The South Africa Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) has just published this statement:

SAMWU PRESS STATEMENT

22 February 2011

This Union is outraged at the arrest of 52 activists in Harare on 19th February by armed security personnel. It appears that their only ‘crime’ was to be part of a discussion group, with a film examining recent events in Egypt and the Middle East.  They are all currently being detained in Harare Central Prison. This unprovoked attack on a peaceful political education session is indicative of the type of terror that was unleashed by ZANU-PF in the run up to the last elections.

The purpose then as now, is clearly to instil fear into the general population in an attempt to demobilise democratic forces from asserting their rights. ZANU-PF has made it clear that they intend to win the next elections, even without an agreed constitution in place, and to win it by any means.

Zimbabwe continues to be in a state of siege. The working class and the poor continue to bear the brunt of the prolonged economic crisis while those in positions of power enjoy all that money can buy.  It is therefore imperative that those who wish to see a peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe, where all are able to share in the resources of the country, must speak out when such attacks take place. They do not belong in a democratic society, and are a crude attempt to intimidate those courageous enough to say that another Zimbabwe is possible.

We demand that the 52 persons arrested be immediately released, and that if any charges are brought against them, that they be vigorously challenged and decisively refuted as justice demands they be. Furthermore, that those who disrupted this peaceful gathering be called to account and be exposed for what they are, wreckers of democracy.

Sitting at a table in the Sterling, I am asked by a student if I will tie his necktie. A glance reveals the absence of hands. Thalidomide? He has a faint German accent and my mother’s eye’s—soft, moist, and brown. I stand behind him, uncertain and shaky. There is nothing of the surgeon’s self-assurance in my hands. The act is one of great intimacy. I feel his breath upon my hands, my wrist rests upon his neck. The boy’s utter submission. At last it is done. I move the knot under his chin and button the shirt beneath it.

“I have an interview today,” he tells me.

“Then you need to look your best. Good luck.”

RICHARD SELZER, from Diary, YaleUP.

Source: It’s a kirby

Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.
- Abbie Hoffman

On Saturday evening I got a text message saying that a member of our Kubatana team had been arrested and was being detained at Harare Central Police Station. His crime? Attending a public meeting convened by the International Socialist Organisation (ISO). ISO felt it useful to bring together members of the public and colleagues in civil society to discuss the events in Egypt.

A paranoid regime responds just like the Mugabe one did on Saturday. It closed the meeting down. Arrested everybody. And held them until Monday morning without allowing them any legal representation.

Stupid bully boys.

The events in Egypt have been broadcast by all major media houses and many Zimbabweans have gotten to hear and see the effects of people power – it brought Mubarak down. And if all the moons and the stars alike align, it will bring Mugabe down too. The more you suppress dissent and the more you rule with an iron fist, the more the people will Hate you. Its not rocket science, its pure fact.

My mother always liked to use the phrase: its like farting against thunder.

That’s exactly what Mugabe and his authoritarian regime are doing in Zimbabwe. They can puff and puff all they like, but eventually they’ll suffocate themselves through suppressing the will of the people.

As we said in our latest Kubatana newsletter:

Sit at the feet of the master long enough, and they’ll start to smell.
~ John Sauget

And many of us are enough of the stench.

If media reports are to be believed social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are being credited with driving the recent overthrow of North African dictators. In light of this, speculation is rife about staging a similar event in Zimbabwe.

I recently received an email from an individual or group who are trying to organise a similar uprising. To my understanding all communication about this meeting has been via the Internet. I hope that while they have taken notes from the afore-mentioned revolutions, they are aware that it is not possible to replicate them here.

Traditional media such as print, radio and television are strictly controlled by the government for a reason. They have a reach and influence over the vast majority of Zimbabweans that is not yet paralleled by any emerging new media. Internet penetration is estimated at a rate of 24% of adults living in urban centres. Popular revolts are not powered by the comfortable urban middle classes, who in Zimbabwe’s case make up the majority of those who have regular access to the Internet, they are powered by the young and idealistic.

While Zimbabwe’s youth are ripe for driving a revolution, the recent demonstrations and violence against foreign business owners in support of Indigenisation suggest that they are a political tool, rather than a tool for change. They have unwavering and what is more dangerous unquestioning support for the political parties they are aligned to.  Zimbabwe has yet to see a youth wing or movement that is more powerful or has greater influence than those established by political parties.

Revolutions have no blueprints, and as Trevor Ncube rightly states in his reflections on recent events “Zimbabwe is neither Tunisia nor Egypt”.

It is a busy  place, Cape Town
filled with new housing and more cars and more roads
filled with family and friends and generosity and warmth  and shared meals and old memories
shared holidays and celebrations and places we have been
and where to go and what to see and what to buy and where to live
Gleaming shops filled with new things that I didn’t know I needed
things that make life better?
and I buy 3 pairs of baggie trousers,
(and even though  Pat tells me it looks as if I have dirtied my nappy from behind,
I am, nevertheless, pleased at this new casual comfort)

Most days I watched the early morning sea
sitting on the rocks below towering mountains
where the elements converge
in rushing winds
and silent mists
and sudden heat from unfiltered sun in deep blue skies

ancient granite rocks overlaid with ancient  sea beds
overhang the ocean
and here – in this unlikely, unwelcoming place
blown by furious flattening winds
scorched by burning afternoon sun
watered by far flung spray
8 different kinds of flowering plants  have made their home
a tenuous holding

fibrous roots into cracks of crystallized infertile rock

- and a line of minute black ants
march in earnest, focused direction
across the granite wall behind me

life is everywhere – ready to answer the challenge
in their still deep silence the old spirits of the mountains
are slowly shifting
as a frill of encrusting  houses and mansions and apartments
scramble up its slopes
fill valleys that were once the passage of wind-blown sand,
and hundreds of thousands of temporary shacks
grow and spread
out there, on the sand dunes
and on the edge of wetlands and slopes
- housing for the homeless

The old oaks planted by long gone settlers
begin to grow diseased and old

The sea begins to bite into the coastal railway line
and sand blows up the streets covering the edges

These rocks, and mountains and beaches have moved with the slow pace of time
over millions of years
a small piece of Africa jutting out towards the south pole
covered in feinbos
a community of plants found nowhere else in the world

and at the time we begin to realise how precarious is  this land
and finally recognize the call to hold this place sacred
- small places on the tops of mountains and the edge of unreachable coasts

we pour in, regardless, in our millions
trying to control the inevitable, eternal migration of mountain and sand and sea
and battle with the problem of living in a way that creates least harm

Back home it is tattier
less comfortable and predictable
where the challenge of interacting with the chaos is more visible
and I feel once again the edge of anxiety
and to the thrill of riding the wave

Back home to the family and the community and the sad absence of Pete
the familiar trees
and the space and the noise
and the call of the Tinker Barbet and Heuglins Robin
and the knowledge of friendships in far places
and 8 different kind of plants hanging of the rocks at Noorhoek