In Zimbabwe because of the lack of US and Rand coins shoppers are offered their change from purchases made in a variety of forms. These include bubble gum, suckers, packets of 3 minute noodles, dodgey looking chocolates from other failed states and bananas. Last night a friend told me that she recently got her change in headache tablets – Paracetemol I think she said. Maybe we should lobby for headache tablets all round as change because of what we have to put up with in Zimbabwe. A good example is Morgan Tsvangirai’s latest idiotic statement. He reckons that Zimbabwe is no longer at risk to investors and that the political crisis that destroyed the economy no longer exists. I wonder what he makes of the latest bid on the part of the Government of Zimbabwe to take over businesses, or the massive failure in our health and education systems or the continued farm invasions and the ongoing decimation of our agricultural sector? Never mind the ongoing political violence and disrespect for the rule of law. MT clearly needs a wake up pill or two. But then again both he and Mugabe are desperate for money from international sources to make right the wrongs of the last decade, so they’ll say anything. And meanwhile, who gets to keep the money made from diamonds and Zimbabwe’s other natural resources? Zvakwana!

Social and political commentator, Psychology Maziwisa, suggests that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is taking the support of Zimbabweans for granted, and that they need to reassess their priorities.  Here is his latest article:

MDC doesn’t get it

Taking things for granted has for a very long time been the hallmark of African politics and apparently the MDC is no exception.

Over the years Zimbabweans have come to share a common and overwhelming detestation of Mugabe and his selfish mob engendered by repression, extra-judicial killings, torture, mismanagement, self-aggrandisement, plunder and all the rest of it.

When Zimbabweans felt they were being taken for a ride by Mugabe, they very readily and rightly transferred their confidence to the MDC. They did so in the full and fervent belief that their concerns as a people were likely to be much better understood by a government under MDC leadership.

Unfortunately attempts to democratically elect a government in accord with the will of the people have all but failed because Mugabe and ZANU PF are allergic to democracy.

However, when Tsvangirai agreed to share power with Mugabe in 2008 the overwhelming opinion was that, although to share power in circumstances where he clearly was the winner amounted to a travesty of fairness and democracy, his options were limited.

Equally overwhelming was the sense that things would improve for the better – and they have to some extent. However, the improvement has not been fundamental enough to offer a clean break from the past. It has not been enough to restore the dignity of the majority of Zimbabweans.

To be fair to the MDC, the tyrant has not made it, and will never make it, particularly easy for Tsvangirai to bring about reform as quickly and as decisively as he probably would have wanted. That is the simple reality.

But here is another simple reality: anti-MDC sentiment is mounting and it is mounting at a pace so swift that it just may become impossible to contain if people’s support is continually taken for granted.

While support for the MDC abroad may still be intact, in Zimbabwe it is falling to pieces.

The reckless regard for Tsvangirai and the MDC as political saints and, to the extent that reform has not been as smooth as it could be, as victims, is misplaced.

The fact of the matter is that, almost two years into the arrangement, Tsvangirai is still very much a part of it- clear evidence that despite its imperfection, there is some kind of understanding between the parties in government.

When that government fails it is not just Mugabe that fails, Tsvangirai and Mugabe necessarily fail together.

For their part, Tsvangirai and the MDC have not done enough to deal decisively with real issues such as teachers’ salaries, tertiary education, media reform, inhuman prison conditions, poverty and disease.

Annoyingly the explanation usually given in response to questions about why, two years on, not much has been done, is simply that government has no money.

It was the MDC’s Tendai Biti who approved an expenditure of over R100 million per semester for the education of Zimbabwean students at South African Universities, most of whom are the offspring of the political elite of this country. (Bear in mind there are two semesters in an academic year and an average degree spans three years.)

It was the MDC’s Tendai Biti who just recently disbursed an estimated US$6.3 million to the Information and Technology Ministry headed by Nelson Chamisa.

While up-to-date communications and information technology (CIT) is vital in the modern world, it is not a top priority for Zimbabwe right now.

It boggles the mind, therefore, how and why that kind of money could be made available for those purposes when the country’s constitution-making process has been stalled because the government is failing to make good on its obligation to fully provide the US$8 million required for the process to get under way.

Chamisa wants millions of dollars to revive the ‘veins and arteries’ of communication. An estimated 2 million of our people will need food aid by the end of this year and all he cares about is revive the ‘veins and arteries’ of communication! Who is going to revive the veins and arteries of our starving people?

What the hell is wrong with these people? What is needed is decisive action on the real issues and not on self-serving agendas.

Despite the ignominy our dear old dictator heaps on the United States, Hillary Clinton recently revealed that her country pledges US$300 million each year in aid to our government. $US300 million per year is not enough to bail Zimbabwe out of its economic crisis but it is a lot of money nonetheless. And since Tsvangirai and the MDC have been in government for over a year they are just as accountable for it as Mugabe is. Where is that money?

When Zimbabweans insist on more being done even as they are aware that the country has no money- thanks to individuals who are pocketing the proceeds of Chiadzwa and several other mines and companies- they do so not because they are naive. It is because they believe that more time could be spent on pleading for aid and less, if any at all, on calling for the removal of targeted sanctions.

It is because they believe that more time could be spent on making sure that all the proceeds of our natural resources are used for the sole purpose of benefiting the country and less, if any at all, on harvesting blows at Harvest House.

That is what a serious government does. It is what the MDC is failing to do as a partner in the unity government.

There is much more to Tsvangirai and the MDC’s task in the unity government than to always and ineffectually declare anything and everything ‘null and void’.

It is their task, among other things, to bring about political reform. It is their task to plead with the donor community to put ideology aside, to open their hearts and help the people of Zimbabwe in every way possible. That is not happening right now. If it is, it is not being pursued vigorously and effectively.

Zimbabweans invested so much hope and expectation in the MDC yet today there is little to show for it. To date there remains a deep-seated, underlying economic anxiety in our country. That is why teachers are increasingly threatening to go on a nationwide strike. It is precisely why the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is becoming increasingly critical of the MDC.

Many are now of the justified view that the MDC is losing sight of what it is fighting for in the struggle against ZANU PF.

That struggle, they correctly argue, is about putting the needs of people before claiming and clinging to leadership positions.

It is about guarding against treating teachers as cheap labour.

It is about ensuring that university students throughout the country are able to study in well–resourced colleges- more particularly, that they can sit for their exams without fear of being barred because of unpaid tuition.

It is about ensuring that thousands of precious children do not die needlessly every year from preventable diseases.

That is what the struggle is all about. Sadly these hopes and expectations are not being realized even with the MDC as part of government.

The MDC is really going to need to pull something special out of the bag to renew their covenant with the people.

No party can claim to have an absolute monopoly over the politics of our country. Not ZANU PF. Not the MDC. If the MDC continues to take the support of the people for granted, it does so at its own peril.

They can no longer continue to circumvent the ever loud and clear calls for swift, tangible and decisive action without serious consequences for the image and support base of their party.

Dale Dore writing for the Voice of Democracy takes Graca Machel in his sights after she suggested that Britain should keep quiet on the situation in Zimbabwe. The “situation” by the way is actually a crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans need food aid, the formal employment sector is crippled leaving the majority of Zimbabweans with no hope of finding a job, while power and water supplies are erratic. The list of ZANU PF made ills that plagues Zimbabwe is endless. Dale Dore reckons that countries like Britain, with their helping hand of over 1 billion in aid, should be given the freedom to criticise and comment on countries that, amongst other things, consistently put their citizens on the bottom of the list when it comes to treating them right.

Here’s Dale for you:

Ignore Machel: Turn up the volume for violence-free and fair elections

On behalf of the poorest and most vulnerable people of Zimbabwe, the Voice for Democracy applauds and says a big ‘thank you’ to Britain. Despite every provocation and insult from the Zimbabwean government, and because of Mugabe’s utter disregard for his own people, the British government has given Zimbabwe over $100 million in humanitarian assistance last year: from health care and education to providing water, food aid, seed and fertilisers to the poorest households. Since Independence in 1980, Britain has given Zimbabwe over $1 billion in aid.

Yet Britain continues to be unfairly censured from a most unexpected quarter. The Elder’s Graça Machel has told Britain to ‘keep quiet’ and let SADC deal with Zimbabwe (The Guardian, 16 April 2009). We ask Machel: What has SADC, and South Africa in particular, done for the Zimbabwean people? It has kept quiet. For a whole decade it has refused to restrain a brutal and dictatorial regime that has bought nothing but violence, ruin and misery to its own people. In one election after another, SADC and South Africa have sanctioned violence-stained and rigged elections that have maintained Robert Mugabe in power. South Africa has taken an obtuse pleasure in defending Mugabe’s malevolent government while Britain and its allies in the United Nations were trying to isolate and restrain it.

Let the truth be told. If Britain has acted as ‘big brother’ – as Machel avers – it has been to care for and feed Zimbabwe’s hungry and destitute. It has been to protect the people of Zimbabwe against its bullying leader by supporting human rights, democracy and the rule of law. And what have SADC and South Africa done? They have sided with the bully. They allowed Robert Mugabe to sit at the high table of Presidents even when they did not recognise his election to office in June 2008. It was SADC and South Africa that pushed through an undemocratic inclusive government that handed back power to their despotic ally to continue his gruesome handiwork. It is they that have insisted that Zimbabwe must sort out its own problems, knowing full well that Mugabe’s only methods of negotiation is with an iron bar and through the barrel of a gun.

If anything, the Voice for Democracy believes that Britain has been too soft on those SADC countries which it supplies with huge amounts of aid. Britain and its allies in the European Union and the United States should be exerting much more diplomatic pressure on SADC and South Africa to ensure that violence-free and fair elections bring about a democratic transition in Zimbabwe. If Machel wants Britain to keep quiet then SADC and South Africa must bring an end to the brewing state-sponsored violence that will inevitably erupt during the run-up to elections. We are watching and waiting.

Sometimes when a person is confused and they don’t know what they want – I usually say, “Well, if you don’t have an idea what you want, at least tell me what you don’t want.”

The same goes for those facing some kind of inner struggle, identity crisis or such dilemma – I often tell them if they don’t know who they are, at least they ought to know who they don’t want to be.

The things we negate often are a reflection of what we instinctively embrace as our values, extol as virtues and they are indicative of our deeply held convictions.

I believe a scrutiny of our cultural beliefs, of the things we were socialized to reject will always be reflective of what we consider to be normal, acceptable and appropriate.

So our intolerances are a reflection of self – a reflection of who we are essentially.

Bigotry often derives from our revulsion towards that which is inconsistent with our belief system; it is like a knee-jerk reaction to that which contradicts our worldview or our interpretation of the world.

Anything that does not align with our own prejudiced perception is like a smudge marring the lens we use to view our world and we seek to obliterate it so that we may continue to enjoy the same view we are accustomed to – the status quo upheld.

The homophobia that currently informs the discourse on homosexuality in Zimbabwe is a case in point, reflecting the deeply ingrained cultural and social beliefs of what manhood entails – for what repulses many is not lesbianism but rather gays.

For a man to sleep with another man is almost inconceivable to most people and to those who can conceive of it – it is like an abomination.

And as a collective people pride themselves in holding on to these prejudices, tacitly condoning hate speech and other abusive reactions that have been central to the backlash created by the debate on homosexuality.

Of late, the media has been awash with reports of pedophilia in the Roman Catholic Church – narratives of how young boys have fallen prey to unscrupulous members of the clergy who fail to curb their ‘appetites’ and resort to feeding off the proverbial flock.

The allegations also point to a systematic cover-up by sections of the church’s leadership to shield the perpetrators, silence the victims and protect the all-important image of the church.

The Pontiff, having been so vocal on the issue of condom use, reinforcing the church’s unyielding anti-contraceptive position has been rather subdued on the subject only recently making a show of weeping with the victims of abuse – a gesture many feel is contrived.

It worries me that these attitudes are prevalent even in our own societies, that perpetrators of child abuse or molesters will find a sympathetic audience in our society – and probably will be regarded as being a lesser ‘evil’ to homosexuals.

The culture of silence is one that is deeply ingrained in families and society insists on sacrificing the individual (especially a child) in order to protect the status, image and standing of the collective (especially the family and clan).

There are many who would abhor homosexuality more than they do child molestation and abuse – it is the nonchalance towards these victims that serves as an indictment to our conscience as a society – we are worse than the monsters we seek to protect through our silence.

For our silence is acquiescence, it trivializes the pain and trauma of the abused, diminishes them and diminishes us as a society.

Whilst it may be argued (as it often is) that it serves “the greater good” to sweep such cases under the carpet and retain confidence in the sanctity of religious institutions and the authority of male figures in families, our culture of silence makes hypocrites of us – for we constantly defend the status quo, refusing to interrogate our long held convictions.

If our intolerances essentially reflect who we are – then the same goes for the things we do tolerate, the things we turn a blind eye to and those heinous deeds we excuse under the guise of protecting the ‘image’ of institutions and persons of authority.

To identify what you believe – it may be necessary to know what you do not believe. I do not believe that there is any institution (religious or otherwise) worth preserving at the cost of the wellbeing, security and preservation of the rights and dignity of children the world over.

If you had not heard already the National Youth Programme is going to be reintroduced under the GPA. My question is, can these centers facilitate a youth friendly environment for full participation, especially of young women. With this weak coalition government and economy do we really need this now? I think these centers should only be reopened when they ensure that they are gender sensitive and enhance a culture of learning unlike the military style designed institutions. If these centers are going to be reopened then, as the youth, we should advocate for an independent National Youth Service Commission to be put in place after the amendment of the National Youth Policy. This commission and not the inter ministerial Committee should be responsible for the formulation of the national youth service policy.

I mean hey, do you teach anybody to be patriotic or should it be instilled in us to be so? I don’t need to be trained as a soldier to feel patriotic. The National Youth Programme must be based on a shared national vision. But here is the bigger question: is Zimbabwe really prepared to have this programme again seeing that the national healing and reconciliation programme has still not reached its peak. Why open up the wounds of the people who suffered under the youth militia by reopening the same centers that taught the youth and groomed them to cause so much harm and pain. What do you think any person who had a loved one killed or maimed by these youths is going to feel after hearing that our country is still manufacturing these weapons of pain?

Before these centers are reopened the matter has to be taken to society. The minister needs a vote of confidence from parents and the youth themselves given the magnitude of alleged abuse by the so-called recruits and Zimbabweans in general who suffered under the militarized programme. Can the national budget sustain this programme given more urgent issues faced by the inclusive government such as constitutional reform, social service delivery and economic growth based on a productive and not consumptive economy?

As youth we need a non-partisan national youth service and the policy implemented should comply with the standards of the international association of national service for best practice. I think the government should temporarily postpone the reintroduction of the National Youth Programme and instead utilize the transition period to put in place measures that will ensure the programme does not carry the negative perception from the past. My bat is for the programme to be implemented fully, the government has to identify what the youth need; not what it needs and force it on the young people.

Rejoice Ngwenya wrote an “independence special” for Kubatana which I share with you here:

Your City, My Land

Conte Mhlanga and Daves Guzha are two of the best playwrights in Zimbabwe. One resides in Bulawayo, the provincial capital of Matabeleland that took the biggest brunt of Zimbabwe’s post-independence ‘genocidal’ human rights violations in the 1980s. The other is based in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, the seat of one of the most brutal and senseless government in modern history. Both men are my friends, having met them last year at a regional arts workshop.

I am so impressed by their history of protest activism. Once in a while, their ‘play houses’ are visited by the proverbial men in dark glasses who want to glean anything off their plots that vaguely pokes fun at our very own ageing dictator Robert Gabriel Mugabe. My view is that there is no play or work of art worth its salt if it makes no reference to the liberation of Zimbabweans from ZANU-PF fascism. This may sound really negative; indeed, oppression of citizens is a negative force. Those like Mhlanga, Guzha and I who have the courage and rare opportunity to say our opinions, we might as well have fun doing it – messages full of laughter, tell me about it!

And so during that workshop – in a spontaneous feat of bravado – I foolishly committed myself to contesting for the ‘best playwright of the year’ and promised to deliver a gem to Conte and Dave. Mind you, the nearest I ever encountered playwriting was only reciting lines that were shoved at me by Bev Parker, my ‘old’ lecturer at United College of Teacher Education. Some things are easier said than done!  The title of my play was simply going to be Assegai Technology with a curiously named main character Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life – a sophisticated, enlightened but unorthodox, crude and jovial middle-aged cell-phone addicted dictatorial president of an African country called Haraland.  He is obsessed with this compulsive and paranoid idea that someday, King Bengula who died one hundred years ago in Bengula Province south of his country would lead an insurrection to challenge his authority.  Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life is afflicted by this recurrent dream that King Bengula will incarnate through Team Impi – four rebels based in Bengula Province to spearhead this rebellion. He claims that a fellow dictator Yoom Shin Sha of an Asian country called East Kora, has promised him portable guns with rubber bullets laced with radio-active material to suppress the rebellion. Problem one: Haraland has no money to pay for the guns, but his wife owns a diamond mine which he can persuade her to give away to Yoom Shin Sha in exchange for the guns. Problem two: The mine is located in a national game reserve, so the East Koraian also wants to have a licence to hunt the endangered rhino! Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life tells Yoom Shin Sha to wait until after the elections. Yoom Shin Sha promises or claims to have delivered the contraband even before the elections, but of course he is lying.  Problem three: Team Impi are all geniuses of different professions who are designing an advanced model of a Bengula assegai that bounces off bullets to the sender, much like an Australian boomerang! In the play, all this ‘conspiracy’ is only seen and heard from conversations that Your Excellent Sir, the Good Leader-for-Life has on his cell phone with both Yoom Shin Sha and ironically, Team Impi.

Just as I am about to finish this play, I read a report of a massive land scandal at Harare Municipality – Daves Guzha’s local town and am immediately inspired to write another play I will aptly title  Your City, My Land. I want its plot to be less painful than Assegai Technology. The main character will be named Leapfrog – a young black policeman who retired from active service in 1980 to work as a security guard for a rich white banana wholesaler based in a town called Haracity. The banana man had never married, and has no children so when he passes on; he bequeaths one of his many double-storey houses to his loyal askari – Leapfrog. The house is too expensive to maintain, so Leapfrog approaches Comrade Zvamahara – a Member of Parliament from his rural village to rent the house. For almost twenty years Leapfrog continues to work as a guard-cum-messenger in a real estate company, until he is enlightened to sell his house to start an own estate agency! But there is problem. Comrade Zvamahara had deliberately forged the lease into an agreement of sale, so all along, Leapfrog thought Comrade Zvamahara was paying rentals, yet he was receiving monthly instalments!

Luckily, Leapfrog had befriended a man named Makoini, an experienced housing officer in Haracity who helps him win his case against Comrade Zvamahara. It is through this friendship that Leapfrog and Makoini ensure scores of Leapfrog’s relatives are clandestinely registered on the housing waiting list. He retires from formal employment to concentrate on developing and selling the housing and industrial stands issued to his relatives. On realising that Leapfrog is getting wealthy, Comrade Zvamahara sends an emissary to convince Leapfrog to enter politics so he can ‘one day take over as member of parliament’ of the village. The two men make more money and get more property through Makoini, but when the latter retires from Haracity, the only ‘gift’ he gets from Leapfrog and Comrade Zvamahara is a motorcycle! Makoini is so distraught and heartbroken. In a feat of diabolic rage and vengeance, he sells his story to a local weekly newspaper called The Insider and reveals the transgressions of both Leapfrog and Comrade Zvamahara. Just before the two are arrested, they escape to Zambezia, a neighbouring country.

I only hope that either of my playwright friends Conte Mhlanga or Daves Guzha will accept    Your City, My Land and perhaps, just perhaps I might join this elite team who indeed are worthy members of Zimbabwe’s protest theatre hall of fame!

Rejoice Ngwenya, 16 April 2010, Harare