Dictionary.com defines patriotism as devoted love, support and defense of one’s country, national loyalty. In confusing love of our country with support of bad leadership, we’ve lost our sense of Patriotism. Yet patriotism is within the reach of ordinary citizens and something that we desperately need a lot more of. It’s spreading the word when something good happens and realizing that not everything in this country has to revolve around party politics. Patriotism is refusing to bribe a police officer and insisting that he follow the letter of the law for our traffic (or other) violations. It’s paying our taxes when we have to and buying Zimbabwean products to support our manufacturing industries. Its letting our neighbours who haven’t had water for years get water from us when we have boreholes. Its letting someone else go at the dead traffic lights. Its even turning the lights off when you’re not in the room to save electricity, not just for you but for the whole country. Patriotism is standing up for the Zimbabwe we believe in. Being Zimbabwean, regardless of who or where we are is something we should all take pride in. Working toward the Zimbabwe we all want to live in is something we should all do on a daily basis. It doesn’t require grand national gestures. Oftentimes it is the littlest things that make the biggest difference, it just takes us to keep an eye out for them. What have you done for Zimbabwe lately?

Governing in Africa
is like sweeping leaves
on a windy day

This week, Kubatana launched Inzwa, our Zimbabwean experiment with audio information via mobile phones. We’ll be updating our information every Tuesday, and we are interested in any feedback to help us improve the service.

How does it work?

Tune into Inzwa by phoning +263 913 444 321-8 and . . .
- Press 1 for 60 seconds fresh bringing you current news and views
- Bata 2 to enter the doorway to chibanzi for job vacancies, scholarships or resources
- Press 3 to find out about everyday heroes and take a new look at Zimbabwean activists and activism
- Hit 4 to listen to Zanele unleash the music and introduce us to new musicians
- And . . . Speak Out Sistas and Bruthaz . . . to leave us a message, punch 5

So try it out! Phone +263 913 444 312-8 any time, day or night, and tell us what you think.

I was a University of Zimbabwe student once. When academic programmes were over subscribed, the administration was over worked, departments were understaffed and the entire University was underfunded. This was before the elections that officially didn’t cause the closure. Evidence of the silent rioting that happened at night, after the library was closed, would be found first thing in the morning. Broken windows, overturned chairs and benches, or the smouldering car that belonged to some fat cat who was visiting someone in Swinton.

I was a student at the University of Zimbabwe when unidentifiable members of the CIO and police attended lectures they did not understand with students. When one semester the University opened and I found that there were more police officers on campus than students. I come from a long line of University graduates, all of whom proudly hold up several degrees from the University of Zimbabwe. They don’t understand how the University that they remember, could have turned into what it was when I was a student, and what it is now: a place of unfulfilled promise and broken dreams. Their University, was a place of hushed academic endeavour. Merely being present on campus inspired them to strive for excellence in their respective programmes. They wanted for nothing and for them being at the University was a break from the suffering of living in the communal or what was then the Tribal Trust Lands. I have heard them speak of moving into the Halls of Residence, and how it meant you were a serious student. Being present on that same campus meant suffering for almost everyone I attended University with. Those same Halls of Residence were little more than glorified brothels; and were tellingly named after cities that suffered heavy handed bombing. I’m told that your University days are supposed to be your most idealistic, when you believe in the good of and fighting for humanity. Yet somehow our students leaders were poisoned. Student politicians were younger versions of the real thing, greedy, manipulative and corrupt. Elections to student Council when I was there, bore the same elements as national elections. Election promises included better housing, access to clean water, better sanitation  and a stop to the corrupt practices of the previous administration. They were tainted too, with murmurs of harassment, violence and corruption even within the election process.

Today’s University is struggling to cater to the very few students who despite the harsh realities of their lives persevere in trying to get a degree. The handful of lecturers who go without pay but still teach are ignored, mistreated and overworked. Times have changed from the glory days, when acceptance into the University of Zimbabwe meant that you had a place in Zimbabwe’s own Talented Tenth. Times have changed. The University has devolved from being a place of hope to one of suffering. But some things remain the same. The UZ remains a reflection of the society that we live in.

A gender advocacy group is trying to shove self-righteous coolade down Julius Malema’s throat on allegations of hate speech. The ANCYL President is understood to have suggested that Zuma’s alleged rape victim enjoyed the sex because if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have waited until the sun came out, had breakfast and asked for taxi fare. In my mind I am thinking, ok, what are the prescribed behavior patterns for rape victims? Obviously the youth leader who is coming across more as Zuma’s naïve lackey has no understanding or comprehension of the complexities of rape. Well, whether or not that woman did her things in that neat order the most striking thing is that imbeciles like Malema are left to lead the youth in South Africa. Surely political lapdogs like him are a liability to democracy and ought to be exterminated or locked up before they breed.

Speaking of locked up, the ZLHR today organized a workshop that sought to promote the rights of prisoners in Zimbabwe. Several presentations were made that showed that evidently, the state of or prisons is worse than abandoned dog kennels. Prisoners are hungry and walk around next to naked. Sexual and physical abuse is rampant and disease is claiming a lot of them in droves. The most touching were two things – mothers with little babies are locked up in there and have to share whatever meals they get with their children. There are no separate portions for the kids.

When the mothers menstruate, they have to use pieces of blankets for pads. Secondly; juveniles who have committed petty crime (although in my books there is nothing like that) are thrown together with hardened criminals who instantly turn them into wives, so to speak. At the end of a session, I found I wasn’t the only one struggling with indecision faced with the moral need to provide basic human rights to prisoners and the thought that a lot of them actually are hardcore criminals who have raped, robbed and killed our kith. The workshop continues tomorrow but for now I thought to myself, if Malema was to spend just one night at Chikurubi, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if he starved.

Some people argue that no one really uses them ‘in the heat of the moment’. Others say they just don’t like the artificialness that they bring to what should be a ‘natural’ experience – sex. “It’s like eating a sweet with its wrapper still on, or an unpeeled banana,” so they say.

But like them or hate them, use them or avoid them, the possibility of not having condoms at all as an HIV prevention option is a very serious issue with very real implications for those who do choose to make use of them.

And if recent reports from South Africa of condom stock-outs in the Free State province’s public hospitals are anything to go by, the likelihood of such an occurrence is more real than one might want to imagine.

In an article carried by the PlusNews HIV analysis service, it was revealed that some South African clinics are reporting complete condom stock-outs owing to what a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) representative described as a severe shortage of human resources, as well as weak distribution networks and budget shortages.

These stock-outs obviously violate a basic human right – the right to health, and its various options. For, much as their use and comfort may be debated, condoms constitute an impotent component towards realising the sexual and reproductive health rights of all people. Not having access to them limits one’s health options in a similar way that not having access to ARVs (if one is HIV positive and in need of them) does.

Yet with condoms costing much less to produce than ARVs, it is simply much more affordable – for governments, donors, non-profit and commercial sectors – to prevent, rather than treat HIV.

For this reason, and the ones to follow, stock-outs are completely unacceptable.

The next reason to bear in mind is that condoms play a dual prevention role in that they can be used to both prevent pregnancies, as well as to prevent  transmission of HIV and STIs. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), of an estimated 10.4 billion male condoms used worldwide in 2005, around 4.4 billion were used for family planning and 6 billion for HIV prevention.

But their efficacy is premised upon correct and CONSISTENT use, which is why stock-outs in the public health care sector present such a major challenge to sexual and reproductive health efforts. It is indeed a tragedy that many of the countries with the highest global HIV prevalence rates harbour some of the world’s poorest communities who cannot afford to purchase condoms and therefore rely solely on those that are freely provided, or sold to them at subsidised prices. For these people, stock-outs spell danger because while condoms may still be available to them via the private sector (such as supermarkets and pharmacies), the commercial brands sold there would be far too expensive, and therefore beyond their financial reach.

What stock-outs essentially mean is that people could become infected not through a lack of knowledge, but perhaps largely through a lack of financial resources to purchase prevention tools.

Nobody equipped with information about HIV and AIDS today should become infected, or re-infected. Nobody should have to seek out means of prevention and fail to find them, especially at a time when the theme around prevention is becoming evermore-dominant in global discourse around the HIV pandemic.

Stock-outs of condoms should never happen. It is too blatant a theft of one’s rights to sexual and reproductive autonomy.

Effective planning and budgetary allocation of funds towards procurement of sufficient quantities of condoms should be carried out by all governments and key stakeholders to prevent any shortfalls in supply. This should be bolstered by regular monitoring and evaluation of trends in sexual behaviour and activity of populations. This is crucial  for as people begin to engage in sexual activity at an ever-earlier age, as well as learn about the dual efficacy of condoms (as discussed earlier), and also disregard previously held misconceptions about them, it follows that demand for condoms will rise. Supplies based on the sexual habits of a population five or ten years ago will not suffice.

And nor will moralistic debates pitting abstinence as ‘good’ against pre-marital sex as its ‘evil’ opponent.

Governments must also put in place policing measures to ensure against corruption in the supply and distribution chain of condoms to public health facilities. While it is well acknowledged that theft and other forms of corruption take place in the supply and distribution of the more lucrative essential medicines (such as ARVs and painkillers), it is important to investigate if the same underhand dealings are also taking place with condoms.

Ultimately, the argument presented here is not about what people do – or should do – with condoms. It is simply about equipping them with the option to choose.