I’ve been dipping in and out of the news around South Africa’s election, particularly around the curious ways gender and sexuality seem to have played out there.

Both the number of First Ladies to now be catered for, and the number of men in Helen Zille’s cabinet seem to be at issue. And somewhere at the core seems to be the ANC Youth League, shaking their fists and making their statements.

On the one hand, Jonny Steinberg reckons that Zuma is seen as “more of a man” by many young black South Africans, because he has more wives.

On the other hand, Marianne Thamm reckons that the real problem is that men’s and women’s experiences of sex, and particularly their understanding of what constitutes “good sex,” are so fundamentally different, it’s no wonder it’s hard for the one side to understand the other.

Meanwhile, we have Helen Zille explaining that she just didn’t have many women to choose from when it came to selecting her cabinet – and the DA is opposed to quotas.

In all of these various arguments and explanations, however, one thing is clear – it’s the arguments that make sense – the ones in which the author tries to Explain things – are the ones that are the most helpful.

Take, for example, a recent discussion with Radio 702 talk show host Redi Direko interviewing ANC Youth League Spokesperson Floyd Shivambu.

Direko asks Shivambu to explain what, exactly, the ANC Youth League meant by saying that Helen Zille appointed boyfriends and concubines to her cabinet. When asked to clarify, Shivambu says “There’s no other explanation you can give except to say that the reality and the truth; that these are her boyfriends that she continues to sleep around with and we stand by that particular statement.”

But what do you mean, “sleeping around,” Direko asks. “Is she having sex with them?”

Shivambu responds:

Sleeping around means sleeping around. There’s no other explanation that we can give except that she is sleeping around. Unfortunately, you can ask me a million times. We’re not going to change that explanation. We mean what we say and we say what we mean. Exactly that.

And it gets better . . . Read a transcript of the interview here. And the saga continues – you can also read Shivambu’s response to the interview on his own blog here.

First it was the Pope peddling misinformation about condoms. And now, recently, it was the turn of a Swazi Member of Parliament to fuel stigma around HIV and AIDS.

As a measure to avoid the onward transmission of the virus, the MP, Timothy Myeni, suggested that those who have tested positive for HIV be marked on their buttocks with a special insignia to warn possible lovers of their status. This, he was quoted as saying, would assist possible sexual partners in verifying the status of the other person prior to engaging in intercourse.

After much backlash, Myeni later retracted the suggestion claiming that it had been a trap set by the devil to destroy his name.

If anything, it seems to me to me that this was a trap set by Myeni to destroy the name of people living with HIV.

A person’s HIV status is a confidential issue, to be disclosed as and when an individual feels ready to do so. Branding people only helps to peddle the stigma and discrimination that people with HIV already experience. In other words, labelling people living with HIV would only serve to make them feel more ostracised and unwelcomed – as though they were an untouchable and unlovable caste.

And before his utterances, Myeni really should have thought through the process of how this whole operation would be carried out. Would such branding take place soon after an HIV test? And how?

Imagine the scenario of visiting an HIV testing centre, testing positive for HIV and then being told to proceed to another area to have your buttocks stamped with a sign that states your positive status. Would this really encourage more people to get tested? Very unlikely.

Besides, as was noted by an Oxfam representative, Jacob Nanjakululu, at the recent Global Citizens Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, 90% of people living with AIDS do not know their status. Therefore, such practices as branding those who dare to find out their status would only lead to an increase in the number of people who do not know their status.

The consequences of such lack of knowledge could be dire, as more people could potentially, and unknowingly, transmit the virus on to their sexual partners, thereby creating a web of new infections, and a greater burden of need for treatment, care and support services.

Is that we really want or need in a world that should be becoming more tolerant towards people living with HIV? And are we saying that people with HIV cannot and will not disclose their status to their sexual partners, otherwise? Surely, such thinking makes people living with HIV out to be little children who cannot think or act on their own.

While discussing this issue with a colleague, he told me that in Malawi, a certain chief had suggested that people found to be HIV positive should have a permanent scar etched onto their foreheads so as to warn all other villagers of the potential danger these people posed to their health. This is not much different to what Myeni had proposed, and equally hard to understand.

How sad it is that people try to fight stigma with yet even more stigma.

Rather than focusing on branding people, I say it’s time to focus on providing them with treatment and other requisite services. But even more importantly, it’s time to start loving them and respecting them as human beings.

Tendai Dumbutshena recently wrote an impassioned article for The Financial Gazette in which he suggests that “Tsvangirai, excited beyond measure by his status as Prime Minister, has exceeded his brief by sanitising the person of President Mugabe.”

Tendai also believes that “there is no point trying to make out a case for the MDC-T to pull out. It will simply not happen. The comforts and status of office are too attractive to resist. No price is too high to keep them.”

The article ends pessismitically with these words . . .

While MDC-T leaders are flying all over the place begging for money and lobbying for the removal of sanctions, President Mugabe is planning for the day the country goes to the polls. When that day comes the MDC-T will find that nothing has changed. The militia will still be in place. The police CIO and defence forces will still be wings of ZANU-PF. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission or whatever body replaces it will be under ZANU-PF’s commissariat. The ZBC will still enjoy a monopoly and be staffed by ZANU-PF apparatchiks. Certain magistrates and judges will be on standby to deal with cases assigned to them by the Minister of Justice. Filthy prisons and CIO jails will still be there to welcome opponents of ZANU-PF deemed dangerous. If all this fails ZANU-PF will not accept the results and the MDC-T will go crying to SADC for intervention. Enter another inclusive government under President Mugabe as head.

As Tendai points out it is all very predictable and depressing, but what are the other options?

The more the MDC insists that it is “a party of excellence,” the more sceptical I become about it. Having agreed to this transitional government arrangement with Zanu PF, it is now finding it difficult to actually get anything done. Mugabe flouts the agreement by appointing the Attorney-General and Reserve Bank Governor without consulting with the MDC, and at the same time refuses to swear in the MDC’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Roy Bennett.

The MDC’s National Council met on the weekend to decide what to do about some of the problems they’re having in this “power sharing” agreement, like the appointment of permanent secretaries and Provincial Governors.

Their resolution? To ask SADC and the AU for help. Never mind that it was SADC’s mediation that created this imbalanced agreement in the first place. If the MDC can’t solve its problems without looking to outsiders for help, what confidence can we have it its ability to run the country?  It’s time they started demonstrating excellence in action, not just in words.

On Monday lunchtime I landed at Harare Airport and the South African Airways pilot made an announcement saying that passengers should remain in their seats so that the Korean (North) delegation could leave the plane first. There was a whole lot of rumbling in response to this from passengers up and down the aircraft. Then the pilot spoke again and asked passengers to exit out the back door so that the Korean delegation could skip out the front and along the red carpet all on their own. The rumbling grew louder. Another announcement and we were told that stairs for the back door couldn’t be found so we’d get our turn on the red carpet after all. The pilot apologised, and so he should have. What sort of crap is this? Why should the Korean delegation get any special treatment? Come to think of it they hadn’t even bought business class tickets, so sitting cattle class like me they should have waited their turn like everyone else.

Bollocks I say.

Even bigger bollocks was the fan fare put on by the Government of National Unity . . . they rolled out Everything, not just the red carpet. And I believe that Morgan Tsvangirai and Thoko Kupe were part of the welcome party.

A text message I received on that day read

I would not like to think any member of the MDC whatever group would attend the state banquet tonight for organisers of the fifth brigade.

So who were the fifth brigade and what did they do? Here is an excerpt from a report called Breaking the Silence published by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. The report discusses the atrocities in Matabeleland in the early 1980s.

In October 1980, Prime Minister Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President, Kim Il Sung that they would train a brigade for the Zimbabwean army. This was soon after Mugabe had announced the need for a militia to “combat malcontents”. However, there was very little civil unrest in Zimbabwe at this time.

In August 1981, 106 Koreans arrived to train the new brigade, which Mugabe said was to be used to “deal with dissidents and any other trouble in the country”. Even by August 1981, there had been very little internal unrest. Joshua Nkomo, leader of ZAPU, asked why this brigade was necessary, when the country already had a police force to handle internal problems. He suggested Mugabe would use it to build a one party state.

Mugabe replied by saying dissidents should “watch out”, and further announced the brigade would be called “Gukurahundi”, which means the rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains.

5 Brigade was drawn from 3500 ex-ZANLA troops at Tongogara Assembly Point. There were a few ZIPRA troops in the unit for a start, but they were withdrawn before the end of the training. It seems there were also some foreigners in the unit, possibly Tanzanians. The training of 5 Brigade lasted until September 1982, when Minister Sekeramayi announced training was complete.

The first Commander of 5 Brigade was Colonel Perence Shiri. 5 Brigade was different to all other army units, in that it was not integrated into the army. It was answerable only to the Prime Minister, and not to the normal army command structures. Their codes, uniforms, radios and equipment were not compatible with other army units. Their most distinguishing feature in the field was their red berets. 5 Brigade seemed to be a law unto themselves once in the field.

Deployment of 5 Brigade – Matabeleland North, 1983

In late January 1983, 5 Brigade was deployed in Matabeleland North. Within weeks, they had murdered more than two thousand civilians, beaten thousands more, and destroyed hundreds of homesteads. Their impact on the communities they passed through was shocking.

Most of the dead were shot in public executions, often after being forced to dig their own graves in front of family and fellow villagers. The largest number of dead in a single killing involved the deliberate shooting of 62 young men and women on the banks of the Cewale River, Lupane, on 5 March 1983. Seven survived with gunshot wounds, the other 55 died. Another way 5 Brigade killed large groups of people was to burn them alive in huts. They did this in Tsholotsho and also in Lupane.

At the same time as 5 Brigade was sent into the area, the Government had introduced a strict curfew on the region. This prevented anybody from entering or leaving the area, banned all forms of transport and prevented movement in the region from dusk to dawn. A food curfew was also in force, with stores being closed. People caught using bicycles or donkey carts were shot. No journalists were allowed near the region. This situation meant that it was very hard to get news of events out of the region, and hard to judge the truth of the early accounts. However, as some people managed to flee the area, stories of the atrocities began to spread.

Targeting civilians: during these early weeks, 5 Brigade behaved in a way that shows they had clearly been trained to target civilians. Wherever they went, they would routinely round up dozens, or even hundreds, of civilians and march them at gun point to a central place, like a school or bore-hole. There they would be forced to sing Shona songs praising ZANU-PF, at the same time being beaten with sticks. These gatherings usually ended with public executions. Those killed could be ex-ZIPRAs, ZAPU officials, or anybody chosen at random, including women. Large numbers of soldiers were involved in these events, sometimes as many as two hundred, and often forty or more.

If Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Thoko Kupe were part of the welcome party at Harare Airport then I’m pretty sure that they attended the state banquet as well. The thought of this made me choke – what about you? A question to ask ourselves is when do we move on and put these national injustices behind us?

After a national inquiry perhaps?

Cdes, friends and fellow countrymen. Greetings. A note to open us up a little:

Progressive minds have received with skepticism the move and motive behind SA visa scrapping for Zimbabweans. We recall that the issue of visas into SA has been something Zim and the rest of SADC have been fighting to get rid of for a very long time ago. SA has been evasive on this issue yet pushing for an open SADC in the background. Just how open a SADC Pretoria wants we seem to start seeing. It is an open SADC that is in service to SA interests first and last. When it comes to servicing SA interests, S. Africans will sleep with anyone including neo-imperialists like China while lynching the DALAI LAMA. Did they not openly tell the world that the spiritual leader’s coming threatens the interests of S.Africa.

In everything they do, it is all business with S.Africa. A trip along memory lane. RENAMO. We, Zimbabweans went into Mozambique to assist a fellow pan-African brother against a banditry explosion supported by a SA’s apartheid govt, again, driven by nothing but S.A’s commercial interests. But as soon as the war was over, SA crosses floor to partner the Mozambiquean revolutionary govt in the Cabora Bassa Hydro electricity project. Years later, they are selling us electricity generated in the same Mozambique.

The same happened in CONGO. SA folded hands while we fought a war to safeguard the sovereignty of another pan-African brother. Just like the Cabora Bassa project, Pretoria would move in after the war and the attendant threat is gone, and we all know about the deals that they clinched. I keep mentioning the word pan-African to demonstrate its commercial meaning when it comes to S.Africans. Moreso that it has been their mantra when confronted with regional challenges or scrapping visas to Zimbabweans. But as we have been noticing over the years, it is all about business with the Mzansi crew.

The visa scrapping for Zimbos is a business move by S.A and nothing more. Zimbabwe and her people according to Pretoria are now ripe a business opportunity for S.A to pluck and safegurad. For, if we agree it is in the spirit of brotherhood this has been done, then are we aslo agreeing that other Southern African countries excluded here are lesser brothers of Pretoria than Zimbabweans? Now here starts the humour and the exposure.

Why now? Is this not the same country that unleashed xenophobic terror on Zimbabweans when we needed their help most? Is it not common sense for all who are for Zimbabwe’s revival that we need our children back than have them baited away by stronger economies. There is a business catch here coated with a saleable humanitarian veneer.

I will give you the background to my argument before elaborating further so that we are in the same enlightened frame. Lest I may be labeled a spoiler by those excited by the prospects of striking gold in Egoli. Sadly, it is the same blur of this excitement that is the business hook for S.Africa. And the patronizing suggestions will be that nobody is being forced to go to SA. Why are you not saying the same with Botswana and others who for long do not require visas for Zimbabweans? We are all aware that these other countries do not have the same lure as SA and that the exodus to SA will increase due to this. And for that we leave this kind and part of the debate to high schoolers.

See, its clear SA has always wanted Zimbabwe to move from being a competitor as was during the 80s/90s and be an extension of SA; which is what the new Zimbabwe many have been fighting for will NOT allow. Aware of this they have decided to team up with local forces against a fully independent Zimbabwe in the guise of revolutionary rhetoric and comradeship.

As I write today, the sources of fear about Zim being a consumer market in service of SA industry can now be seen in the many products now populating our shops’ shelves. Those that were on Mbeki’s case claiming his impartiality as a mediator was motivated by the fact that SA has and will be the biggest beneficiary of Zim’s crisis are now being vindicated by these developments. The timing is great. After years of empty shelves in Zimbabwe, S.A moves in with their products and get the Good Samaritan tag while making sweet money in the process! Now how good can this get!?

Remember the out-going president of S.A suggested Zimbabwe consider the use of the RAND in place of its own currency? Now how entangled can a country be in the economics and politics of another if they adopt its currency? What it means is that any knock to the rand (even those remotely connected to Zim’s interest or doing) will cascade down to Zimbabwe. Say for example, Zuma gets inspired and has another go of the shower scene, and the rand takes a plunge… Zimbabwe will definitely feel the vibrations of the muchina-wami!

Zimbabwe is set to be a S-African province, only that we will not be voting or having representatives in their parliament! Yet we know that S.A will with time go through the same phase Zimbabwe just went through as the nation’s leadership starts doing the inevitable of moving from the revolutionary elites to a leadership of the future. This is a must go route for every African country as the hands of time starts revealing the obsoleteness of liberation war credentials as the only leadership credentials. When that happens to S.A (and I don’t wish them that in a bad way) my heart bleeds for Zim should it be tied to SA for it will have a sequel of the past ten years.

After having stood with their revolutionary mates against the open wishes of the Zimbabwean majority, SA effectively killed the opportunity for a wholesale revival of Zimbabwe in particular our industries. Today our industries cannot compete with SA companies whose operating environment is better than their. The cost of producing in S.Africa is worlds cheaper than producing here in Zimbabwe. At the end the whole process turns out a battle of two unequals. And there goes the last remnants of our industries! Our last few jobs and the potential jobs our industries where set to make in the future.

As the world crisis currently sweeping throughout the world demands that countries find new markets for their industries to survive. For SA, Zim is a good market and a source of cheap labour. The SA/ZIM tale is now the classic baas George farm story. In this tragedy, our children are whipped (free visa) en mass to SA for plantation wages, developing baas George Farm’s produce; then the same wages goes to baas George tuck-shop buying the same produce! Finally we can now say, Goodbye Zimbabwe (1980-2009).

Rest in Peace.