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Change is skin deep

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Last night it was either watch a tv series about a well meaning serial killer called Dexter, or Mugabe’s birthday interview. Go figure. No guesses which I chose. Dexter is a lot of fun. I can really get into a good guy going around killing all the bad guys. After I’d had my fill of Dexter I listened to a bit of Mugabe’s birthday interview on ZTV:

” . . . all those 90 years of settler rule with repressive, suppressive, oppressive laws, saw our people being reduced in status to near slaves. Saw their property going, their very humanity undermined, and we had no rights in our country and so in a situation in which we were denied democracy completely. Denied the application of human rights completely.”

Clearly change is skin deep: our oppressive white rulers have been replaced by a bunch of black ones.

And I’m reminded of a beautiful poem called Propaganda by the wonderful Zimbabwean poet, Julius Chingono who warned us about how fleeting freedom can be.

We, the povo,
have been taught
the crack of a gun
shall not be dreaded:
its echo
is freedom
but
we are not told
an echo is a distant sound
that dies out soon
afterwards

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