An excerpt from a report by the Harare Residents Trust:

Burial fees

The residents argued that if the government of Zimbabwe made land available for free under the land reform program then why should a dead corpse be made to buy land from the City of Harare?

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. He was only 35 when he died, but in his comparatively short life, he managed not simply to help what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo gain independence from Belgium, but he inspired an idea.

Lumumba’s political career was not very long. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo for almost three months before he was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis, and then murdered. The exact details surrounding his death are not clear, but the Belgian government and the CIA were implicated. In 2002 the Belgian government formally apologised to the Congolese people for Lumumba’s murder.

Lumumba is an African icon because he stood steadfast in his belief that the African people had a right to determine their destiny without interference. At Congo’s Independence, the Belgian monarch made it clear in his remarks that he expected Belgium to play a leading role in the Congo’s future, and Lumumba stood defiant in the face of Imperialism:

‘No Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that it is by struggle that we have won [our independence], a struggle waged each and every day, a passionate idealistic struggle, a struggle in which no effort, privation, suffering, or drop of our blood was spared. We will count not only on our enormous strength and immense riches but on the assistance of numerous foreign countries whose collaboration we will accept if it is offered freely and with no attempt to impose on us an alien culture of no matter what nature’.

Lumumba understood then that while Congo, as did other African countries subsequent to that, had achieved political independence, it was yet to gain economic freedom. It was because he was a threat to colonial interests that sought to maintain their economic relationship with postcolonial African countries that Lumumba was enough of a threat to be assassinated. More than anything Lumumba struggled against “an institutionalised relationship between Africans and Europeans,” in all it’s forms, which facilitated the exploitation of Africans and their resources. As he did then Lumumba represents the idea of unencumbered self-determination, the idea that Africans can truly be free.

In an article titled Lumumba’s ideals and the symbolism of his life, Lyn Ossome writes:

Today due to greed powered by its own African neighbours, who under the watchful eye of the United Nations continue to fuel ethnic conflicts and amass far too many civilian casualties, the country lies in political, economic and social tatters. The paranoid miscalculations of the U.S. and its allies during the Cold War cost Africa many inspiring leaders and perpetuated conflict in a number of countries that have paid long and hard, among them Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique, and the DRC. In Sudan, a long civilian war robbed Southern Sudan of its economic soul for more than two decades, and the semi-autonomous region that stands poised to secede from its northern counterpart today is one that is desperately clinging to the hope of Pan-African solidarity and visionary, steadfast leadership. At the contentious heart of its secession lies its enormous mineral wealth, caught within the same cross-hairs of imperialist interests and intervening African interests against which Lumumba struggled until his death.

How many factions does the MDC as we thought we knew it now have, that is adding from the mudslinging that has followed the elevation of Welshman Ncube who elbowed out Mutambara?

Is this not yet another tragedy of African politics that pretenders to the throne turn against each other and take their eyes off the prize, that is unseat an unpopular democracy? Small wonder then that frustrated analysts and kosher opposition politicians are always quick to say Zanu PF has mastered the game and creates these spoilers to enfeeble what would have been the party that forms the next government. So, when elections are eventually called be sure to see 20 or even 50 parties emerging from the woodwork to claim their place in the ballot as has been seen elsewhere in Africa. They are quick to call it democracy but it is rather more of multiparty elections than multiparty politics because, outside election season they hibernate and are known only to their spouses. But still that’s a big MAYBE.

Now with the numerous MDCs who will fight it out with other unknown political outfits, who can write Zanu PF’s epitaph?

I read online today that the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and his alleged ‘lover’ Aquilina Kayidza Pamberi, have both denied the allegations that they were having an affair. Was this one of those “unfounded and baseless” stories to “besmirch the person and office of the Prime Minister”? Read the stories from Newsday here and The Standard here

Having a textbook on a desk in most schools in Zimbabwe is now deemed a privilege. Pupils have to scramble for the limited resources and in some scenarios the teacher’s copy is the only one available for use. However with the injection of 13 million textbooks being delivered to schools by the Ministry of Education the scenario is going to change. Hopefully along the way teachers will get a boost to their salaries as well! Read more from Voice of America

The weekend’s media carried several articles regarding Afrobarometer’s most recent survey titled     Zimbabwe, the evolving public mood. Interestingly the survey reports that 70% out of a sample of 1192 persons responded yes to a question that asked: “Do you think that Zimbabwe should hold elections next year, that is, in 2011?”  The report also notes that relatively few people favoured deferring elections to a later date.

Of this the writer of the report theorizes: That seven in ten would-be voters are anxious to freely elect leaders of their choice, even in an atmosphere where security forces and party militias are again on the move, is testament to the impressive depth of Zimbabweans’ commitment to political rights.

That’s a nice thing to think about Zimbabweans, but I don’t believe it. The same survey reports an increase in reluctance to divulge political party preference and an increase in reported support for ZANU PF. Consider our last election, in which gangs of young men went about rural Zimbabwe beating and raping innocent men and women who were only rumored to support MDC. I don’t think these people are brave, or selfless, or committed to democracy. I think they’re scared.

ZANU PF may not be all-powerful in the low-density suburbs, or even in the rest of the city, but in rural Zimbabwe, it’s Orwellian. It’s difficult to be completely honest with an unknown person whose word cannot be verified. Anyone who has ever conducted a survey will tell you that people will tell you what they think you want to hear. And with a ruling party that bears an uncanny resemblance to Nineteen Eighty Four’s Big Brother its very difficult to shake the feeling that they’re watching you. The ‘thought-crime’ of harboring ideas in your mind such as democracy, the right to vote and secret ballots do not go unpunished.