A Kubatana subscriber recently emailed us his Letter to Zimbabwe. Our mailing list is pretty big, but not That Big. But Mathias Makozhombwe makes an awful lot of sense. It makes me think of that quote that suggests that the people who should be running the country are driving taxis and cutting hair. Here’s Mathias on what he wants for Zimbabwe.

I feel the need to talk about Zimbabwe, and share my thoughts. We need to elevate our game and stop the rot that has plagued this beautiful nation. It’s a well-known fact that Zanu more than sold us short, so I won’t dwell much on that because you know the lot. The question my brothers and sisters is how do we move forward, break free from the shackles of poverty, violence, misrepresentation and institutional tribalism?

How do we break free, stay free and never return to this unbearable situation of perpetual abuse of power? How do we differentiate the real from the fake, cheap talk from real talk? I don’t have all the questions or answers but these are issues that we need to consider when signing up for any future situations. The word I hear a lot is change; sure enough that’s a start, but not good enough. We need SMART change, a set of objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time Bound.

For clarity Zanu not only failed, they were a major catastrophe. Now as we stand up, speak up and unite for the sake of peace, it is important to note that there can be no peace without equality, and there can be no sustainable progress and stability without well-considered policies that have been debated at every level, with the Policy Makers and Implementers held accountable through effective regulation.

So when these political types in suits with stripes knock on our doors and ask for our votes, it’s our responsibility to demand accountability. For over 25 years the War Vets have held the nation to ransom. The nation owes the debt for their sacrifice, but when you cheat, steal and kill the very people you sought to liberate the debt owed to you becomes null and void.

My message to Mugabe, Chihuri and the gang, your days are numbered, you are way past your sell by date and judgment day is on the way. To Tsvangirai, Biti and the team, you have huge task ahead of you, and failure is not an option. You need to deliver, if or when you assume full power of Government. For now less whining and more action.

To my fellow Zimbabweans we are at a cross roads; the battle for freedom, equality and long term prosperity is only in it’s infancy. It is up to us whether we sink or swim, lose or win, die on our feet or live on our knees. I am not Dr King but I do have dreams. I am just an ordinary man who believes that one day peace and prosperity will return to Zimbabwe, and that all Zimbabweans will have equal opportunity and be judged not by the colour of their skin, tribal descent or sexual orientation, but by the nature and quality of their moral fibre.

Zanu PF held their National People’s Congress last week. The Congress resolved that “the Party’s national strategic objective for the next five years shall be the checking, containment and ultimate defeat of the West’s neo-colonial regime change agenda.”

Other highlights of the Congress resolutions include:

• Congress has noted that the national economy continues to be under siege from the machinations of the Western detractors and their internal MDC surrogates.
• Congress has noted that the Inclusive Government brings the Party into partnership with ideologically incompatible MDC Formations from which it must extricate itself in order to retain its mantle as the only dominant and ascendant political party that is truly representative and determined to safeguard the aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe.
• Congress condemns, in the strongest of terms, the reckless actions of the Minister of Finance, T. Biti, in particular his abuse of constitutional authority to prevent the release of the US$510 million IMF Global Financial Crisis mitigation facility, his systematic denial of seasonal support to the agricultural sector and his peanut budget for the year 2010 in pursuance of petty personal ambitions and the parochial reactionary agenda of his MDC Formation.
• There should be no movement on the concerns of the MDC Formations without corresponding and simultaneous redress of ZANU-PF’s concerns such as the illegal Western sanctions, Western Funded pirate radio broadcasts and Western interference in Zimbabwe’s internal politics through the funding of parallel government structures and the sponsoring of political activities of NGOs as a force multiplier for the MDC Formations.
• Condemns, in the strongest terms, the continuing violation of Zimbabwe’s airwaves by the Voice of America Studio 7, Voice of the People, Short Wave Radio Africa and a myriad of Internet based platforms in blatant breach of the GPA.

Discuss these resolutions with your friends and family. Plan how you can get involved in rejecting intolerance – and building positive politics – in 2010. Read the full text of their resolutions here and leave us your comments below.

As discussed in the previous post, the question of presidential portraits has symbolic importance for some Zimbabweans. As Bev Clark wrote in 2005, framed photographs of Mugabe hang on the walls of many banks, shops, and hotels – despite there being no law requiring this.  Contrast this with Cote d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo, who, soon after being elected in 2000, banned photos of himself in hotels and airports. This prompted a BBC listener forum asking if Presidential photos are a bad idea. (Gbagbo’s term expired in 2005 and yet Cote d’Ivoire has yet to hold elections fresh elections, but that’s another story.)

Even with the transitional, inclusive government, little has changed. In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Minister of Education, Sport and Culture David Coltart (of the Movement for Democratic Change) is depicted sitting below Mugabe’s portrait.

This week, we shared this photograph with our subscribers, with the question:

Should MDC members of the Unity Government uphold the portraits of the old Zanu PF guard? Write to us at info [at] kubatana [dot] net

We’ve been delighted with the volume – and variety – of feedback we’ve received. Read some of these responses below.

My thinking they should do away with the portraits of Mugabe

- VV

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Yes the potrait should remain for now.
- CM

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All portraits should be removed and never replaced.
- AC

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I am against upholding the potraits of the old guard. If we have to then let both the Prime Minister’s and President’s potraits both be displayed.
- MD

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I say no, members of the unity governement should remove that portrait and replace with theirs. I am sure that portrait is now tired of hanging all these 2 decades. It simpy needs a replacement. Thats my opinion . . . as long as i will get my freedom after expression will keep on writting.
- TT

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MDC T & M clearly seem happy to be pandering  and fawning over the old guard for reasons best known to themselves that they clearly haven’t shared with the resent of us. Attending their parties, eating their food and generally showing  a camaraderie that seems to be saying for them, as far as they are concerned the war is over now!
- MJN

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I would like to put across my opinion on this matter (which you have sought opinions for from across the Kubatana family), which goes like this:

His Excellency, Comrade R. G. Mugabe is the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. According to the agreement that ZANU (PF) signed with the 2 MDC formations, it is an agreed fact that he is also the Head of State and Commander of the Defence Forces. Now, in these 3 capacities, especially, the first 2, the portrait has every right to be put up in every important office and public place.

Maybe, the question we should be asking ourselves is, should the portrait of the Prime Minister’s be put up  there as well besides that of the President (in other words, should the 2 portraits share the same space)? My humble opinion is, maybe we need to look back into history to the time when the current President was still the Prime Minister. Did we have 2 portraits? I have done a little research, and I am informed that the 2 portraits of H. E. (the late) Canaan Banana and the then Prime Minister, Comrade R. G. Mugabe were pinned together (I stand to be corrected).

It is against this backdrop, therefore, that I opine that, maybe it will be pertinent to ask whether the portrait of the Prime Minister be pinned alongside that of the President.

Zimbabwe is a multi-racial country. A beautiful country with a beautiful people! I am thrilled to notice that in front of the President’s portrait (I am referring to the photo that you have circulated to spark this debate) we have a person of a Caucasian origin. This shows that, the portrait of the President is still accepted as a symbol of state leadership by all Zimbabweans.

In a nutshell, I feel the portrait of Comrade R. G. Mugabe who is the current Head of State and President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, should stay up there! We need to pin it up where everyone will be able to see it!

Thank you for giving me time to provide my own opinion on this matter.
- JC

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1. Unfortunately, Mugabe is still the President. It is not possible to separate the President from the old ZANU(PF) guard. (Yet.)
2. Please stop calling it a Unity Government. It’s an Inclusive Government. We know there is no “unity”. So do all the parties involved. They don’t call it a unity government. They call it an inclusive government. The only people who call it a unity government are the press and commentators. Please use the name that says what it it, not what it is not!
- RS

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I am so worried that as a nation we are not looking for the things that can build us and brng us closer to each other. We have in the last 27 years suffered a lot being divided by a fellow African. Should we at time time keep this division.. the Zanu and MDC to an extent of killing each other as we did running up to the presidential elections re-run…

What is a picture when there are more pressing issues, the continued tortue of the opposition, abuse and victimisation of women and children for poltical expendience. I warn your platform not to play in the hands of Zanu to further divide our people.

To hell with the divisions.
- JS

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Nope. We either need to have no portraits (unlikely) or two portraits – one for the president and one for our prime minister (yes, the pronouns are intentional).
- LL

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Zanu are not the masters of anyone. They lost the elections fair and square. Therefore a photo of Mugabe should not be hung . Imagine if a photo of Ian Smith was still hung what would be said by all and sundry. I for one will never accept a leader who has virtually forced himself on others.
- VN

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Yes, the portrait of a politician can not be mandatory for public places and still less for private offices. In Germany it is unbelievable that the portrait of the president would hang from every wall. Also streets and public places are never receiving names of living persons. Not one living person would ever accept such a treatment. Only extremely proud and fallacious persons can accept or even demand such acts. It shows that they are personally not self-confident. Streets and public places all over the world should never be named after politicians and military people. Often you only hear years after their death what kind of scrupulous people they were. Would Zimbabweans ever have believed before independance who has freed them from the colonialists so to grant them less freedom after independance? Education in democratic behaviour must start in the family and is continued at school. Women must play a more important role in  family and society. At the top of crime statistics are always men. The woman is the future of humanity. This declaration is signed by a man.
- DK

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They should be removed we dont want those old photos. Why should we want people’s photos anyway?
- AM

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No, of course not! He is not a monarch – it is ridiculous. There’s a great entrepreneurial opportunity here – print the image onto dart boards!
- LM

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The issue of the portrait that hangs in every public office (and some private ones too) is all about vanity on the part of the subject matter.  Many people do mistakenly think that the hanging of that portrait is legislated for – it is not. Rather, it is an instrument of intimidation – a constant reminder of who is boss.  Zimbabweans should revere the flag which will remain constant regardless of who is running the country.  Portrait worship remains the preserve of some African dictatorship, China and North Korea.  Never mind that it is a totally unnecessary public expense, unless it is someone’s brilliant idea to remind visiting foreignors of who exactly is the leader – yeah  I think thats it!
- AM

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I do not think its a good idea under the inclusive government to put Mugabe’s potrait in offices of the MDC government office bearers. The inclusive government according to me should be based on equal share of power.
- PT

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The continuance of the use of Zanu PF symbols and institutions has surprisingly been tolerated by the 2 MDC formations. I am not so sure if the guys don’t attach a lot of value to it or they are busy carrying out their onerous tasks so that they can make a difference. I hope that we do not have a situation whereby they are just happy with what they have got already and that will be disastrous.

I am given to believe that some of the MDC chaps (especially those that are ‘employed’ by politics) may have self actualized quite early and may even not be keen to see the elections coming their way! I hope I am wrong about this!

Besides, I am one of those people who do not believe in portraits for individuals as this tends to create a feeling among the leadership that they are demi-gods (mugabe is a typical example as he believes or has been made to believe that he is indispensable). If you look at the way people fall over each other to wear anything that bears his image as a sign of allegiance to the party; its unfortunate. I do not believe that wearing ‘President Morgan’ t-shirts is necessarily a measure of my allegiance to him.
- GN

No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only queer people are those who don’t love anybody.
~ Rita Mae Brown, speech, 28 August 1982

Condemn the victimisation of Ugandan gays and lesbians.

Writing on her blog Ramona Vijeyarasa quotes the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law who said that this Bill is an attempt to “wish away core human rights principles of dignity, equality and non-discrimination, and all Ugandans will pay a heavy price if this bill is enacted.”

Speak out and sign the online petition here.

I cannot help but notice, in great wonder and sometimes exasperation, how some politicians, who are now well past their sell by dates, now spit out the phrase ‘regime change agenda’ with all the  innuendos and insinuations that it is either treacherous or outright treasonous for a Zimbabwean to even think of regime change.

Recently, when confronted with a quite innocuous question from a journalist, the Head of State and Government, and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces, His Excellency, cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe angrily cut him off, “now you are asking a regime change agenda,” he snapped.

The basic idea underpinning the concept of democracy is that ordinary Zimbabwean citizens have a fundamental right and should be entitled to freely decide who should govern them. In other words, the right to change a regime if they so wish. The process of translating that choice to reality is accomplished by way of voting, which is often done periodically, to enable ordinary people to make a clear statement about their leaders.

Another tenet of democracy, consistent with the first above, is that potential leaders must be able to, through various – peaceful means, present themselves, and their ideas through manifestos to the people – marketing themselves as the best leaders to govern and make policy decisions for the country. In this noble battle of ideas, whoever has the better idea should, ordinarily, following a vote to confirm them, be the new leaders of a new regime taking the country in a new, and hopefully better direction. The primary purpose of an election is to change or renew leadership. Even in situations where the incumbent is retained, the process of an election would have offered the public an opportunity to reaffirm his leadership.

This vital process, which I will, with Fungai Machirori’s recent, brilliant blog in mind, refer to as the nation’s shedding off of its old skin of failed policies and broken promises to reveal a new skin of hope and expectation, has been suppressed in Zimbabwe for the past 3 decades. Leaders are in denial – attempting to do the impossible – to defy nature. They vainly attempt to banish all evidence of the passage of time, tucking away strands of white hair and sagging skin, tragically locking the nation in a time warp. Imagine the snake clinging to its old skin, refusing to shed it off and make way for newness, for rebirth and revival?

For these leaders, elections are but a mere formality, their objective must never be to deliver regime change, but to endorse the status quo. Since elections are not really meant to deliver regime change, then it follows that it is not necessary to ensure free space for the contestation of ideas and free space for leaders of different political formations to market their vision for the country. The very concept of democracy would become, as a colleague is fond of saying, anathema to defenders of the indefensible status quo.

To ensure that the ideals of genuine democracy are defeated various instruments are deployed by incumbent regime. When the risk of losing power is deemed low, then the regime would simply fiddle with figures, rig here and there and ensure and outcome that restores prevailing balance of power. For good measure associates of the regime are deployed to oversee the counting of votes. For this reason, in African politics the counting of votes is much more important than the actual voting itself.

The bottom line for all these shenanigans being that power must be retained at any cost. While alternative democratic voices are denied space in national media to articulate their views, the incumbent regime is granted full coverage to propagate its ideas, which, often enough, it does not do but devotes its attention squarely to denigrate, demonise and abuse those advancing alternative views.

Where the risk of losing power is deemed greater, then there is no hesitation to deploy the threat of violence and violence in an attempt to alter the workings of democracy in the incumbent regime’s favour. On June 27, 2008, the day of the ill-fated one-man presidential runoff election, I offered a lift to a ‘war veteran’ who gave me an insight into this thinking. Quite unbidden, he commented on the election process,

“Holding elections is utter madness, how can people think that, by merely putting an ‘x’ on a piece of paper they can remove a president from power? How can a pen and paper have such an effect? We (presumably talking on behalf of so-called ‘war veterans’) will not allow people, just with the index finger (the one dipped in indelible ink as an indication that one has voted), to effect regime change. If that happens we will take our guns and go back to the bush.”

I believe the ‘war veteran’ gave and accurate diagnosis of the disease plaguing Zimbabwe – that the incumbent regime does not respect the concept of democracy and its corollary of regime change. After realising that indeed the wish of the people, as reflected in the March 29, 2008 elections, was for the country to renew its leadership and try fresh ideas, patrons and benefactors of the old regime quickly moved stop any peaceful transfer of power. Instruments of coercion were quickly activated to crush any dissent and ensure that the status quo is maintained at all costs.

The present arrangement, which primarily retained the status quo, albeit with a modicum of space at the high table for the true victors in the elections, derives its authority, not from tenets of democracy, but from undemocratic negotiations that the main political parties entered into in order to deal with a crisis triggered by a refusal to peaceful transfer power in accordance with democratic principles.

Although this arrangement dealt a severe blow to the development of our embryonic democracy, it by no means crushed the ideals of this enduring ideology. Even within ZANU-PF the institution, there is now a realisation that chickens of authoritarianism are now coming home to roost. Media reports indicate that elections in both ZANU-PF’s youth and women’s leagues were characterised by chaos and violence. Quite ironically, reports indicate that Mugabe pleaded with the youth league to respect election results and appealed to losers to magnanimously accept defeat in polls!

The creature called power-sharing government is only transitional; it can never replace the concept of true democracy and the right of every Zimbabwean to fully participate in the election of leaders of their choice. This fundamental right to regime change is recognised in article 13 of the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights and in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose article 21 provides that Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives, and more importantly, further that, the will of the people (as expressed in periodic, genuine elections) shall be the basis of the authority of government.

Relentless propaganda against regime change seeks to create the false impression that it is wrong to seek regime change, or to seek leadership renewal. It is not. It is a natural process that cannot be stalled indefinitely. It is a reality that, though it is temporarily denied, will surely come to pass.

Despite the hype about the liberation struggle and all, ZANU-PF came to power through the ballot box. In 1980 people were free to make a democratic choice. Likewise, Zimbabweans today should have the freedom to choose whosoever they wish as their leader. The right to regime change is a fundamental right that must be respected and be cherished by all.

Temporary setbacks and spanners being thrown in the works by elements resisting change cannot be reason enough to lose faith in the enduring power of the idea of democracy. Rather, it these challenges should spur activists on and strengthen their resolve to ensure that they exercise their right to vote, defend their vote, and ensure that the vote is counted and counts.

So Zimpapers, which ‘allegedly’ is not a parastatal has launched its own daily paper called H-Metro. I’m tired of this, don’t buy the Herald, cancel your subscriptions. RIGHT NOW! Not tomorrow when you’ve had a moment to think about how difficult your life will be without state sponsored drivel. The Herald et al are not the only sources of news in this country. Neither are they fair, balanced or accurate. It is not a defense to say that you need to know what’s going on in the country, you know what’s going on in the country! We as consumers and citizens are being taken advantage of. The longer we lie down quietly, the longer it will keep happening.

I’m not saying go out into the streets and march on Zimpapers, I don’t have the same amount of courage as those who do so. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit helplessly while the government violates my freedom. We still have the freedom to spend our money where we will. I’m saying hit Zimpapers and by extension the Government of Zimbabwe, where it hurts the most, in their wallets. Clearly, they refuse to pay attention to my vote and my voice. If the 20 000 people who are currently buying the Herald everyday, stop, perhaps the State will begin to listen.