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

We Told You So: Why MDC lost the Zimbabwean Elections

Chris Nqoe is back! Nkosinqobile Dube (Chris Nqo) is a Zimbabwean Law graduate and also the Editor in Chief of dECK Magazine in Bulawayo. He has also been a speaker at Global Changemakers workshops as well as panels such as Al-Jazeera's The Stream, Channel Zim & Zimbabwean Radio.

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This is the point where I'd stick my tongue out and laugh till my ribs crack. Doing all that and still managing to utter the words: "I told you so".

I would be shouting those words at the top of my voice. That's if the fate of an entire country did not depend on this electoral outcome. I'd be saying that too, if the hopes, plans and dreams of millions of Zimbabweans had not been dashed by the X's of just under 3.4 million of their countrymen

But what exactly did me, Bongani and a few other analysts tell you would happen or not happen? We told you to Vote No to the draft constitution.[Click here for Chris' guest blog & here for mine].

That it was an imperfect compromise that would return to haunt Zimbabwe. And on the first days of howling, cold and bitter August, those words returned to haunt our lives.

My kindergarten self is again tempted to return to the What If mode. What if Zimbabwe had heeded the call of progressive minds and voted No? What if Zimbabweans had shown that the will of the people need not be predetermined by the positions set by political parties? What If Zimbabweans, for once in their independent lifetime took charge of their fate and demanded what they really want?

What if, what if, what if? What if we didn't answer the above questions? And instead focused on what next?

So many questions. However, in order for us to plan ahead, we need to understand where we got it wrong. For my fellow countrymen, the reality is starting to dawn on them, the future is uncertain. You see, in politics, there always has to be a plan. With a plan there must be an end goal and to get there requires strategy. Good strategy.

Now, let's look at the present state of affairs in Zimbabwe, who appears to have had a good plan and the perfect strategy to achieve their goal?

Yes, you're with me. Let's all say this at once: ZANU-PF.

And it all began in December 2012 at the ZanuPF Congress. They started planning. Frustrated by the constant checks and balances from their partners in the GNU, the revolutionary party decided they had had enough. The GNU was always going to conclude and elections would be held.

The first point in the ZanuPF plan was to achieve the seemingly impossible. Register one million new voters. The analysts laughed it off, their parties in the GNU gave it scant attention. ZanuPF got to work.

From January 2013 they have been working at mobilising their structures for Voter Registration, the referendum & subsequently, elections. The end goal was elections. As you read this you're aware of the Zimbabwe Election results of the year 2013. [Editors’ Note, if you are not, check out their Wikipedia page here]

Let's say it all again, who won? ZanuPF!

Alas I have jumped the gun. For all this to have taken place, so many processes had to kick it off.

Zimbabwe went to a referendum in March, at the behest of the major parties in the GNU. They had come up with a document, in which they all called for Zimbabwe to endorse. The COPAC Draft Constitution went to a popular referendum and was voted for overwhelmingly. I called the Draft Constitution a risky compromise, in thisblog post. Laid down the principles on why Zimbabwe should #VoteNo.

But we were lone voices in the wilderness of Yes choruses. Legal scholars, NGO's, Political analysts, the MDC-T, ZANU-PF and MDC-N all called upon Zimbabweans to #VoteYes. The MDC's all called for a vote Yes anticipating a victory in the upcoming elections, basing it on blind hope and belief that Zimbabwean would vote out ZANU-PF. ZANU-PF called for a Yes vote to get rid of the GNU and win the elections based on a popular mandate.

Perhaps what is most striking in August 2013 is how all the above players, are now singing from different hymn books. The discord is humorous for us, the so called progressive minds.

The conductor of this choir is now ZANU-PF. The pitch of voices has shifted. Whereas back in March they were heralding the dawn of a new era, with a New Constitution, the mood is one of sombre realisation. "We were cheated".

ZANU-PF is enjoying the chorus of discontent. For them, the pieces have all fallen into place.

No. You were not cheated. You cheated yourselves. You went into a game, without a strategy and without a plan. ZanuPF had one. Get more people to register to vote, #VoteYes for the Draft Constitution so as to end this power sharing agreement, call for elections and mobilise people to vote overwhelmingly for us. This has all been achieved. Perfectly so. It was all part of the bigger plan to get back into total control. ZANU-PF got here by getting the MDC's to endorse their own demise.

What if Zimbabwe had voted No? What if the new constitution had been rejected by progressive Zimbabweans who saw the bigger picture? What if we had all realised that by being told to Vote Yes, we were endorsing the beginning of the end?

What if that realisation can't help us now?

Zimbabweans Voted Yes to the new constitution because the dominant political parties told them to vote Yes. We did not bother to question the motive, ideals and principles behind this supreme law.

Fast forward to August 2013. The signs point to a ZANU-PF victory, the political party that called on Zimbabweans to endorse the unity shown by its partners in the GNU and Vote Yes. On the dawn of their victory, whispers have emerged that they are itching to correct the mistake of the New Constitution.

In simple terms ZANU-PF first goal in parliament and in power will be to amend the Constitution they endorsed.

What if we had put a bump to the constitution, allowed more time for fair voter registration, for a voters roll audit and to go into fair elections prepared? What if we had voted No? Followed our collective conscience as Zimbabweans, knowing what's best for our country and safe guarding the pillars of democracy.

What if we had known that politicians look after their interests first? Interrogated why they wanted us to Vote Yes to a draft constitution that did not reflect the true will of Zimbabweans.

We never did all those things. Like the MDC's we followed the ZANU-PF lead and were blindly led to a bleak and uncertain future. All because we never questioned and realised that power lay in us Zimbabweans saying No.

But again, we told you so. What if you had listened?

Follow @ChrisNqoe on Twitter

I Am Trayvon Martin

An African American student who is a friend of a friend of mine wrote on his Facebook wall that he was shocked by the Trayvon Martin verdict (see my previous blog here). Someone responded:

"Don't take this to heart. You are a very smart, very talented, handsome guy, don't let yourself be dragged into this mentality. You are not going to be shot- you carry yourself well, speak well, walk and dress well. Martin was not killed because of the color of his skin, he was killed because he got into a very violent altercation with an armed man...Martin, RIP, had pictures of marihuana (sic) in his cellphone, texts about buying a gun illegally, and lots of racist profanity against white Americans. This was not about race. I'm telling you because you are new to this country and while its true that there is racism out there, this case wasn't it....You're a smart, educated, good looking guy. Believe me, you're not Martin."

There is something fundamentally sad, something fundamentally wrong about this. Something that struck me to the core with an anger that felt almost powerless against such passive discrimination. It is a discrimination so silent, so cloaked in politeness you almost get hoodwinked by its seeming logic and tell yourself that all is well. But then the questions hits you: are people who carry images of marijuana in their phones supposed to be shot? Should we be shot for the content of our Whatsapp messages? Once those questions start coming in, the floodgates open: am I supposed to be safe because of the way I dress? If I dress like a "thug", should I be shot on sight? Is what a wear, an indicator of who I am? Are the lives of those who buy their clothes from Fifth Avenue in New York, Sandton City in Johannesburg or Sam Levy Village in Harare more valuable than those whose clothes are from the corner thrift shop?

"You are not going to be shot - you carry yourself well, speak well, walk and dress well...." Whites can carry and talk whichever way they want to but if a black person carries himself well, then he is safe. What does this imply for those who don't? Let's not fool ourselves. This is about race. This is about discrimination, about the snap judgements of those who see the world as simply black and white, good and bad, they who subscribe to Cersei Lannister's motto: "Everyone who isn't us is an enemy". Certainly George Zimmerman revealed as much in his call to Emergency Services, "...they always get away", he complained. Who is 'they' we might ask?

I talk well. I like to think I dress well and I carry myself well. I learn at one of Europe's best schools, so supposedly I am safe right? Wrong. I have been a Trayvon Martin so many times it hurts. In Algeria where I would be the only one made to get off the bus and unpack my baggage to be inspected at police roadblocks. One officer went so far as to taste my toothpaste. The fact that I was the only black on the bus does not seem that much of a coincidence. In university where my professors would call me "l'africain" instead of ever trying to learn my proper name.

In Germany where I was the only black on a flight filled with Europeans and Arabs, where I was pulled out of the queue at boarding and put in a little room and interrogated, my hand luggage searched, my laptop scanned and my passport stamps and visa's examined in great detail.

In South Africa where I was helping my cousin shop for her wedding dress and the white owners of the shop completely ignored us for twenty minutes but went running to a white couple who had just come in to ask the price of a necklace. At the South African Post Office where the white manager told me I was "a problem" and that I should go back home instead of trying to open a bank account with my "fake" passport.

But closest to home, the day I was approached by one of our white neighbours who lived in the complex where my parents live. In all my innocence, dressed well, speaking well, carrying myself well, she approached me and asked me what I was looking for there. Who cares that I had unlocked the gate with my security code, that I had actually had a conversation with her a few months earlier when I happened to meet her in the garden; no, no one cares. To her I was suspicious just for being there. I didn't belong there.

I didn't belong there in much the same way Trayvon Martin did not belong there that fateful evening. I looked strange for being as normal as I could possibly be, in much the same way Trayvon Martin looked strange for walking home slowly from the shops talking on his phone to his friend. I was guilty of something in much the same way Trayvon Martin was guilty of carrying images of marijuanna on his phone. Something just had to be wrong. Something just had to not click. So she came up to me and asked me what I was doing there.

We are all Trayvon Martin's. We are all judged and told we do not belong every time we walk into a shop and security starts surreptitiously following us around. Every time one of us gets shot for being afraid of the big Hispanic man following him in the dark night. Which one of us would not stand their ground? Trayvon Martin did. And George Zimmerman decided he didn't belong not only in that neighbourhood. But on this earth. And the jury agreed.

RIP Trayvon Martin.

"What is really injured, bruised, if you will, is the psyche of our national population. We are all harmed. We are all belittled, and we give to the rest of the world more ammunition to sneer at us." - Maya Angelou speaking on the Trayvon Martin verdict.

If I could, I wouldn’t: Five reasons I wouldn’t vote for the Draft Constitution

We the People of Zimbabwe...

It begins with so much promise, so much hope but somewhere along the way it teeters horribly towards the edge before catching itself in its skirts and tumbling into an oblivion created by its own self contradictions. The Zimbabwean ‘Final Draft’ Constitution which has taken several years and an obscenely large amount of money to create fails to live up to the task that its creators and the people of Zimbabwe had set upon it. Its genesis was mired in controversy and this less than auspicious birth is reflected in its one hundred and seventy two pages.

As a Zimbabwean living in the diaspora I have also been alarmed by the complete lack of information surrounding the document. Many of my friends had never seen the document let alone read it. Many did not know what the fundamental differences between it and the Lancaster House Constitution it was replacing were and yet more did not have the slightest inkling of an idea what its implications were.

So out of the infinite goodness of my heart, I have summarized my top five biggest gripes with the ‘Final Draft’ Constitution. Comment is free so let’s talk about this document that is supposed to dictate the direction that the Zimbabwean sovereign experiment will take.

1.       Process, process, process

My first issue with the document itself has nothing to do with the document itself but the  way it was crafted. For those of you who follow Zimbabwean events, the Zimbabwean government spent millions of dollars reaching out to the Zimbabwean populace, trying to get their views on what they wanted in a new Constitution. At the end of all this information gathering what then happened? The two principal political parties bickered for months on end, grandstanding and posing, until they finally came up with a compromise ridden version that suited their needs.

Which begs the point, why ask the opinion of Zimbabweans if they opinion was not going to be of paramount concern ahead of the interests of Political Party X vs Political Party Y. Where were the civic organisations, the human rights groups, the universities, the Lawyers and the Intellectuals during the bickering phase? Where were the people of Zimbabwe? Oh yes, that’s right, their voice didn’t count did it.

2.      Executive President

The ‘Final Draft’ Constitution retains the post of Executive President amongst other things that should have been thrown out with the bathwater (more of that soon). The President is described as “the Head of State and Government”.

Most countries like the United Kingdom and Germany separate the two functions, for example David Cameron is the head of government and Elizabeth II is the head of state, François Holland is the Head of State and Jean-Marc Ayrault is the Head of Government. The reason in most cases is to split power and avoid vesting it in the arms of one person. In a country like the United States of America which combines the two, a complicated system of checks and balances is put in place to counteract the resulting concentration of power. Failure to do that means one person elects all Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Ambassadors, Chiefs, Judges of the Supreme and Constitutional Court, Commissioners of all entities whose function is to provide oversight of the Presidency…. The problem should be apparent.

3.      Retained too much of what was bad about Lancaster

In this section I include: an unlimited number of Ministries (Zimbabwe has almost double (40) the amount of Ministries than South African(25) despite having an economy a tenth of the size [USD550 billion versus USD6 billion], incidentally Switzerland has 7 Ministers), a Senate (again a matter of size), reserved seats in Senate for Chiefs (really? Why?), an amazing ability to grant a right then add a ‘but…’ several chapters down the line. A glaring example is the constitution’s lengthy declaration that men and women are created equal then several chapters later prohibit execution of female criminals under any circumstances (think about it carefully: a man could kill one person and be executed, a woman could kill an entire village of children and receive nothing worse than jail time). Others include property rights which are granted then curtailed for foreigners/descendants of foreigners whose land was “redistributed” (this also after a lengthy description that all citizens of Zimbabwe are equal whether by birth or descent) or in the case of the class of land identified as Agricultural Land which can be seized by the Government with no notice at all (contradicting a previous article), not compensation (contradicting another article to respect International Law [SADC law obligates a government to compensate the owner of the property for the value of the land]), and removing the possibility of the owner approaching the courts (which contradicts the article on the inviolability and supremacy of the courts).  

4.      Too much of what was talked about by Zimbabweans is missing

In this list I will include: multiple citizenship, voting rights for Zimbabweans living outside of the borders of Zimbabwe, retroactive application of some of the provisions of the Constitution (a controversial one I admit but still,,,we wanted it, we should have gotten it), protection or declaration of any sorts of LGBT rights (the writers decided to skip the issue entirely), an attempt (even a weak one) at decentralization of power from the centre….

5.     A compromised document no matter what you call it is a compromised document

It reflects that in its lack of defining anything. The “Yes…but” nature of it all. Government is tasked with protecting freedoms, “within the means available to it” (what are those means? Who decides what’s reasonable, what is sacrosanct and can’t be touched). At the end of the day it is a lawyer’s paradise, you can argue your way out of anything by referring to another chapter within its pages and that’s exactly the problem with long constitutions, especially long bargained ones. It is a dictator’s dream, you get to choose who overlooks your work and Parliament is given the side kick role of rubber stamping Executive Orders. At the end of the day, and most frightening of all, it is a citizen’s nightmare and that’s why I would vote NO, if I had the means to vote this coming Saturday.  

You should too. 

The Final Draft Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe

As part of my civic duty as outlined in Chapter 1, Section 7 subsection (c) of the Draft Constitution, I am posting the "Final Draft Constitution" of the Republic of Zimbabwe for the consumption of my fellow citizens.

This act no way implies that I agree, endorse or support this draft in any way or form. I am simply acting in the interests of my fellow citizens reaching an informed decision by themselves and reaching a decision on whether to support this document or not.

I will post a summary of my thoughts on the document soon.

Click here to download the document as a Microsoft Word document.

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

If Mark Zuckerburg was Zimbabwean

Mark Zuckerberg! This is an open letter to you, and if by some miracle someone knows someone who knows someone who knows you (six degrees of separation remember!) then I pray they pass it along the social networking chain till it lands on your Facebook Homepage.

Ever since I watched the movie, The Social Network, I’ve envied you. Green is a colour I hate but I have to confess my heart turns a sickening shade of green when you are mentioned anywhere in my hearing. I mean you and I share so much and yet we are worlds apart. We both apparently have a fascination with technology and people, we both studied Computer Science, though I can smugly say I actually finished my course whereas you didn’t. But of course to be fair, I have to mention that you are orders of magnitude richer than I am at the present moment. But in order that I may sleep at night and just to console myself, I wonder from time to time what would have happened if you and I had swapped places. Specifically where you would be had you been born in Zimbabwe all those years ago.

You see Mark, your choice of birthplace has quite a lot to do with your success. I found myself being awarded a Birth Certificate crowned with the National Crest of Zimbabwe, whilst you on the other side of the planet were born to the star spangled banner and from there on your life was on a roll. Now imagine for a moment, Mark, what would have happened had you been born here? Well first of all let me tell you, the likelihood of you having a first name that was actually a verb or an adjective would be infinitely higher. Probably you might have been called Prosper Zuckerberg, Brilliant Zuckerberg, or maybe even Delight Zuckerberg. You see, people in my country have this amazing and as yet unexplained predilection for getting inspiration for their children’s names within the pages of dictionaries. But that I suppose is me making mountains out of molehills. Your face would still look good on the cover of Time Magazine whether your name was Mark or Lovemore.

Priority Zuckerberg just doesn't have the same ring to it does it?

But that begs the question would you have made it to the cover of Time in the first place? Let us see. If you were Zimbabwean you probably would have followed basically the same path your life took in the first two decades of your life: a rather pleasant life (in the beginning), a strong academic background & your parents encouraging you to take up Sciences or Engineering courses at the University of Zimbabwe. But there I think you would hit your first barrier. Let me put it this way; try telling a Zimbabwean parent that you are dropping out of University to start a website and they will either (a) Smack you with a sjambok till you can’t walk and you forget any notion of dropping out (b) Call a meeting of your extended family and take you out to your rural village to consult with the ancestors as to why you were straying (c) Take you to a prayer meeting at Word of Life International to chase the demons out of you. You see it’s not easy being a Zimbabwean. Now let’s for a moment assume that you were made of stern stuff Mark and you got through all those obstacles and still quit school, after all the movie made it seem even the faculty of Harvard couldn’t take you down.

Ok, so now you have started what would become Facebook in the garage of your best friends’ parents. You are now spending hours coding away and busily creating the codebase that will hopefully become what Facebook is today. There you are, you’ve just created the function that dynamically refreshes status updates in real-time on both the sever and connected clients. You sit flush with success then wham!! The electricity goes. You see in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority has a very liberal definition of what the verb ‘supply’ actually means. We have suffered rolling blackuts in all major centres for the best part of a decade. And there goes the 800 lines of code that you spent six weeks creating. I can hear your Zimbabwean alter ego screaming in frustration from this universe. Sigh.

The people at ZESA don't quite understand what the verb 'supply' means....

But again, let’s assume you are made of metal Mark. You go on to create a function that saves all your work as you create it so that power cuts don’t really bother you. And when push comes to shove, you use the car battery of your mom’s Datsun to power your laptop. Facebook is growing, but much more slowly than it did at Harvard because let’s face it, Zimbabweans are not exactly the most connected people in the world. When the only computer with internet connection is a paid for one at the local internet café, it is far much easier not to get addicted to social networking sites. But you are a genius Mark and you figure out that launching Facebook on mobile is going to get you further than it would on the PC. Off you go to code a further 10 million lines of code for the different mobile platforms and you present your product to the country. Users are excited and Facebook seems to be taking off…but there is a slight problem. You see Mark, in Zimbabwe, cellphone data coverage is still more of an art that it is an exact science. Even standing next to a base station, with your phone fully charged and showing full signal bars, Opera Mini will still tell you that there is no data connection, please try later. Yes that scream you hear is the sound of Zimbabwean Mark, clinging to his sanity by a thread.

But Mark, I have faith in you. You are a genius. After all, why else would they name you Person of the Year? You figure a way round it by somehow hacking into Econet’s, Telecel’s and Net-One’s servers and fixing what seems to have stumped all the engineers who currently work there. Facebook takes off and is a roaring success, spreading from University to University like wildfire. The South Africans come and invest US$ 20 million dollars and before you know it, you are installing servers in basements all over Harare and Bulawayo. Then one day a ZESA power surge destroys them all! Okay let’s be kind and assume that would never happen. Facebook is growing in leaps and bounds; you appear on the cover of the Harare Herald as the man about to change the face of computing forever. You sit in your mansion in Borrowdale Brooke, calmly contemplating your bright future, when you hear an ominous knocking at your solid mahogany door imported from Lebanon (you see if you were Zimbabwean you would feel the need to include such details in your daily conversation).

The door opens to reveal a trio of men in black Saville Row suits and Oakley sunglasses. When they leave three hours later, you are left staring at the document that as they, painstakingly, explained gives them the legal right to sift through all the user date in every single one of your servers for information that could compromise the security of the Zimbabwean Republic. Yes Mark, if you thought the United States Senate was being difficult on you for not protecting your user’s data, you have not met the Zimbabwean government who assume they own all your user’s data. Sigh. But again, you show yourself to be a man of integrity and morals and you begin what becomes a titanic battle between your company and the Zimbabwean government at the African Union’s Human Rights Commission. Let’s assume the African Union is full of amazing individuals who protect the rights of all Africans and you win your case. Bazinga! But seriously just for the sake of it, let’s just assume you win and Facebook shrugs off the lawsuit and you set your sights on the stars.

Oh Mark. I wish I could tell you it ends well. Your Zimbabwean alter-ego has so far shown resilience in the face of power cuts, ingenuity in the face of poor services, moral uprightness in the face of the Secret Police. Surely this story ends happily? Well, there is the slight problem of that pesky last name of yours. Zuckerberg. It’s not Zimbabwean enough. I know, I know, you were born in Zimbabwe but so were a few thousand white farmers who got chased off their farms. The day will come when your company is served with papers from the Ministry of Indigenization, notifying you that the Zimbabwean government is taking over 51% of your shares for the nominal price of US$2.50. This spooks all your investors who immediately abandon ship and next thing Google and Yahoo! make a joint buyout which the Zimbabean government, as the controlling party in your company, approves. Facebook is ‘restructured’ as a feature of Yahoo! Mail and after a few months, is quietly shelved into oblivion by Yahoo!

The new indigenized Facebook logo
(c) Ministry of Ingenization (Yes we have a Ministry called that!)

Which leaves you where dear Mark/Priority/GodKnows Zuckerberg? There there. Maybe you will have the sense to move to South Africa and start Twitter? You see Mark, I am on your side, this entire article notwithstanding. So whenever you have a bad day Mark, read this article slowly and carefully, and thank all your ancestors who somehow conspired to make sure you were born as far away from Zimbabwe as you actually were.

Bazinga!

Rest In Peace Trayvon; I no longer can

Trayvon Martin is a name that I really wish I didn’t know right now. It’s a name that will haunt my dreams, a name that pops up every time I see a black teenager walking down the street innocently minding their business yet loaded with so many stereotypes they might as well just dig a hole and crawl into it. Trayvon Martin, unlike so many victims this world has seen, is a name still too fresh to consign it into the history books as one of those issues that happened in the bad old days, it’s something that happened a few weeks ago, while I watched TV or sat reading ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. While I sat here enjoying the liberty of being alive, Trayvon Martin was shot to death for the crime of being alive.

For those of you not familiar with the case; Trayvon was a 17 year old black teenager living in the state of Florida in the United States of America. On the evening of the 26^th of February 2012, Trayvon decided to go to the shops to, amongst other things, buy a bar of chocolate for his little brother. On the way home he was spotted by George Zimmerman, who for reasons best known to himself, started following Trayvon. Zimmerman called 911 to report a suspicious character, telling the dispatcher that Trayvon “looked high”, and was staring at buildings. Meanwhile Trayvon who was on the phone with his girlfriend told her he was being followed. She urged him to run, he refused, but as panic began to set in he fled, quickly followed by Zimmerman.

This is not a fairy-tale; they did not suddenly come to a realisation of the absurdity of the situation, they did not meet as two people who lived in the same neighbourhood and share pleasantries about the weather. Against the advice of the 911 dispatcher Zimmerman cornered Trayvon, who apparently was now in a panic, and shot him. In the chest.

He is dead. I wish I could say that he is on CNN right now telling reporters about the absurd encounter in his own neighbourhood, laughing about it as the passage of time robs those fateful moments of their horror but no. He is dead and lying in a grave, his chocolates swept into a gutter somewhere, the chocolates that turned into his only defence against a man almost twice his age. He is dead and the silence is deafening, social media has not been set ablaze the way it burned with #Kony2012. Oprah hasn’t yet interviewed his family whose grieving at the senseless death must be just as valid as those who ‘grieved’ on Facebook at the innocent victims of Kony’s rampage. As I type this, halfway across the world in France, police are holed up outside the home of a suspected shooter yet in the United States of America, George Zimmerman is sitting at home, I picture him drinking hot chocolate and watching a rerun of Days of our Lives.

There is an injustice here! Do you see it? Do you see it marked out in big letters, screaming between the headlines. There is a 17 year old boy who is dead because a man took it upon himself to label him, in the same way we label strangers we meet every day. The woman wearing a headscarf must be oppressed by Islam, she needs to be saved. The black guy standing at the traffic lights selling sunglasses must be a high school dropout. But unlike us, George Zimmerman took those labels and made them real, made them living things, out of thin air George Zimmerman imagined the crack Trayvon must have been smoking. George imagined the slum Trayvon must live in, imagined that the only reason he was walking down the streets of Zimmerman’s neighbourhood was because he was planning a robbery. He was black, perhaps he was uneducated, illiterate, perhaps he didn’t understand English. How else does one explain George’s apparent failure to engage Trayvon in a conversation, ascertain in a non-lethal manner what “he was doing here”.

But then again, why did Trayvon have to justify his existence? Was his presence in that neighbourhood a crime against humanity? Was his world not designed to have rolling lawns and gated neighbourhoods, was his life one pledged to a gang, was the thing he was holding in his pocket a gun, ready to shoot the first innocent bystander? Surely George Zimmerman was saving the world. Some woman could sleep better that night knowing that Trayvon was shot dead, some poor High School cheerleader was not going to get raped and George’s flat screen Samsung LCD TV wasn’t going to be stolen. Surely, George Zimmerman is a hero, acting in self-defence, surely there must be a law hidden away in the Constitution of Great America that authorises a “pre-emptive strike”, a strike just as pre-emptive and just as deadly as that against Iraq in 2001. Surely there must be because, weeks later, the police are still looking for that clause as they let George Zimmerman prowl the street to save the young women and children of America from the likes of Trayvon Martin.

Armed with a chocolate, talking to his girlfriend on his way home from the shops, Trayvon must have represented the single greatest threat to American civilization since Rosa Parks threatened to contaminate an entire bus filled with whites. Black as he was, there was nothing good that he could have done; nothing innocent about walking the street that fateful afternoon. We shall never know, Trayvon lies in his grave, and perhaps the thought of him as an eliminated threat shall allow Zimmerman to sleep better at night. Meanwhile I shall sit here and continue to wish I had never heard his name because it all doesn’t make any sense. In this world of Obama’s and Universal Declarations of Human Rights, it just doesn’t fit in at all. I would be better off forgetting the name. The problem is I can’t, and if it means anything to you to live in a world that is free and fair and just; neither will you.

#RIPTreyvon