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....

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

The Tino Katsande Sex Tape : Throw The First Stone

Let me first start by saying I don't think sex tapes are a good idea. Before you get all hot and bothered, no I do not have one this is simply from my vantage point as a Computer Scientist where we have the mantra when it comes to personal privacy: digital is forever. Recording some things should be one of those decisions you take after a long and considered think about it, especially recording and then storing the said recording on a phone. Next time Tino, please come to me and I will show you a few encryption techniques which will keep your sensitive documents away from the blaring headlines of tabloids. Or better yet just buy the new iPhone 5S which comes with a fingerprint scanner. (Hint to my readers, I want one for Christmas!)

Second of all, as much as I hate tabloids (they are to high brow journalistic publications like the New York Times what Jackass: The Movie is to The Lord of the Rings in the land of movies) I really can't be surprised by the latest headlines screaming about Tino's Sextape. As long as people know that this sort of things sell newspapers, we will inevitably have to live with them. And keep trying to walk past their grimy headlines and lust for the baser proclivities of humanity whether it be The Sowetan in Johannesburg, the American National Enquirer in New York or the dreaded H-Metro in Harare. We hate you, but like mosquito's, we have to live with you.

What I really take exception to in this entire scenario is the reaction of many of my fellow Zimbabweans on the web. People have found the time and energy to digest this story and come up with the most amazing vitriol and musings, judgements and damning attacks, mockery and sarcastic humour of such low level depths it is positively evil. Tino has been attacked by the know it alls who claim she leaked it on purpose to get onto Big Brother, or that she just wanted something to boost her career (as if being a radio DJ on Zimbabwean National Radio was a position that needed that extra boost of prominence a sex tape would bring) or that she just loves attention. I do not know if all that is true, I admit it all could be true or contain elements of the truth but the thing here is: neither do all of you. Tino has said her phone was stolen. Period. Why not take her at her word? Why feel the need to judge her motivations and to analyse the character and motivations of a person you have never met?

And that word judge bothers me a lot here. The judgement is going around in heavy doses. The Bible bangers are taking out their dusty bibles to drum them for all who have ears to hear, the moral high grounders are sitting in their ivory towers casting judgement with their upturned noses. "Look what this Tino is doing", "This is not Zimbabwean", they cry in horrified voices. "This is not African", they say as they sweep up their skirts in outrage. The ones who have really big brushes prefer to lay the blame wide and thick, "Look at these youths of today! The horror!" Others attack her personally: "She is stupid", "What did she think would happen", and yet the last group that really gets to me even go so far as to attack the tape itself: "The tape was boring she should have done ABC in it" (I will leave ABC to your vivid imagination dear reader!)

Does the new constitution not allow Zimbabwe to put Tino Katsande & Pokello Nare into exile? Yes? No? Maybe? Lawyers please look into it ..
— ZBC News (@zbc_news) September 9, 2013

What I want to say, is shut the fuck up! First of all, this is the Zimbabwe of today. Your children are sending such videos, your husbands are probably watching such videos. Deal with it in a constructive manner instead of denying it all as unAfrican, unZimbabwean, unwhatever-group-of-angels-you-belong-to. This is what Zimbabweans do all the time, we deny that something exists and then pretend it just happened this once and whoever did it was an abberation of nature. Well I have news for you, Tino is a Zimabwean and Zimbabweans are humans. Humans do things like making sextapes. How you choose to deal with it is another matter but don't bury your head in the sand. The H-Metro is full of stories of boys raping goats or men being found stuck to chickens. Never have I seen someone try to create an awareness campaign to try to stop it happening or try to educate people on the dangers of bestiality. Instead they snigger and laugh.

In France I have seen pamphlets made by the government (government logo and all) go into great detail about the dangers and effects of drugs like cocaine and ecstasy and the risks of unprotected sex. I have followed debates as they try to make sense of whatever latest scandal or tragedy befalls them, or simply shrug it off as just one of those things. And as the continent with 60% of the worlds' population living with HIV/AIDS compared to the highest in Europe of 1.2% in Estonia perhaps we can stop with the sniggering and realise that we are all human, we are all in this together.

Tino is just human people. She made a mistake (and when I say mistake I mean putting sensitive information on an unsecure device not making the tape itself). A mistake that seem to have cost her job and who knows what else on a personal level. She has apologised for it on Facebook to basically the whole world, even though to be quite honest it was none of our business to begin with and remains as such. So before you climb on your moral high horses and go gallopping into the sunset, give her a break! She was the victim of a crime, people should be demanding justice for her, not asking for her to be deported. And while we are at it: I would like to lay a challenge to all the puritans out there: show us the contents of your laptops, your hardrives, your Facebook inboxes and your Whatsapp messenger inboxes. If they are as clean as Pope Francis' snow white cassock, then and only then do we give you permission to speak. To paraphrase Jesus: he who has no need to put a password on their phone's inboxes, let him throw the first tweet.

I rest my case.

If you agree with me, hit the share buttons, if not, hit the comment one!

A Picture is worth a 1000 words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, let's test that theory. Write down your first thoughts in the comments section.

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