Zimbabwe’s politics, history has recorded, is mapped by ethnic and tribal loyalties, and it’s just something that refuses to be ignored despite all pretense by some that this is fomented by architects of anti-statehood.

Even Mugabe has over the years lashed out at perceived tribalists despite himself being fingered for criticism by some historians who contend he did not hide his leanings even before the Gukurahundi was unleashed.

The perceptive have observed that Zanu PF officials from Matabeleland address supporters in Shona when in Mashonaland but party officials from Mashonaland “insist” on addressing supporters in Shona during their Matabeleland rallies.

You only have to read through online bulletin boards to get a pulse of the rabid tribalism Zimbabweans harbour, never mind the usual “I’m not tribalist, some of my friends are Shona/Ndebele” casuistry.

There is so much anger out there you even wonder whether its posted in jest or not, yet if you have met folks who claim they have been aggrieved by one tribe or another, you get the sense that indeed these posts are the real deal.

That is why I found it the apex of hypocrisy when Thokozani Khuphe was accused of blocking a Shona-speaking fellow from being elevated to the post of Bulawayo deputy mayor.

Anyone who is a native of Zimbabwe’s second city is aware of the ages-old complaint about how Zanu PF abandoned Matabeleland to the periphery of economic development solely on tribal and ethnic considerations.

That is exactly why the region has over the decades seen a proliferation of political outfits and pressure groups dedicating their cause to devolution and even cessation.

Amid all the militancy, it would be strange then to have a Shona-speaking senior city official when the people from the region know damn well there are capable locals to fill that post.

That is precisely why many have accused Zanu PF of unbridled arrogance, recalling of course that there have been sentiments from senior party officials that no Ndebele will ever rule this country.

Zimbabwe is for all Zimbabweans some are fond of saying, yet take a walk around the city of Bulawayo and eavesdrop on conversations and the anger of exclusion is just too palpable.

I hear all the time complaints about how government offices in Bulawayo now have Shona as the language of business where Ndebele speaking folks have trouble getting assistance in their own region!

Try speaking Ndebele in Harare government offices!

No one is addressing these issues, yet you have the Herald jumping to point accusatory fingers at Thokozani Khuphe as if what she allegedly said is something new.

It is the same Herald that hauled Tendai Biti over the coals for his “de-Zezuruisation of the state” sentiments where he pointed to the domination of the state by one group of people.

Obviously the argument would be that sentiments like that are not expected from a person of Khuphe’s status – whatever it is now that she is no longer deputy PM – yet her comments, if true, only expose her own frustration about how the people of Matabeleland find themselves pushed out of public office and apparently have no say in the running of their own affairs.

We heard the same accusation levelled at political parties who pushed the Matabeleland agenda during the July 31 where these parties were accused of tribalism simply because their manifesto made the development of Matabeleland their rallying cry.

People who complain about marginalisation obviously know what they are talking about and merely dismissing them as tribalist fucks does not solve matters.

Someone in fact commented that is it even imaginable to have a Ndebele-speaking Harare mayor.

That is the country we live in where we have seen that issues of the territorial integrity rhetoric so loved by Zanu PF find even louder resonance in Matabeleland.

It was only a few years ago that former Bulawayo Joshua Malinga got into trouble with the law after not taking too kindly to being addressed in Shona by a cop in Bulawayo.

While Malinga raised what he felt was necessary noise, it was easy for some to dismiss him as a tribalist, yet no one cared to look into what has essentially become a decades-old problem where civil servants are deployed to regions where they have no grasp of the local languages.

Many a time we read of cops addressing Tonga-speaking villagers deep in Binga in Shona, and the fact that these cops see nothing wrong with that is exactly what feeds the anti-Shona sentiment, and that’s a fact that must be accepted if relations are to improve.

It is public knowledge for example that for a long time the Bulawayo municipality and even the local opaque beer manufacturers never hired people from outside the “region,” whether this is or was official policy is neither here nor there, what remains indisputable is that as long as that existed “policy” it pointed to efforts to maintain some kind of identity and claim something as their own.

There is also a strong anti-Shona sentiment concerning the National University of Science and Technology that goes back to former governor the late Welshman Mabhena who did not see any sense why “outsiders” were offered places ahead of local students.

From as far back as the 1970s – and even further during the nascent years of nationalism fervor if you read Terrance Ranger -  (Wilfred Mhanda writes in his memoirs about “Shona-speaking” Zapu fighters defecting to Zanu. If tribal/ethnic considerations were not at play, why would Mhanda prefix the Zapu members with “Shona-speaking”? ) when manifestos were allegedly written about the systematic dilution of the Ndebele presence in Matabeleland, locals remember these things and to pretend otherwise is just another political expediency ploy that has made sure tribalist sentiments do not go away.

In any case, one only has to attend a soccer match pitting Highlanders and Dynamos at BF to get out of their one-big-happy-family reverie.

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FES Youth Leadership Training: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Deadline: 16 September 2013

The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Zimbabwe, a non-profit making, public interest institution, is offering leadership training for young adults. The training will target young leaders with proven social, civic and political interests and abilities from political parties, trade unions, civil society organisations and youth organisations.

Women are particularly encouraged to apply.

The training shall provide young leaders from the full political spectrum of Zimbabwe with leadership skills and the opportunity for political networking. This process will run for about 8 months.

FES will meet the actual training for the selected participants while any other associated costs will have to be borne by the participants. No sitting allowances or per diems will be paid.

Interested candidates should fulfill the following criteria
1. Between 20-35 years of age
2. Team player
3. Proven political and social interests
4. Ability for political analysis and knowledge of political developments in the country
5. Be part of the programme throughout the whole training period

To apply
Please send your CV, and a half page justification why you should participate in the training to the following email address: info [at] fes-zimbabwe [dot] org

The Naked Option, Last Resort documentary was screened at the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) in Harare this week. The documentary is a bold inspiration to the many women’s groups and movements across Africa that have taken up protest as part of their activist campaigns. Directed by Candace Schermerhorn and set in Nigeria’s Delta region, which is very rich in oil, the documentary chronicles the challenges grassroots women, and the environment face at the hands of oil companies operating in this region.

The women were pushed to protest due to the high level of environmental degradation caused by oil companies in the Niger delta who flared out gas into the air, polluting water and land. As a result farming and fishing was no longer viable for the women. Another factor that brought outrage was the companies’ reluctance in employing their husbands, brothers and sons. In the documentary the women said that the only benefit they derived from Chevron’s operation in the community was the heat produced when they flared gas. They would dry their cassava using this heat; a process, which usually took days, using the sun’s heat, would only take 5 hours. To them, in as much as this flared gas was a major threat to their environment and health, they saw it as the only direct benefit to their community. However, there then came a time when they were not allowed to enter the oil company’s premises so they could dry or collect their cassava.

In South Africa they famously say ‘Wathintha umfazi wathintha imboko’ (you strike a rock you strike a woman). With all these misgivings about the oil company’s operations, the women took it upon themselves to protest at Chevron’s premises. They spent weeks on the site and disrupted the company’s operations. They gained the attention of the company when they resorted to stripping naked during the protests. In the documentary one of the activists said, “Naked I came to this world, naked I leave”, to show how they had removed the shyness of being naked in peoples eyes as well as their determination. In their tradition it is taboo to strip naked, especially an elderly woman. An example was given that if an elderly woman is offended and strips naked in front of their offender they would have cursed the offender. This group of women protesting comprised of women of all ages, and elderly women were also a part of the group. Thus them stripping naked brought the attention of local and international media and the oil companies too who agreed to sign MOUs with the women where they made ‘empty’ promises. Empty as in up to when the documentary was screened in 2011; none of those promises had been achieved.

This documentary shows the power of women coming together. It took a few minutes for those women to decide they were going to invade Chevron’s premises and then when they managed to stop the company’s operations the women would take 12 hour duties to guard and protest within the premises giving each other time to attend to their household chores.

The Naked Option is a great inspiration to women’s activism and to also question corporate responsibility. Often companies come to extract minerals within communities and concentrate on making the minimum operational costs at the expense of the community’s health, environment and development. My mind went to the families in Chiadzwa and I felt that Sheila Mutsenhu, the lady who stripped naked in front of the US Ambassador in Mutare earlier this year protesting against sanctions in Zimbabwe, should have better directed her efforts. Her being a citizen in the Manicaland province where Chiadzwa diamond mines are located, her zeal would be more beneficial if directed to the cause of women’s issues in the area. Maybe one day she will lead a group of the Manica women to protest demanding better living conditions.

This year is the 12th edition of the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) and it will run from the 23rd to the 31st of August in Harare. It will move to Bulawayo from the 5th to the 7th of September. You can download the programme here.

Mobile phones have played an important role in bridging the information gap with the use of SMS and Whatsapp to mention just a couple. In Zimbabwe a great majority of the population own a mobile handset with a greater proportion having access to the Internet on their phone. Many think that phones are merely used to convey messages but smart phones have changed the dynamics. I know a book, Diary of a Zulu Girl, which was written using a mobile phone.

I was privileged to participate in the Mobile Community Zimbabwe (MCZ) project. According to their website: “MCZ is a project that gives ambitious young Zimbabweans a voice and a platform to share and exchange information through mobile telephony, video and social media. Using an application called StoryMaker, the MCZ project equips young Zimbabweans from across the country with skills to use mobile phones to tell effective stories about themselves and their communities.”

I attended a one-week training where a group of other enthusiastic young Zimbabweans from different walks of life were trained to use the software application StoryMaker on our mobile phones. With the aim of promoting citizen journalism MCZ encouraged participants to tell those untold stories in our communities.

I appreciate that MCZ made me open my eyes to various challenges and activities going on in communities. Without MCZ I would have not spent a day feeding children in Mbare at a soup kitchen. Without MCZ I would have not met the mentally challenged women at Harare Central Hospital who make beautiful bags to generate income to take their mind away from the stressing issues of life that cause depression.

Despite the repressive media laws in the country which inhibit such projects, a lot of participants went out of their way to make MCZ a success as evidenced by the video stories published on their website. For me my journey has been fruitful. MCZ has taught and equipped me to tell video stories. I have made friendships, which support my different spheres of life. A big thanks to Free Press and trainers for making this journey possible.

What many see as a sudden crackdown on women in Harare’s CBD by police accusing them of loitering for the purposes of prostitution actually dates back to as early as 1983 according to local researchers working on the link between prostitution and HIV/Aids.

In June 2, 1983, the police launched Operation Chinyanda/Scorpion, where hundreds of women were rounded up on allegations of prostitution.

After a long hiatus, another operation was launched on March 2, 2007 where the systematic arrest of women was intensified.

Four years later, Operation Keep Your Dignity was launched in January 2011, with the following year, in December 2012, seeing Operation Dyira Bonus Kumba where women became the target of a crackdown that was supposed to keep men in their homes to spend their end-of-year bonuses with their families not prostitutes!

Sounds silly, but researchers working with sex workers in Harare and Nyamapanda say the fact that this is an operation sanctioned at the highest level of law enforcement misses the point of addressing the core structural issues that have forced women to the streets in the first place, beyond even interrogating if those arrested in these operations are indeed prostitutes.

Yet the irrationality of these sweeps on women points to failed methodologies in understanding and addressing women’s economic imperatives and opportunities, researchers argue.

But not only that, an unapologetically patriarchal society has skewed the sexual power dynamics where men do the labeling, and every single or unmarried woman, becomes a prostitute because they are found in the CBD during hours when married women are in their homes!

A story was narrated about how cops swooped on a block of flats in Harare’s CBD arresting every female on site and barged into an apartment where a man and his wife were watching telly. The cops allegedly dragged the woman to the waiting Black Maria amid protests from the husband.

But because this is Zimbabwe where citizens have no recourse to litigate against the State, that was the end of the story. All the couple had was bitterness against the system after the wife was released.

It has become laughable how cops carry out their duties, and with the issue of arresting all women seen in the CBD after hours, it has raised yet another disturbing trend where women have become very open to abuse, local researchers allege.

After Operation No Loitering was launched in February this year, followed by Operation Amai Ngwenya in July, then Operation Zvanyanya now carried about by an all-female cops crack unit, complaints that emerged centred on the sexual abuse of these females (whether prostitutes or not) by arresting officers.

It is a good thing that the ZRP has acted on these reports, and it is just one of many reports seen across the world where police demand sex from prostitutes in exchange for their freedom.

And that is yet another HIV/Aids hotspot. Do these males in positions of power use condoms, are these females in any position (pardon the pun) to negotiate/demand condom use when it is their freedom at stake?

Yet in all these operations, researchers are asking: has this worked to curb the spread of HIV/Aids and succeeded in creating “a morally upright” society as the prudes would put it?

One female contributor put it bluntly and said prostitution will always be around whether we like it or not so get used it!

Yet despite that blunt truth, what remains obvious is that there remains very little being done to protect sex workers, be it from STIs or physical/sexual violence.

Small wonder then that there were gasps last year when one MP dared the prudes and called for legalizing the operations of what she rather stupidly called “pleasure engineers” which effectively stripped the debate of its gravity.

And with the UNTWO General Assembly almost here, it cannot be ignored that sex workers are seeing an opportunity of a lifetime, and while Walter Mzembi has said legalizing the profession is out of the question, truth is, some delegates will turn their sojourn into a sex tourism excursion of sorts.

Like one young lady suggested, instead of bashing these women with haughty claims of immorality, other countries are providing sexual health care for sex workers and in the process minimising the spread of HIV/Aids.

Perhaps instead of futile efforts to get them off the streets and encouraging them to sell tomatoes instead, the focus should move from throwing only them into filthy holding cells, but extending the crusade to clients who remain invisible in the whole narrative.

It takes two to screw right?