No Laughing Matter? : Humor And Protest Arts
Deadline: 30 July 2013

The University of Zimbabwe and Savanna Trust invites you to submit your abstracts for conference presentations on the 24th and 25th of October 2013 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In both popular and academic imagination, protest arts have been generally associated with ‘angry’ and ‘gloomy’ ‘subversive’ images. Consequently limited attention has been paid to the use of humour in protest arts. The possibilities, complexities and limitations of humour in protest arts deserve serious recognition. Several questions can be raised in this regard.  Why in the first place do artists and the public include humour in their protest arts?  Is humour compatible with radical transformative protest arts?  What are the aesthetic and ideological implications of deploying humour in protest arts?  How have state actors, elites and the general public responded to humour in protest arts?

Sub-Themes
-Aesthetic quality, humour and protest arts
-Ideological possibilities/complications of humour in protest arts, (eg gender, class, race, ethnicity disability political identity etc)
-The reception of humour in protest arts
-Humour, ethics and morality
-Writing/performing humour in protest arts
-Media/technology, humour and protest arts v    Protest music and humour
-Humour in protest marches and demonstrations
-Humour in protest and graffiti
-Popular jokes and/as protest arts

Submit your abstracts in not more than 350 words to: kchikonzo [at] arts [dot] uz [dot] ac [dot] zw and copy paifst [at] gmail [dot] com

When people in Egypt kicked out Mubarak they hoped the Muslim Brotherhood was the change they needed. The word ‘change’ fueled the protests and the revolution was won. The same happened in Tunisia – Ben Ali was chucked out because change was needed. One year later the Muslim Brothers in Egypt are faced with a 48-hour decree to meet people’s demands, or resign. Defiantly, President Morsi is claiming he was democratically elected so he will serve until the end of his term. This might correct according to the constitution of Egypt but if the people no longer want him, why would Mr Morsi hang on to power. The military is playing hero and has issued a decree for President Morsi to meet the people’s demands or be frog marched out of the presidential palace. Egypt expected change in the year that Morsi has been in office but his government has failed the test. In order to safe guard the revolution from being stolen by the Muslim brothers in broad daylight, Egyptians are back in Tahrir Square for a second revolution.

The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will provoke until they respond or change the law. – Gandhi

Trying to beat the 24 June voter registration deadline for my area, I decided to sacrifice my weekend booze and social soccer and be a responsible citizen by adding my name to the voters’ roll.

My voter registration ordeal started on Saturday at around 7:37 am. There I was with my beanie and tracksuit on to beat the morning chill. Trying to be the early bird I headed to the community hall and during this time of electioneering, I came across a pickup truck full of young fellas waving the national colors heading the same direction as me. As I was about to approach the hall the cheering coming from the pickup truck became louder. I could see the young goons in the truck vigorously waving clenched fists at me shouting “Cde Cde zvamauya zvanaka!” I wasn’t going for a rally so how could they start chanting a song to welcome me, instantly granting war credentials to warrant a Cdeship title. By ignoring the gestures I was about to draw attention, so here I was clenching my not so strong fist not knowing that I was doing it with the wrong hand. Had these young fellas noticed that would have been another story? I comforted myself by putting the blame on God because He is the one who made me left-handed. The truck was not going to the community hall but rather heading to a nearby crèche where some primary election campaigns were taking place. I guess they assumed that I was dressed up for some toyi- toyi and I was a “Cde”. Well this Cde was on a voter registration mission and had these fellas offered me a ride to go to the registration center I was going to accept the Cdeship offer.

At the registration center a different story unfolded. I couldn’t believe the number I was issued. It was just 8am and already I’m number 287? I waited patiently and I observed the situation to see if it was worth waiting it out. It took me two hours to move 10 places and frustration was starting to creep in, so to kill time I joined a discussion, which was about the frustration people were experiencing at the slow pace of the registration. I moved another three places and by 12:30pm I could not wait any longer. I went home so that I could grab something to eat.

I decided to try my luck on Sunday. I thought I would take advantage of the fact that some people would have preferred to go to church but it was worse than I thought as I found myself number 348 in the queue. The queue was not moving and every now and then I could see people tagging along claiming they were in front of me. I got frustrated waiting and I also felt cheated. So desperate time calls for desperate action! In a matter of moments my number 348 turned into 48 as I tagged along like how the other guys in the queue had been doing since morning. I decided to stay low and move along with the commotion till I got inside and it worked. As I was about to leave the hall at around 330pm I tried to imagine if those at number 300 and something were going to be served, or whether they were going to resort to what I had done.

Or get frustrated and leave like what I did on Saturday.

The African Union (AU) is the backbone of Pan Africanism as reflected upon its formulation values and the dictates of its objectives that promote democratic practices, good governance and protecting human freedoms and rights in compliance with Internationally accepted standards. An African renaissance is only possible when the whole continent unites against bad political and economic practices and promotes institutions that ensure that the governed are the ultimate beneficiary of every country’s resources. These goals have taken far too long to be achieved even in the greater part of Africa because of our leaders’ hypocrisy and greediness. But in recent years, the long overdue dream of our forefathers has taking shape, in different forms but the root cause of all being the awareness that has arisen within the masses of people.
I should mention that it was very easy then for presidents and key political people in Africa to go up on big podiums and preach the gospel of Pan Africanism and at the same time reign with a heavy hand in their home country and still be regarded as Pan Africanists. In this computer age, tyrants and dictators in Africa are, and will continue to find it very difficult to use the same tactic of hiding behind the weakening membrane of sovereignty to terrorise their own people in the name of bringing ‘home grown’ solutions.

They use very sweet and noble words like ‘our solutions for our problems’, ‘no to imperialistic solutions’ but in most distressed and panic ridden states in Africa they are being used as shields to cushion the heavy hand from inquisition. In old days these were working disclaimers for them but the global village has now put them in the spotlight. In as much as they may try to re-engrave their self-torn names on the continental walk of fame, their true selves are always haunting and outweighing their verbal efforts. Gone are the days when presidents and security chiefs could afford to be two faced shielding their dark and ugly sides while upholding and celebrating an artificial image of good governance. Gone are the days when their own citizens would live in abject fear and repression, find ‘peace’ in those appalling conditions and never know what others out there are enjoying and how much freedom they are missing out on.

The tyrant’s evil deeds are now a click away from the world eye and blessed is this our generation; no matter how much they may try to victimise us from the urban centres of Harare to the deepest parts of the country and many others, the world is now in the know and there is not a single panacea that our murderers and their masters could now administer to redeem their battered images from the mud they dragged themselves in.

Reading Lenard’s blog on recent protests around the world made me think of our Zimbabwean context. I was out running over the weekend and besides seeing an increased presence and movement of police across Harare, I also noticed that the 2 of the 3 water canons that the Zimbabwe government has in its armory were zipping along the streets. And I thought that water canons in Zimbabwe are For Display Purposes Only. Because as Lenard points out, we’ve endured a lot of unemployment, corruption, and abuse of power but we limit our uprisings to grumbling into our lagers in the pub.