We Are Not Lions...

I am as bewildered as the ordinary Zimbabwean as to why the death of what essentially was a big, wild cat has managed to unite the world in mourning. The excitement has risen to the extent of seeing my Twitter Timeline and Facebook homepage flooded with hashtags such as #cecilTheLion, #WalterPalmer and even, sacrilege of sacrileges, #jeSuisCecil. Demonstrations have been organised, petitions signed and Jimmy Kimmel was so moved by the events in Zimbabwe that led to Cecil’s death, that he shed tears on his show. In 24 hours alone, the hashtag #CecilTheLion racked up three quarters of a million tweets. Zimbabwean Twitter was soon alight with tweets of bewilderment and slight mirth as we watched this global display of grief over the death of one of our lions.

Honestly, shrink him a little bit and he's nothing more than a cat! A glorified cat!

The backlash was inevitable though; some Zimbabweans are now feeling slighted by the international media, who have thrust a dead lion, into the limelight ahead of what they feel are more deserving issues. Like the case of political activist Itai Dzamara who was kidnapped four months ago and is still missing or a government seemingly hell bent on digging now that the economy has reached rock bottom; issues like rocketing unemployment and an ever fragmenting ruling party facing off with a fractured opposition. But in the plethora of commentary both for and against Cecil The Lion, I find something deeply disturbing. In criticising Western Media for their focus on this story, Zimbabweans are silently overlooking our own silence on our own stories. 

Men and women on the far side of the planet have taken to their streets to protest for the rights of a lion they will never see. Yet in Zimbabwe itself, we have held our relative peace as nine thousand people have lost their jobs in two weeks according to President Robert Mugabe himself. We have looked and mocked each other on Twitter as we watched Mrs Mugabe essentially award herself a Doctorate from the country’s leading University, the #DrAmai hashtag trended for a few weeks but at the end of the day, we have let her keep her dubious degree. We watch as government bickers openly, Ministers are spied on and political parties fragment into more pieces than they are Christian churches and in all this we seem to have failed to bring as much attention to our own issues as outraged white Americans and ‘Western Media’ have bought onto the case of one dead lion.

One assumes Cecil is in Lion Heaven singing Hakuna Matata....

Our voices all over social media have never been as united as they have been in this weird pro/anti Cecil The Lion universe we have been thrust into. Our willingness to analyse the legality of extraditing Dr Palmer has never been as in depth as our analysis of Doctorates falling from heaven into the laps of ruling party members.  And even when our voices have reached levels matching the current brouhaha, action has not matched Western efforts over a dead lion. In one day Jimmy Kimmel has raised USD 150 000 for Cecil The Lion. This is not to negate nor ignore the tireless voices who have spoken out over the past decade, organisations and individuals alike, who have fought for Zimbabwe. But this is to question the many who have remained silent in the face of the few who have acted and spoken, risking livelihoods, lives and limbs.

 Part of it is due to the eternal optimism of Zimbabweans, what else has taken us through hyperinflation so terrible the government could no longer fit enough zeros onto the local currency before it collapsed? What else has taken us through almost a decade of electricity cuts, water cuts, understaffed and underequipped hospitals? Where the citizens of almost any other country in Africa would have long ago declared enough to be enough, we have simply held onto the belief that tomorrow is another day and maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will bring something better with it. The rest is fear. Fear of a repressive regime that rules in a country where opposition leaders get severely assaulted by the national police, where political activists disappear, where outspoken Catholic Archbishops like Pius Ncube are silenced with nationally broadcast ‘leaked’ sex tapes. 

But in failing to address the optimism that has led us nowhere nearer to regaining the glory of our yesterday nor face the fear that has bound us to inaction, Zimbabweans are demonstrating that as much as we might cry for this lion, this alpha male who was king of Hwange National Park, we leave our story, by default to be told for us by the ‘Western Media’ and foreigners who will always care for whatever their heart chooses to care about. And in failing to stand up for our own stories, speak out with our own voices, we fail to be fearless or brave or agents of change on the broken scene of our country’s landscape. We fail to be lions. 

Tywin of House Lannister: A True Lion

And Then The King Fell

"Gogo tell me a story", Mandla piped up in the failing light. His voice piercing through the gathering darkness with all the innocence and insistence that only a seven year old has.

Gogo stirred from whatever depths of thought her mind had descended to. For a moment she seemed as if she hadn't heard the question, her face expressionless, a calm sea upon which a wave of laughter burst. She cackled for so long even Mandla began to worry that finally Gogo had finally lost the last of her wits as mama said she would. Mama did not really like this Gogo that much, Mama liked the Gogo who was her mother and not this one who was Baba's mother and spent her days wrapped in her silent thoughts. 

"You want a story do you?" Her voice was strong but breathy. The question hung in the air for a moment before she went on. "You want a story and I will tell you one, I will tell you a story of a King, powerful and royal. A King who mounted the world and thought the Sun revolved around his balls".
Mandla giggled, he liked it when Gogo was in this mood, he knew the story would be good. He stood up and went to snuggle against her, his eyes closed and very soon his whole world was Gogo's voice. Gogo's powerful voice weaving its threads through the darkness. 

"Once long ago, long long ago back when the stones were still soft and snakes had legs; long ago when Elephant's nose had not yet been stretched by Baboon and Cheetah had not painted with spots by Hare. Long ago in this very land lived a powerful King who ruled his country with a stone fist. His people were the saddest in the land and yet their lands overflew with maize and their rivers with gold. They could not speak because the King did not like anyone but himself to speak, for he thought his voice was the most amazing thing in the world. They could not think for the King felt that only his mind held anything of interest. And while his family were the fattest in the whole grasslands, their skin soft like that of the plum in summer and their hair black and shiny like the inside of a Mamba's mouth; his people starved, their stick-like figures standing like praying mantis' in the harsh glare of the light of day.

"while his family were the fattest in the whole grasslands..."

People came from far and wide to this land to trade gold with this King, and precious stones and maize. They came from the Northern lands where the sun shines all day and rests only for an hour before rising again. They came from the East where the jungles are so deep and dense demons live in the darkest corners of that land. They came from the West where they worship fish yet eat them more than anything else. They came to trade and the King and his family grew fatter and richer than all the lands that had come before and all the lands that were to come after. Or so they thought."

Here Gogo paused. The Sun had now set and the smokey interior of the hut was now completely dark. But she didn't motion to Mandla to look for the candles so he stayed snug and calm in her embrace.

"No one knew how it happened but those who served the King became blinded by his wealth. Perhpaps it was the sight of the gold that dripped from his body, or perhaps they were blinded by the gleaming rolls of fat that rolled off his fat belly. Some say it was the witches of the West who had been bribed by the King's diamonds who bewitched them but soon the entire land was bewitched."

Gogo's voice grew dark and heavy, punctuating the hut, reverberating against the mud walls and making Mandla grip tighter into her shawl.

"They grew crazy, worshipping the ground he walked on. What little food the people had, they gave to the already fat King to celebrate the day of his birth. One time in the middle of a drought, they slaughtered so many cows and goats, the waters of the River Nkawe turned red for seven full days and seven full nights. Even as the people slept under stars for lack of homes, the King built more and houses for him and his Family. While his people walked, the King used the gold of the land to buy horses from the strange lands of the North. While the children of the people went to sleep hungry, the King used the silver of the land to buy fish from the lands of the West; smoked fish, spiced fish, dried fish, fish aged for centuries in the ageless storerooms of the Western people and whose taste is said to be unrivalled by anything under the sun. Whenever he spoke, his Royal Servers would drop to the ground and thank the heavens for having been blessed with such Knowledge. Whenever he would deign to look at one of them they would freeze, afraid of upsetting the balance of the Universe if they made one wrong move in his presence. Very soon they began to call him not only their King but also their God". 

Gogo spat out that last word with such vehemence she began coughing. Her rough heaves felt painful to Mandla but he sensed a deeper pain in her. He clutched tighter to her side, afraid the King would materialise in the hut and bewitch him into thinking of him as a God. Gogo was silent for so long, Mandla feared she had fallen asleep. 

"What happened next Gogo?", his voice was now plaintive, "what happened to all of them". 

To Be Continued....

Zimbabwe's Lost Generation by ChrisNqoe

"Courage sometimes skips a generation."

I've written on the state of local youths before but I'm not sure I've ever been in such a disillusioned state or projected the anger and fear that harbours in the collective minds of Zimbabwe's born free
generation. For many fellow youths, born some years into Zimbabwe's independence, we inherited a country whose worst years were behind it. The liberation struggle, sanctions, threat of Civil war, international isolation, genocidal massacres and an uncertain future.

Like millions of young Zimbabweans born after 1980, we came into a hopeful world, a functioning country and a nation with potential to be one of Africa's success stories. In 1990, Zimbabwe had one of Africa's most impressive statistics, one of the world's best education policies with an economy that was the envy of many developing countries.

"Millions of young Zimbabweans...came into a hopeful world"
(GFDL Licence)

That story has been told so many times, exhausted beyond measure and exploited as the tale of how much could go wrong in so little time.

I'm not interested in telling the politics of Zimbabwe. I'm concerned about who'll tell the story of a generation of young Zimbabweans who have watched their country collapse, get plundered and destroyed by a generation of leaders who, ironically, were brave enough to go to war for it.

It might not all be doom and gloom for Zimbabwe's youth, many have transitioned through the academic cycle, graduated out of Zimbabwe's celebrated education system, in local and foreign universities. And then, began confronting the struggles of the real world. A world we were promised would accept us with all our qualifications and lack of experience. Or so we thought.

The reality of Zimbabwe is one were there's an entire generation that refuses to pass on chances to younger minds with fresher, radical and more relevant ideas. The problem Zimbabwe faces is not political. It's generational. It's a reluctance to accept natural change and advancement of ideas over the stagnancy of old systems.  It's a rigidity of perceptions and a stubborn refusal to accept the stale
nature of old school ideas that no longer fit into the globalised world we live in.

In the fields of politics, public administration, corporate world and ordinary life, willingness for innovation and adoption of new ideas is what determines the success of entities.

Perhaps it's time for our generation to take charge of its own destiny. Like the young men and women who felt compelled to take up arms and fight for their country's liberation. The moment is ours now, to channel our activism against old political systems into creating a new, reliable, youthful presence on the upper rungs of politics. Our country needs us.

The current system is simply not working for young people and the signs are there. We may be a demographic that was not inhibited by the racial inequalities that our parents faced. But, we must really be concerned that we are a generation that will be poorer than our parents. This is a reality we have to face.

A lack of jobs and financial difficulties are something most of us have in common. Many educated young people are leaving university with no prospect of a stable job, guarantee of employment or likelihood of financial independence.

Unemployment rates in Zimbabwe are amongst the highest in the world.
Central Intelligence Agency data (GNU Licence)

There exist sad common factors amongst young Zimbabweans. A lingering feeling of disenfranchisement because our government systems are not properly listening to our problems and the solutions we are offering. Young people are not being given a chance to lead. However, the answer to Zimbabwe's lack of growth, in so many ways, is found in its reluctance to allow youth led innovation.

The older generation feels threatened by young millenials; this is a sad but true indictment. In discussions with my peers, there is a similar frustration, we are not being given a chance to effect change, and this is not referring to Zimbabwe's troubled politics.

None of us sees the world in guarantees, our parents told us to work hard and we would be rewarded with success. Our current state tells otherwise.  We are a generation that's stagnant, unable to grow up. We don't have jobs or own homes. We have young educated job-seekers who rely on their parents for financial support, most of us stay at home because we can't afford to move out and pay rent.

Youth unemployment is a daily reality for millions and Alcoholism is a deadly animal that's consuming thousands of young Zimbabweans. Hopelessness is trait that's become second nature for many. But unlike the generations before us, we have few options. We cannot go to war. We can’t fly abroad. Jumping the border is not a choice. It's tougher out there. Zimbabwe is our option, but a collective effort is required to make it liveable for young people.

What solutions do we offer?  We need economic and social policies that are youth friendly and focused. Just as there exist government measures that protect Pensioners, Civil Servants and War Vets. Let young people come up with these solutions. Employ young people. Lower the retirement age. Enforce paid internships. Introduce learner ships and invest more funding to vocational education. Give funding, resources and support to youth led business ideas. Don't simply give
us money, train young people to be good wealth managers. Zimbabwe has millions of young people with educational qualifications, ideas, energy and patriotism. Take advantage of this.

Who am I speaking to? To you, the older generation. To all of you who were born in Rhodesia. Yes, you endured the hardships of colonial rule, but young people cannot be paying you forever. You took back your country, liberated your people, benefited from land reform and nationalised our country's natural resources. Is that not enough?

Give young people a chance.

A Hopeless Dawn - Frank Bramley 1888
(Creative Commons 2.0 Licence)

Passionate about Law & Media, Chris Dube is a disillusioned young Zimbabwean.
Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisNqoe

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

Dear Mr Big Man aka Morgan Tsvangirai

Dear Mr Tsvangirai

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

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

Change did not come.

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

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

And change did not come.

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

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

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

Then change almost came.

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

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

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

Then change finally came.

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

Change.

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

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

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

Africa needs Great Men not Big Men.

Yours,

Bongani Ncube-Zikhali
A concerned Zimbabwean citizen

On Your Knees Myth! Whore of Zion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Follow ChrisNqo on Twitter!
@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 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

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!

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Thirty years ago the Republic of Zimbabwe was one of the richest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. A newly independent state, blessed with modern infrastructure and boasting the continent’s highest literacy rate, she was poised for a future that seemed to carry nothing but the promise of success. Africa’s Paradise, they called her, little did they know that soon Zimbabwe would, to quote William Blake, “build a Hell in Heaven’s respite”.

In ‘The Fear’ by Peter Godwin, which is in some ways a continuation of his bestselling, “When A Crocodile Eats the Sun”, Peter goes home to bear witness to a Zimbabwe, that not even I as a Zimbabwean am familiar with. A country with the highest inflation in the world, racked by political violence and gripped in the most critical economic crisis to hit a Southern African country. It is a book that I failed to put down for almost the duration of the 24 hours it took me to read it, it struck to my core and painted a grim, startling picture of what I call my home.

For those of you who share the same home, and to whom the name Godwin sounds familiar, Peter  is the brother of Georgina Godwin who used to be a Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) newsreader during the golden years of the country. Together with their mother, Peter and Georgina, were forced to leave the country as were thousands upon thousands of other white farmers during the chaotic land reform process of 1998 which preceded the decline of the Zimbabwean economy. It is a sore point in African politics with the fierce nationalists declaring it an African Renaissance whereas the pragmatics point to the land reform as an example of how to destroy a country. When I met President Robert Mugabe last year, he was still refusing to recognise a link between the eviction of the farmers and the economy’s spectacular collapse.

Fast forward to 2008 and a country in ruins, not even I am able to recognise it between the pages of this book. Political violence affects most of the rural population as the Presidential elections descend into chaos, political opponents resort to murdering each other, and Peter can do nothing other than bear witness, the very act of which is risking his own life.

“White man’s flesh marks easily, it is a pale canvas on which the path of pain is easily painted. But it takes a lot more to mark a black man. Somehow, the palette of black wounds seem more violent, tearing down through dark skin, into the yellow curd of subcutaneous fat, the red gristle of muscle fibres, down to the shocking whiteness of bones.” 

His more gruesome testimonies have their edges softened by his recollections of childhood, when he was a Zimbabwean citizen, before the political class change their minds. Furtive visits to estates where he used to spend the holidays, the portrait, well lit in his memories somewhat tarnished by the sad reality that faces him now. Gone are the vistas of crops, replaced by an ever growing wilderness and the rusty shacks of war vets who have displaced even the black farm workers.

“Our other home was in Mhangura in the north-west of the country, on the edge of the Zambezi escarpment. To get there we set out on the old Great North Road. It originates in Cape Town, continues the length of South Africa and up through Zimbabwe. At Harare, it veers west and goes up over the Great Dyke mountain range (a uniquely stratified chrome-rich igneous ridge, over three hundred miles long, visible from space). It winds through the once productive farming areas of Banket and Chinhoyi, and down through Lions’ Den, and Karoyi – which means ‘little witch’, so called because it was the site of witch trials by immersion (if you sank you were innocent) – to the Zambezi River at Chirundu where it crosses into Zambia, with a left fork to Lake Kariba.”

Littered with little nuggets of recollections that even I as a native Zimbabwean did not know the book for me raises the uncomfortable questions of the definition of an African. By all means, the refusal of the current government to recognise Peter and his kin as Zimbabweans with the rights to settle in Zimbabwe, extends by implication to my tribe, the Ndebele, who arrived and settled in Zimbabwe only a few decades before the white settlers arrived. But that is a philosophical question, Peter presents real problems, real issues that leave one gasping for breath and reaching for your nearest copy of the Zimbabwe Constitution, the Geneva Convention, or anything to try and convince oneself that normality still exists.

Because in ‘The Fear’, you are met with a world gone mad. Zimbabwean set upon Zimbabwean in an orgy of violence, political machinations that go in the night and care not an iota for the peasant in his hut. It is a story untold, a revolution that died in its tracks, heroes buried away in secret graves, activists disappearing in unmarked cars, carried into the dark bosom of the night, never to be seen again, their crime? Dreaming of a better future. I said recently to a friend of mine, that this book should be a set book in Zimbabwean schools because the stories that it tells are stories that need to be told, a conversation that Zimbabweans in particular, and Africans in general need to start having before we can create any recognisable path to a better future.

There are extraordinary men and women in Zimbabwe, extraordinary people who have dedicated their lives to creating a better land for their progeny. ‘The Fear’ documents their courageous sacrifices in the hope that their battle was not fought in vain, and that one day, when we have built, “a Heaven in Hell’s despair”, their names will be remembered, their sacrifices never to be forgotten.