is doing a good work as compared to 67% who are not sure.

I attended a presentation by Dr Ruth Walkup on ‘Getting the Foundations Right for Leading in a Changing World’. She took us through the evolution of work from the days when people worked to survive, to the days of trade and the era of industrialisation. We have witnessed dramatic technological changes in all sectors of the economy from the 1960s and these still continue.

I will give the library as an example. A card catalogue, which was the entry point to the library’s physical holdings, was used back then. When one visited the library they had to manually go through a card catalogue on their own, select the book they wanted by using entries of title, author, subject or date of publication. They would then find a reference number for the book that was done using the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) for them to pick out the exact book. But now things are different; you can access a library catalogue on a computer and online using Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC). Where one goes through the same search process but this time it is done electronically which means it less tiring and less time consuming. Now we wonder what the future will hold and what libraries will be like. Are we going to be using voice recognition technologies where we just say an author’s name and ‘voila’ all his/her publications are revealed to us on a big screen on the wall, and we just click the book we need?

We just wonder, but whilst we are still in the wondering zone we need to go acquire some life skills.  Dr Ruth walkup emphasized that we need to be self-aware; that is we need to know ourselves, our passions, strengths and weaknesses. Also we should take time to reflect on ourselves, looking back in the past in order to understand it and do things better in the future. You cannot do away with communication skills, information literacy skills and decision-making skills. Engage yourself in Life Long Learning (LLL) where you continue to upgrade your professional skills. Imagine the Librarian who does want to take a course in computers, where will they be when people don’t visit the library physically but rather ask him/her queries through IMS, Chat or Email. We need to be creative as we face change in order to create opportunities for ourselves and break new ground.

Through inner dialogue we actually get to “know” ourselves better and increase the likelihood of achieving our highest potential.

To conclude Dr Walkup gave us a quote by Alvin Toffler, “The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.”

The trouble with regime change as sold to us by civil society and political parties, is that it is not as simple as it is made out to be. Changing one government for another in the hope of ushering in democracy is not the answer. Democracy itself should not be reduced to a periodic election, yet this is what ordinary people are told. Elections are not a salve that will automatically repair failing or failed states. Zimbabwe has held regular elections for the past thirty years, but that does not make us a democratic state. Neither will replacing ZANU PF with MDC.

In his opinion piece for the New York Times Chinua Achebe writes:

First we have to nurture and strengthen our democratic institutions – and strive for the freest and fairest elections possible. That will place the true candidates of the people in office. Within the fabric of a democracy, a free press can thrive and a strong justice system can flourish. The checks and balances…and the laws needed to curb corruption will then naturally find a footing. And there has to be the development of a new patriotic consciousness.