Yesterday, we sent a text message to our SMS subscribers informing them about the breaking news in Libya: Muammar Gaddafi’s whereabouts unknown, sons detained, and opposition forces taking control of Tripoli.

With reports today of a “defiant regime fightback,” the situation in Libya is clearly still unfolding. But Zimbabweans resonate with attempts to remove a strongman, decades long in power. Here are some of their responses to yesterday’s news:

• Hope the brutal dictator will be captured alive and face trial for other dictators 2 wake up and realise they can b next
• It is very unfortunate that dictators are incapable of reading between the lines of the changing times and hence become victims of political upheavals of our time. May he be forgiven for his hands tainted with human blood. We really wonder which existing dictator will give him refuge. Oh! Leaders never learn that they are mortals.
• Oh. Yipee.  No country belongs to one man. The earth is the lords.
• Bravo to the people of Libya 4 ousting a dictator other dictators should learn from this that people power is mighty you can only delay but not stop people’s revolution
• Mugabe must smell the coffee. The upheaval in Africa e.g. Libya is causing some shivers into his helpless spine.
• Mugabe will never relinquish power. He committed many crimes against humanity.

I’ve just heard a jet scream past overhead. Perhaps it’s a fly-over as part of the funeral parade for the late ret. Gen. Solomon Mujuru.

Since his death earlier this week, I’ve been carrying in my head the Shona expression, wafawanaka. It equates to the English language notion that one should not speak ill of the dead.

On Tuesday morning, Kubatana sent out a text message informing our subscribers about Mujuru’s death. At the time, details were sketchy as the full story was only just coming out. But we sent out a message with the basic details, and received the expected handful of condolence messages in response.

Perhaps, in part, this is because Mujuru was genuinely as respected as he was feared. But a blog post by Mathula Lusinga today caught my eye: Why is everyone good when they die? “Mujuru the good”?

Mathula asks Zimbabweans to reflect honestly about both the positive and negative impacts Mujuru may have had on the country. But importantly he also challenges the notion that once someone dies those who remain behind lose the right to be critical about the deceased. It’s a comment worth contemplating not solely in connection with Mujuru, but for all of us left reflecting on those who have died before us.

In life, none of us are all good or all bad. We battle our various issues and challenges, make our various decisions, and make our mark accordingly. If our friends and family are honest with us, they’ll tell us both what they love and value about us, and what we do that drives them crazy. No one is perfect when they’re alive. So why must the memories of the deceased which we share be only positive? If I cling to the notion that one can’t speak ill of the dead, surely I do so at the expense of my own critical intelligence, reflection and expression.

I’ve just seen this headline and intro from The Zimbabwean, about alerts being circulated via ZBC.

Electricty Warnings
Zimbabwean’s have been warned to brace themselves for daily power outages with cash-strapped Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) unable to pay its dues.

I thought. Isn’t that what we’re already experiencing?

We just got this in from an SMS subscriber. I thought it was a very good question! Let’s see more MPs using public transport to get to rallies – as well as to other events.

I would love to see my MDC. MP coming to a rally to address us using public transport

A recent headline in The Herald caught my eye: 15,000 teaching posts vacant.

It brought to mind a recent post I’d seen on Twitter – despite the high levels of unemployment there, an IT company was struggling to fill 20 vacancies.

In Zimbabwe, unemployment is estimated at 90%, with the majority of Zimbabweans surviving in the informal sector, and with tremendous pressure on wage earners to support large extended family networks.

Meanwhile, many of the country’s brightest and proactive young people have left the country to pursue economic opportunities in South Africa, the UK and elsewhere. The brain drain included many of Zimbabwe’s qualified teachers, who left the careers they had planned and studied for to find better paying jobs outside of the country. Despite government initiatives to lure these qualified teachers back to the country, the teaching vacancies persist.

In a country with such massive unemployment, how can 15,000 posts go vacant?

As The Herald article points out: “Most teachers have been driven away by low remuneration and frustrating bureaucracy.”

Drawing on The Herald piece, a story from VOA Studio 7 quotes Education Minister David Coltart as saying that “the lack of respect for teachers in Zimbabwe, poor housing especially at rural schools and political intimidation of teachers have all contributed to high vacancies.”

Zimbabwe used to have one of the best education systems in Africa. Other posts on this blog have talked about the esteem in which teachers were held in their communities. But now Zimbabwe is in a bind. Without a robust economic engine of production, how does the country generate the revenue base to enable government to increase teachers’ salaries (and those of other civil servants)? In the meantime, what does it say for us as a country, if conditions for those in the teaching profession are so bad that our young people would rather leave the country – or start their own businesses – than contribute to educating the future of Zimbabwe.

According to the latest Parliamentary Update from the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust (SAPST), the Thematic Committee on Human Rights has prepared the committee’s first report on the state of prisons and prisoners in Zimbabwe.

Following visits to Harare Central Prison, Chikurubi Maximum Prison, Mutare Prison, Mutimurefu Prison and Whawha, the committee made a number of observations including:

• Prisoners’ living conditions left a lot to be desired mainly due to budgetary constraints. Inadequate funding made it difficult for the ZPS to operate effectively and prisoners found the life in prison hazardous, as they had to make do without most of life’s basic necessities.
• Prisoners’ diet, uniforms, bedding, transport to take them to referral hospitals and courts, constant supply of medication especially ARVs and ablution facilities were critical for the health of the prisoners while they serve their sentences.
• Mutare Remand Prison Complex was in a dilapidated state and needed refurbishment as a matter of urgency as it was no longer fit for human habitation. There was need for urgent maintenance to avoid eruption of diseases and other communicable infections. The complex was built with punitive intentions during the colonial period and should be renovated to suit a Rehabilitation Centre.
• Nursing mothers in prisons fed their children from the rations they received. Children were being forced to survive on sadza served with beans and/or vegetables. Lack of balanced diet affected the growth of these children. There were no crèches/pre schools for these children and this affected their rights to basic education.
• The Committee noted with great concern the length of time the prisoners stayed on remand especially those convicted of murder, stock theft, robbery and rape. Some had gone for more than 6 years without trial.
• Young offenders were affected by lack of transport to transport them to Whawha Young Offenders Prison and sometimes stayed at Remand Prisons for more than 3 years. There were no facilities at the Remand prison to protect young offenders from being sexually molested by adults.
• Lack of balanced diet was another critical issue that was raised by inmates. A number of inmates showed signs of malnutrition.
• The Committee noted lack of legal representation for most of the prisoners. Most of the prisoners said that they did not afford lawyers and they had lost their cases even if they were innocent because they would be competing with those that were fortunate enough to have legal representation.