There’s a bridal shop opposite my office. Every morning on my way into work I can’t help but glance across at the display of beautiful white full-skirted gowns and long a little to one day wear one on my own wedding day.

I know many women who have married for love. The grand illusion that happily ever after begins with that white gown has been cemented into the consciousness of every young girl who has ever spent a happy childhood reading fairy tales or watching Walt Disney’s Cinderella, Snow White or the Little Mermaid.

Marriage in the 21st century is not what it used to be. Before feminism made a home in Africa and the advent of industrialisation, marriage could have been interpreted as acquiring labour. Traditionally it is women and children who worked the fields. The purpose of marriage therefore was to ensure the material security of a woman, and through her ability to bear children that of her family. The bonds formed during a marriage ceremony obligated her husband to contribute towards the welfare of his bride’s family. Women were and still are conditioned to view marriage through this lens, that of self-sacrifice to meet your obligations to support the survival or your family through production by yourself and the children you bear.

In an industrialised world children are no longer necessary for labour, in fact they have become a liability, and the ability to bear them in great numbers is no longer as prized. As our economies have evolved, so have our social structures. Marriage moved to being about financial protection as women could not work and earn enough to support a family. So still they were married for security as well as for their families to establish a connection with well to do families.

Now, sisters are doing it for themselves. Increasing numbers of women are delaying marriage and their first child in favour of leading an independent life. As for obligation and sacrifice, those were necessary to keep your husband and financial protector happy, if you make you own money and the world is civilised enough not to try and drag you into a cave every so often, you can do without them.

So where does that leave marriage?

In an article published in Newsday, June 20, 2011, the National Aids Council’s proposal to introduce condoms in schools to fight HIV/AIDS has triggered nationwide outrage and condemnation. Some people argue that school children should be taught to abstain from sex rather than having access to condoms as a way of combating the spread of HIV AIDS. Some people feel that this action by the National AIDS Council (NAC) will encourage children to indulge in sex at a tender age.

On June 5, 2011, The Sunday Mail published an article entitled “Boys in sex-for-favours with teachers” based on a survey which was conducted by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare. In the report SAfAIDS also launched its program “Scaling up access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for adolescents and young people” in partnership the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, and Zimbabwean civic organisations like Women’s Action Group (Wag), Padare/Enkundleni, SayWhat and Patsime Trust.

This report by the Ministry clearly shows that our school children are now sexually active at a tender age especially in high schools. By denying school children access to condoms, isn’t it a fact that these children will be more exposed to HIV/AIDS? Should we support the NAC to go ahead and distribute condoms to our children at schools?

In 1976 thousands of black school children in (Soweto) South Africa took to the streets to protest against inferior education and they demanded their right to be taught in their own language. This was a protest against an oppressive regime. Since its initiation by the Organization of African Unity, June 16 of every year is a day a day set aside to honour those who were killed and for the courage shown by the students who took part in the protests. This years commemorations are being held under the theme, “All Together for Urgent Action in Favour of – Street Children”

It’s almost thirty-five years down memory lane after the tragic events in South Africa and the African child still struggles to access basic education. The economic down turn being experienced in most African countries has resulted in more parents failing to send their children to school. Access to education is no longer a necessity but a luxury to those who can afford it. With unemployment rates at above 90% the Government of Zimbabwe introduced BEAM – the Basic Education Assistance Module to cater for children (especially orphans) from disadvantaged backgrounds at primary and secondary level but more funding is still needed to ensure that all the children at primary school can have access to free education.

The withdrawal of education grants has left students at higher institutes of learning in   a dire position. Students now live a pathetic life on campus and very few can afford two meals per day. When students try to have their voices heard most of them end up being threatened with expulsion or incarceration. Student bodies in African countries continue to be persecuted each and every time they try to show signs of discontent with government policies.

So for how long will the African child continue to cry before s/he can be heard?

So let me get this right. POTRAZ doesn’t want to let Econet enable Blackberry services for their subscribers. And the Sunday Mail is intimating that this could be because Blackberry is too secure?

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We got a lot of response to our featured article last week . . . an article from the Africa Report about Petina Gappah’s efforts to rehabilitate the Harare City Library. You can read it here.

Below, we share with you the opinion of a Kubatana subscriber. He hopes that the library will be re-stocked with relevant books.

Your efforts of trying to resuscitate the functional state of City of Harare library are noble, but be careful not to fall into the ‘ZimPost Office’ fate. The fate of the obsolete. To be relevant your effort should be focused on creating e-libraries as opposed to re-stocking hard copies mostly from donated sources. My experience of these donations is that they are garbage and do not solve our predicament but instead trap the brains of the youth in mental slavery. That kind of reading stuff has created mass exodus of supposed professionals to the Diaspora resulting in Africa becoming a training ground. Good brains are sapped from Africa. The pride reflected by the style of your writing displays that of a lost soul of Africa; there is no pride of the literature that creates the spirit of pan-africanism in your documentation.

Yes as much as there is a need for the library restocking this so called Victorian literature can not equip the African child to think like an African and to develop in a sustainable African way. We need library books that build a strong base for an African child to be conscious of her/his responsibility to build Africa, not to run away from Africa. Library books that liberate an African child from the shackles of euro-centricism to afro-centricism, these books cannot be provided by charity organisations.

Poverty for Africa is mainly caused by wrong literacy. For example you talk of high literacy levels in Zimbabwe that is at 98 percent in Africa, but what is the impact of it? Zero. Even though Zimbabwe is naturally very rich, in our minds we see deep poverty, we run away the moment we get opportunity together with our families. Who will build Africa?

In short your effort is remarkable. I am just expressing my anger in the current and previous Harare City Library (the so called Victoria memorial) for its disservice done to our African child by providing through the literature content, wrong literacy.

Hope your efforts will transform the outlook of the Harare City Library through proper stocking of relevant books such as books authored by Matigare, Chinua Achebe, Walter Rodney, Oswald de Rivero, Samir Amin, Dambudzo, Babu just to mention a few. These books will assist to restore African identity and dignity and place us on the correct roadmap for development.

- Panganai

Selective racism in Zimbabwe . . . here we have Nathan Shamuyarira’s nephew, Peter Chamada, in a conversation with farmer Ben Freeth, saying that the Chinese and Indians are “friendlier” people than the whites. According to him they’re better to do business with.

Listen to this excerpt from the award-winning documentary Mugabe and the White African here.

Read Amanda Atwood’s blog on why some foreigners are more equal than others.