Imagine if we banned all mention of the phrase “what lessons can we learn” in Zimbabwe? Essentially our dictatorship wants to turn us into unquestioning dumbos. It’s up to us to resist them.

Zimbabwe ‘Egypt uprising’ activists in treason trial

The trial of six Zimbabwean activists charged with treason for attending a lecture in February about the Egyptian uprising is due to open in Harare.

The seminar by a university lecturer asked “what lessons can be learnt” – which the prosecution says means they were planning a similar revolt.

Charges were dropped against 40 other activists arrested at the same time.

The six accused face the death penalty if found guilty of treason. They all deny the charges.

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‘Poverty was screaming in my household, at one time I ended up thinking that poverty was mine.’ Sarah Matongo

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The Reith Lectures is a series of annual radio lectures given by leading figures of the day, commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. In July, Aung San Suu Kyi spoke at length about her life and what has inspired her activism.

From the NewStatesmen, this caught my eye:

At a screening of the first lecture at Broadcasting House, it was mesmerising to sit and watch ASSK speaking at length (the footage had been recently smuggled out of Burma). Traditional peach silk top. Blue flowers in her hair. A slash of orange lipstick. She is resolutely not a spin-doctored, slick operator. Two things stood out: her use of the old-fashioned word gallantry, and her repeated use of the word passion.

Though ASSK is clearly unbowed, at one point during the live Q&A down the line from Rangoon she admitted that the lights had been switched off by the authorities and she was sitting at the telephone in the dark. How fitting that she had, just minutes earlier, quoted from Ratushinskaya’s prison poem that ends: “It isn’t true, I am afraid, my darling!/But make it look as though you haven’t noticed.”

I hear some treason trials are starting in Zimbabwe today. This is just ridiculous! How can anyone go to jail (or face death) for watching a video? Or more correctly, trying to see a DVD? Almost as fantastical as a Harry Potter movie (which is also in the news).

The people who should be on trial for treason are senior leaders of armed and uniformed groups (which are paid for by the Zimbabwe tax payer) who tell the tax payer who they will, and who they will not, take orders from. As if that body was their personal property, and they are a warlord living in anarchy.

If they will not take orders from the person the tax payer appoints to represent them, they should say so and leave the job – the one they cannot do. To say who they will and will not take orders from, and then stay in charge of that body of armed men, is treason. So dangerous to the country that the punishment for that crime is still hanging.

I read with some kind of disgust the other day a story about ZESA managers who were fuming because Energy Minister Elton Mangoma had ordered the slashing of their salaries. They actually told the minister it was not his business to question their salaries. I wondered rather blithely if they would have responded with such brashness if this had come from a Zanu PF minister! But then it has become the typical story here where parastatals and state enterprises senior officials have continued to command ridiculous salaries when there is virtually nothing to justify it.

We all know about the mismanagement of these big concerns over the years with accusations that officials were riding on the back of Zanu PF patronage, and where in fact keeping up with the party’s streak of looting state resources. It is here where consciences have been numbed as the plundering of resources has rendered these state utility providers a huge burden on tax and rate payers with no service provision to speak of. So a minister who comes through with a broom to sweep the rot naturally becomes the bad guy because the logic is simple: no one ever complained before, and simply because – as some have claimed – these officials have been political appointees.

We read each time how South African government ministers are ever vigilant cracking the whip on unnecessary perks for officials who appear to think working for government is a sure way to bleed the purse. What then is amiss with Mangoma putting caps on salaries, or at least demanding that they get performance-based salary increments? Makes sense to me. We heard even from Ignatius Chombo the other week when he demanded a salary cap for Town Clerks where in some cases these municipality CEOs are reported to be earning monthly salaries of up to USD15,000.

Surely these salaries must be justified, and for a long time these people have been getting absurd perks that are not even based on performance, which reminds one of those US CEOs who run loss-making corporations but at the end of the year award themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, of course much to the chagrin of shareholders. Indeed Zimbabwe is in dire need of ministers who will put a stop to this nonsense.

There is a restaurant in my neighbourhood, a cosmopolitan sort of place, which I visit more often than my budget allows. I love the food, and the seemingly bottomless glasses of wine have been the beginning of many happy evenings. While the food and the drink are good, the service is often slow and sometimes nonexistent. Having been largely ignored by the black waiters one too many times, my drinking buddies have chosen to avoid it. The waiters are racist they say.

On a visit to the post office to pick up a long awaited parcel, I had to wait my turn in a short queue for the one man behind the counter. A few moments after I arrived, a woman walked in with her daughter, fresh from the afternoon school run. Rather than going to the back of the queue, the woman went to the window next to the one occupied by the single postal worker and demanded that he serve her because she was in a hurry. This he did, to my surprise, without complaint. Everyone in the queue looked at each other and murmured ‘mtch! varungu vanonetsa..‘ under their breath and waited restlessly.

I remember a form three class discussion regarding race. The black girls said the white girls smelt funny, and the white girls said we smelt funny to them too. We asked what the fascination with Marmite sandwiches was, and they asked if deep down, really deep down, we wanted to be white because we put extensions in our hair. There was no anger in that conversation, just a group of girls trying to understand each other.

I wonder sometimes, if at independence in Zimbabwe, we had confronted our issues regarding race, would we still be trying to sidestep the obvious white elephant three decades later? We’re all careful around each other, tiptoeing, trying not to tell that joke, or saying that thing. But in private, in a safe space where we are certain people share the same sentiments and feelings as we do, the gloves come off.  Race is not a polite thing to talk about in mixed company, but I think it’s time we started.