One of my earliest childhood memories was being hit by my brother. I was watching television and because he was bored he decided to pick on me for sport. Prior to this I remember my parents always stepping in, saying he shouldn’t pick on girls because they can’t fight back. For them, and him, girls were weaker, lesser. That day, I suppose he thought it would be safe as there wasn’t an adult in the in the same room as us to defend me.

He hit me one too many times, and, being my father’s daughter, I ran to tell. My father was tired, probably from the noise and from work. He was short and exasperated in his reply.

“Hit him back.”

I remember seeing the expression on my fathers face. He couldn’t understand why I had not thought of this myself.

I am the oldest child in my family, and, for many years I’ve wondered why I let my brother carry on as he did. Even at that young age I had the authority to stop him. More than that, I was physically able to stop him, but I didn’t. It wasn’t until my father said to hit him back, that it occurred to me that I could.

That moment was the beginning of a change in the way I saw myself as a woman. Empowerment and equality are not concepts that easily occur to a seven year old, but in that moment, I experienced both. I was not weaker, I was not ‘just a girl’, I was equal to the one who was hitting me. I was equal enough to hit him back.

Empowerment for women should not start when they are adults. It is too late then to undo a lifetime of being made to think that one is weaker in mind and body. To try to undo the work of well meaning but misguided parenting, and social and cultural indoctrination when girls have become women and boys have become men has little effect on present and future generations. Men and women will continue to live as their parents did. They will raise their children the same way they were raised. As adults they seek the security and common identity that are provided by their parents traditions.

Empowerment for women begins when they are girls. Before women are distinguishable from men. Before either knows that they are different from the other.

I do a lot of running and on my way through Newlands Shopping Centre over a week ago I ran past a very badly leaking water pipe. The road running through the shopping centre had become a river.

I sent a text message to the Mayor of Harare, Mr Masunda, asking him if he could send someone to attend to it as soon as possible. A week later, the pipe was still madly spewing water. It is important to point out that this shopping centre, along with the majority of Harare, suffers from crippling water cuts. So I sent another text to Mayor Masunda asking for an emergency number to call so that the problem could be fixed. I didn’t receive any replies to my text messages – yeah, he’s a busy man I know – and in the meantime I heard that the leak was over 3 weeks old and that the BP petrol station attendants had tried, in vain (understandably because they’re not plumbers), to fix the leak with pieces of black rubber. The petrol station had asked the city works department to come and fix the leak but it seems like they haven’t put this problem on their list of Things To Do.

What are we to make of this? Shop owners and residents of Harare pay their rates; motivated citizens report problems and yet the City of Harare, knowing that the provision of water is an essential service, allows major water leaks to remain unresolved for weeks at a time.

Zimbabwean cool drink vendor, Memory Murinda, is motivated to work as hard as she does in order to provide for her children. She wants to make sure that they eat, wear clothes and go to school. Her day starts at 7am and can end as late as 8pm. Business is good when its summer because she can serve up to 200 thirsty people a day.

The challenges are many in her line of her work. “Some people have juju (magic) money . . . one minute you think you are holding a $5 note from a person and the next moment when they leave, you find out its only a dollar.” Not only does she deal with people who have juju money but also some customers are rough. Just like in any working place where you meet people on daily basis, the customer is always right and you just have to accept it.

I cannot believe that Memory is talking to me with all the drama around us in Zimbabwe where you are in fear of being labeled this or that, and everyone has an agenda. I am really surprised that she agreed to speak with me without requesting payment. She is easy going and she reveals a lot to me about her life and what made her take the step of going out into the world to fend for herself.

And so, I ask her a very daring question. Daring because often people do not want to realize their own value. So I say, what difference does your occupation make to the people of Harare? And this lady replies with a lot of self worth saying that people would die because a central part of being a vendor is taking care of people, and without vendors, people would struggle to buy products.

When I asked her about strikes she said, “Strikes are not good because if they happen most of us who are single parents are worried about being fired. I think that employers, to avoid strikes, must give their employees good working conditions and salary increases at the appropriate time.”

Her face brightened when I asked her if she had any funny experiences related to her job. With laughter in her voice she said that a lady once left R5 change with her and came back the following day saying that she wanted her US$5 back! Memory asked the lady how her money could have grown over night?

Memory told me that the situation in her home made her desperate for a job. One day she just went to Lyons and asked for a job but they turned her down. But because of the situation at home she kept going back until there was an opening.

I asked Memory what her biggest wish for Zimbabwe is? She said that wants people to respect one another – especially the people in government. She said if they respected us we would not have so much unemployment and we would have better working and living conditions.

Hypothesising about Zimbabwe’s next elections, a colleague commented that Zanu PF wouldn’t have to engage in much violence at all, but still would be able to control much of the population through the threat of violence. The image she used seared my heart: Beat a dog badly enough, and eventually all you have to do is show it the stick and it will cower.

Several months ago, I was throwing steaming hot coffee grounds out in my garden, and accidentally splashed some on my dog, who came running past at the same moment. To this day, he runs away, tail between his legs, if he sees me pick up the coffee pot.

Yesterday I got a text message that fourMDC activists had fled their homes in Mazowe, following threats by “Zanu PF militia members.”

A recent meeting organised by the Organ on National Healing was disrupted by Zanu PF youth militia.

The headline of today’s statement from the Youth Agenda Trust caught my eye: Herding sheep with wolves.  How can Zimbabwe even begin to speak about national healing when harassmet, intimidation and violence persist? What hope is there for any future election if people continue to feel threatened – and therefore cower?

The recent disruption of a conference organized by the Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation by ZANU PF youth militias and self proclaimed liberation war veterans in Harare on Saturday 22 May is a clear indicator of the dark cloud of political polarization and intolerance characterizing the Zimbabwean political terrain. The national healing, reconciliation and integration programme which came as a result of Article 7 of the Global Political Agreement signed between ZANU PF and the opposition MDC is yet to make any meaningful progress or impact on the ordinary Zimbabweans. The national healing process despite being led by three senior members of each of the three political parties in the GPA has frantically failed to achieve its intended objectives of reconciling the polarized communities and fostering cohesion and tolerance amongst people with different political and ideological orientations. This recent outbreak of violence at such a high level decision making conference should be strongly condemned in the strongest terms possible and should also be treated as a serious warning to the Zimbabwean political leadership over the implications of a snail pace reconciliation programme crafted by three political elites whose implementation plan is totally disconnected from the people who have been the victims of three decades of genocide, misrule and political conflict. It is sad to note that ZANU PF  through its Harare provincial leadership continues to abuse youths within their party structures to be agents of intolerance through their traditional busing and disruption of national events such as the Constitution All Stakeholders Conference and the National Healing Indaba.

The chaos also came in the wake of recent media reports highlighting the possibility of the nation going through an election in May next year. The Youth Agenda Trust would want to reiterate that free and fair elections are only feasible under a new, democratic and people driven constitution. The continued political bickering characterizing the constitution making process coupled with the lack of political will and insincerity in the implementation of the national healing programme as highlighted in the Global Political Agreement remain as the major setbacks towards a free, fair and democratic election in Zimbabwe. A partisan state media, compromised electoral commissions, a partisan security sector and the general unwillingness to respect the constitution by some elements of the executive are a few of the many indicators of the negative political environment for a free and fair election in May 2011.

In conclusion Youth Agenda Trust calls upon the leaders of the inclusive government to reconsider their strategy towards attaining national healing and reconciliation. In fact the commitment and capacity of those appointed to administer this important exercise should be urgently critiqued. A proper national healing framework based on the principles of  transitional and restorative justice which is adequately funded from the national fiscus and interested partners which employs a down to top approach remains a key recommendation by the Youth Agenda. The reported plans to re introduce the notorious and violent Border Gezi national youth training programme should be halted forthwith and the political leaders should collectively speak out against the abuse of young people for political expediency.

- Youth Agenda Trust

Zimbabwean activist Rejoice Ngwenya has just published a new article . . .

Who would have thought that at this landmark stage in my life, this only year I will turn 50, I would once again read the Daily News, The Mail, The Daily Gazette, The Worker newspapers? Is it not your eternal sense of generosity that finally manifests itself in the multiplicity of print media? Those who pour scorn on your act of magnanimity know little of your history. Allow me therefore to pay homage by chronicling your unprecedented and amazing acts of benevolence for the benefit of perpetually ungrateful sceptics!

Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, may I remind the unholy cabal of reactionary sceptics that it is by your self-sacrifice that our country ever tested real democracy! Growing up as a young man from the rural areas, I would visit city relatives and see public toilets written ‘whites only’. Now as a grown man in Harare, I visit commercial farms and see plaques written ‘blacks only’. You are truly a great man!

In the 1980’s, you acted like a real mature father by disciplining a small clique of unruly dissidents in Matebeleland who were destabilising your flourishing socialist country. Although there were minor incidents where twenty thousand civilians lost their lives in what Americans would term ‘collateral damage’, your acts of courage resulted in the dignified submission to your authority of one Joshua Nkomo, hence the peace and tranquillity that prevails since then.

Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, in 1990, you inspired, through your fatherly grip of Parliament, the removal of the clause that ring-fenced the political and property rights of residual Rhodesian elements. This was the beginning in the long journey of Zimbabweans being in charge of their destiny. As you always say, Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans, Britain for British and America for Americans. If I may add, Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, Mercedes Benz cars for the Germans. We would rather use scotch cart presidential convoys as a true reflection of our endangered tradition than being sucked into the material gluttony of the misguided European Union!

In the 1990s, you continued to protect us from the vagaries of Western intimidation by again inspiring Parliament to retain the state of emergency. Like any father, children must be protected from unknown adversaries. You acted in our best interest, because you knew then as you still do now what is good for us. The West has brought civilisation, but at high cost: pollution, national debt, homosexuality and reckless media that attempts to seek truth through invasion of privacy!

Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, I should dwell a bit on the issue of invasion just to show your immortal benevolence. When distant neighbour Laurent Kabila was under threat of invasion by combined Ugandan and Rwandese forces in the guise of ‘rebels’, you single-handled repelled the military misfits into the jungles. Your detractors came out guns blazing alleging that your soldiers were looting diamonds using national resources at a whopping one million United States dollars per day! What hogwash! Whoever heard of a ‘cheap’ war? I’m glad to mention that your act of courage has resulted in strong bilateral ties with the Democratic Republic of Congo, and our experience of guarding diamond mines is now paying off handsomely at our very own alluvial Chiyadzwa Diamond Mines. Those detractors who claim the country is not benefiting from Chiyadzwa cannot explain how Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, you can afford to attend most international conferences and African presidential inaugurations with one hundred of your staff without a single cent from the immature MD-something party minister of finance!

Another act of invasion is the gutter press. Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, at one time you had to use your good judgement to discipline journalists and newspapers that falsely claimed you paid Lobola for someone or your committed party members beheaded a villager. After having forgiven them, they abused your immortal benevolence until you requested your able minister for information to legally shut all of them down. Those British and American journalists who insisted on reporting half-truths about human rights were politely requested to leave. All humans, especially Zimbabwean ones, have rights, so why would anyone keep talking about it?

Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, in the late 1990s, your good acts of generosity were again on public display when fifty thousand destitute freedom fighters were empowered by your personal gifts of money. The ugly face of detraction again reared its head by false allegation of favouritism, plunder, corruption and abuse of state funds. How a father can give his children money but be accused of all this beats my mind! There are some white good-for-nothing bushconomists who claim that was the beginning in the collapse of our economy. How untrue? Do they want to ignore the negative effects of racist Bretton Woods institutions whose force-fed liberalisation prescription laid the foundation for Zimbabwe’s economic demise? Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, you acquired your knowledge from the candle light of prison cells while these motor-mouths revelled in the bright lights of Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and Rhodes, but they keep being overpowered by their ignorance of basic economics principles!

Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, I would like to conclude by thanking you for giving us land. All acts of generosity will be immortalised in the anus, I mean annals of Zimbabwe’s history. It is not your fault that beneficiaries are abandoning the land to lie fallow. Now am even more excited that you are planning to give us mines and industry. These belong to us and so as we wait for the newspapers that will start operating due to your immortal benevolence, Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, I hope that they will desist from gutter, yellow journalism that fails to appreciate your good deeds. If I have inadvertently insulted you by singing  these praises due only to Your highness, Supreme leader for life, Head of this and Commander-in-Chief of that, I your humble servant, submit myself to the punishment that befits my transgression.

Speaking with photographer Doug MacLellan recently, he mentioend that he was considering publishing a book of photographs he’s taken at a mission hospital in Zimbabwe, with the working title “Looking for Hope.”

It seems to be a popular theme. I was reminded of this when I saw the title of Philip Barclay’s recently published book. I used to really enjoy reading Philip’s blog on Global Conversations when he was based at the British Embassy here.  Now I’m looking forward to getting a copy of Zimbabwe: Years of Hope and Despair