Don’t you love them? People who cope with adversity through innovation and an unfailing sense of humour. I was sitting in a favourite cafe this morning, delighted that they are still able to serve up a world class cappuccino alongside a delicious stack of pancakes – with syrup – in spite of the shortages, price controls and regular power and water cuts.

At the table next to me, two Can Do blokes were talking to a long suffering colleague on their mobile phone. “Boet”, on the other end of the line, was clearly struggling to keep a fleet of vehicles alive on some remote farm in Zimbabwe. As they pulled his leg about “slacking” and “wasting time” they also reassured him that they were looking for “gennies”* and grease nipples and alternators and were making plans regarding how they could “save the seal on the 49″ and “get the 47 back on the job”.

Compare this to the Can Do attitude of Zimbabwe’s government. They Can make countless promises and break them countless times.

They Can take your property, business, passport, life, future and give you nothing in return. They Can make and break the law as they please.

Well, the bottom line is we Can outlast this government and we will Do it.

* generators

Zimbabwe’s security forces – police, army and militia – are rather fond of raising their fists to settle disputes and differences of opinion. So, predictably, injuries were the order of the day when the riot police descended upon the WOZA/MOZA members who peacefully marched through Bulawayo on June 06. The marchers were determined to insert their grassroots voices into the current SADC efforts to mediate in Zimbabwe’s crisis.

Some of their questions of the SADC process include “we would like to know exactly what South African President Thabo Mbeki, Tanzanian President Kikwete and our SADC brothers and sisters want to achieve by their mediation. Is their role to bring about a new government without any political, economic and social reform? Or is their objective something more meaningful?”

Their concerns are justified as the international community seems increasingly likely to follow the path of least resistance and assist in the installation of the next Big Man once Mugabe is persuaded or agrees to “go”. Is that the change we have all worked so hard for over the last 10 years? I don’t think so. Prosperity at any cost has a hollow ring. Of course the majority of Zimbabweans want jobs and education and opportunity but many have come to realise that we need a prosperous and just society that future generations can build on and benefit from. Quick fixes just won’t do it anymore.

Well done to the Women and Men of Zimbabwe who continue to raise their voices in a country that pretends it has the needs of the people at heart, but far too often prefers to shoot the messengers who bring a wisdom that should have been welcomed years ago.

So then, what does the charm offensive look like?

The state’s daily mouthpiece – The Herald – today published a front page news article declaring that local government elections will be held in January 2008, two months ahead of proposed presidential and parliamentary elections. In the article, Local Government Minister, Ignatius Chombo was quoted as saying that all aliens born in Zimbabwe – who were not allowed to vote in the past – should register to vote. Apparently the beleaguered Registrar General’s office, notorious for its inability (or is it unwillingness) to update the voters’ roll , will be able to provide the necessary identity documents to facilitate their participation in next year’s local government elections.

Expect more of this kind of thing – the government making it look as though there is universal suffrage in Zimbabwe, all the while working with the other hand to keep the playing field steeply skewed to benefit Zanu PF. The party will make full use of the police and militia – paid out of revenues collected from the Zimbabwean people – to enforce their will. They will abuse their monopoly of all mass media outlets – radio, television and daily newspapers – to market their cause.

Expect the government to easily stay one step ahead of the opposition with small handouts like this to keep them frozen with indecision regarding participating in the 2008 election.

Zimbabweans who ventured out of home this Sunday morning will have been greeted by the front page news in The Standard of more officially sanctioned violence by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).

What they wouldn’t know at this juncture is that all 9 detainees bludgeoned whilst in police custody and ordered off to hospital by the presiding magistrate, were last night abducted around 11pm from their hospital beds. An army doctor and a clutch of men in the ubiquitous blue uniforms of youth militia forced the injured into prison garb and dragged them off to destinations not known at this stage. Why? Under what authority were they acting?

Ostensibly our law enforcement agents are trying to bring the perpetrators of a series of petrol bombing incidents to book. They must do this at 11pm at night?

In a normal democracy, there is a separation of powers to ensure that no single arm of governance overreaches its authority. In a normal democracy the police would be out of line. But here they have been given carte blanche to do whatever it takes to beat Zimbabwe’s citizens into submission.

Now, according to the public face presented by SADC’s leaders, Zimbabwe’s democracy is functioning within the norms set by the region. (They meet every so often to TALK about Zimbabwe, but to-date they have taken no single action that has made a positive difference to Mugabe’s style of governance). So, if democracy is alive and well in Zimbabwe, we should be able to expect robust political debate and active organizing – especially with elections looming in 2008, right? If the opposition wants to hold public rallies and publish printed materials and distribute party regalia, that’s all very normal – in a functioning democracy, right? If the economy is on its knees and 80% of the population is unemployed, labour has a right (actually an obligation) to organize and protest around the crisis, yes?

Sadly, the beatings and abductions, the hide and seek games played with detainees, the overt non-compliance with court orders, the thuggery of the state’s agents, the banning of public meetings, the shambolic voters’ roll, the biased registration of new voters etc all shout the truth – there is no democracy in Zimbabwe.

Until and unless the region’s leaders speak out publicly and definitively against the tactics employed by Zimbabwe’s government, we have to deduce that they tacitly agree with them. This would lead us logically on to the realisation that the SADC leadership have more in common with Mugabe than they would have us otherwise believe. What a horrible thought – investors and donors, please take note.

AAW, AAR, AAG, AAJ, AAU, AAI – I was struck this morning by the subliminal message conveyed by our new number plates here in Zimbabwe. And it got me wondering what water would have to pass under the bridge before we got to YAY, YES and YEA.

I was in this frame of mind because I was reflecting on the events of this past week – notably the violence that has unraveled around the thwarted Save Zimbabwe Campaign Prayer Meeting scheduled for Highfields in Harare on March 11.

Opposition activists got aggressively beaten, tear gassed, arrested and held for extended periods in dirty cells without access to medical treatment and legal assistance. Policemen and women got bashed, firebombed and tear gassed. Some members of the public got stoned – because they were traveling in a bus that the activists wanted to burn; vendors had their goods stolen – because a mob mentality had developed in the absence of leadership and direction.

What do we make of all this?

Many people are secretly pleased that the “opposition” has finally got its act together and shown the regime what they’re made of i.e. Dangerous Elements That Need To Be Taken Seriously. It’s not hard to understand this view – everyone is sick to the back teeth of the heavy handed policing that is used to subdue us. Police, army, politicians and business people with Zanu PF connections act with impunity. The illegitimate is made legitimate by promulgating suffocating, disenfranchising legislation.

But for me, if this is the way that our new dispensation is going to evolve, I want none of it.

Why? Because I want to believe in and work for a future that is not built using bully tactics. If we win our freedom from the current regime using violence, what are the prospects for the next regime being any different?

Expeditious propagandists on both sides of this struggle are trying to take profit from this ugly week. If we want a future different from what we have now, we’re going to need to choose our tactics with much more care.

How must it feel to have lost access to someone you care about? To worry, knowing they are in the hands of vindictive, vicious, unaccountable policemen and women who are hell bent on making sure you can’t find them.

How must you feel when reports finally start to reach you that they are badly injured – bearing injuries they didn’t have before they entered the walls of one of the many police stations dotted around the city – and they are being prevented from receiving medical treatment and legal assistance?

How must it feel when finally they have been released and you visit your spouse, sibling, parent, partner, comrade in hospital and see them covered in bandages, bruises and swellings? Covered in injuries caused by violent, callous, repeated beatings at the hands of … the police?

How must it feel to get them home – finally released from a punitive, unjust legal system that is a parody of what it should represent?

Spare a thought for the families of Sekai Holland and Grace Kwinjeh whose injuries were severe enough to warrant them being medivac’d to South Africa on March 17.

To prepare for the evacuation they got the necessary clearance from the President’s Office, Immigration, Customs, airport security – only to be stopped on the tarmac by… a policeman with a brand new, never before heard of requirement. The officer commanding the Law and Order Section of the police had arbitrarily decided they now had to get clearance from the Ministry of Health.

There is no legal requirement for these women to remain in Zimbabwe at this stage – as far as the law is concerned – so where exactly does Assistant Commissioner Mabunda stand in relation to the legal system in Zimbabwe? Inside or outside of it?

Imagine that man’s karma.