After decades of civil war, often based on ethnicity, religion, ideology and oil between the north and south, South Sudan finally gained its freedom and its now a Republic. South Sudan will become the 55th nation in Africa.

Saturday the 9th of July was indeed a day to celebrate in Juba the capital city of South Sudan when the flag of South Sudan was flown with the national anthem playing for the first time to mark its independence. The nation was born out a referendum in which the Southerners voted overwhelmingly to separate from the North. With its vast oil deposits and with a mainly Christian population, South Sudan hopes to start a new beginning after its hard-earned independence.

But despite having one of the biggest oil reserves in Africa, 90 percent of the people of South Sudan were living on less than half a dollar per day. One hopes that the new government of South Sudan will use its oil resources to enhance the living standards of its citizens and promote democracy and respect for human rights. Indeed God led the people of South Sudan to a well-deserved independence after a long struggle; let us all help the South Sudanese in singing their national anthem and celebrate their hard earned freedom.

South Sudan National Anthem

Oh God
We praise and glorify you
For your grace on South Sudan,
Land of great abundance
Uphold us united in peace and harmony.

Oh motherland
We rise raising flag with the guiding star
And sing songs of freedom with joy,
For justice, liberty and prosperity
Shall forever more reign.

Oh great patriots
Let us stand up in silence and respect,
Saluting our martyrs whose blood
Cemented our national foundation,
We vow to protect our nation

Oh God bless South Sudan.

Driving to meet some friends for dinner last night, three things caught my eye:

• An old aged pensioner couple, walking down the road together. Her clutching her TM specials discount circular tightly to her chest. Him in his baggy jersey, pyjama bottoms and slippers.
• A massive triple story wendy house, barreling down the road, strapped precariously to a bakkie, its platform clipping tree branches as the truck swerved to dodge potholes.
• A man gets out of a kombi, and then waves after it with a sigh of frustration when it turned from its normal route, down a side street to look for more customers – the same side street the passenger was now left to walk down.

I’ve seen a headline in today’s Herald, Air Zimbabwe resumes flights.

I’m sceptical; I can’t imagine the structural changes that would be required to make Air Zimbabwe a viable business have taken place. But I’m also relieved. I recently flew from Victoria Falls to Harare via Zambezi Airlines, the Zambian carrier which had been roped in to fly Zimbabwe’s local routes whilst our national airline was out of commission.

The experience was a heart wrenching example of economic decline. The plane left on time, and got us to our destination – exactly what Air Zimbabwe has developed a reputation for not doing. But I was flying within my country. I was going from one of the country’s tourism hot spots to the country’s capital, crossing no international boundaries. But I did so in a plane from Zambia, with Zambian crew. We were served crisps from South Africa, ginger ale from China, and soda water from Malaysia.

Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector is struggling enough to recover from the economic decline of the previous decade. Can’t we at least have our national airline plying our national routes – and serving drinks and snacks made right here in Zimbabwe?

“July time is hard,” I overheard one woman say to another the other day. They were walking awkwardly, bundled thickly under layers of clothing, blankets wrapped over their skirts, warding off the chill of those long overcast winter days when the sun never makes it through the clouds and no matter what you do you’re cold.

I could resonate. The night before, I’d been invited to a dinner I was relatively certain would be outside. I got home to an all day power cut, so a bath was out. Already freezing before the night even began, I remembered my sister leaving some clothes behind on her last visit. My head lamp on, I rifled frantically through her drawers in the growing darkness, with these two thoughts as my only criteria: let it be warm, and let it fit me.

I flung aside the vests, the skirts, and her partner’s even smaller – but warmer! So much warmer! – tops. And I settled on some baggy long johns and a too-small (but warm!) top to go under everything else, and got dressed – like the women I’d passed on the street, the rest of my outfit now governed by the requirement that my clothes now had to fit over the clothes I was already wearing.

“Good morning sir,” a man called out to me as I came into work this morning.

“Good morning,” I replied.

“Good morning sir,” he said again. His voice was frail, and an unkempt beard hid his dirty, wrinkled face in patches. His red jersey was dotted with holes and seemed little protection against the cold, crisp morning air.

“Good morning.”

“Oh. Good morning ma’am,” he corrected himself apologetically.

“That’s all right,” I smiled. “Good morning.”

He looked at me closely and brought his hand, shaking, close to my face. “Whatever you do,” he leaned in closely and I could see his yellow teeth between the gaps in his mouth. “Whatever you do, don’t give up. Stay strong. Stay strong. And don’t ever lose your pride.”

I thanked him, and he wandered off, taking his own advice as I heard him start up the same conversation with the next passerby.

Zimbabwean activist Grace Kwinjeh recently shared the following article with us.

And … as a matter of interest – you might well have missed it – in a recent Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) statement published in The Sunday Mail the ZRP has already concluded that “MDC hooligans” murdered Inspector Mutedza in Glenview. Proclaimed guilty even before trial.

Cry Woman cry, cry beloved Zimbabwe!
By Grace Kwinjeh

“Another weekend in for my child, is that it??? Cynthia was picked up from her town residence, not in Glen View, and she was never in Glen View, why, why is this happening to my child and why to her little boy?? How do I tell a little boy that he can’t see his mother because she was arrested for no crime at all??” Anna Manjoro.

The above are the cries posted on the social networking site, Facebook, by Mrs Anna Manjoro, Cynthia’s mother. Cynthia is one of the 24 Glenview residents accused of killing a police officer, Petros Mutedza . Above is the shrill cry of anguish coming from a mother and grandmother for her daughter, Cynthia, who has left behind a son to whom she has to explain the ‘criminal’ enormity of his mother’s arrest.

Problem is there is no criminal enormity here! Only, perhaps, a coldly calculated ‘political enormity’. An eerie cloud of premeditated spitefulness that hovers ominously over Cynthia and three other women who have been transferred from the female section to the male one at Chikurubi Maximum prison– a holding centre for the most vile and dangerous criminals.

The psychological impact is unimaginable!

Just to prove where the real deception behind the arrests of the 24 lies is the fact that Cynthia herself, even the police admit, has not committed any offense, but her arrest is meant to ‘lure’ her boyfriend who, as they allege, is also behind the killing of the police officer in Glenview.

Anna’s cries are deep from Zimbabwe’s own belly, mourning for her beloved children.

Arbitrary arrests, torture, hate speech – you name it – characterize a relentless campaign by President Robert Mugabe’s acolytes in the top echelons of the army, police and intelligence to intimidate and instill fear in an otherwise restive population. This unfortunate group, it should be noted, is not the first since Zimbabwe’s independence to endure the brutality of similarly seeming mindless incarceration as a result of trumped up charges.

When political temperatures rise, women and children are the most vulnerable. But who cares?

Scars are still fresh from the violence of the 2008 Presidential election run -off. A woman from Manicaland Province states in a December, 2010 study commissioned by the Research Advocacy Unit (RAU) : “No place to hide. Politically motivated rape of Zimbabwean women”, “When I woke up the following morning on the 26th of June 2008, they had put a skirt on me and a ZANU PF t-shirt, I had blood all over my skirt and my thighs were swollen. My vagina was full of semen; I had wounds and cracks from being raped continuously. I could not walk because my legs were swollen.” The grisly forms of violence, endured by hundreds of women, through out the country during this dark period are well documented.

It may seem as if this is no longer the time to dwell on what some might feel to be petty struggles fought in high density suburbs like Glenview. It may, however, certainly be claimed, in some quarters, that the focus is no longer on the ability of the working class (or struggling women, on a more specific note) to mobilize and liberate themselves, and that now the focus has shifted onto the regional and African elites’ political will to offer leadership that will liberate Zimbabweans from a long time ally and friend of theirs.