From Pambazuka News

The article below, published by IRIN, will hit a nerve in most Zimbabweans. Treated like shit at the polls, like shit at government institutions such as the passport office, like shit at road blocks by surly, bribe seeking policemen and like shit in shops where retailers run establishments that can’t and won’t work out how to give their customers change.

We’ve all been there . . . accepting the most ridiculous items like 3 minute noodles in lieu of what we really want, and what is owed to us, our change in Money. When I’m out shopping I do my level best to make sure that what I’m buying adds up to a round number. When it doesn’t I pay it backwards, giving my change to the next person in the check out queue. I figure this is better than getting a “credit note” that will get lost, or fade before I get home.

Enough is very much enough:

Short-changed and angry

People in Zimbabwe are becoming angry about the lack of small denominations in circulation and tempers are fraying as a result: A policeman recently shot dead a taxi assistant for failing to give him the correct change.

After the formation of a coalition government in February 2008, the hyperinflation-afflicted economy was dollarized – with the US dollar and South African rand most widely used, but the Botswana pula, the Zambian kwacha and the Mozambican metical also in common use.

To avoid disputes, taxis now give out travel vouchers when they run short of change – and the problem is not just in the transport sector.

Sipho Mpofu, a public sector employee, went grocery shopping last week and was given a brown voucher instead of change. “When I asked them what it was for, they told me that they could not provide me with change and the voucher worth five rand would allow me to use their toilets for free. I threw away the offending piece of paper because I knew I was being ripped off.”

The lack of change angers many consumers, who are now trying to make purchases in round numbers. Shops use items such as tomatoes, matches, eggs, potatoes, candles, bananas, sweets, pens, pencils or vouchers in lieu of change.

Mpofu said the use of “unwanted” grocery items was a “huge inconvenience”.

“Right now I have a huge pile of matches, candles and sweets which I have no use for. In fact, they pose a threat should they be set alight accidentally.” He said he had to hide the sweets from his children.

Financial journalist Paul Nyakazeya said consumers were effectively being forced to buy items they did not want.

“At the end of the day, when calculations are made, it may be discovered that the goods consumers end up taking as change… make up a substantial percentage of their monthly groceries… The best way out of this quagmire for the consumers would be the widespread introduction of an electronic system to purchase commodities.”

But, with frequent power cuts, especially in rural areas, Nyakazeya acknowledged it would be very difficult to make such a system work.

Economist David Mupamhadzi told IRIN the authorities urgently needed to introduce smaller currency denominations, especially for the South African rand: Many service providers round up the bill, making goods and services more expensive, eroding disposable incomes and boosting inflation, he said.

In his article The Age of Polipreneurship, published by Pambazuka, Dr. D McKinley defines and describes Polipreneurship:

At its most basic level, polipreneurship can be defined as ‘politics as business’. Polipreneurship is not simply about making money from and through politics. It is more about the way in which politics is seen approached and more importantly practiced.

It would be easy enough for ours or any other populace to just point fingers at certain politicians, parties, the ruling party itself and/or government and argue that is simply a matter of having different ones in power (at whatever level) in order for our politics to ‘return to the source’. [But] when we take a critical look at contemporary polipreneurship, we cannot just focus on the politicians, political parties and private business sectors, we also have to look at ourselves.

…We cannot divorce ourselves from the intensifying tide of corruption, the cesspool of nepotism, the inbuilt disdain for organisational transparency, the conscious refusal to embrace personal responsibility, the general demise of human empathy, the constant evading of popular accountability and the never ending litany of false promises, lies and subterfuge. They are all representative of what we as a society, and thus our business and politics have become. And let us not fool ourselves, this is the norm, not the exception.

In our polipreneurship age, the mandarins of capitalist politics and capitalist business have perfected the art of creating a sustained symbiosis between the private and public ‘interest’. They have been able to achieve this because most of those who organisationally and institutionally represent the ‘public interest’ at various levels of governance as well as ever-increasing numbers of ordinary people have personally imbibed and institutionally integrated the ‘traditions, cultures and values’ of their business counterparts. In the process the measurement of what is ‘good for society’ has become almost completely delinked from the historic and popular struggle for a universally conceived but mainly nationally practices, collective human solidarity and benefit.

The challenge is as difficult as it is profound. If we can’t change our politics then we can’t change our societies.

A moving message and wake up call from Trudy Stevenson, one of Zimbabwe’s most impressive political activists:

What do you do when your husband asks: “Where do you live, these days?’ You remember that he has Alzheimer’s Disease, and doesn’t know that he lives there too, as your husband. Sharing an experience from today… so that those of you of the younger generation may start to get a hint of what can happen to your loved ones, as they grow older – unfortunately!  Put your arms around them, hug them tight, and treasure them as your loved ones, come what may!

Here’s a press statement just received from Rooftop Promotions:

The Rooftop Promotions ten member team of “Rituals”, which includes 8 artists, 1 driver and 1 tour manager currently on a national tour, was arrested on the late afternoon of the 5th January 2011 and detained at Cashel Valley Police station in a case that is not only disrespectful to the work of artists but also poses  serious challenges to the commitment of the GNU to healing and reconciliation. The team had finished two performances for that day when they were invited to the police station to answer a few questions then later detained for the night without any clear charges. Those arrested constitute arguably Zimbabwe’s crème de la crème and are multi-award winners in their craft. They are Chipo Bizure, popularly known as Eve in Studio 263, Zenzo Nyathi, popularly known as Mzambani on Amakorokoza, Silvanos Mudzvova, Mandla Moyo, Joyce Mpofu and Rutendo Chigudu.  The team spent two nights (Wednesday and Thursday) in the cells and are due to appear in court today (Friday) represented by Cosmos Chibaya instructed by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

“It is sadly interesting that our artistic work in promoting national healing and reconciliation, through a play that has been seen by the Organ on National Healing Reconciliation and Integration and has been approved by the Board of Censors, is being thwarted like this when the three principals in the GPA agreed to prioritise national healing and reconciliation in their end of year address to the nation. We are disturbed, and I should hasten to say not discouraged or disheartened, by this behaviour from this particular police station especially considering that we hold a valid censorship certificate from a board which falls under the same ministry (Home Affairs) with the police.  We do not take this irrational act lightly at all because there is nothing funny about sleeping in a police cell for doing your job and what makes the situation even more disturbing is that we notified the police appropriately according to the provisions of POSA and had done 16 performances of the same play in that same province late last year and we were only left with 4 performances hanging in order to fulfil our Manicaland quota”, says Daves Guzha the founder and producer of Rooftop Promotions.

We learnt about the arrest on the 5th  January around 5pm and contacted Officer in Charge Inspector Chasara at Cashel Valley Police Station to establish the charges being levelled against the team but he was very  evasive with that information and they went ahead to place them in cells. Only yesterday was it stated through a Sergeant Major, who refused to be known by his name, did they state the team was being judged for criminal nuisance under section 46 and there crime was disturbing peace. Theatre is one of the things exempted under POSA and AIPPA but we still have always notified police of our activities every time and in this case we released a schedule to Mutare Central Police which stated the areas we were covering when we started this tour and out of the 20 scheduled performances for Manicaland, we were left with only four at the time of arresting and detaining our team.

The team’s story, which was supported by people who watched the performance, was that they started off very well, the people loved the show and it was only when the play ended that a police detail who was recording the show confronted them and invited them to the station to answer a few questions to do with the clearance of staging the play. They explained everything but still they were detained and it was only at 6am in the morning that the charge shifted to criminal nuisance whereupon they were asked to pay a fine of $20.00 each which they refused in no uncertain terms and insisted they will wait for the Producer since they believed they had not breached any peace but just did their job to entertain and educate people. When we arrived at Cashel Valley Police station, the said Sergeant Major reiterated the same and said he had instructions from the Officer In Charge to make the team pay the said fine or be detained and taken to court something that we also could not accept since paying a fine technically means admission of guilt to a crime the team insisted they never committed.

“As an artist who believes in the role of theatre in promoting healing and reconciliation, I watched in pain as I saw my colleagues being escorted by gun wielding officers as though they were some high profile criminals and the sad part of it was that they were being locked up for promoting a national agenda. I did not know whether I needed to be disappointed with the particular police officers or the entire law enforcement system of my country as I saw the country’s arts talent being criminalised for doing a play on healing and reconciliation. At a time when the principals and parties in the GPA are pushing for reforms and reconciliation before elections, it is unfortunate that some law enforcing agents cannot wake up and smell the coffee but still want to live in the Zimbabwe that everyone else agrees was not good. ”, says Tafadzwa Muzondo the Marketing & Sales Executive for Rooftop Promotions.

Written by Stephen Chifunyise after going through a research on community approaches to healing and reconciliation, directed and produced by Daves Guzha, featuring Mandla Moyo, Zenzo Nyathi, Joyce Mpofu, Chipo Bizure, Silvanos Mudzvova and Rutendo Chigudu, “Rituals” is a story told in panoramic fashion chronicling how community initiated cultural solutions meet with serious challenges which either prevent their conclusive enactment or achievement of the desired results.

“The fact that this production is a result of a community research we commissioned the writer to do in order to come up with a play that encourages community initiated or driven healing and reconciliation processes means it came from the people and we have to take back to them with our artistic input in order to entertain and educate them. The play has had up to 30 performances after its successful premiere at Theatre in the Park last year and also became an instant hit when it was performed at the All Africa Dance for Peace Festival in Nairobi Kenya last year. It has also been hailed as an effective tool of making people begin dialogue and ultimately start their own processes of healing and reconciliation as a community”, says Daves Guzha the Producer of Rooftop Promotions.

In discussions and comments after the play, most audience members expressed the need to have more of such programs in order to demystify the culture of fear and violence in favour of tolerance and unity in communities. One of the audience members actually said: “People like us who have access to newspapers and other information know that there is an Organ on Healing & Reconciliation but we have not seen what it is doing to do its work. There are not coming to us to hear our concerns, our grievances and suggestions so how do they expect to heal us and reconcile us?”

“The Sergeant Major tried to coax us into paying a fine for a crime we never committed and as artists we took a collective stand to let the law take its course because we are not criminals but professionals doing our job. But after our lawyer communicated that decision to him, he started becoming un-cooperative and ordered us to beck in cells. One of the ladies wanted some sanitary pads locked in the car but he refused and we believe they are using our liberty as a bargaining tool to get out clean with unlawfully detaining us. As artists, we encourage people to stand for themselves and their rights so if we cannot stand for ourselves and our rights also then we become “do as I say not as I do prophets. We refuse to be incriminated for doing our work and fending for our families”, says Silvanos Mudzvova, one of the cast members of “Rituals”.

“Rituals” was performed at the initiated Institute for Justice and Reconciliation indaba which brought together participants from Zimbabwe’s all political parties including the Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation.  It is available on DVD.

How constitutional is MDC-Ts National Council’s decision to remove clause 6.1.3 from the MDCs Constitution which states that the president shall serve for a maximum of two five year terms, in order to keep Mr. Tsvangirai in his position as President?

In a series of articles published in Newsday, the Standard and the Independent, Nelson Chamisa, MDCT Spokesperson boldly proclaims “We are the apostles of constitutionalism and disciples and doyens of democracy”.

Any proclamation spoken by politicians should be treated with suspicion, particularly if it is salted with religious reference. Mr. Chamisa goes on to ignorantly defend the National Council’s decision by saying that the two terms only counted when the MDC President also became President of the country.

The MDC Constitution, available for download from their website, states in article 3 titled Aims Values And Objects:

The MDC shall be a Social Democratic Party whose core values shall be solidarity, justice, equality, liberty, freedom, transparency, humble and obedient leadership and accountability. And it goes on further to say:
(b) An open democracy, in which national government is accountable to the people through the devolution of power and decision-making to the provinces and local institutions and structures.

The same document also states that amendments to the MDC constitution are to be carried out by a two-thirds majority of the Congress, not the National Council. I’m no legal expert but the actions of the National Council don’t seem very constitutional to me.

By what standard are we to measure Mr. Tsvangirai and MDC-T itself if even they cannot uphold their own party’s constitution? How are we to believe that they won’t at the first opportunity amend a national constitution to hold onto power?

Of course the major argument proffered will be (in former US Ambassador Christopher Dells words) that Mr. Tsvangirai is the only player on the scene right now with real star quality and the ability to rally the masses. But this does not exempt him from being accountable to the people he wishes to represent. If he is to remain president and the MDC constitution is to be amended then let him state his case at the congress in front of the people, not in front of a hand picked group of cronies and yes men who’s interest lie in maintaining the little power they’ve managed to wrangle from ZANU PF.

Elections are coming and Zimbabwe is watching. Nothing Mr. Mugabe does or says surprises anyone, but Mr. Tsvangirai is quickly becoming the devil no one knows about.