To celebrate his 50th birthday this year, Rejoice Ngwenya has launched the 2010% campaign. Read and listen to some of Rejoice’s ideas here. Below, he explains more about the campaign:

In my native siNdebele language, when a woman delivers a baby it is said: ‘Sekhululekile!’ literary translated into English – she is free!  I have proof that chiKaranga version is ‘kubatsigwa’, meaning ‘to be helped’.  In retrospect, I do appreciate and thank my mother, who exactly fifty years ago this September  will have heaved a sigh of relief after being ‘freed’ with a set of twin boys, one of which is me. This gift had an even deeper meaning coming many years after this wise rural woman married to a sophisticated primary school teacher had had a human avalanche of five baby girls before then. The man was so elated – because those days it was considered  ‘taboo’ not to have baby boys – he showed his ‘rejoicing’ by sticking that label on my birth certificate! What cheek, now everyone who sees my name thinks I am one of those … girls. You are forgiven, Old John. May the God of Abraham remember to keep a place for you in the New Jerusalem!

And so it is for this reason that one Robert Mugabe says that he single-handedly ‘freed’, or ‘helped’ us Zimbabweans from the miserable pregnancy  of nauseating colonialism. We now supposedly collectively owe him a favour, having had tolerated his thirty-year grip on abusive  political power without so much as raising an eyebrow of resistance. “Zimbabwe is 100% free,” he bellows, “and this you ungrateful citizens owe it to me and, and, and my party ZANU-PF.” I’m like No! Old man, all you did was to change the colour of the skin of the tenant at Zimbabwe House from white to black, and that don’t make me free. If you, in 1980, gave me this defective form of ‘100% freedom’, I want the real thing. 2010% will do just fine, and so good bye. Take a break, a long break and nobody will even remember you were once part of my rugged political landscape. The more you hang around, the more I will remember Gukurahundi, DRC, land invasions, Murambatsvina, one billion percent inflation, empty supermarket shelves, poverty, hunger, oppression, petrol queues, AIPPA, POSA… and that’s not very healthy.

If you claim to have ‘delivered’ me from Ian Smith, how come three million of my friends are still hiding in exile? You claim you are free, but travel in a mile long convoy surrounded by Uzis, AK-47ns and ugly m*****f*****s?  Quiet some freedom, Old Man. I want to make it official now, there is no democracy around here, and I might sound so dam crazy! Elections every five years are not the best litmus for democracy. Sadam Hussein had elections too! They have them in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the DRC, but that don’t make their democracy cool.

For now, democracy seems to be at the bottom rung of my ladder of priorities. Freedom first. No, your retirement first, then perhaps my freedom. Even great football players did retire – Edison Pele, George Best, Maradona, Roger Mila, Doctor Khumalo, Kalusha Bwalya, Zinadine Zidane and Peter Nyama. So what’s up with you Mdala?   You say Zimbabweans, or more accurately, ZANU-PuFfed Zimbabweans will decide when you should retire. Nice try. Fortunately, they are such a small proportion of the voting population, because at the last count in March 2008, you comprehensively lost. Here’s the deal: next time you look out of your tinted Mercedes Limousine escort car, you will see the ‘real’ Zimbabweans in T-shirts, caps and car stickers giving you five cool reasons why you should retire. Peer through the tint and marvel at the number of citizens waving the 2010% free flags. Ask your receptionist, she might even have 2010% free as her screen saver, then you know it’s time to hang your …. Manifesto.  Ses’ khululekile!

This entry was posted on March 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Activism, Governance, Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.