Rejoice Ngwenja rocks.

Kubatana.net recently interviewed him and you can read and listen to his views on a variety of critical issues in Zimbabwe on www.kubatana.net

In the meantime, below we carry an article by him entitled Scorpion in my Shoe, published by www.africanliberty.org

Thanks to Robert Mugabe’s reign of record-breaking incremental destruction, my country is struggling to redeem itself from the abyss of infrastructure collapse, so much that even hardcore urbanites like me have to make do with irritating wood smoke just to have a warm plate of sadza [Zimbabwe’s staple maize meal paste].    And that was without additional injury to the back breaking exercise.   A week ago, I was stung by a small black scorpion on my big toe as I chopped firewood to beat Zimbabwe’s notorious power outages.

The sting, while irritating, passed off just like any other experience of living in modern-day Zimbabwe under the Jurassic governance of the primeval ZANU-PF.  Thinking back, I imagined that Morgan Tsvangirayi was persuaded to take Robert Mugabe into his political boot, wherefore the old trickster settled at some dark corner until MDC fell into a stupor of artificial comfort.  But now, Tsvangirayi has been inevitably stung while he least expected.

Instead of focusing on the business of building high yielding relations, Mugabe continues to conspire evil against our nation hiding behind questionable legalism.  According to a recent Zimbabwe Situation news online report, “…. Mugabe is entitled under the law to assign functions to ministers, [but] he still has to consult his partners in government on the allocation of the ministries, according to the GPA”.  In complete defiance of this noble proposition, Mugabe unilaterally takes it upon himself to strip MDC-held ministries of essential powers.

Apparently, the biggest challenge confronting Tsvangirayi is not the quality of Zimbabwe’s coalition government, given that most such arrangements are products of large-scale compromise.  Agreements are made on the basis of partner credibility, honesty, consistency and transparency – traits which ZANU-PF is not exactly endowed with.  Most progressive analysts will agree that Tsvangirayi knew exactly the nature of the partner he was committing himself to, that is why he needed to have a comfortable stock of antidotes to deal with Mugabe’s chicanery.   More importantly, ZANU-PF is a completely discredited partner, headed by one Robert Mugabe who comprehensively lost the March 2008 Parliamentary Election, only to be ‘salvaged’ by an equally discredited one-man masquerade in June of the same year.

According to Professor Arthur Mutambara, the Global Political Agreement [GPA] is the only source of Mugabe’s ‘presidential legitimacy’.  In fact he would have proceeded to add that had SADC taken the right decision to call for a more organised, African Unity-supervised presidential re-run, Mugabe would now be confined to overdue retirement at his Zvimba rural home.  It therefore is astonishing by what authority Mugabe cherry-picks ministerial responsibility, if it were not that he is of a tyrannical genre obsessed with power.  I have argued time and again that our Zimbabwe government is too big and expensive, hence the shifting of ministerial powers would, on any other day, have little impact on service delivery.  And yet if you really put Mugabe’s juggling under the spotlight, he is only interested in ministerial adjustments that entrench his hegemonic hold on political power.

What is left now is for both Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirayi and his deputy, Arthur Mutambara to place an inexpensive political device that should shatter once and for all, Mugabe’s life-presidency ambitions. Both MDC cadres must come out of their friendly accommodative shells and tell Mugabe to fulfill all the provisions of the GPA. This is the opportune time for both men to stop making excuses for the aging dictator and embark on three-dimensional activism. The more sensible side of government – MDC – must promulgate statutory instruments to licence all applicants for radio stations and newspapers.  The democratic parties must dispatch all ambassadors, governors and appoint deputy minister for agriculture Roy Bennet.  Morgan Tsvangirayi and Arthur Mutambara must repeal all anti-democratic laws while all pubic appointments not sanctioned by the GPA must be nullified, including that of attorney general Johannes Tomana and central bank governor Gideon Gono.

The gist of my argument is that Robert Mugabe lost the election, thus has no moral high ground to play god.  Five million Zimbabweans have given both MDCs the mandate to govern, so the one-man political dance of the discredited Robert Mugabe has no authority or legitimacy to give five million voters a single sleepless night.  If both Tsvangirayi and Mutambara are weak, they should immediately hand over their power – Nigeria style – to more capable members of their parties.  This weakling image of subservience they are portraying does not augur well with our expectations.  It could also endanger their 2012 electoral standing in their constituencies.  Mugabe’s unpopular mandate expired in 2000, so any compromise on the part of Tsvangirayi and Mutambara is blight on the noble fight against ZANU-PF fascist dictatorship.  Luckily, we now know there is a scorpion in our boot.

Didymus Zengenene’s blog post titled is Lobola still valid in the era of equality? made me think. I consider myself a feminist, yet I want my future husband to pay roora to my family. Yes, that’s right, my family as a whole. The understanding of what roora or lobola is, and what it means has, through time and loose translation been lost to a generation that now considers English meaning of a shona or ndebele tradition to be Gospel. But what happens when that tradition’s real meaning is lost in translation? We get feminists, neo liberals and the like clamouring for the banishment of that tradition, using big words like equality and gender imbalance. Don’t get it twisted, I’m all for gender equality. But I also believe that culture is an important factor in personal identity.

Translated into English roora, means bride price. Of course then, on the surface, this tradition would appear to be a man buying a woman. I don’t deny that there are those who pervert that perception of this tradition to enrich themselves by selling off their underage daughters. Neither do I deny that there are men and women who believe that by having roora paid for her a woman must be completely submissive to her husband or suffer the consequences, violent or not. But these are the ill-advised actions of people, not the intent of the tradition. They reflect more on the characters of the individuals involved than on the culture they profess to practice.

The act of paying roora shouldn’t be looked at in isolation. It is part of a complex and formal process of negotiation that results in a mutual agreement of the bride price. Roora is not meant to extract ridiculous sums of money from the would be groom. In fact for true traditionalists, the exchange of money, which is foreign to our culture, is taboo. Roora is a tradition that is rooted in building a sense of community, both within the families that are marrying, and between them. A man cannot marry alone, the cattle he pays to his bride’s father are those cattle given to his family by his brothers in law. The ceremony itself cannot happen with out a number of members of the extended family being present, tete’s (the bride’s father’s sisters), Sekuru’s (the bride’s mother’s brothers), varoora (sisters in law to the bride) and hanzvadzi (brothers and sisters) included. Far from being transactional, this tradition is meant to establish and reinforce a relationship between the two marrying families to strengthen the new union. It is impossible for a good parent to place a monetary value on a child, so why should it be looked at in monetary terms alone?

In answer to Didymus’ question, as a card-carrying feminist who wouldn’t suffer the indignity of being dictated to by a man simply because he is one, yes I think it still is. I think the tradition of roora, as it was intended, is very important. In a time when divorce rates climb every day and our sense of culture and community is being lost through cultural alienation, migration and other factors I think it is more important now than ever.

Zimbabwe is in a process of formulating a new constitution. The process is already reportedly marred by disgruntlements emanating from different lines of divisions ranging from political to gender. It is sad and highly unexpected of an educated populace as Zimbabwe’s. The tensions reflect massive misconceptions not only of the process leading to the constitution but also of what the constitution is and its short term and long term objectives.

If people really knew what they were doing, we would not be having outcries over political rallies and the consequent political violence, which we hear of, or over who constitutes the select committee to spearhead the constitution making process. It is not the role of any political party to inform its people of the constitution but of an independent neutral body, or of other informed citizens.

The constitution is a document much more important than any political party, it should live beyond ZANU PF, beyond MDC and beyond Ndonga or any political party yet to be formed. It is the national bible to determine the conduct of the government and other stakeholders including people. What it implies is that it is the key to control the birth, survival and death of political parties. It should therefore come from the people in general, irrespective of their political party allegiances. Everyone should wear the coat of a citizen and take off any identification with a party in the process.

The select committee to spear heard the constitution making process is not there to influence the outcomes of the process. What we want collected are the views of the people as raw as they are and not views doctored along short term political interests. The same can be said of gender issues. We want people’s views and not those of whoever is part of the committee. People should be educated and to take heed of such elements that are bent on influencing the process to make the constitution their pocket parcel or baby.

People should stop viewing the constitution through political party lenses and rather jointly come up with a constitution that benefits everyone. What is important here is political and social neutrality.

President Jacob Zuma has been called all sorts of names of late for making the choice to enjoy the privilege of being a polygamist which his culture permits, which the South African constitution does not criminalize and which the women he is married to have accepted much to public outrage.

While I have strong personal feelings against polygamy, I notice that during the hullabaloo that ensured – none of Zuma’s wives voiced dissent, none of them took to the streets in protest over their husband’s perpetual marriages, engagements and never-ending wooing.

It was to me, a case of the media crying louder than the bereaved – for if indeed there are any who are harmed or aggrieved by how Zuma conducts his love-life; surely it would be the women he has married, promised to marry and those he has fathered children with – all of whom have remained silent. The silence, presumably, of those who are in acquiescence.

But then people are entitled to their opinions, moreso if the opinions they wish to voice regard those who are in positions of power, who find themselves accountable to the public and whose private lives play out in the public domain as Zuma’s life has.

Now the British media called him a ‘buffoon’ who also happened to be ‘over-sexed’. Now to my way of thinking, buffoon is not high on the scale as far as insults go – in fact it is really nothing compared to some of the colorful invectives that have gone Zuma’s way.

Inadvertently, this insult has done more to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of Zuma, primarily because it was uttered by a white man, who happens to be non-African and whose contemptuous view of Zuma’s polygamous status has riled the afrocentric and pan-africanist sensibilities of some of us.

Though it may sound clichéd, Zuma’s conduct has a cultural premise – an African culture, which (whatever its flaws and imperfections may be) is our proud heritage and an integral part of our ethos as a people, as continent and as a race.

Where I come from, when we fight or disagree – we are allowed to do so without pulling punches knowing that what binds us is greater than what would divide us. I have often found that the only thing that quenches a family feud is the intrusion of an outsider, one who would presume to appoint themselves as the judge and proceed to proffer unsolicited advice or opinions on what is an internal affair.

And that British man has managed to raise my hackles by his superciliousness and the nauseating superiority complex that informs his interpretation of African customs, specifically polygamy.

Had he desired to make an informed judgment of President Zuma’s lifestyle, he would have done so within the confines of the African customs and culture that permits him to be a polygamist.

Anyone, particularly a non-African, would do well to show the appropriate level of humility that is reflective of his or her limited experience and knowledge of African mores when they make the choice to hazard an opinion. Logic dictates that it be so.

Voltaire once stated, I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. It is in the same vein that I am compelled to leap to Zuma’s defense; for while I (as an African) do not agree with how he chooses to conduct his life (and find polygamy to be unpalatable) I defend without qualms his right to marry many women as our culture permits and in the same breathe I would be duty-bound to defend the right of all his wives to be married to their one polygamous husband.

It is a personal choice they have made and whatever the consequences – it is not my place to hurl insults at them because I happen not to agree with the decisions grown, mature and adult women have made in picking a life partner.

So much for the gospel of tolerance that the has been preached by the West with advent of fighting for gay rights the world over and here is one who would scorn a man for marrying three women and find it palatable that two men ‘jump’ each other’s bones?

Whatever; that snide remark however goes beyond the issue of Zuma because really the issue is polygamy and polygamy is an African issue and surely any disparaging comment made about it reflects on the African people whose culture makes it permissible?

A buffoon, is he? What does that make the rest of us, I wonder? Or would someone care to explain how that remark has nothing to do with the rest of us; sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins of polygamists – let me guess – we’re just a family of African ‘buffoons’.

Zimbabwe civic organisations ZimRights and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) recently issued a joint statement drawing attention to the rising repression directed at human rights defenders in this country.

The statement says that various members of the ZimRights board have received threatening text messages.

ZimRights and ZLHR also said:  “We urge the inclusive government and particularly the co-Home Affairs Ministers and the Police Commissioner-General to unequivocally guarantee the safety of all these human rights defenders and to assure them of their security pending full investigations into the alleged threats.”

Here are some of the text messages:

Nunurai Jena, ZimRights Regional Chairperson for Mashonaland West received a message saying, “If we give you a task to ask your ZimRights colleagues to slow down and forget about the constitution making process will you do that or else…? Just comply.”

Chitungwiza regional chairperson, Netsai Kaitano’s message read, “Chipositori nekodzero, kana matongerwo enyika zvinopindirana papi? (How are apostolic faith and rights or politics linked?) Have you forgotten the pain of those beatings. Bidi and Tsunga are gone, Pelagia, Ok, Phulu and Tshuma won’t be there anymore, when we will come for you.”

Jabulisa Tshuma, the organisation’s treasurer’s message said, “Mr Treasurer Tshuma, who are your sponsors? You are all over the country. Are you turning ZimRights into a political party? What is the motive of your donors?”

Please get in touch with ZimRights and send them a message of solidarity.

And while these abuses take place under the Government of National Unity, the MDC is responsible for them. Email the MDC on mdc.internationalrelations@gmail.com and ask them to demand a full investigation.

Lately the debate about women’s rights has been taken to greater heights than ever before. It is historically evident that women have been oppressed mainly on the basis of their physical weakness, which was mistakenly assumed to overlap also to mental capacity. As a result they have been treated as mere observers in a male dominated world. Or as mere commodities; for example, a young girl could be exchanged for food or cattle. People with wealth ended up having many wives, some as young as their grand daughters.

Giving birth to a boy child has been regarded as enlarging the family, whereas giving birth to a girl child is seen as enriching the family through cattle, food or any form of wealth that would come out of lobola. Even the terminology speaks for itself, “Mukomana anoroora, musikana” meaning that the act is not reciprocal. Rather the boy child is the object whereas the girl is the subject. Just like the relationship between a boy and the ball in the sentence, “The boy kicks the ball.”

Today’s world drives us to a new dispensation – that of equality. A free world for all. How can this be valid where marriage demands payment from one side of the pair? In my view payment of lobola removes that balance which we strive to achieve in a relationship.  Despite the amount of noise made about human rights, women are literally reduced to mere commodities and given a monetary value. One pays that much for an educated woman, the other pays that much more for a moneyed women and so on. Yes it is our culture, but is it not the same culture, that we should blame for its ills of disregarding women? If it is merely a cultural token, why does it differ depending on the social status of who is getting married? In as much as we are moving out of the era of unbalanced oppression towards women, our approach lacks practicality as we still hang on to cultural practices that can promulgate inequality right from the first day that people are married.

And from the women’s side, many are convinced that payment has to be made to their family before they are married. I once asked a lady if she would agree to exchange vows without any payment made. In response she asked me why I wanted to be ‘given” a wife for free. To me she reduced herself to a mere commodity rather than an equal partner.

My argument here is simple. Lobola payments minimise the gender equality we want to achieve when people enter their marriage without a balance. When the wife is ill treated, she is slow to take any action because someone paid for her. Even her parents will look at the matter considering that they received something from the Mukwasha. With lobola in place, and pressure to be equal, I foresee a time when men will not be committed to a relationship. Rather they go the “hit and run” way where they impregnate and go free again with no responsibility and no risk.