The Ten Rules I Grew Up With, An African Love Story

Today, once again, I will be writing about home. Not the home where I live in but the home I came from. I grew up in Bulawayo, in Southern Zimbabwe. It's a city where I spent the first eighteen years of my life (back then my main aim was to leave) but it's a city that shaped me and whose very texture I miss. But more than the city and my friends, I miss my homes. And no, that is not a typo (see Rule 6), as an African, every home where a relative lived was my home. That's just how things were. Those were the rules and here are the top ten (in no particular order):

"A city whose very texture I miss"
Jacaranda's in Bulawayo (c) Frankie Kay https://frankiekayfotos.wordpress.com/

10. Elders are to be respected

End of story. There was no if, and or but about it.



9. Money does not grow on trees

This is a statement that was hammered into my head time and time again, my parents, uncles and aunts repeated it ad nauseam.

"Stop wasting water as if money grows on trees." 

"Why did you leave the lights on? Money doesn't grow on trees."

" Why is the Mazoe finishing so fast, do you think Spar gives them out for free eh? Money doesn't grow on trees!"

Growing up, one never quite understands the implication of all those rebukes and the place they were coming from but now as a working adult and with bank statements, tax declarations and bills pouring through my postal box like water, I now (quite sadly) understand. And living in Europe, where people do live as if money (and resources) grow on trees, I am grateful for the lesson.



8. There is no such thing as sleeping in

When I was in Algeria for university one of the (guilty) pleasures of life that I discovered was waking up at midday on a weekend. I would like to say that this was a rare occurrence but I have enough sins on my plate let me not add lying to the list. (In my defence though, once you live through 45° Celsius summers you won't be snickering so hard at me will you?) The joy of knowing it was a Saturday and that there was absolutely nothing to do was glorious and I would open one eye early in the morning, acknowledge the world existed and go back to sleep.

Why was slothful submission to sleep this glorious you ask? Because growing up, there was no such thing as a weekend. My mother would come and knock loudly on my door if I slept too late and if she didn't hear the patter of feet in a few seconds she would burst into the room and draw the curtains, sunlight streaming into the room like an uninvited guest at an African wedding. Any notion of sleeping a few more minutes would die there and there because my bedroom faced the East and the full glory of the day would blind me momentarily and chase sleep away. My mother would stand there to meet any complaints, "Ah, when I was growing up, we would be up long before the sun had finished charging its batteries, and here you are complaining in bed at 9am. Mxm. Vila voxo!"



7. You know nothing John Snow!

Fans of Game of Thrones and those raised in African households will know what I am talking about. The formulation is simple: as an African child growing up in an African household any complaints on why things were as they were would be met with the phrase: "ah, you know nothing shame. When I was growing up..."

Complaints about why we had to take the bus to school when the other children had cars: "you know nothing, when I was growing up we used to walk ten kilometres to school and we would arrive fresh and ready to learn." 

Complaints about why ZESA was gone: "ah when I was growing up, we had candles and gas lights to study with and when night fell it was time to sleep vele. If only you knew."

Complaints about being bored and having nothing to do: "hehe if only you knew. When I was a boy I would be woken before dawn to go and herd the cattle and only be back home after the sun had set. Children of today shame!"

Complaints about going to the rural areas for holiday: "you know nothing you child of the City. This is where I grew up. This was my home"

Looking back I really do realise that I really did not know anything.

(c) HBO

6. Family comes first

Without going too deeply into the drama that is family (my mothers family is Sotho and they speak Sotho which I don't understand, my fathers is Ndebele but they all speak Shona and that's just touching the surface), there was one thing that came as naturally as breathing. It was a rule that was hardly spoken, it just was. Just as it is in Game of Thrones (forgive me, I am a geek and therefore a superfan), family is everything. My parents once lived in Europe before I was born and they told me about siblings who would book appointments before seeing each other and that would be once or twice a year (this apparently was Sweden in the eighties). To illustrate how different things were in my African household, we once drove to Gwanda where my aunt lived when I was around six or seven. There I met my cousin who was a year younger than me. When it was time to leave, I calmly told my parents that they could leave without me, I would take the bus and follow on Monday morning. And that is exactly what I did.

No invitations necessary, no deadlines or schedules to work around. I would spend weeks in Harare at my cousins, a month at my aunts in Beit-bridge and weekends with cousins in Bulawayo on the spur of the moment. Because that is what families do.

Family. Duty. Honour
(c) HBO

5. Gratitude is not optional

My name, Bongani, literally is an instruction to 'give thanks'. One does not just walk into an African household and eat food then rub ones belly in satisfaction. One claps their hands in gratitude and lists the clan names of the house before thanking them from the bottom of their hearts. And that is that.

One of the best stories from my cousins was when they ate then sat to watch TV as if nothing had happened. Their mother, my aunt, quietly gathered the plates went to the kitchen and cooked a fresh pot of sadza and stew and served them again. When she registered their apparent dismay she innocently mocked, "I didn't hear a thank you so I assumed you were still hungry. Now finish those plates." 



4. When we buy new things one does not remove the plastic cover until it is torn and begging to be removed

We all know the TV remote that stayed wrapped in its plastic until it had holes. And in an age where we all now regularly buy smartphones with the processing capabilities of a 1980's supercomputer then replace them when the screen cracks, this is just a beautiful extension of rule number 9. And an application of rule 7. We know nothing.



3. Friends should be chosen carefully

I would like to think I was not the only one who was subjected to a full FBI interrogation when I asked that a friend come and sleep over. Who are his parents? How long have you known this person? Where does he live? But of course once they met my friends they would be granted the seal of approval and our home was theirs.

I only came to understand why when I was leaving for Algeria. My mother, a woman I had never been apart from for more than three months at a time gave me this parting piece of advice: "choose your friends wisely. They will be many acquaintances in life and you can afford to have bad ones but one thing you cannot afford is a bad friend." 

Now, looking back, regret says; if only I had understood exactly what she meant.



2. I am because we are

In Ndebele we have a saying, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. It is part of the concept of Ubuntu. (And no, white people, it is not Ubhuntu, it is Ubuntu) Simply put it means 'a person Is because of other people.' Notice the capital 'I' in 'is', that again is not a typo: our raison d'être (the French have a beautiful way of expressing that capital I: raison d'être; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone) is not for ourselves but to change the world around us and to serve those around us. In some households it would be expressed as don't waste food, children are dying in that country I don't want to name whilst you are busy here wasting food. Certainly that was true in mine as well. But it was also in the small things, stubbing your toe and squealing with pain and everyone around you says sorry. In Europe when I say sorry to a friend who has hurt himself, they laugh at me and say but it wasn't your fault. Yes, I know but I feel your pain.

I Am because you are. It was being reminded to do whatever one could do for those less fortunate than oneself. It was weekends spent at a children's shelter with my Dad, watching my mother give her time and effort to whatever cause she felt could help. And slowly learning that I could do the same.



1. This is not a democracy, it is a constitutional monarchy

I remember watching some America reality show and seeing the children swearing at their parents. And when I say swearing, I mean screaming 'fuck you' at their mother. For those who were raised in African households this needs no further explanation. For those who were not, let me just say a little demon whispered in my mind, imagine that happening to you and the rest of my mind revolted in horror. Because we all know what is like in an African household (if you still don't know refer to rule 10). And we all know that any bambini unfortunate enough to whisper back at an African parent will know that day what is is like to visit hell.

"I'm beating you and you are crying? Hahaha manje you will know what it's like to cry."

[Five minutes later]

"I'm beating you and you are silent? You are a man now? Let's see who is the older one today!"



Zeroth Rule. There is nothing an African Household will not do for its own

This is an extension to rule 6. But more specifically aimed at the household rather than the extended family. In Ndebele we have a saying, indlovu ayisindwa ngumboko wayo.

Literally put, an elephant is not weighed down by its trunk.

Simply put: there is nothing I would not do for them.

And there is nothing they haven't done for me. 

There Is A Joy

There is a Joy. He sits by the river, his arms stirring up the crystal water, his eyes trained on its depth, his smile brighter than the sky. His skin laps up the rays of the sun like the ground after the first rains. He sits alone but not lonely. He is not large but by no means weak. He is what he is. Joy. He looks into the water and sees the many examples of himself in the world and his smile turns into pure mirth.

There is a joy of the mother as she holds her newborn baby in her arms. Unable to believe that her body has done that most mystical of miracles, that most sacred of biological functions, that mystery above all mystery: create life. And here is the life in living, breathing flesh. Its eyes screwed shut against a world it has found itself in, uninvited, a world it did not ask for but nonetheless a world that has welcomed it into its family. A world it shall know, a life it shall live with all its attendant joys and sorrows, all its pains and lows, the highs and the peaks of ecstasy. It shall know the joy of eating, the joy of learning to walk. It will feel the pain of falling from its feet to the ground and from its dreams to reality, the crushing pain of a broken heart and the sweetness of watching the sun set on a day well spent. But for now it knows nothing but the fact that it needs to cry. And announce to the mother who will hug her to its chest and feel her heart burst with a love she shall now spend her life giving it.

There is the joy of art. The joy of the writer as he bleeds his life onto the page, the musician as his spirit is picked up in the arms of his music and flung into the higher reaches of heaven. There is the joy of the poet that most subtle of beings, that being whose heart has found the pulse of the universe beating to the same rhythm. The rhythm that the dancer dances to as she lets her arms soar, rise and fall following the pulsating joy that is found when humanity and art meet. Oh there is pain in it all to be sure. What part of being human does not capture pain? Surely there is pain in the hands of Michelangelo as he silently chips away at the marble to release the figure buried within or the pain of the photographer who has missed that perfect shot. But there is joy in the end, such sweet joy when life lies captured in ink, in stone, in words, in music, in the arms of the stage.

He smiles, his eyes lighting up with the happiness of one who has heard a music that only the Wise can hear; the sound of the universe singing your name. Now he sees two figures in the flow of the river and recognises the joy of young love. Not the flames of passion, or the dangerous scouring heat of lust. No he sees the pure tendrils of young love spread themselves softly, silently around the hearts of two people who in each other see the being that they had glimpsed only briefly before they were born and spent a lifetime looking for. And now have found. And they have found more than that haven't they? They have found the one in whom they can let their hearts repose, the one who can carry their secrets and their burdens, the one who will carry them when they can no longer walk the tortuous path of life, the one who will still be there when Beauty has moved away and left Age to take her place. No need for words for these. Silence is enough. No need for diamonds or trips to Paris, the clasp of their hands transmits a joy which makes Joy's muscles tense up as he sits and regards them in the waters flow and soon he breaks into laughter.

And what is laughter than the noise joy makes when it is can no longer take any more of itself. It rises on itself, into the air around him, tiptoeing over the corners of his mouth as it pulls them into the most genuine of smiles, unlocks the reservoirs of his eyes and lets the tears run freely down his cheeks and into the air it lets out a sound of such sweetness, a scandal of joy, a peal of happiness, an unashamed pleasure in the act of existing. He laughs and bends over himself as he dips a finger into the river and looks deeper into its depths, his eyes bright and clear through the film of tears.

He sees the small joys of a million billion people. The joy of a father as he receives a letter from his son on the battlefield, the joy of a couple as they untangle themselves from the throes of lovemaking, the sweat on their backs not yet dried but something beautiful stirring in their hearts for each other. He sees the joy of two best friends who have discovered that the flame in their hearts burn with the same colour. He sees that infant born to its mother as it returns her hug decades later, the joy of a prophet as he hears the Voice call to him to silent worship, the first drink of water of a thirsty biker, the first step of freedom of the prisoner, the first pay cheque of the new grad, the child who finds a toy it thought was lost. Millions upon countless billions of tiny joys that make the troubled existence of these humans worth it. Joys that can illuminate the darkest of cells, salve the deepest hungers, calm the most turbulent storms that trouble the souls of so many of them. So many examples of himself in their world looking back at him through the troubled depths of the water but still he stirs the water and stirs, his legs cutting through its icy depths until at last he sees what he is looking for.

He sees her there. The most beautiful form of joy there can be. A joy that has found the secret of existence, has transformed life from an act to a sacrifice, to a worship of each passing second, a love that has spread beyond just those around her and has grown to embrace people she has never met, the Joy who cannot sleep while someone she knows goes hungry, who agitates for those she does not know and feels their pain deeply in their heart as the cutting of a knife sharper than the spears of demons. A love that does not know the colours of any flag but simply the colour of the blood that runs through the veins of every person who breathes in their world, a love that realise whether the Others worship snakes, or monkeys or the Son of a Virgin they still share the same humanity as she does. A humanity as sacred and as powerful as the stars that burn in the heavens for every human who ever had the chance to make their mothers sing for joy.

He sees her and smiles. She sees him and for a moment, a moment ever so brief, spliced between the fingers of time herself, she smiles at him and disappears. Even he Joy has seen her rarely in all his centuries by the riverbank. And even less people have ever known she exists. But for them that do, their Joy was complete and when the day came for them to breath their last they did so with the knowledge that he stood waiting on the other side of the Gates of Death. With a smile on his face.

For you | Für dich

Dear Mr Big Man aka Morgan Tsvangirai

Dear Mr Tsvangirai

Let me set the scene for you. It's 5am where I am and I am supposed to be sleeping but here I am sitting at my desk thinking about you. Please disabuse yourself of the notion, I am not thinking of you in that way, God forbid. No I am thinking about you in a more banal and more realistic way especially now that I read you have been suspended from your own party. I am thinking of all your successes and failures. Especially the failures. Yes, to be quite honest, I am having a very difficult time coming up with the successes.

Let us see dear Sir, let us count them off one by one. You founded Zimbabwe's biggest opposition party and for what seemed like the first time it had ever happened, you stood up to Robert Mugabe and his party, ZANU PF. I remember the strikes, the protests and the stayaways you organised in those forgotten years of Zimbabwe's history, that autumn before the winter that would find us holding the remnants of a country. But how were we to know back then that the dollar would collapse, that we would wind up in queues queuing for our own currency, for sugar, for bread, for water, for dignity. Yes, perhaps in that autumn of our country you were the only one who could see that far ahead. You led, you protested, you told us to vote for you and those few that saw your vision voted with you for what you said would be change and a brighter future.

Change did not come.

Through no fault of your own Mr Tsvangirai. Understand this, we saw you beaten, we saw you holding your bloody head in front of the camera's. We read about your MP's who would be dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night only for their remains to be found days or months later. Or never found at all. We saw the offices of the Daily News bombed and then closed down, we read about your offices being raided and we saw the horrors you went through Mr Tsvangirai. How could we fault you? You more than anyone knows what it is like to sit within the walls of a Harare jail for having spoken truth to power. But already the tendrils of your downfall were planted back then. You see Mr Tsvangirai, people saw you as a plaything of the West, a puppet and not your own man. You know how hard it is to convince Nationalists in any country and any era to see beyond the borders of their country.

Even then there were whispers that you were not that clever a man, that your deputies fought with you and more. But we were entranced bythe image of our country go up in flames like rabbits caught in the headlights of a car hurtling at it. Some of us left. Some of us stayed. You stayed and you vowed to fight. And you fought.

And change did not come.

By then things got worse Mr Tsvangirai. Your own party had split into two distinct pieces, ostensibly over the issue of contesting the Senate elections at the time but there were whispers of tribalism and authoritarianism. You failed there. You failed to provide leadership in your parties greatest test against no other than itself. It would only get worse from there on. Confusion on exactly where your party was heading, your own leaders who seemed at times to contradict themselves, and just the general malaise that somehow Robert Mugabe seemed the more skillful statesman all 'other things' discounted. Even Ambassador Dell in his email to Barack Obama, which Wikileaks so helpfully provided the world with access to, described you as:

Tsvangarai is also a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him

He ended his scathing analysis with the summation: "Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country's recovery." You laughed it off but as The Guardian put it, those  "... cables were written by Americans, to be read by Americans and they form the undigested raw material of American policy." What should our policy have been then as we saw you raise your clenched fist for us to follow?

Then change almost came.

The 2008 elections failed to follow the normal course of elections. People vote. One person wins. One person loses. In our case, people voted and you and Robert Mugabe for all intents and purposes won and became the strange bedfellows that was ingloriously referred to as the Government of National Unity, though united you were not and governing was a side hobby to your principal pastime: fighting. Much has been written on how you could have handled an impossible situation better and I will not rehash it or even pretend how it must have been to work in a partnership with a partner who made every effort to pretend you were a nuisance that would go away if they closed their eyes and pretended hard that you did not exist.

But I will note that you spent those crucial years criss crossing the globe, meeting world leaders and making speeches from the podiums that stand at the centre stage of global politics. Unfortunately Mr Tsvangirai those podiums did not stand at the centre of Zimbabwean politics. You left a fractured party at home which you seem to have never tried to heal. You left voters to themselves and off you went on taxpayers money to beg for more money. You also spent those years embroiled in one scandal after the next. Someone was pregnant by you, another claimed to have married you and there were rumours of yet others. If you do not have the panache of the French, where Holland can be photographed on a scooter on the way from a night of pleasure with his mistress and still not only survive politically but be admired, I would have advised you to keep your laundry clean. Nothing riles a good Anglophone like the stench of a scandal in a politicians bedroom. Just ask Bill Clinton.

And there was more Mr Tsvangirai; the mansion, the perks, the money and grandstanding over what I called a flawed constitutional process. Mr Dell's words seemed to have become prophetic; you had become an albatross around our necks and as I listened to Freshlyground's Big Man, I thought of you: "Wear fancy clothes, drive big expensive cars...You do for you, just what you want to do.What's the solution? Material pollution!" Those suits fitted you quite well Mr Tsvangirai but perhaps they fitted you too well. No longer did we see the man who had raised his fist to the heavens in fury and promised change to the masses. No longer did we see any change at all. Instead we saw more of the same. A party riveted by fighting, an opposition that failed to present a united front in any sense of the word, we saw and heard fights between yourself and your deputies and we wept. How could you unite a polarized country when you failed to unite your own party? Perhaps when you met Angela Merkel you should have asked her how she united the opposition in Germany and swept into power. And perhaps asked her why she still refused to live in the Chancellors residence but remained in her modest home. There is power in symbols Mr Tsvangirai. You seem to have missed all the lessons.

Then change finally came.

But it wasn't the change you had promised Mr Tsvangirai. It was a change back to the way things were. A change that saw Robert Mugabe tell Grace to start redecorating because they were not moving out of State House any time soon. You lost the elections. Again. And those who had voted for you wept. And those who had believe in your promises wept. And those who had listened to you turned to you and preached to you what you had preached to us for so long and so consistently.

Change.

And you refused. You dug in your heels and refused. You blamed everyone from heaven's gate to the foundations of hell. Everyone except yourself. There was some brouhaha where people were beaten up in your party's headquarters. Yet more brouhaha saw those people suspended from your party for asking for a change in leadership. It has been a remarkable and spectacular failure of leadership Mr Tsvangirai. You failed to unite your party. You failed to lead it. And now that it was breaking apart you stood and looked surprised. Unfortunately Mr Tsvangirai, we are not. How can we trust you to lead us through the finer points of our country's great constitution when you seem not be able to agree on the broader points of your own party's constitution? What is change if it is not what you act? What is wisdom if you fail to learn tomorrow from today. What is leadership if you have failed to lead.

Bigger men have resigned over smaller things. Germany's President resigned over using his credit card while on holiday. What action do you propose for wasting the political capital you had gained and using it to beat Mr Mangoma to a bloody pulp? Bigger men have resigned over things distantly related to them. South Korea's Prime Minister today resigned over the ferry disaster that claimed the lives of at least 187 people. What action do you propose for drowning the dreams of millions of people Mr Tsvangirai?

Nelson Mandela stepped down to let those who followed him to continue his struggle for him. Mr Tsvangirai, follow his footsteps, gigantic though they must be for you. Resign and let us finally see the change you have promised to us for the better part of two decades.

Africa needs Great Men not Big Men.

Yours,

Bongani Ncube-Zikhali
A concerned Zimbabwean citizen

On Your Knees Myth! Whore of Zion

Taken from scenes of my life. To prove a point. [Translation: heavy doses of irony]

It's Paris. The sun has long set, the stars are struggling to make themselves seen through a veil of fog so persistent you hardly notice it's there except when you see the pollution warnings in one of the daily's. Add that to the dazzling gaze of the lights and hardly any stars can be seen at all. Not that you are looking for them. You are tired. So tired. You woke up before dawn to catch the train to school. It's now almost midnight and you are only leaving work. You are running to catch the train home. Everyone seems to be running. Running to work the night shift. Running to relieve the baby sitter. Running to keep ahead of the looming tide of bankruptcy. Running past the white women sitting by the sides of the Metro stations with plastic coffee cups in one hand extended in a plea for anything to eat. Running past the dignified old blue eyed lady sitting wrapped in aluminium foil to keep her warm from the assault Winter will launch all throughout the night. You are all running so fast you can't even smell the dank urine that permeates some of the seedier Metro stations like the breath of a dead demon forgotten in the darker reaches of hell.

You feel like God. Standing on the edge of the mountain, you look down at the city cupped in the warm embrace of two oceans. She is beautiful. Beautiful in a way that you had never expected it would be. No wonder those white men had come here to fight wars for her land. The air is crisp and fresh against your face, the delicate scent of the mountain flowers adding to that heady feeling you have when you stand at great heights. You can see the Victoria and Albert Waterfront where you gazed at gadgets and fashion too expensive to even think about. Way on the other side is Carlton Beach with its white sand laid out like the carpet some sea god first steps on as they make their way onto land, make their way into Cape Town. Between here and there is a hodge podge of buildings, of homes of townships, alive in only the way South Africa is alive, only the way South Africa can dance for joy at Mandela's funeral. Only the way happiness makes it alive.

"It is the West!! It is the West!!!" He cries. His arms flap around him like the wings on a chicken, too stupid to know that they cannot fly. The West has done this. The West hates us. The West is evil incarnate, the West and its people the Whites. You look at him, half listening as you stare outside the glazed windows at the streets carpeted in purple blossoms, the Jacaranda's are in bloom again and Harare is as beautiful as a virgin awaiting her husband on her wedding night. But then again everything in this country is beautiful you think. From the Falls in the West that made Livingston stare in wonder and angels forget their hymns of praise. All the way to the East where mountains reach for heaven like fingers reaching up to scratch the underbelly of heaven. A land that is yours, a land that you call home. You turn your eye back to him. You feel like screaming at him:
Nothing is simple you fool. Half the problems you are screaming about are caused by you and your idiotic party.
Half the horrors you have listed come from the fact that there are not two brain cells to rub together to form the spark of an idea between the lot of you.
The remaining half of them because you never listen do you? When they told you devalue your currency or risk hyperinflation what did you choose? Print more money. When they told you invest in repairing energy infrastructure or risk power shortages what did you choose? Rural Electrification Programme. When they told you don't chase out skilled Farmers or risk a ruined agricultural sector what did you choose?
You don't even bother to answer the question.

This is the West you think as the bus drives along the highway. This is Merry Old England, the great colonizer who went through the world and arrogantly made it bow to her Queen, or King depending in which era you decided to pop out of your mothers womb. (Yes you Britannia who deigned to think herself superior to almost every country on earth, let us forget about the thousand or so years you were colonised by Rome. Not even Italy. Just Rome)
You look for the tell tale signs of superiority. Surely there somewhere amongst the sheep and cows grazing in the meadows of the Midlands there must be gremlins busy at work trying to trample all down. But all you can see are cows and sheep. Once or twice you see an old woman tottering on her stroller on her way to the grocery shop round the corner. Families walk through the greenland on their way to a picnic or church, heaven knows which of the two are holier persuasions. All you see is people where you had expected to see towering machines of war waiting to rain down fire and oppression, you press your face puzzled to the glass, its bitter coldness waking you up from your reverie just as the white hostess comes to your seat to ask if you want something to drink, "Sir" she adds in tones as respectful as if she was addressing a person who hadn't needed to save up for six months for this trip. You smile and decline. You wish you could ask her where they are hiding the guns aimed at Zimbabwe 24/7. Then you realise she probably doesn't even know how to spell Zimbabwe. Nor does she care.

They are a living, breathing mass. A swarming, convoluted being spread out over so many miles yet one. They are an angry being. An avenging thing. They scream and they shout, their rage as apparent to you, as potent as scorpions and just as lethal. No to Gays! No to Homosexuality! Gay Wedding is an Abomination! Everyone should be Born to a Man and A Woman! The Eiffel Tower stands as a silent witness to their anger. Is it conducting their anger straight to God? Can he hear them and reach down to stretch a finger to bless them all?
Yes?
Perhaps not.
It starts drizzling on them, just as they have drizzled on your illusions of them. Back home they are known as they pedarasts, the immoral West come to corrupt the pure African and his pure ways (forget the killing of twins at birth tradition, or the killing of Albino's for black magic, forget that Christianity is a Western import as well) yet here they are screaming blue murder at a government that is trying to legalize what is legal in South Africa. Something is wrong here you think. Something is very wrong. But you remember the headline about the gay couple who were attacked a few weeks ago in the centre of Paris for holding hands and you realise that in the end, nothing is as what it seems.

You dream you are in high school again. Mr Tshili using his wooden ruler to mark off the angles of the triangles he is drawing on the blackboard. The swift accuracy of his hand as it describes arcs with the compass and then joins them with the ruler is nothing less than witchcraft. You watch fascinated as you listen to his explanation, his voice as swift as the path of the chalk he holds in his hands. In your dreams you note his voice, it's perfectly accented tones rising and falling in the silent class of students. Discipline is taken for granted here. No children throwing paper at each other, no one dares to pull out a phone in class, no one even dreams of school shooters. 98%. That's the literacy rate in Zimbabwe your dreaming self remembers. And it starts in classes like this. Classes littered all over the country, in beautiful private schools and underneath trees, in low density government schools and township schools like the one you are in: all filled with hard working men and women imparting their knowledge and skill as selflessly as they can, considering. No wonder certain Austrailian Universities consider a ZIMSEC D as equivalent to a Cambridge C. You smile smugly to your self satisfied self in your dream. That will teach those Western idiots who ask you were you learnt to speak such good english as if schools are as foreign a concept as beggars to the streets of Paris.
Oops.

"People are people. I see very little difference between Romans, Greeks, Carthaginians, Syrians, or any other you care to name..." - Julius Caesar in The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough

"The problem with blaming the West for ALL our problems is the subtle implication that we are not clever enough to create problems of our own let alone solutions" - Bongani Ncube-Zikhali

The Emperors have no clothes!!!

One of the defining moments in my relatively short life was picking up a book called ‘The First Man in Rome’ by Colleen McCullough at the Bulawayo Public Library, that hallowed place where I went every weekend to soak up the masters of literature. In those books I came across the political greats such as Gaius Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Marius. Men whose actions both good and bad shaped the rise of what is possibly the greatest Empire mankind has ever known, Rome.

Which perhaps would go far in explaining my utter disgust, my complete revulsion, my horror, the stupefaction that befell me as I read this headline: “Zimbabwe's latest way to stop HIV: Force women to have fewer baths and shave off their hair to make them less attractive”. My mind rushed for some explanation to such a startlingly stupid headline, perhaps it’s some comedian or stupid TV presenter running their mouth off. But alas. Dear reader, these words were uttered by none other than a member of the Senate of the Republic of Zimbabwe. The Senate!!! The halls of highest legislative body in the land, the halls that bear the same name that the Roman Empire gave to their own decision making body, the halls that are to be the fount of the will of the people, the laws of the land, the dignity and gravitas of the State; The halls populated by such idiots.

I am over reacting I hear you say? How can I honestly take one measly line, probably taken out of context and run my mouth off? The problem this is not the first time. A few years ago, another Senator announced in all innocence that scientists should drop whatever it is that they were wasting time with and invent a drug that stops men having sex with prostitutes, and in case we were people who believed in second chances she followed that comment up with a speech imploring Parliament to distribute sex toys in prisons to stop prisoners abusing each other. Or how about last week’s comment from the Vice President of the country that her husband regularly slept away from their marriage home but that like a good wife who knows she cannot tame the bull, she had stayed. The venue for these remarks was none other than the memorial service of said late husband.

This is just a choice selection of quotes from some of the most powerful people in that country of mine. I would add more but unfortunately there are laws in place that would make it a crime (which in and of itself is saying something). These are the people who lead us, these are the people we expect to wake up every morning and chart the course the future of our national pride, our heritage, our collective nationhood along the stormy seas of global politics. These are the people who, God forbid, we expect to guide us should World War III suddenly break out and threaten the very existence of the human species. These are the people we put our faith and trust in, who we invest with the highest privileges our country can bestow and expect to damn well work their hardest to show for it. And this is what they say.

“MDC-T Member of Parliament, Thabitha Khumalo, said that women should not fight their husbands’ girlfriends, saying this could reduce the spread of infections.” 

Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo: “(South Africans) are dirty. In fact they are filthy and recklessly uncouth”. 

Dr Joseph Made, the Minister of Agriculture who famously predicted a bumper harvest months before one of Zimbabweans biggest droughts presenting a report to parliament outlining the reasons for his oversight: “Our investigations have shown that a monkey caused damage to a transformer, thereby sabotaging our preparations for the coming season”.

Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of Justice, on dismissing charges brought against the Zimbabwean government: “"The ICC is there for serious crimes against humanity - not ordinary crime, which is what these exiles [and the South African High Court is] trying to suggest."

Google is my friend. Do not think I had to go far to get these quotes, nor that they represent the worst. Like I said before, some quotes would get me arrested so I leave the googling to you. And perhaps let us judge them by their actions and not their words? Where do you want to begin? The bankruptcy and cessation of operations that Air Zimbabwe announced early this year? Or perhaps the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authorities admission that power cuts of up to 9 hours per day in urban centres would continue for at least the next five years. Should we consider the famous incident where Anna Tibaijuka, a United Nations special envoy was fêted like royalty in Harare and declared to be a champion of the African Renaissance…until the day she issued a damning report that stated the governments’ ‘Operation Murambatsvina’ violated both local and international law and deprived a large number of Zimbabweans of their basic human rights.

“Operation Restore Order, while purporting to target illegal dwellings and structures and to clamp down on alleged illicit activities, was carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering, and, in repeated cases, with disregard to several provisions of national and international legal frameworks” – United Nations Executive Summary, 2005

There is a flag fluttering above the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, another one stands proud above the Houses of Parliament and Senate and thousands more are scattered around the country and our embassies all over the world. These flags represent me, they represent the dreams and aspirations my ancestors had for me as they gazed at the African heavens centuries ago, they represent the blood of untold thousands who gave their lives fighting the fight of freedom, they represent the hope and the vision of a country born out of the ashes of a repressive regime that was Ian Smith’s government and the Mfecane that Shaka Zulu waged against my kingdom. Perhaps that flag will never fly as proudly as the purple robes of the Senators of the Roman Empire but our dreams are just as important to me, as precious and as deserving the utmost effort to make them a reality.

So I shall not hesitate in shouting that the so-called Emperors who run off their mouths calling for women to stop bathing or who strip any segment of the Zimbabwean population of their rights to liberty, to truth and to justice, that these men and women have no clothes and that they shame the hallowed halls of power of my land. They rule in the name of millions of Zimbabweans, what power we have given them, we can take away. Do not forget that Senator Morgan Femai.

Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

What would you die for?

What would you die for? It’s a question not many people seem to ask themselves, or at least not out loud. Most people are so concerned with the business of living that even the thought of contemplating their death seems blasphemous. But it is folly in my view; each and everyone one of us is going to die at some point or another and the manner of that death, its circumstances and its meanings should give one pause to ponder.

The Arab Spring has been an example of an entire region declaring that they would die for their countries. Men, woman and children in Egypt, refused to back down even as death stared at them in the form or tanks ranged round Tahrir square. Libyans poured into the streets even as gunshots hailed from the sky and tanks rumbled onto the horizon. Yemenites, Syrians, Jordanians and Palestinians have all refused to bow down to oppression and faced even deadlier oppression with nothing but their staunch resilience. Countless people have died in the Arab Spring, dead bodies dragged off the streets into the arms of their wailing widows, mothers and children. Men, women and children who have left this coil with nothing but the assurance that their deaths had a meaning.

It seems nothing in this world came about without the determined sacrifice of ordinary humans who died for that cause. The United States of America honours Nathan Hale, the twenty one year old who is famously said to have uttered, as the British were about to execute him, that the only regret he had was that he had “but one life to give to this country”. But we know there are hundreds of thousands more who died on the fields of battle; some unknown soldiers whose names have been swept away by the sands of time but whose contributions so lifted the America that we see today to the vaulted heights it occupies.

Forty thousand people died in one year during the Reign of Terror that swept in on the coattails of the French Revolution. If you do the maths that amounts to almost a hundred and ten people per day being guillotined for their belief in the cause of freedom. Marianne, the national emblem of France is often pictured stepping over dead bodies as she leads the revolutionaries to liberty. She herself is dishevelled, her breasts exposed but nothing seems to quench the fire in her veins to free her people or die trying. Today the peoples of the French republic are symbols of liberty and equality in Western Europe even thought their ancestors were the Gauls the Romans traded as slaves.

And sometimes one does not have to die for a cause but put oneself so near death that all seems hopeless but yet refuse to budge because one believes. Belief is nothing in this world, it is has neither value, nor does it give any assurance in the face of all evidence that points to the contrary. But our history is littered with men and women who faced death rather than give up their beliefs.

A little island called the British Isles has a queen who is forever immortalized for this. Elizabeth I, after whom the current Elizabeth is named, ruled England at a time when it was a dwarf in the face of the European continental powers. Faced with imminent attack from Spain, then a naval super power, Elizabeth refused the advice of those around her to surrender and declared she would rather die than see her kingdom overtaken. She even rode to Essex to deliver what is now an immortal speech to her soldiers before they engaged in battle:

“My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourself to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people ... I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.”

Britain survived the war with Spain and went on to create an empire as had never been seen since the times of the Romans.

Five hundred years ago, a German monk named Martin Luther was appalled by teachings that were emanating from the Holy See in Rome. He decided that to stay silent was a fate worse than death and nailed ninety five theses’ that accused the Pope, at that time the most powerful man in the world, of misleading Christendom (what Europe was formely known as under the rule of the Vatican). What began as a simple pointing out of errors turned into a showdown between a simple peasant and the entire machinery of the Catholic Church. Luther was excommunicated, and the Holy See issued a bull for his excommunication, assuring anyone who killed him that they would receive eternal reward in heaven. Luther was advised time and time again to take back his accusations, and at one point was dragged to a city called Worms to face the Emperor of Germany who was under pressure from the Pope to kill the pernicious little monk. He was given the choice to recant his accusations and be set free, or face the full punishment of the Catholic Church delivered through the German Empire. He replied to the Emperor:

“…my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.”

These men and women come up time and time again throughout history, men like Luther who almost single-handedly brought the temporal reign of the Catholic Church to an end, people like Nelson Mandela who vowed they would rather be imprisoned rather than sell their souls to the oppressor. The Gandhi’s of this world who are responsible for starting the liberation movements in two different countries on two different continents. Men and women who faced against the most terrible odds, en masse or in private, and declared that to die was a better option than to live another day deprived of freedom and dignity.

Which brings me to the cause of all this reflection. A decade ago, myself and my countrymen stood by as white farmers were beaten, tortured and murdered in an orgy of violence that made international headlines. I will remember to this day that I hardly ever heard anyone willing to stand up on their behalf, to declare that an injustice was being committed in the name of justice. The politicians decried the violence, deplored the murders in statements that appeared on televisions around the country but no one stood up and said they would die to protect their fellow human beings. Farms were invaded and even some of our relatives benefited from the reform programme even as their workers wiped the blood of the previous owners of the walls of the newly occupied farm houses. Did we fail them? I tend to think that we did, and our brothers on the northern side of the continent would be ashamed on our behalf.

So in this dead of night, I ask myself what would I die for, and I pray and hope that when the time comes, I shall stand up and face the gates of death with the pride of having given my life up for a cause.

"I am proud of my son, although I am in mourning, and I am sad, but thanks to God, Mohammed lives, he didn't die," she says resolutely. "He lives on, his name lives on. I am proud of what happened in Tunis, I am proud that he is known throughout the Arab world." – The mother of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian youth who burnt himself alive and sparked a revolution.