If you would have told me that I could co-author a book in my mid-twenties a decade ago, I would have laughed you off and told you you were mad!

Ask anyone who knew me as a teenager what I was like and they’ll probably tell you they are a bit surprised I have made something half-decent of myself since.

I was always the moody reclusive one who simply hated everything about me – from my height to my weight to my teeth to my feet to my soul. Nothing looked or felt good. Nothing about me seemed loveable – at least to me.

And I didn’t believe I had a vagueness of brightness in my future. Just take this entry into one of my old diaries that I earthed up recently:

Sunday August 20 2000

Time goes by. Hours turn to days which turn into weeks, months, years. Then eventually, you realise how everything is one day going to be a speck of nothing in history. What’s the whole point of this melodrama?

I continued the next day to say,

I can’t just base my life on delayed gratification and wait my turn in the Good Fortune’s Queue. There’s no future for a person who sees no future in their future.

It’s funny how I proved myself wrong because though I didn’t believe in a future for me, I did wait in that Good Fortune’s Queue and have made it to today to some place where I can say with affirmation that I AM going somewhere – and that that somewhere is to the top!

So what changed within me, you ask. At which point did I draw the line and decide that I would be someone and do something?

I can’t answer that question with any certainty because there was no line drawn, no unequivocal decision made.

A series of events – which at first seemed tragic – somehow led me to today where I can look back and say, “Ah, yes, that had to happen to get me to today!”

What are those events?

The most important has to be the collision between the spectacular fall from grace of the Zimbabwean economy and my ending high school. While everyone else’s folks were able to send them to South Africa, Australia, the UK and the US for a sound university education, I had to stay behind and wade through a new culture of learning and living that was far removed from my pristine private school education.

I had to learn to queue for money, bread, milk and text books; to save up my devaluing spending money to check information on the Internet; to catch the slow-chugging uncomfortable train between Bulawayo and Harare on semester breaks and lastly (and most unpleasantly) to share communal bathrooms in a dingy YWCA hostel where the scampering rats in the roof kept me company on the late nights I stayed up to read.

I often felt like giving up and saying it was too hard for me, that I was too fragile, too broken to keep fighting. And there were tears and thoughts of giving up for I didn’t see the future in my future.

But somehow I didn’t give up, hardly knowing where the fight back could possibly take me, hardly believing that I could ever catch up with all my former schoolmates whose lives in the photos I saw of them seemed so much more of a joy to live than my much tougher version.

And slowly, things began to open up. Slowly, I began to surprise even myself – the hardened sceptic who had preached doom over my own life. Slowly, the words that I wrote and shared began to resonate with life and recognition among people I could never have believed read them.

Perhaps my most startling revelation was one fine Wednesday morning in May 2007, when as an intern on university attachment, I received an email from an organisation based far off in Uganda telling me that I had won an Africa-wide award for HIV and AIDS communication for the articles I had been writing about the epidemic in my part of the world. Just remembering the moment, I can feel the same knot of incomprehensible excitement tighten within my belly.

My prize was to finally leave Zimbabwe, after 23 years of never having seen anything but this one nation, to get on an aeroplane for the first time in my life and fly off to Sandton in South Africa to stay in the Hilton Hotel and attend fancy does and tour some of the must-see places in Gauteng.

Call that a quadruple shock and delight to my system!

And now, I cannot even condense what has happened in my life in just three short years since that adventure.

A lot of it is unbelievable, indescribable, magical.

There’s no future for a person who sees no future in their future.

I wrote that once with my own hands. I spoke negativity into my own situation yet in many ways I said something so very true.

There is no future for a person who sees no future in their future.

When I couldn’t see the future myself, God saw it for me instead. I have no doubt that it is He who has picked me up on the many occasions that I have fallen and broken. And He hasn’t done this for only my benefit.

He has done this so that I may be an example of what can come from the humblest and most improbable of beginnings, of what can flower from an unyielding bud.

Today, I hold a book in my hand – a book of some of the poems that I wrote in my deepest despair and fears about the world, a book of many poems that define me today as a woman who knows what I want and where I am going.

There is a future for me.

And that’s because finally, I see a future in my future.

See a future in your future too, and flower wild and uncontainable.

And yes, enjoy the sunflowers in your eyes.

Of all the heart-wrenching scenes I witnessed at the 18th International AIDS Conference, the most disturbing had to be on the last day when the Conference volunteers went about the exhibition halls rounding up mountains of abandoned books, brochures and flyers.

“It’s all rubbish now,” I gasped to myself as I watched whole piles of materials disappear into vast recycling bins.

The chatty teenage volunteers, donned in bright yellow T-shirts, probably thought nothing of it. But I thought differently.

What a waste.

The amount of money spent in producing and shipping those things to Vienna is a figure I don’t want to even try to imagine, lest I become even more upset than I already am. I was a culprit too, leaving a tall stack of books on my hotel room bed as I tried to weigh out (figuratively and literally) which would be most useful to take back home. Feeling horribly guilty about abandoning the materials, I considered leaving the housekeeper a note to say not to throw away the books and instead hand them out to friends and family. But something told me that a ‘first world’ country with a decimal  HIV prevalence figure might not take too much interest in books around reforming sexual and reproductive health rights policy in the patriarchal global south.

Maybe they might. But I thought against the idea and did what many people did in hotel corridors, lobbies and at airport check-in desks these past few days.

I dumped the books.

I had never been to one of these big HIV conferences before but went into the experience with a healthy dose of scepticism (not wholly premised on the fact that people dump stuff of course, since I’d heard about that before).

One of my strong beliefs was that a gathering of 20 000-odd people (19 300 participants, to be exact) with 248 sessions, 127 satellite meetings, 279 Global Village activities, 151 exhibits, 19 plenary sessions, 18 special sessions and enough daily sponsored after hours parties featuring copious amounts of free booze – all happening in 6 days – would lead to excited chaos and eventually, apathy.

In a post mortem on the Conference, the international agency, Oxfam, called it a disappointing conference whose tone was set by the host nation, Austria, when it indicated  that it would not contribute a single cent towards the replenishment of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria(GFTAM).

According to a presentation made by Paula Akubigizwe of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), the 2010 Conference delegates’ collective presence contributed an estimated total of 45 million Euro to Austria’s GDP – a figure that was equivalent to 20% of the total GFTAM Round 9 allocation to southern Africa for the response to all three diseases.

I don’t need to point out the irony for you.

I also don’t really need to point out the irony in the fact that the next conference takes place in Washington DC, moving further and further away from the hotbed of HIV which unequivocally remains sub-Saharan Africa. (Out of 18 such events held, the 2000 Durban Conference represents the only time the Conference has ever taken place in Africa.) I was simply appalled by the conversation I overheard among a group of men who each proclaimed they had been to at least three or four of these conferences and yet, had never so much as attended a single session.

What?!

We really need to think about what we are doing here, what real response and responsibility means to each one of us on a personal level. But here are my questions.

Do these big conferences actually work or are they simply glorified talk shops? Should we even be contemplating having a 19th and a 20th and, God forbid, a coming-of-age 21st International AIDS Conference?

The course of the epidemic remains very region-specific so that talking about condom negotiation to women in Sweden can be about as meaningless as talking about harm reduction to a group of Zimbabweans. Yes, it’s important to know all of this information, but on a practical level, it mostly remains useless.

And while we heard at the Conference about the alarming growth of the HIV pandemic in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, particularly among injecting drug users and sex workers, we forgot that two-thirds of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa; women who get HIV by merely having sex with their husbands and babies who are born with no chance to reach their fifth birthday.

But this isn’t sexy enough.

And so we’ve taken to catchy phrases like ‘treatment as prevention’ or the edgy sounding ‘Treatment 2.0’ coined by UNAIDS. According to UNAIDS, the new Treatment 2.0 platform – which includes HIV testing scale up and strengthening community mobilisation as some of its pillars -  can reduce new HIV infections by one-third if treatment is provided to everyone who needs it.

But that’s what makes it more sexy than practicable.

I don’t need to tell you how many countries are falling short of providing universal access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people whose CD4 counts have dipped below the 200 threshold.  Thus the 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to up CD4 thresholds to 350 for treatment initiation for people with HIV remains a pipe dream for many.

And in many parts of the world, the thought of initiating people who aren’t even already infected with HIV onto treatment is a mere fantasy.

But let my scepticism not completely override the successes scored at this year’s Conference. South Africa, once the joke of the global response to HIV and AIDS proved that it has well and truly shaken off its demons and come to the party. No better proof of this could have been given than by the standing ovation afforded to Health Minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi in one of the plenary sessions when he admitted that the task ahead was comparable to climbing Mount Everest, but needed to be carried out anyway. And also, a breakthrough in microbicide research with the CAPRISA 004 trials. With 39% effectiveness in reducing a woman’s risk of becoming infected with HIV, the female condom might soon be finding company with another female controlled device. Admittedly, the trials are still in the preliminary stages but when one of the key researchers, Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, smeared a little of the clear odourless gel onto my palm, I felt like I was literally holding the future in my hand.

But the real winner?

That is unquestionably Austria and the historical city of Vienna, whose people largely went about their way oblivious to the impact that a gathering of HIV scientists, campaigners and programmers would have on the nation’s future.

Wouldn’t it have been so much more of a meaningful impact, I wonder, if we’d actually taken the conference somewhere that really needed it?

SCREAMING
Poem by Shailja Patel, Kenya/USA. Performed at the AWID forum by Shailja Patel.

I.

There are too many battles
and too many wounds
and I
I can’t take it
I don’t want to know

that Inez Garcia was sentenced
to life imprisonment
for killing the man
who held her down
while two other men raped her

I want to cover my ears and scream
to block out the voices that chant

that Piah Njoki had her eyes
gouged out by her husband
because she did not bear him
a son

I want to be free of the murder
that pounds in my brain

because six hundred women a year
in Delhi alone
are doused in paraffin and burned
burned to death for the crime
of too small a dowry

I want to pretend it won’t happen to me

did you know that a student
at Sussex university
was raped on her
first night in residence
by a man who just walked
just walked
into her room

I am not a part of this bleeding
this scream
I don’t want to challenge argue fight
construct confront negotiate
beg for change

do you hear me

I want to retreat
to a room filled with humans
shut out the night
the fear and pain
hear myself stop
screaming inside
unravel my breathing ask

in a very
low
voice

dare I
claim the right
to a voice
that does not
scream?

II.

so it wasn’t until I learned to fight
I could be sexy

the swing of my hip developed
in pace with my elbow strike
I grew out my hair
as my flesh grew harder
began to wear lipstick
bare my shoulders
as I learned to judge
how fast to strike

and where
groin
eyes
jugular

It wasn’t until
I could walk down a street
knowing I could turn rage into action
that I could strut
down the same street

say with my stride
yes I think I look good too
yes I revel in my body
yes I love the sun on my skin
this body is mine
the better I learn to defend it
the better I flaunt it
from sheer joy

III.

for the truth of experience
Is in the body
when I am a fighter
my body is weapon
when I am a lover
my body is food

now my body
is paintbrush
story
truth illusion
sing through my limbs
like the shock
of cold water

breathe me clear
breathe me free
breathe me home

Read more at www.shailja.com Shailja Patel’s book, Migritude, comes out from Kaya Press in September 2010

http://kaya.com/books/28

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition have been holding constitutional community meetings around Zimbabwe. Their latest meeting in Hwedza saw participants raise the following issues:

1. Right to education: citizens must be able to hold government to account in terms of delivering quality and affordable education.
2. What is a young person-? The recommended age is between15-35 years although there was a discussion on raising this age to 18-35 years.
3. There should be equal opportunities for male and female youths.
4. The terms of presidency should be limited to two.
5. Number of  parliamentarians should be limited.
6. The government should ensure that perpetrators of violence are brought to book.
7. Are there any guarantees that the people’s views will be respected?

The Information & Publicity Department of the Union for Sustainable Democracy (USD) suggests in a recent press statement that the Mbare Chimurenga Choir must be banned. Or alternatively that the MDC should “grow some balls” and stop Zanu PF jingles from being played on Zimbabwean radio. Hmmm. But radio is state-controlled even though the Generally Pathetic Agreement (GPA) was signed a long time ago.

It also occurs to me that Zimbabweans in general need to grow some tits and balls because it appears that a good many of us continue to pay licence fees, and thus help fund Mugabe’s media.

Here’s the full statement from USD:

Mbare Chimurenga Choir song must be banned

The Union for Sustainable Democracy calls on the Unity Government to prohibit the blatantly partisan music of the Mbare Chimurenga Choir from being aired on state radio and television. Without any doubt, the song Nyatsoteerera is intentionally provocative. Playing it on ZBC stations goes against the object, spirit and purpose of the Global Political Agreement that promotes bi-partisanship over partisanship.

In our country’s current sensitive and fractious circumstances, it boggles the mind how a party to the inclusive government can arrogantly seek to promote and perpetuate disunity and do so with such breathtaking impunity disguised as giving effect to the legacy of our liberation struggle. Even worse, how could such a song ever be regarded as an ‘expression of nationhood’? It is clinical madness!

It is calculated to provoke and belittle well-meaning individuals such as Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai while scandalously and desperately trying to give life to a dead and now decomposing party. Such behaviour cannot be defended and must simply be stopped in the national interest.

There is ample evidence that ZANU PF entered the Government of National Unity only to retain a hold on power and never out of a genuine desire to work collaboratively in the national interest after decades of mismanagement.

Whereas the Unity Government has afforded Tsvangirai’s MDC some opportunities to mend things for the benefit of the country, the advent of the Unity Government has provided Mugabe’s ZANU PF with much needed time and resources to regroup and, having secured themselves in a somewhat politically acceptable position, they are now gradually dispensing with the services of the MDC and, in typical ZANU PF fashion, they are doing so with breathtaking arrogance.

The MDC must accept its share of the blame for this resurgence of ZANU PF. Since joining the Unity Government they have adopted a largely impotent stance that has made it easy for Mugabe and ZANU PF to disregard any idea of a real partnership.

It seems that many in the MDC have become compromised and have, regrettably, taken their eyes off the ball in large part because they have tasted the privileges of government office. Zimbabwe needs committed, pragmatic parliamentarians who will concern themselves more with getting the job done than with just being in politics for its own sake.

Because the Mbare Chimurenga Choir’s commercial, jingle, song – whatever label one chooses to attach to their composition – continually regurgitates the divisive and patently false mantra that President Mugabe and his two deputies, John Nkomo and Joyce Mujuru, are the ones running the country and that the MDC are nothing more than junior partners, it must forthwith and in the national interest be prohibited from airing on our public broadcaster ZTV as well as on our public radio stations.

In the meantime, the MDC needs to grow some balls.

The Zimbabwe Liberation Veterans Forum recently shared with us their passionate letter to the GPA principals.  It reads, in part:

The current approach by the inclusive government is like getting to a point only a kilometre away by setting off in the opposite direction in the belief that since the world is round, we will get there anywhere, whenever; but at what cost in terms of resources, time and human suffering?

To us, the inclusive government should have been strictly a transitional arrangement, a means to a definite end i.e. the establishment of a legitimate government based on consent. That route can only be paved by addressing the attendant challenges to a credible electoral process and the acceptance of its outcome as inviolate popular will. We contend that this approach will lead, not only to the sustainable resolution of the political impasse but to the amelioration of the economic, social and humanitarian havoc as well and bring about lasting stability that is conducive to social prosperity and development. Taking the constitutional route as at present, only serves to accentuate political tension, destabilise the body politic and polarise the country before the shock absorbers of a stable and legitimate government are in place. In any case, given the best will, the outcome of the constitution debate would be another example of exclusionary elite pacting through bipartisan compromise; a far cry from a people driven product that should guide Zimbabwe for generations to come.

To this end, we hold that the road map to free, fair, transparent and popular elections should focus on addressing the glaring impediments to credible elections as the uttermost priority. We therefore call on the parties to the GPA to shift and realign their focus to this political imperative.

Read more