From a Guardian article comes an interesting suggestion that “The MDC possibly acts as a sponge, soaking up revolutionary fervour that would otherwise find expression on the streets.”

Read Letter from Harare: why Mugabe is unlikely to share Gaddafi’s grisly fate … The ageing dictator’s greatest enemy is not an army of rebels but failing health.

Sometimes something touches you so deeply that finding the words to express that experience is impossible. That’s how I feel about Poetry Africa at Book Café. I would like to write about the defiance in Xapa’s performance of HIStory, the beauty of TJ Dema’s articulation of womanhood, or even the happiness we in the audience felt as Didier Awadi performed in French because of the joy we could plainly see in his face. I don’t think my words would be adequate. So I’m going to share Harare, whose performance by Chris Abani moved me to tears.

harare
chris abani

his thoughts shed tears for what his people
have lost
Chirikure Chirikure

Downtown Harare. Pavements and nice trim
islands feel like the white Africa it used to be.
Its fading beauty arrested in the late seventies
feels like Lagos in the fade of colonialism.
–
But Yvonne says: Butterflies are burning.
Here.
This is kwela.
–
In the Quill Club, black journalists hold court,
say, Bob uses this land as his
private safari. The kudus are
nearly extinct. They play pool, chafing
against the government. We could be in
The Kings Head in Finsbury Park; a cold
London night. And the locals complaining
over warm pints about the native problem.
–
The still young woman smoking
a pipe against the wall of the museum
was once a guerrilla. Says, The men here fear me.
She knows all about killing.
Also about blowing smoke rings.

This is kwela.
–
In a market adjacent the poorest township
I finger useless trinkets, displaced as any tourist.
All the while ogling valuable-in-the-West
weathered barbershops signs
that I am too afraid to ask for.
–
Everywhere people wear cosmopolitan selves
but tired, like jaded jazz singers reconciled to loss.
Hats are perched at that jaunty angle that makes you
think that all washed-out things, like Cuba, are cooler
than they are. Is this kitsch?
–
And everyone says: The trouble with Bob is…
And this is kwela.
–
In the Book Cafè, a vibrant subculture:
Art, music, and poetry are alive and well.
Rich whites slum with African: for a moment
we all believe it is possible. This. Here. Now.
–
A Rasta in Bata shoes does the twist
to a Beach Boys tune played by
a balding white man in a night club.
This is kwela.
–
The older white farmer in the five-star hotel
still calls this country Rhodesia.
Says, No offense, but you bloody Africans
can’t run anything right.
I have him removed.
–
It was not always so,
and still I have questions.
Yes. Yes. Even this
is kwela.

Miracle Missions Trust, a non-profit organisation working on waste management in Zimbabwe is determined to make Harare look better. Over the past months, they have been mobilizing volunteers from different communities, and the Harare city Council for massive clean up campaigns around the city. Last Friday they were in Chisipite busy at work.

Every year, the first Monday of October is set aside to commemorate Habitat Day. On this day reflections are made on the state of our towns and cities, basic rights for all, and access to adequate shelter. For Amnesty International, World Habitat Day is a global day to take action to end forced evictions and other human rights violations suffered daily by people living in slums and informal settlements. In commemoration of this years’ World Habitat Day, Amnesty International Zimbabwe remembered the survivors of Operation Murambatsvina with the theme “End Forced Evictions’. Many families were displaced and left homeless when the government of Zimbabwe initiated its unpopular and inhuman Operation Murambatsvina. Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle then followed to resettle these families but, however, today years later no proper essential facilities and services have been provided for these families such as sanitation, education, housing and health.

A drama group from Hopley and Hatclife settlements where many of the families affected by Operation Murambatsvina are settled took time to remind Zimbabwe of how they are living. They had their own exhibition of their plastics shacks at the Harare Gardens. Some operate hair saloons, or bars and some sell firewood, or vegetables. The shacks take various shapes and forms but they all exhibit the plight of how our government has failed its people in so many ways. In these informal settlements education is a privilege whereas it should be a right for all children. In these settlements safe drinking water does not exist, as their water sources are unprotected wells. ‘The walls have ears’, is a saying you wont be caught saying in these settlements because their housing is little more than thin plastic.

Therefore Amnesty International of Zimbabwe in remembering the survivors of Operation Murambatsvina is calling on the government of Zimbabwe to:
End all forced evictions
Adopt guidelines based on the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development Based Evictions and Displacement
Provide free primary education for children living under Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself about the frequency of knee-jerk reactions of government officials each time there is a political scandal that the mandarins invariably blame on the media for being “beamed’ to the public. The latest of course is the WikiLeaks excitement that has Zimbabwe in suspended animation to see what happens next as Mugabe fumbles for loyalists. Webster Shamu has responded rather predictably by threatening to shoot the messenger – the private press who are understandably having a field day reporting the explosive contents of the cables from US diplomats in Harare.

Like always, Shamu is dealing with fringe players who have nothing to do with the leaks. And this at a time when the relevance of the private media has never been so pressing as Zimbabwe heads for polls anytime in the not-so-distant future. The private media and proponents of unfettered access to information have reason to sit up and take notice and can only ignore Shamu’s pronouncements about effectively outlawing “Fleet street” to their own peril well knowing of course there is precedence to these threats to press freedom.

Someone mentioned the other day that Zimbabwe is now ripe for another printing press bombing, and when people start talking like that, you have to ask yourself if our politics is really that antithetic to democratic conversations. But then, you can ignore Zanu PF threats only if your name is Johnny Bravo! That of course is not any attempt to treat the country’s political and media relations as a laughing matter – remembering of course that a miffed Shamu once called some folks Andy Capp-types! Shamu typifies the straw-man fallacy in that, instead of addressing the real issues, he chooses to attack a constituency that has nothing to do with the matter at hand: he has chosen to attack the media, effectively telling the messengers not to deliver what no doubt has so far become 2011’s biggest political story here.

After all, in the aftermath of these leaked cables, everyone (at least in my world, every sensible Zimbabwean!)  is already celebrating the  first public signs of the demise of Shamu’s party and creatives are busy crafting pun-filled epitaphs. And now that Jonathan Moyo has said it loud and proud and after sleepless nights that these presidential back-stabbers must own up to their utterances, we wonder then why the heck Shamu is getting so volcanic hot under the collar and getting all puffed up inviting the wrath of cardiac arrest and at the wrong people! But then when you have SpongeBob Squarepants-types in charge of managing political information and attempting to hide behind very thin fingers, you can bet your ass you will be engaging in a dialogue with a bunch of morons.

Instead, let them eat each other, no one will mourn.

I’ve just received an email newsletter from a Harare based travel agent saying that the Harare International Airport will “boast” Africa’s longest runway by December as Zimbabwe seeks to lure major international airlines. Apparently the extra 5ks of runway is costing US$30 million. Meanwhile I’ve heard of yet another incident of travellers on their way home from the airport being targeted and assaulted by thieves. I mean I just Don’t Get It. The Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe pulls out all the stops to increase the length of our runway but the fact that returning residents and visitors to Zimbabwe get robbed and assaulted once they’ve landed doesn’t seem to faze them. What they need to do is work hand in hand with the Zimbabwe Republic Police and increase patrols on the main airport road to stop these criminals having a field day.