For many years now, you have been witnessing for us all
the strange process this Zimbabwean experience has been.
Your listening ensured that we never lost our voice
patiently and kindly assuring us
we are being heard and supported.

And there has always been the question
when do we begin to speak of the other side of this story?
when do we step beyond the fear of drawing unwanted scrutiny
and speak of the seeds that are being sown?

When can we name the women and men who fix the bodies,
and who run the websites,
who stand outside jails,
who take care of the orphans,
feed displaced and aids victims,
who sell vegetables on the side of the street to feed their children,
who write the records and take the pictures?

When is the turning point
when we walk beyond our fear?
and bring the invisible into the eye of the world
and speak of who we are and what we have been part of?

Zimbabwe’s story of resilience  has been built on the individual efforts of the Zimbabwean people who, in the face of un-edited punishment, have stood their ground.  Within this chaotic process there has been a slowly growing pattern, a chaordic movement, small circles of creative action.

The Tree of Life circle has decided that it is time to tell our story and to speak of the new forest emerging from the trees planted during these years of chaos.

This is only one of many stories. There are circles of resilience and hope built around health clubs and herb gardens and football clubs and churches throughout Zimbabwe, and they have all played their part in the bigger picture.  Beneath the darkness, a strong light shines and we would like you to see it.

Will the new South African president, Zuma, break into spontaneous dance whenever he delivers a speech to the international community?

So far ( as far as I know), he has managed to keep his rousing rendition of the now out-of-context Umkhonto we Sizwe war cry ‘Mshini Wami’ confined to national fora such as political rallies and other platforms he has been provided to defend his innocence against the many charges levelled against him in the recent past.

The reason I ask is simple. Beyond his amazing agility and moves to rival Michael Jackson in the prime of his musical career, Zuma doesn’t seem to offer much else.

Now, to be sure, I have serious problems in looking beyond the misgivings of a man who claims that taking a shower after unprotected sex with an HIV-positive person can prevent transmission of the virus. That statement will forever stick in my mind whenever Zuma’s name is mentioned to me.

But after all his run-ins, and let-offs by the rule of law, I thought it only decent of me to give him an ear at the last ANC rally held last weekend in Johannesburg.

I will admit that I haven’t listened to many of his speeches, but called the Siyanqoba (We shall conquer) rally, and the last that the ANC held prior to elections that Wednesday,  I expected Zuma to give the  most rousing speech of his political career.

But oh, so drawl and monotonous was he that I dozed off a few times, as I watched. Was that un-emotive expressionless list of promises to make South Africa a better nation really what the people wanted to hear?

And when he promised to fight corruption, I couldn’t help the smirk that instantly appeared on my face. More transparent tendering processes and less misappropriation of public resources?!

That sounded like a page out of a Grimm’s fairytale.

While functional, apart from clever little statements like stating that South Africans ought to “put sport back into our national psyche” in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup, I found his speech drab and quite banal. Nothing in it would give anyone a shiver down their spine, which is what good speeches tend to do.

While he will never be an Obama in terms of his oratory, Zuma needs to start sounding a bit more convincing that he is a changed man and not some reluctant school kid forced to stand up and read his short story to the rest of the class.

His political persona already doesn’t look so good – what with a trail of corruption cases behind him – and other near-miss charges he has managed to worm his way out of.

Speech has power to convince. You only need look at the immortal place that Martin Luther King Jnr holds in history because of his ‘I have a dream’ speech.

And though more sinister, no one can deny the power of Adolf Hitler’s oration in convincing the German masses of the ‘goodness’ of Nazism.

For me, there’s nothing to savour about Msholozi’s political character yet – until, of course, he breaks into that ubiquitous theme song and jumps across the podium belting out “Mshini Wami, Mshini Wami.”

Have you ever noticed how the South African media focuses so intently on this aspect of Zuma in its coverage of him? With dance moves that crisp, he could put many a young man less than half his age to shame. Yes, that forms part of his ‘everyman’ appeal. But that should not become the hallmark of his persona.

Zuma has to appeal to a larger audience than just South Africans who have recently become disgruntled with the ANC and thus see him as the agent of necessary reform.

He has to appeal to regional and global audiences, to represent South Africa, and Africa as a respectable statesman in the mould of his predecessors who include Nelson Mandela.

And sadly for him, he will have to do all of that without the dancing.

For me, my greatest hope for Zuma’s reign is that he can combat the HIV epidemic that is currently wreaking havoc in South Africa and sending shock waves throughout southern Africa. For one who himself peddled gross misinformation about ways to prevent HIV transmission, this would represent the greatest victory in overcoming the very ignorance that continues to kill so many.

I sincerely hope that come May 9, at the presidential inauguration of Zuma, I will become more convinced by this man who holds the hopes and destiny of not only his nation, but the whole region.

There is always something uncharitable said about power whenever one has it in abundance and has the ability to influence things – and human beings. Thus it has been said that if you want something done expeditiously you must know people in high places. Power and influence. You have one, you have both. You have it all. The world in your palm. Where better else than well-connected politicians?

But there are also people in low places who have been known to have power and influence – the type that only gets you and them into trouble with the laws of Man and also the laws of nature as the favours they bestow and their line of work more often than not leave someone dead.

Power-drunk men and women have ruled ruthlessly over bamboozled men, women and children and stories abound about the Central African Republic’s Jean Bedel Bokassa being a cannibal having a strong palate for his opponents. Power to eat others, yes he had it! So imagine while enraged baddies scream “I will kill you,” you have them roaring, “I will eat you!” At least Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s Ngwazi and self-anointed President-for-life let his pet crocodiles do the eating for him. Thus man and beast became no different.

It would be interesting to look at the favourite cuisine of African presidents, as a documentary showed on DStv the other day let us in on the food enjoyed by the two Bushes, Clinton and other past American presidents.

The powerful people that we know and who tend to be held in awe by other mere mortals have for some reason always been politicians. This is despite the truism that politicians are just people after all – very fallible and very mortal like everybody else. Do politicians go hungry? Stupid question! They have a right to eat, and whatever they eat will never be used against them in a court of culinary preferences! And what do we have to say for the powerless that appear by their own peculiar circumstances to have no right to eat? They are the wretched of the earth as Fanon put it.

Politicians tend to see themselves as “the Chosen Ones” (catch my drift?) both omnipotent and omniscient in the fashion of the philosopher-kings lionised, idolised and iconised by the sages of ancient Greece, so imagine someone who by a fluke of nature has been burdened by being endowed with the exact opposite. They are neither wise nor powerful but though they are hungry, they are sure not likely to eat one of their own!

These powerless people could be wise in their own eyes, but within their realm and physical realities have no power to control anything, not even the joystick of a play station if they were handed one. How can they when they are hungry? For them everything becomes heavy, not the type seen in political heavyweights who fail to lift themselves off giant beds! Just look at them trying to get off chauffeur-driven Mercs with their sagging bellies refusing to leave the car!

We know the mysterious power and ability of politicians to erect bridges where there is no river, ability to literally build castles in the air for rural folks, etc, but it is the ultimate powerlessness of a single unemployed mother to control the destiny of her offspring that raises the spectre of human limitation in a universe where political power appears to guarantee one economic utopia and therefore eternal bliss.

Have we not seen how aspiring parliamentary candidates fall over each other and fomenting bloodbaths as they seek to earn the right to represent “we the people” only because that unspoken determination to occupy that space is informed by that yearning for power? People “naturally” associate political power with the control of not only people’s lives but more importantly resources be they natural or man-made and thus becoming an MP becomes for many the ultimate triumph in the quest of all human endevours.

Ultimately one is inclined to rather ask a rather asinine question: what is power if it gives you the right to eat and it goes on to take away the right to eat from the powerless? Crazy world huh? “I can’t talk religion (politics[i]) to a man with hunger in his eyes.”  George Bernard Shaw (1905).

If only politicians could read!

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[i] italics mine.

Colletah, a Kubatana subscriber has just written to us with a demand that the Government of National Unity treat the issue of investigating human rights abuses with the respect it deserves . . .

Politicians in Zimbabwe say “Our call is to let bygones be bygones and for everyone and every entity to start anew and open a new page.”

I keep reading statements like the above about the situation in Zimbabwe. Where is logic in the people who are demanding that we forget about the past and get on to a new page. It is not possible to forget the torture in all forms that has gone on in the past political upheavals that have happened in the country. How do you think “OK YOU KILLED MY FATHER” but it does not matter that was yesterday, lets start a new page or “YOU RAPED ME” but let bygones be bygones and we start a new page.  Zimbabwe, please  be serious and be real. In post independent Zimbabwe it was “reconciliation” where the thinking was the same – lets forget and work together for Zimbabwe – now see the mess of letting bygones be bygones.

Zimbabwe  please Call a Spade a Spade and bring those that did wrong to face the music – that is logic.  This new page business is nonsense and we all know that life does not work like that.

Giles Mutsekwa, the MDC-T Co-Home Affairs Minister was involved in a car accident on Tuesday last week – another in a series of car accidents in which MDC officials and their families have been involved. Mutsekwa was travelling to Harare on the Mucheke road when the car in which he was travelling was rammed from behind by a Nissan Hard Body truck. The Co-Minister survived unscathed. The driver of the other vehicle involved in the accident is reported to be in police custody. Mutsekwa heads the Home Affairs ministry jointly with Kembo Mohadi of Zanu PF. This is the fourth accident involving MDC officials since the unity government was established. Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s wife was killed in an accident which left Tsvangirai injured. Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khuphe’s mother died from injuries received in an accident on the Bulawayo-Harare road last month. MDC ministers Gorden Moyo and Sam Nkomo were travelling to Harare airport last month when the vehicle in which they were travelling was also struck from behind by another vehicle. I am not about to launch into a conspiracy theory analysis. In fact, I was disappointed by some of the comments made at the time of Susan Tsvangirai’s death. One MDC official ignoring the bad state of Zimbabwe’s roads made the comment that the accident or at the least the death would not have happened if there had been police escort. I remember thinking of all the thousands of people who daily traverse the Masvingo road on their way to Beitbridge and beyond to South Africa. I thought then as l do now that they have never had police escort. They get on those buses and in those cars on a wing and a prayer and hope that they make it back home with their lives intact. Because of the shock surrounding this sad incident and the conspiracy theories then doing the rounds, people did not analyse this statement too much. But perhaps it needs to be critiqued.

We do not rejoice in the death of a human being. Everyone has a right to life. From the poorest among us to the richest.  From the lowest among us to the most influential. We must reject the notion that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. This is the thinking that has seen politicians sending their children to schools overseas while presiding over the destruction of our schools and universities. It is the same thinking that has seen politicians going for treatment in South Africa, the UK, China and beyond, while presiding over the collapse of our health delivery system.  It was normal under the ZANU PF government, but we do not expect it from the MDC. It is the disease that comes with closeness to power that Alex Magaisa in his latest opinion piece talks about. It is the former mayor of Harare demanding a four wheel drive vehicle because the roads in Harare were so bad.

Now we have had a lot of talk about the roads in Zimbabwe. The terrible state that they are in and the loss of lives that this has resulted in. Every time there is an accident, politicians talk about the deplorable state of the roads in Zimbabwe. When l started writing this piece, it was my intention to discuss the accidents that have happened involving prominent politicians in the past two or three months, including the latest one involving Giles Mutsekwa. Before l finished this piece, news came through that there had been yet another accident. This time a bus travelling on the same highway where Susan Tsvangirai’s accident occurred apparently burst a front tyre and plunged into a river a few kilometres from the spot where the Prime Minister’s wife lost her life. 29 people perished on the spot and another 44 were injured. 29 nameless and faceless people. 29 people who were someone’s mother, father, son and daughter. Someone’s breadwinner. 44 people who now have to contend with hospitals that have no drips, no doctors, no nurses, no medicines, no theatres, no x-ray machines and no traction machines. They had no police escort.

And so more carnage on our roads. But in a country where human life has been cheapened by politicians, l fear that their deaths will be in vain. No one will be galvanised to act to prevent further loss of life. No lessons will be drawn from this sad event and no one will pledge-never again . . . until the next “important” person is involved.

We have all breathed a collective sigh of relief over the past few weeks as Jestina Mukoko, Roy Bennett, and dozens of other pro-democracy workers have been released from custody after weeks or months inside.

But as this SW Radio story reminded me, several activists remain inside and must not be forgotten. Due to stand trial only at the end of June, seven MDC activists are facing terrorism charges, and are still in custody – as they have been since December last year.