I found this A6 flyer on the ground last night, produced by Zimbabwe’s Constitution Select Committee (COPAC). On the one side, it has 9 milestones towards a new Constitution for Zimbabwe, and on the other, a calendar for 2012 and COPAC’s contact details. Great way to spread the word and get more people to know how to reach you. And according to The Herald headline today “COPAC draft constitution complete,” they’ve gotten as far as milestone 6. But I do find it telling that they didn’t put any estimated dates by when the various milestones might be achieved this year . . . .

View from a Kubatana desk

An African elephant has been euthanized at Zoo Miami
Machito is the first elephant to die at the zoo. The male elephant was 32 years old and arrived at the zoo as an orphaned calf from Zimbabwe. Zoo officials told the Miami news station WTVJ that Machito had been treated for weeks for an illness that began as a stiff front limb and progressed to lethargy, weight loss and breathing problems. The elephant eventually was unable to sleep or lie down. Zoo Miami says Machito was euthanized when staff could no longer prevent him from suffering. The illness that afflicted the elephant has yet to be diagnosed. A necropsy will be performed. Zoo Miami is home to five other elephants. All those animals are more than 35 years old. – AP

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
The better part of me

- Five For Fighting (Superman)

A wonderful personal reminder about how to live life. Let’s imagine the last word in this excerpt being Zimbabwe.

I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit. I believe in the journey, not the arrival; in conversation, not monologues; in multiple questions rather than any single answer. I believe in the struggle to remake ourselves and challenge each other in the spirit of eternal forgiveness, in the awareness that none of us knows for sure what happiness truly is, but each of us knows the imperative to keep searching. I believe in the possibility of surprising joy, of serenity through pain, of homecoming through exile.

And I believe in a country that enshrines each of these three things, a country that promises nothing but the promise of being more fully human, and never guarantees its success. In that constant failure to arrive — implied at the very beginning — lies the possibility of a permanently fresh start, an old newness, a way of revitalizing ourselves and our civilization in ways few foresaw and one day many will forget. But the point is now. And the place is America.

(From Andrew Sullivan’s blog)

Here’s a press release from ZINASU.

I’d suggest that the GNU isn’t barking up the wrong tree. It is the Wrong tree and it’s Barking mad.

GNU Barking Up the Wrong Tree

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is alarmed that political parties in the GNU have made an ill-advised decision to increase seats in parliament. Whilst there is need for gender equality in all government bodies, parties in the GNU are going about ensuring this in the wrong way.

Currently, the legislature is monolithic in comparison to the size of our country. To add sixty more seats will result in heavy drainage of financial resources that can be channeled towards education, health and other vital sectors.

According to plans for enlarging parliament, 60 female MPs will be seconded by political parties on a proportional representation basis in line with the number of seats the parties would have garnered in elections. This means that these sixty legislators will be MPs with no constituencies. Already the country has over thirty non-constituent MPs in Parliament appointed by the president and heads of political parties in the GNU; to then add sixty more to this number will result in a perversion of the purpose of parliament which is to represent citizens from various constituencies.

If political parties are serious about gender equality they should implement quotas for contesting parliamentary elections in their parties that promote the afore-mentioned notion.

If parties in the GNU persist on including this ill-thought and ill-fated arrangement in the draft constitution it is guaranteed that the latter is seriously going to be mobilized against during the referendum stage.

Noting the absurd and avaricious demands that are made by parliamentarians from time to time and being aware of the huge drain that the financial needs of the current Legislature effects on national coffers, there is no way that ZINASU, can in good conscience allow this plan to proceed.
If the afore-mentioned plan somehow contained provisions for introducing parliamentarians that have a definite capacity to better the quality of legislation and debate in parliament it would have been better.

For if truth be told our parliamentarians are known for propelling some of the most ridiculous arguments, which include among others, advocating for legalization of marijuana, attempting to legislate laws that ensure that women dress shabbily to lessen the preponderance of HIV/AIDS and arguing that men should take drugs that cause them to want less sex as a means of combating the afore-mentioned disease. Given this background, to then superfluously add more parliamentarians into the legislature without ensuring ways in which the quality of their contributions can be enhanced is highly retrogressive.

ZINASU