Yesterday I attended a presentation on Human Security by Farai Maguwu, a Zimbabwean human rights activist.

Over the years, many states have focused their security strategies on defending and protecting their nation through the use of the military. In Zimbabwe the defense Ministry has done exceedingly well in this regard, considering we have never been attacked by any state since independence. However, the blueprint surrounding the word security has since embraced a new aspect, which is human security. Human security expresses the basic needs of an individual in terms of secure systems of education, health, shelter and job structures.

Thus the ‘security’ that nations should provide for their citizens should go a long way beyond having safe borders to protect the nation at large to having individuals needs met within that secure environment. Human security in Zimbabwe is dilapidated. This is evident in the number of Zimbabweans living in the Diaspora who have failed to get a job in their own country, who have failed to get medical health care, who seek better education systems and whose freedom of expression has been violated. It is also evident from the number of street kids we having living in the streets, who have failed to secure a shelter over their head, a basic birth certificate (which is a right), education, and food to mention a few examples.

I personally fear that one day I might fall ill and fail to pay for my medical bills. Student at universities fear not getting a job after completing their studies. Pupils in schools,, both primary and secondary, fear that one day their parents will wake up to tell them there is no money in the house to pay for their fees or examination fees. The internally displaced communities and a majority of citizens have failed to put a roof over their heads. This, like the presenter put it, will lead to structural violence which he defined as the slow death of an individual through being deprived access to basic material needs.

What measures should we undertake as a nation to make Zimbabwe secure?

Riots which have swept through Tunisia started when a young man set himself on fire after police had confiscated merchandise he was selling on the streets. The young man had a degree from university and he was jobless. He resorted to selling fruits and vegetables on the streets and had his stuff confiscated by police. Through frustration and anger the young man set himself on fire. That same week in December another jobless man electrocuted himself to death. Before he torched himself he shouted “no to misery, no to unemployment.” Unemployment in Tunisia has an official unemployment rate of around 14%, but it is believed to be much higher in some areas.

With Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate reportedly standing at over 90% at present, one wonders what would be the fate of young people in this country. Every year thousands of graduates are churned out from Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutes. Most of them are jobless and some have trekked down to South Africa hoping for the better. Right now we have university graduates who are on the streets selling airtime cards, and some have resorted to becoming commuter omnibus conductors.

After having a chat with one of my friends, who is a college graduate, he said he really missed “the high rate era.” Though he hated the high inflation era, at least the days he spent on Harare’s street corners as a money changer provided some food on the table. But now after dollarisation, he said, “life has become tough.”  Most youths have resorted to drug abuse so that they can forget that they are not working. I know some can deny this but it’s a fact. These youths may look calm but soon their patience will be stretched to the limits and we shouldn’t be surprised when Harare becomes another Tunisia.

Like a virus spreading this wave of youth uprisings will reach our country and door steps. Time will tell.

“The country’s policies on indigenisation will not be there forever, hence the need to grab the chance now and not wait. There is no reason to wait as opportunities might elude you…the challenge I see with most people is that they want to commit to investing home when things are OK, but when things are OK, there would be no opportunities to talk about,” Affirmative Action Group president Supa Mandiwanzira, Business Chronicle, 11 January 2010.

And when Zanu PF critics say the party goons smelt their exit with the advent of a vibrant political opposition and went on looting overdrive, who will argue when Mandiwanzira openly makes such declarations? If all is okey-dokey it means you have a functioning state with checks and balances that make looting criminal, so strike the iron while it’s hot; use bad laws to create wealth; loot as much as you can such that when good men appear on the horizon to take charge, who gives a shit, coz dude, we got it made!  And the rest of the “lumpen proletariat” who continue to wallow in misery? Well, they empathised with the enemy and chose not to heed the call to arms, that’s what Mandiwanzira and his confederates will say when asked by St. Peter to justify how they got so fabulously wealthy and forgot the old Christian stricture “what does it profit a man…?”

Despite giving themselves hefty salaries and most recently the big holiday cheque, our City Fathers did us good by placing orange bins on most of the major roads in the city center. What still surprises me though is that you will find someone throwing his or her empty ice cream paper on the street. If this is to continue the risk of getting cholera will be high considering it will be combined with blocked sewer pipes. Hopefully littering will be short lived as people are soon to be jailed for littering and spitting on the street.

For the city to deal with litter problems it has to change the mind-set of its citizens. Mr Mapako, an environmental officer with the Environmental Management Authority, said “The problem of litter is now quite rampant throughout the country and if we are to find a solution we have to deal with human attitude first. For instance when customers go into the shops they have a habit of collecting plastic bags and dumping them on the streets. They should learn to use one shopping bag several times”.

With most supermarkets now selling their plastic bags this will easily be achieved. It’s so boring having to pay for a taxi bag when you used to get it for free. At least most people will now move around with a plastic bag in their pockets or hand bags and hence there will be less litter in the streets.

Robert Nzara, a Zimbabwean living in South Africa, who had joined the rest of his fellow countrymen applying for passports, was assaulted last Thursday at the temporary Zimbabwe consulate at the Bellville Home Affairs office in Cape Town. Just when our neighbors in South Africa gave our fellow Zimbabweans a reprieve to regularize their stay to March 31, here we are busy fighting each other.  Read the story on the Sowetan website

I read online today that the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and his alleged ‘lover’ Aquilina Kayidza Pamberi, have both denied the allegations that they were having an affair. Was this one of those “unfounded and baseless” stories to “besmirch the person and office of the Prime Minister”? Read the stories from Newsday here and The Standard here