“Zanu yaora Baba . . . Zanu yaora Baba . . . .” It’s the middle of the night, the 25th of June 2000. I’m in a car full of MDC activists and we’re careening through the streets of Harare, singing our lungs out, high on the promise of a Parliamentary election in which the MDC, barely nine months old, might just win the majority of elected seats. As it turned out, we were close but not quite. And the giddy optimism that, just maybe, we could put Zimbabwe back on the path to democracy in a matter of months, not years or decades, proved hollow.

Eight years, four elections, untold campaigns, and uncountable political-broken-heart moments later, I’m older, wiser, and a bit more jaded about the whole process. So when Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and Robert Mugabe signed their agreement on “resolving the challenges facing Zimbabwe” yesterday, I have to confess to no small amount of cynicism.

But, thinking that it was perhaps unfair of me to be so suspicious of a moment where so many were finding hope, I decided to take my cynicism to the streets and have a look around. I’ve long said that I will know that Zimbabwe is on the right track again when Harare’s Seventh Street – the road past State House – is no longer closed after dark. So I was disappointed, last night, to find it still barricaded, and I’ve been thinking about things like attachment, expectations, and anticlimax.

Speaking with others on my street, the general mood was “let’s wait and see.” So I’m taking their advice and doing my level best to reserve my judgement until we see how things pan out. But I’m sceptical about a power-sharing agreement, particularly about one that seems simply to have expanded the size of the Cake of National Elite so that everyone can have a slice. And I’m wondering how is it all going to work. Where will Morgan sleep as Prime Minister? Will he move into Zimbabwe House, over the road from Bob? The Zimbabwe I dream of is one without any head of state motorcade – not two. And I’m waiting for the Zimbabwe without any head of state portraits on the walls – not two.

In the past few months, we’ve asked Zimbabweans what they think about a Government of National Unity, and what changes they’d like to see in a New Zimbabwe. Once the country starts making progress towards these issues, I’ll know it’s time to celebrate.

The ink has dried. The cameras have flashed. The champagne popped. The king has spoken. The dry humour has done just that: dried. Everybody is happy. Oh! Happy day, when Thabo walked and washed our woes away!  Elsewhere, a poor woman lies in a filthy hospital ward groaning in pain. For days a bulging belly refuses to let out that life that has been growing inside her. Day two, the eve of the signing, doctors decide a C-section is the only option to free this poor woman from the pain, to give the baby a chance to enter that brave new world. Day three. The baby is having difficulty breathing. Hours later, that little bundle of joy has stopped breathing. Elsewhere, big men in neat suits promise a new beginning. The poor young woman has no clue what that means. She closes her eyes and tears – like water from the giant Zambezi dam – keep falling. The young man who planted the seed decided to do a Harry Houdini on her – he is nowhere to be seen. Men, men, men! She bears a permanent C-section scar and will carry it for the rest of her life as a reminder of not the “historic power sharing deal” but that life lost on the very day Zimbabweans were being promised better things ahead.

At long last, singing and cheering have been the order of the day as I have been out for lunch trying to get some fresh air and to have a short break from the office.

People are relieved, by the signing, and that we have the office of the Prime Minister in Zimbabwe. For the first time members of the public can say their feelings and exchange their ideas openly with the members of the security forces without any harm.

May God bless Zimbabwe. At the cash queue people could not complain about the slow moving queue like they used to a couple of days ago. They were enjoying sharing this breakthrough from the crisis and some were busy texting and sharing the good, or rather breaking news.

The things people want to see solved soon is the availability of food, enough cash, and medication. Some were calling for a ‘Holiday’. People were saying now they can mix well with their relatives who are of the opposing side now that the newly installed Prime Minister has declared that people should unite.

However, it was a good 45minutes before I returned to the office having not eaten anything but I realized that people now are proud to be Zimbabweans at last.

Zimbabwe is a nation of beef.  People produce it and people love to eat it.  Perhaps you could say that beef is part of a Zimbabweans identity.  But the tides changed.  At Spar they sell­ not beef­ but beef fat.  Not a speck of meat included, just the fat.  And for the astronomical price of ZWD240,000 per kg.

Zimbabwe is a nation where liberation war credentials have long been considered essential in legitimizing a politician, part of their identity.  One of the many places this political ethos has been enshrined is through use of comrade in front of politician’s names.  Perhaps a new era is on the horizon. It will be interesting to see if the new government yields Prime Minister Tsvangirai or Comrade Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe is a nation whose literature has centered on the liberation war.  However, now it’s become harder to see this theme or any singular theme across Zimbabwean literature.  Thus, an identity crisis and the question: What are current works collectively trying to say and do?  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, a literary identity crisis.  In fact, topically wide-ranging literature emerging out of one nation is a sign of vibrancy and rich intellectual engagement.

Zimbabwe is a nation in which, not that long ago, donor funding was shifting.  Decreasing was a dependency identity; things were moving away from handing out of basic goods and services.  Increasing were activities and longer term planning to analyze and address the underlying issues driving need.  Focus was increasingly and effectively the bigger picture questions. These days waned as recent advocacy around lifting the ban on humanitarian aid made painfully apparent how dependent the nation has become on donor programmes just to meet basic needs.  As important as meeting basic needs will continue to be, equally as important is rejuvenating mindsets toward the bigger picture once again.

Zimbabwe is a nation waiting to see what directions the new government will go.  Will it be a peaceful process allowing people to return to their beloved beef?  Or will it be continued peddling of beef fat?  I’m going to present the optimist stance.  The challenges of how to get the beef (not the fat) are many and complex. Many of which revolve around (corruption-free) economic recovery.  At the same time, it seems an identity crisis is in the air.  It’s an awful lot, a real challenge for people to let go of past pains and broken promises, to trust and believe that the queues, shortages, black market, etc. culminating in the identity of resourceful survivor might be on its way out.  But it seems part of ushering in change involves embracing the pending identity shift.  To continue the fight and stand poised for beef­–literally and in the form of partaking in vibrancy and rich intellectual engagements, which, when not suppressed and repressed, are at the core of Zimbabwe as a nation.

Newlands Shopping centre in Harare, where we have our office, is unusually quiet today.

The bank queues are shorter, the vendors are fewer and the streets emptier. From various shops I can hear the drone of Mugabe’s voice. People are huddled around radios listening to the signing ceremony speeches. Out in the car park I’ve just walked past a couple of guys mimicking Mugabe . . . “We will not have regime change”.

Last night a group of us gathered to talk over a couple of beers. Most of us have been in the pro-democracy struggle for many years but none of us were feeling optimistic about today. We shook our heads saying that we never thought it would end like this, in a bloated government of unity. Or an arrangement that simply accommodates two political parties. Sure, like many people say, this is at least a shift. And if the MDC have their wits about them they’ll use this opportunity to take full control rather than continue to be maneuvered and choreographed by Zanu PF.

Most likely this small struggling nation of ours now has the largest government in Africa. This certainly isn’t anything to boast about. Are we looking down the barrel of two of everything: two motorcades, two portraits, two macho men commandeering our national airline? How much money will get gobbled up by this power sharing arrangement while politicians like Morgan crow for aid to come in and resuscitate our economy?

The average person on the street in Zimbabwe only welcomes this expedient political arrangement because they want their life to improve. But will it? Just recently we read about the new swathe of MPs getting brand spanking new cars to the tune of US$9 million whilst the majority of their constituents do not have access to a regular clean supply of water. Of immediate importance is the need to hold these politicians accountable. To make sure that they deliver on improving the abyssal conditions that Zimbabweans are surviving under. As many ordinary Zimbabweans have pointed out, whilst it is important that we work on issues such as a new constitution, we can’t eat a constitution.

And, by the way, people are dying of hunger.

Is Morgan more than the power and the glory? Before he jumps on a jet plane and tours the world let’s see him, with his supposed new powers, focus on improving the everyday lives of Zimbabweans.

Zimbabwe’s national association of NGOs (NANGO) recently published a statement calling for transitional justice in Zimbabwe “as a critical remedy to the massive human rights violations, ingraining fear, insecurity and mistrust in Zimbabwean society today.”

IRIN has also just published an article entitled Reconciling the past for a stable future in which they cite a research paper by the South African think tank, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). The research paper, Justice and Peace in a new Zimbabwe: Transitional Justice Options is authored by Max du Plessis, an associate law professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and Jolyon Ford, of the Centre for International Governance and Justice at the Australian National University. According to the authors, “the formation of a truth commission should be at the forefront of Zimbabwe’s negotiations, considering the levels of alleged state brutality, the politicisation of the judiciary.”

Today the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) also issued a statement asking us to remember the brutal attacks on trade unionists on 13th September 2006. The ZCTU statement lists the injuries that activists sustained during their peaceful protest in Harare. These injuries include lacerations, bruises and fractures. The ZCTU reminds us that Robert Mugabe approved of the excessive force by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, saying

“If you want an excuse for being killed, be my guest go into the streets and demonstrate. The police were right in dealing sternly with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leaders during their demonstration . . . because the trade unionists want to become a law unto themselves. We cannot have a situation where people decide to sit in places not allowed and when the police remove them, they say no. We can’t have that, that is a revolt to the system. Vamwe vaakuchema kuti tarohwa, ehe unodashurwa. When the police say move, move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force.”

The politicians negotiating the future of Zimbabwe must not place the issue of transitional justice on the back burner if Zimbabwe is to find any kind of peace at all.