Last Friday a group of us got together to have a drink and speak about our week, and the election. Just for the fun of it we composed a small and unsophisticated questionnaire which people gamely filled out. Here’s our favourite:

Well
the AU and SADAC have endorsed this strange charade!

Congratulations pour in from the region:
Zuma, after all his posturing, positioning and promises
of a position of morality and justice
welcomes the old liberation father back with open arms

A complete denial of the voices of the people
who lined up in trusting, peaceful queues
often patiently joining new lines in other places
as their registration areas had been changed
resignedly being turned away
unable to get transport

unwittingly validating this farce of freedom
lending a complete mockery to the democratic process

today is the tomorrow of our outrage:
‘how dare they ?’

seeking places to point our blame:
‘why haven’t ‘they’ done something?’
‘taken to the streets?’
‘demanded a re-run?’

voicing our self-condemnation:
‘ we Zimbabweans are always like this – we are so  passive’
‘we don’t stand together’
‘we can’t fight’
‘we should have known’
‘this time we had hope’
‘we are too tired to do this again’

and our fear:
‘there will be reprisals’  
as we hear the first reports of displacements of people from their homes

In the face of such a blatant daylight robbery
we easily slip back to where we started
a sense of despair
a place of fear
and fight and blame of team A versus team B
winner and looser
the good and the bad

back to seeking solutions from an old reactions
which birthed the source of the problem
a frustrated  call  to the young men and mothers and fathers
back into the fray
to once again be beaten and assaulted and imprisoned

but as tomorrow becomes tomorrow
we begin to see that situations around us have changed…
we are NOT the same
we are not back there where we were before

we have learned so much in this time

we have finally understood that political leaders and parties are not the source of our redemption
(for the abuse of power and abandonment of the people comes from the best of our heroes)

we have learned that poverty and violence, and witnessing of violence, is destroying our lives
and most particularly those of our children
inflicting on them the battle wounds of yesterday

today is the tomorrow
when we learn that it is us
who must take responsibility
no longer to wait for our recovery to come from the hands of unknown redeemers
to mend our spirits/our places/our spaces

and today
we remember that this work has already begun
everywhere …

this time was different
we have recorded every step of this unlawful process
we have voiced our findings and spoken our frustrations
we have used public media
we have written of the inconsistencies and travesties
spoken our truth
been heard across the world

this time,
we are different
for in the yesterdays of enduring the hardships of unemployment and displacement
we began to come together again as ordinary people
began witness our own stories
and heal ourselves and our communities

we have been to workshops learning of our civic rights/human rights/women’s rights/food rights
learned the language of conflict resolution and sustainable dialogue

we have begun to take care of our own AIDS victims
begun circles of support to take care of our orphaned children
begun community gardens growing organic vegetables

we have begun the work in small circles of disabled women recycling plastic into wonderful bags
and in large community circles with our leaders from across the ‘political divide’
circles where headmen no longer sit outside/above his people – but on the rim of the same circle
we have held dance days and community days
and  days with the youth from both parties
and we have seen that we have been able to cross the cracks and gaps and deep divides
that have disabled us

and seen ourselves grow into wider people
able to look at things from a longer perspective

perhaps today is the tomorrow we have been waiting for
as we walked  through the interminable grey cloud
learning there is no real A and B
but a mixed blessing of dark and light

looking for a way to live the responsibility of empowered people

looking for a way to walk into tomorrow

Hey, but this woman rocks. More fire Everjoice:

I will vote in 2018, not this year

I did not go home to vote today. I already knew my ‘candidate’ was not on the ballot paper. All of the ballot papers, Presidential, parliamentary, local government. She was not there. No, this had nothing to do with rigging, lack of identity documents, lack of adequate time to prepare or any of the logistical issues – before you consign my candidates’ absence to all the alleged stereotypical issues that everyone has been rattling on about. No.

My candidate gracefully chose to step aside. Walked away from this election – literally and metaphorically, because she knew that this was not that sort of election. My candidate figured out five years ago that the 2013 elections were never going to be about the issues or things she, myself and probably millions of other Zimbabwean women care about. She knew already, that this was merely an election to choose one man over the other. Yes. A man. Women like my candidate have been quite clear for some time now that it didn’t matter how clever, analytical, or clear they were about what the problems are in our country and what the solutions could be, they did not stand a chance. Their voices would get drowned out in this all male contest. And if we were ever in any doubt as to what this election was about, a young man representing MDC-T told us categorically on South Africa’s E-TV last weekend – “this election is not about VALUES”, he thundered, “all we want is to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe”. I have never understood why or when it became necessary to pronounce his name in full like that? Interestingly the other contestants are now referred to in that way…’Morgan Richard Tsvangirai’ Hee hee. Is that supposed to give them more gravitas? (Or more curiously, referring to them by their totems/clan names. Each time this happens I have visions of their wives kneeling on the floor wiping their penises after sex). Let me not digress. We were told the truth. Or more accurately we were reminded. The message was broadcast across the region. Whatever little denial I had left was banished from my head. I cancelled my ticket.

Values. A concept that has largely deserted our politics and our people. Honesty. Integrity. Humility. Care for another one. Heck – just being a good person! We forgot what that means many years ago. It is now person eat dog and its owner. It is not just the political leadership who lack values. It is most leaders, from so called Civil Society, to religious bodies to even the family. Everyone just wants what is good themselves. The fanciest car. The biggest house. The largest amount of cash. The longest weave. The latest Apple product. The biggest Bible. Let us not forget this last one. The biggest fashion accessory of my people. This is what matters. How you get it is not that important. You just have to have it. In NGOs – that part of the population with which I am most intimately connected, we made sure we generated these material things from our vantage point. It started with us being the ones getting forex, trips outside Zimbabwe, (to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe), and the fuel coupons. This was back during the hyper-inflation period. Soon we got hooked onto these lovely things. We generated trips to Joburg and London. As Directors and Senior program staffers we made sure we did not miss the next per diem. If there was no per diem we threw such tantrums that the money just had to be found. Our donors did not disappoint. After all we were the leaders furthering the democracy and good governance agenda. Development? Rural development? Urban poverty? That agenda is coming later, for now we just needed Mugabe to go.

When the ‘crisis’ eased after dollarization, we struggled to keep up our lifestyles. We almost fell into the bottom 5%! We had to do something. So we generated more trips. The smallest altercation with a police officer became global news. Even if it was for an infringement of the road rules. We organized workshops, preferably after hours, or out of Harare, just so we could award ourselves the $30 per diem. Why we had to get a per-diem to participate in our own workshops I still don’t get. Actually I do. There is a name for it. Greed.

Greedy. Selfish. Now there are two words that define who we have become. At the top of the greed ladder are the ones who want to control all the diamond mines. In the middle the ones who fleece anyone fleece-able; the plumber charging an exorbitant amount to fix a mere broken pipe, the mechanic stealing car parts instead of fixing your car, the school teacher charging for extra lessons when she should have been teaching properly during normal school hours, and the home affairs officer wanting a ‘Coke’ to give your baby the birth-certificate to which she is entitled. On the same spectrum, the church leader/founder screaming around town in a 10 fancy- car- convoy while his congregants have not had a decent meal in many months.

Most of us have, over the last decade forgotten what this clamour for change was about to begin with. For some of us it was as that political party person said – not about values. It was only about getting rid of Mugabe. He could never do anything right. Nothing that he said could ever be true, or good, or useful. And if the uninformed among us were to be believed, the man and his government had never EVER done a single good thing for Zimbabwe since his mother Bona delivered him. Mugabe and anyone associated with him were just bad because….they are intrinsically bad. Gone was the critical perspective. Even those of us who went through doors of UZ thanks to his social development policies did not ever want to be heard acknowledging it.

Across the street, our newspaper editor friends and journalists in the non-state media joined the ‘party’. Besides the entertainment good news, everything and anything that Mugabe and his party said or did was just to be trashed. Ditto, across the borders, and across the seas. Ours became the single narrative – MDC good, ZANU PF bad. Simple. No room here for nuance, or complexity. And we all know, to quote Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi ‘the danger of the single story’.

My candidate is not on the ballot paper because she would simply be hounded off the political stage by the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and violent political culture that pervades Zimbabwe. From a whole elder statesman who swears at a diplomat from another country and calls her a ‘street woman’, to the average Tendai and Senzeni, who take to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to abuse others using the most degrading Shona and Ndebele words ever seen in print! ZANU planted and cultivated this political culture, it got nurtured by other political parties, sections of civil society and ordinary citizens. In between the swearing at ‘your mother’s vagina’, it is hard to pick out what is at political stake and how the one whose mother’s vagina is better/cleaner/smaller,(or whatever it is one’s vagina is supposed to look like on public platforms), will do anything different.  Political violence and intolerance is certainly not the preserve of ZANU PF.

Zimbabweans should stop being driven by ideology and be more driven by economic pragmatism’, advised one economist on twitter.  For many days I have wondered what this meant. I guess it is in the same vein as saying this election must be devoid of VALUES. The economist should have said in simpler English, don’t think, just focus on making money. Be good capitalists and your problems will be solved. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, who gets hurt in the process or who you shove out of the way. My candidate is not on that ballot paper because she thinks too much about ideology. She worries a lot about what some of the choice phrases mean; attracting foreign investment (of what sort? To invest in what?); Reengaging the North/West (Because? How will we make sure we don’t lose power and control over our resources?); Attracting donors (so that they can support whose development?); Unlocking Zimbabwe’s wealth (so that it goes into whose pocket?);  Media freedom, (to promote whose rights and will black women in Mkoba township get to speak for themselves? On their rights?). See what I mean? My candidate asks too many questions. She wants to have conversations that are about ideology, values and principles. In the current atmosphere, she will not be heard. She might as well be speaking to herself and her few friends like me who make her helpful cups of coffee but aren’t enough to win her an election. She will not have an inch of space in the media. She will have very few NGO friends, religious ones, or media ones because that is not our language at this moment.

I will vote in 2018. My candidate will run in that election. The dust will have settled. I am optimistic that come the next elections Zimbabweans will put values back on the agenda. We will debate and be clear about our leaders’ political ideologies.  I see NGOs in another five years discussing and implementing human rights based DEVELOPMENT for all Zimbabweans– not just the heterosexual.  In the next five years, I want to have honest conversations about the unfinished business of RACE and RACISM. Honest conversations, inside Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe, rather than the current dishonesty that says it is one of the present male leaders’ sole agenda. It is still my agenda. By the time we vote in 2018, we will have a definition of democracy and participatory governance which is not just about personalities but about my favorite topic- street lights. Yes really. Streetlights. to increase safety and security for my granddaughters when they walk late at night in the township.

By 2018 we will have developed a new political culture, one which at the very least allows each Zimbabwean to speak, act, chose, and be who they want to be.  I will vote when my country and its women’s broken souls have healed. When we relearn how to just be what my mother used to call ‘good people’. Simply that.  I so wish that by the next election – Zimbabwe will have reverted to being a secular space. Jesus will be removed from the ballot papers and we will keep him off forever. As a black Zimbabwean woman, it is my deepest wish that this is the last election in which the only choices in front of us are ‘BULLS’, (their party’s words not mine!), and a bunch of great-grandfathers who have never heard the phrase ‘sexual autonomy and choice’.

Originally published on Everjoice Win’s blog

Posted by Everjoice Win at 8:50 AM, 31 July 2013

Photo: Jamie McLaren

I think leadership renewal is now imperative. MDCs have tried & failed. The class of 1999 needs to make way. @BekiMpofu

At one time Mugabe’s skin colour made him worse than a pig, or a dog to those who wanted to rob him of his dignity. You can choose to learn from prejudice, or you can perpetuate it.

“If you’re a woman, if you’re a person of color, if you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you’re a person of size, a person of intelligence, a person of integrity, then you’re considered a minority in this world. And it’s going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way or else you’re worthless. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution and our revolution is long overdue.”
- Margaret Cho