As each day comes and goes since the decision by the MDC to participate in the inclusive government a lot of things have been happening and they are happening really fast if I may say. However, when I look at the list of ministers that Prime Minister Tsvangirai has given the question that I ask is where are the women in your cabinet sir? Only two out of 13? Is this how the equality and equity value of your party is translated into action? Secondly, Theresa Makone as the MDC Women’s Assembly Chairwoman is this the best that our party could allocate to all the women of the MDC? I am sorry to say that before this government has even gone into office you have really failed us the women of Zimbabwe who voted, suffered, were raped, maimed and killed for the struggle.

Zimbabweans are desperate for water no matter where they are. In this picture Linette Frewin captures the wait for water in Beitbridge.

‘We are not ready to commit suicide yet.’

- Nelson Chamisa, the then spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change, quoted in Time Magazine 9th February, on the MDC’s refusal to enter into a power-sharing agreement with Robert Mugabe.

Nelson Chamisa is now Minister of Information and Communication Technology in the Unity Government.

The date of the ‘yet’ is still to be determined.

The great power that the media possesses to influence society has been noted many times before. But what more of a stark reminder of this in Zimbabwe than the recent news that seven local journalists have been added to the European Union (EU) list of sanctioned individuals and companies from our faltering nation.

Rubbing shoulders with prominent personalities such as staunchly pro-government commentators, ministers and their prosperous families, are veteran Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) broadcasters such as chief correspondent, Reuben Barwe, and diplomatic correspondent, Judith Makwanya. From the pro-government print media, names such as Pikirayi Deketeke and Caesar Zvayi (editor and senior assistant editor of The Herald, respectively) also appear on the list of black-listed Zimbabweans.

The journalists have been reportedly added to the ever-growing list for their contribution to the suppression of free expression and political will in volatile and politically polarised Zimbabwe.  Even Jongwe Printers, the ZANU-PF-owned printing company that produces the ruling party’s publication, The Voice, has been added to the sanctions list.

Now if that does not illustrate the seriousness with which some parts of the world are taking the suppression of democratic processes in Zimbabwe, then little else will. For these acts of retracted hospitality emphasise the important role that the media have in promoting diversity and respect for all views and opinions within a healthy functioning society. Failing to fulfil these, practitioners within the profession must expect to be treated like the criminals they are for robbing the masses of correct, complete and unbiased information.

There really is nothing more infuriating than knowing that those who ought to highly esteem the public they exist to serve, in fact, see them as a dumb mass whose minds are pliable and gullible enough to accept the vilest and most shameless propaganda. Did we not all feel that way, at some time, especially at the height of the land reform programme when those monotonous jingles with over-zealous ‘farmers’ kept informing us that our land was our prosperity? Somehow I never quite felt so prosperous, what with empty shop shelves, horrendous food shortages and currency nose-dives plunging me into early depression. Who actually believed any of that when the reality of suffering was all around us to see?

Everywhere, perhaps more so in Africa, journalists strive for recognition as professionals whose choices are informed by sound codes of conduct and ethics grounded in humaneness and morality. Therefore, those media practitioners who choose to continue to play to the tune of the piper (that is, the political leader), even when the refrain has become cacophonous and a strain to the listeners’ ears, deserve some retribution for the gross misuse of the power they possess. For what difference is there in the venomous ink of a pen and the speech of a once-trusted leader now filled with lies and deceit?

A prominent human rights lawyer brutalised by security agents a few years ago put it beautifully: it is like asking a snake to have dinner with a frog. He was giving his thoughts on the swearing in of Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister in front of an unsmiling Robert Mugabe. Deadpan or just uncaring. You could almost hear him: “Let’s just get it over with. I have other things to do.”

That is how this whole thing is being viewed by many who have had to watch the country being messed up by the increasingly senile Founding Father even in the face of all odds being staked against him. In the streets you could feel it, in the pubs and commuter omnibuses you could hear it: no joy that finally one of our own is in government to take us to the Promised Land.

While thousands thronged the stadium to hear the Prime Minister speak after his swearing in, many who stayed home cursed. Mugabe rules! The refrain was loud enough even as the people walked about aimlessly, wishing they were in another land where they had jobs and able to feed their families.

That people have lost all interest in contemporary politics is a reality all too palpable. The folks talk about how they have been reduced to scavengers; the very scavengers as described a few years ago by the very man who today stands as Prime Minister. When he said it back then, he inevitably invited the acerbic tongue of the Founding Father and his doctors of spin. Even when that valiant Catholic prelate from Bulawayo Pius Ncube and the then executive mayor of the city Ndabeni Ncube reported people in the city were dying of hunger, the Founding Father was apoplectic. These people were in league with the Devil, never mind that the snake as used in Biblical symbolism is the Devil himself.

It is this and other things that has people cursing: why have this charade of a unity government with a snake? And this is not that snake in the grass that strikes while you are busy minding your own business.

People die of hunger and cholera and one man and his cohorts claim it is a silent genocide being perpetrated by imperialists. No one understands why this GNU thing had to happen. Politics as usual perhaps?

When Nkomo entered into that pact with the devil, his story was that he wanted to stop the violence, the killings, and the politics of hate that existed back then. Today however, I hear some people say what reason did the MDC have for joining the Zanu PF in government?

Some analysts say it was pressure from the toothless SADC leaders. Then if that holds true, the people here have every reason to say they were never part of this negotiated settlement in the first place. It was all African politics as usual that excludes the interests of the ordinary man, woman and child.

If an opposition political party can be pressured to enter into a coalition government with a losing party, then as logic would have it, the losing party can also well be pressured to leave power gracefully. Unless of course the losing party still controls the state apparatus of power and threatens civil strife if it is not given political space in the proposed government. They said it before anyway, them who claim to have fought the 70s bush war, that they are ready to take up arms and return to the bush and reverse any electoral outcome that favours the opposition.

We have heard it all before, a ruling party loses an election and it claims the winning opposition rigged the poll. What crap! But then Zimbabwe is just full of crap.

You just have to hear the people talk. No optimism whatsoever. Misery with a capital “M”.

Just this month alone, I know whole families who left the country for South Africa and these families have no clue what they will do once they get to the so-called “place of gold.” But their stories are from the same abject universe: “we need to send our children to school.”

A journalist working for a government-controlled daily also left for South Africa, never mind that he had no passport. He just had to leave, and according to him, he has no clue what he will do once he gets there. I recalled a cynic years ago who quipped, “I don’t know where am going, but I believe I’m in the right direction.”

And imagine all these people are fleeing just when a “new” government has been formed, so one has to imagine that this GNU ought to give people hope for a new beginning but then no one wants to stick around to find out how it pans out. What then? Turns out only the politicians know.

Last year I was asked to contribute to a study on how information communication technologies (ICTs) are used in the civil society sector in Zimbabwe. One of the questions I was asked was what Kubatana would do if the Mugabe regime disabled our email and internet communications. My response went something like . . . we’ll make sure to get back up and running. And that you can’t keep a good project down!

Last week it wasn’t the Mugabe regime that interrupted our internet communications, it was the US based company Bluehost. We’ve used Bluehost for the last few years to host our blog, we’ve promoted their services on our main web site Kubatana.net because their service has been good, and we also encouraged organisations like Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and Island Hospice to use Bluehost.

Unfortunately these two organisations were also brought down by Bluehost.

Bluehost’s communications with us say that they have had to take this action because it is illegal to do business with Zimbabwe due to sanctions applied by the US Government.

Indeed it is true that the US has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, but these sanctions are specific and targeted. And Kubatana, WOZA and Island Hospice are not not the list of sanctioned organisations or individuals.

Bluehost has chosen NOT to champion freedom of expression, nor have they afforded us, a fairly long standing customer, any respect by investigating the issue more deeply.

Matt Heaton, the CEO of Bluehost, wrote to us saying that he was particularly irate that members of the Kubatana community and other supporters of freedom of speech like Ethan Zuckerman and his readership, had “spammed” the Bluehost abuse and legal department.

This is where, and when, I feel immensely proud and warmed by our supporters taking the time to lodge legitimate complaints with Bluehost. It’s not spam Matt.

In the meantime we’ve had blogs backing up but with the help of Ethan, and an introduction to Rimu Hosting, and of course, Kubatana’s resident stellar-techno-kick-arse Brenda, we’re on stream again. So will WOZA and Island Hospice be soon.

Very many thanks to everyone who has supported us in this issue. Here I share with you one of our favourite emails sent to Bluehost by a Kubatana subscriber:

I find it incomprehensible that you have taken the decision to no longer host the Kubatana blog.  Are you unable to discern the difference between the tyranny and oppression of a despotic regime and a small group of people who tirelessly and in the face of adversity use the medium of the Kubatana blog to disseminate credible, relevant and important information to the outside world? It beggars belief that you find a blog, which works towards FREEDOM OF SPEECH in a country hamstrung by some of the most repressive media legislation in the world, worth sanctioning! Zimbabweans have to deal with enough!  They need your assistance to disseminate information.  The so called targeted sanctions should be exactly that – TARGETED!  Use your common sense!  Kubatana is part of the change Zimbabwe needs. Show the US’s reputation in the rest of the world is NOT justified.  Take five minutes to look at this issue.  It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that Kubatana should NOT be sanctioned! Support democracy! Yes YOU can!