Dr Amai vs Dr Amai

Sometimes satire is the only way to deal with a reality so convoluted it makes your head spin.

All hail Dr Amai, Grace of the house Mugabe, Khaleesi of the Great Dairy Farm, Crusher of Mazowe, Queen of the Highlands and the Doctorates and the First Men, Prophetess of the Mountains, Breaker of Chains, the Soon to Be Burnt, Defender of Virginity, and Mother of Dragon purses made in China. 

When presidential politics starts resembling the reruns of a low budget 80's series that was taken off air because the network executives thought the storyline was too unbelievable.

When Julius Malema starts looking as if he is a graduate of Havard Law School compared to the mad rantings of a certain recently minted PhD graduate. 

Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I will wake up and find out this all never happened. That they didn't take away my knighthood and my appointment for tea on the lawns of Buckingham Palace with Lizzie Dear was never cancelled. I'll wake and up Mandela will still be my bestie who calls me every night before I go to sleep and maybe Grace will still be typing away in her office and not in my bed.

Be sure they are all watching us and laughing their lungs out. Phoning each other at all hours of the night to read the headlines and laugh some more. The NSA probably has a live feed of her SMS's and her email inbox by now. And even they are laughing.

Meanwhile those who fought with all their strength and breath and sinew, those who gave their lives so that Africans might hold their hands up high in the world. Those whose every breath brought quiet dignity to Africanness, those whose very heart beat in rhythm with Ubuntu; meanwhile they turn in their graves and wonder what it is all going to become.

"When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers". - African proverb

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

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.

****

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?

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Guest Blog: Vote Yes To Your Own Deception

Today I have the pleasure of presenting a guest blogger to Echoes. Nkosinqobile Dube (Chris Nqo) is a Zimbabwean Law graduate and also the Editor in Chief of dECK Magazine in Bulawayo. Here he presents his views on the the Final Draft Constitution which will go to a referendum this Saturday in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has the distinction of being one of the most literate countries in Africa. Our education system is envied across the continent, our academics are amongst the best in the world and we have a fearless and brave leader in Robert Mugabe. I could go on.

Our President is a blessing and similarly a burden to a country he has led for just over three decades. He has dictated his views,policies and decisions to the collective psyche of Zimbabweans but not without valiant opposition locally and internationally.

In March 2013, Zimbabwe stands at a cross roads, faced with making a decision that will shape the future of Zimbabwe in a manner as yet unknown. This Saturday the 16th of March, close to 5 million Zimbabweans over the age of 18 will queue across the country to partake in a referendum to approve or reject the Draft Constitution.

As you may know,politics is a matter of life and possible death in Zimbabwe. However, faced with such a life changing decision for their country, it is concerningly telling how little information ordinary  Zimbabweans posses about the Draft Constitution. For all our high literacy and brilliant academics, very few Zimbabweans are adept and capable of explicitly understanding legal english. Add to that, the cunning and deceptive nature of Zimbabwe's political hyenas and you have the perfect blindside. Let's depart from the legal terminology and examine the background against which this Draft was written. COPAC dedicated time and resources to obtaining the input of Zimbabweans towards the Draft Constitution. The question that should occupy our minds is, how much of what the people said actually made it into the spirit and letter of the Draft Constitution?
What we know now is the sad fact that Zimbabweans views are not accurately represented. Devolution of power, executive Presidency, Seperation of Powers, Right to Life, Youth aspirations are some of the points raised during COPAC meetings that did not receive accurate translation to the Draft Constitution.

What in effect we have is a document that is the perfect hatchet job of the views of many Zimbaweans. In reference to devolution of power, it is a watered down version of what the people said they wanted. Section 88 pertains to Executive authority and clearly spells out that this Draft is a political compromise between strange bed fellows who seek to serve their narrow political and selfish interests. All this at the considerable expense of crafting a water tight constitution that is reflective of the peoples true will.
I believe the aim of a constitution is not to simply react to history. Zimbabwe does not have the best example of a leader. Our Presidents actions and inactions will never serve as a fitting template. However,for all his shortcomings, the man does not have to be the stencil upon which our constitution is written on. The Draft constitution has been peddled as a document that seeks to prevent another Robert Mugabe. That, in itself is a wrong premise for any constitution.

A constitution should be a fool proof mechanism that safeguards a country's future. Not a set of laws that attempts to retrospectively fix and right loopholes in history.

Zimbabwe was brought to its knees by an Executive Presidency, a compromised judiciary, a weak parliament, a discriminatory and unfair land reform, a culture of human rights abuse and a lack of respect for the rule of law. This was precipitated by an economic collapse and followed up by a compromise Government of National Unity that has left us with the apparition of a new era with this Draft Constitution. Our new constitution should have been cast in stone against the above ills. However, a careful layman's examination of this draft reveals glaring loopholes.

Zimbabwe's Draft Constitution is in no way a reflection of the views of the majority of Zimbabweans, they just do not know it yet.
The executive Presidency remains entrenched in law. A President can dissolve Parliament,has legal immunity, still appoints Judges, Ambassadors and an unlimited Cabinet of Ministers.

Popularly elected Parliament can be dissolved for a number of reasons, even if it were to pass a vote of no confidence in the President. Add to this the fact that citizens still do not have the power to recall members of Parliament, once you have elected them only death will do you apart. The compromised land reform cannot be redressed by the new constitution. Whilst the supremacy of the constitution is entrenched by Section 2, the constitution can still be ammended by selfish politicians in Parliament, without going to a popular referendum. Many Zimbabweans do not know of this, yet they are tasked with making a Yes or No vote. The establishment of a Constitutional Court is a progressive move, however, it is shrouded in a deceptive clause that brings it to actuality seven years after the next election. How many ordinary Zimbabweans know of this? The office of the President of Zimbabwe has been inextricably tied with the personality of the holder of the office in the mind of many Zimbabweans. This is a sad legacy, yet that is precisely the same anomaly that the drafters of this important document failed to see past. The constitution was drafted with Robert Mugabe in mind, not with the future of Zimbabwe occupying the drafters' national conscience.

We do not have to safeguard Zimbabwe against another Mugabe, we have to safeguard Zimbabwe with a constitution that cements checks and balances in a progressive democracy. Zimbabweans outrightly expressed their desire for devolution, this was altered to suit  political negotiators seated at an oak table.

Zimbabwe has an unequal and uneven distribution of wealth, opportunities and resources. Devolution would have aided in correcting this imbalance. Mutare should be able to develop from its own wealth, Victoria Falls should prosper because of its natuaral resources, Gogo Sebata should speak Sotho when she goes to the clinic for free health care at Gwanda Clinic, Takesure Choga should graduate at University with the assistance of student loans, Tete Agnes should be able to vote by postal ballot from Melbourne in Australia, that criminal Chidumo Jnr must value his right to life whilst enjoying the comfort of solitary confinement inside Chikurubi, former MP, Mr Mukwevho must be left to ponder his fall from grace after his parliamentary constituency recalls him from a Parliament seating in Gweru, ZBC TV must be able to screen live political debates without fear, favour or incessant power cuts from local power supply companies. The Auditor-general should order investigations into misappropriation of funds by Government departments. The Constitutional court must seat in Masvingo to decide the constitutionality of the President sending troops to aid a falling dictator.

Ask yourself the question how much of what is illustrated above will ever be possible in a Zimbabwe that votes Yes on Saturday 16 March 2013.
Young people's hopes for a future Zimbabwe are relegated to simple National Objectives, not enforceable by law or creating a legislative duty for the state.

The Draft constitution is a watered down version of the views of Zimbabweans. Politicians did not have the hindsight to include necessary checks and balances for a strong constitution safe from arbitrary abuse.
You want to know why politicians sat down and agreed to decieve Zimbabwe into voting Yes? They did so because they selfishly put the interests of their party above the interests of the country. Voting yes would be adding your  weight to your continued oppression by a system that only gives you perceived power by a ballot. A constitution should never be a compromise, it should reflect a country and its people's explicit expectations set in law. This Draft constitution is not that. Lancaster brought us an imperfect constitution. Every Zimbabwean knows that,however, the current constitution is a choice we can afford to live with. That is, until we vote for a leader who will truly and honestly allow Zimbabweans the chance at a new people driven constitution. The leader who will promise Zimbabwe a new constitution, driven by an independent commission is what this country deserves. This can only happen if Zimbabweans Vote No.

The politician who asks Zimbabweans to Vote Yes, is deceiving you into giving away your country's future for the illusion of a progressive constitution.

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@ChrisNqoe

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.

Confessions of a writer

I am a computer scientist damnit!

I am supposed to be capturing data and transforming it into linked lists, studying their complexity and writing time sharing algorithms for execution by the kernel. But I write. I write and I write. I don’t write in C or Java or any other of those languages that Bill Gates & his ilk bequeathed upon us. I write in the language of Shakespeare and Shaw. I dream in metaphors like Oscar Wilde and poetry soothes me like the sound of music does a restless baby.

My fingers are never happier than when they are racing across my keyboard creating worlds and lives. My mind is never sharper than when it is imagining the lives of characters brought to life with the stroke of a key and killed by the time it takes to get to the spacebar. I write with the reckless abandon, opinions, beliefs of a deranged mind. No cow is too holy not to be explored, to not have its inner being laid bare on the page for all the world. What do I care of political systems or the private parts of South African presidents? If they make for interesting reading I will write about them. What do I care for a thousand years of religious dogma? If my character Anna does not believe in it, then so be it.

And so it is. So it is and so it shall be. I write to let loose the demons and angels that fight in my heart for release. I write to let the tears that I cannot allow to flow down my face to flow down the page. I write like I am possessed by the spirit of a little boy in India wondering if the tiger will be his next reincarnation. I write like that white farmer who watched a hundred years of his family’s heritage burn down in what is called reformation. I write like the lover lying in bed, his body yearning for release but his loved a thousand miles away. I write like the street kid sitting on the street corner begging for just five rands to buy his lunch. Just five rands.

I write for those who shall never have a voice. I write with my voice; a voice which is voiceless at times. A voice caught in the strict trappings of social dictate or supressed beneath the hierarchy of power in real life. On the page it is a voice that is as loud as the voice of God; a voice that can strike fear through the coal black blood of my pen bleeding life onto the page. I write as a scream to the world that doesn’t hear my voice, or perhaps to the world that does? I do not care. Listen if you will, what you make of it is not my business. That is up to you. Open your mind and let me in, let me wreck havoc with your beliefs, let me play with your best china and smile as I let it slip through my fingers and come crashing down at your feet.

I write because if I didn’t I would explode. These thoughts that race through my head have to have somewhere to go. They have to have somewhere to go to. I write because I am a witness to a life that is mine, a life perhaps that deserves to be witnessed by the page. Our silent pact. Our shared secret. Take, blessed and broken the words of my life. Take them, blessed and broken the tears of my heart. Take them broken and blessed the whispers of my heart. Do what you will with them O page, I cannot carry them in my heart forever.

I write as if possessed, words explode out of me as if from another being. I try to ignore them but if I do for too long my life begins to withdraw from itself. I hear noises in the middle of a silent room or silence in the heart of noise. I see glimpses of a world half lost, and I know I must find it. I sit to write with a vague inkling of what will come out of the page and lose myself. As if in a trance, the words march out in front of me, little soldiers in my army, preparing to wage war on reality. It is a sweet, sweet relief; like finding an oasis in a desert, or finally peeing after holding it in for too too long.

And then it is done. I have given birth to a page. Or twenty pages. Or a hundred pages. It matters not. All that matters is that within those pages I have captured something. I have hunted down through the wild forests of imagination a mythical creature and tamed it with my pen. Now it lies there, tamed but still dangerous to any who dares to enter the confines of the story. Dares to leave this reality with all its neat borders and rounded curves and comes to confront my creature. Perhaps you shall tame it? Perhaps it shall tame you? Who knows? I certainly do not. Neither do I care. My job is done. I have written. I can go to sleep. I am human once more.

    

When I am gone those words shall remain. When my bones have been ground to dust by the winds of time, those words shall remain. When the world has been ravaged by the hounds of hell and the heart of a million suns has torn the skins from our flesh, those words shall remain. Those words shall remain. The pen is mightier than the sword. Its words shall remain. 

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

An Open Letter To Nicolas Sarkozy

You know those things that you always come across on your Facebook, funny pics and photos that have you rushing to click 'share'. Well I stumbled across a gem of a letter the other day that I shared on my profile but the problem is it was entirely in French, a language the good majority of my Facebook contacts don't understand. So here, in part for all my Anglophone contacts, and mostly for Chris Nqoe, a very outspoken friend of mine who will understand why I so admire this letter, I reproduce it in full, and in English. Enjoy. 

The French People
Here and Elsewhere Road
99999 France

Monsieur SARKOZY Nicolas

Elysée Palace

55, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

75008 Paris

BAR-LE-DUC, the 7th of May 2012

RE: Spontaneous Candidature to the (Violated) Post of President of the French Republic

Mr SARKOZY, 

We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown in the position (and most of all its numerous perks).

We have received your application for the continuation of your term but we regret to inform you that your profile does not at all correspond with the one that is necessary to fulfil all the requirements of this post. That is why we have come to the regrettable decision to withdraw our employment contract of which you have been a beneficiary since May 2007 (the current EU crisis has also obliged us to lay off a large number of personnel...).

We sincerely hope that you will continue to consult our future employment offers in the hope of finding a new job, we draw your attention to the numerous courses for the jobless, which we are hoping to implement in the near future, and which would allow you to become a flutist, a coppersmith or perhaps a magician (being economic sectors unaffected by the current downturn and in which you have shown considerable natural talent).

We would be very grateful if you would please leave the keys to the Elysée Palace (and those of the Airbus A330) in the vase by the front door. We however, in our infinite mercy, leave you free to dispose in any way you see fit that hideous Italian vase that is cluttering the lounge...

Nevertheless please allow us to wish you success in the pursuit of your career (you see, we also know how to lie).

Allow us, Monsieur Sarkozy, to express our highest regards to your pathetic self,

Best Regards,

The French People