We want to get to know our website users better. Do you use www.kubatana.net? If so, we want to hear from you! Please email survey [at] kubatana [dot] net and let us know:

- Your gender
- Your age
- Your occupation
- Where you’re based
- When you first found out about the Kubatana website
- How often you use it
- What you use it for
- What is your favourite part about it?
- What do you least like about it?
- Your pick to win World Cup 2010!

Now lest you think Kubatana is resolutely anti World Cup, we’re not! We’re busy drawing straws to see who gets to leave the office early on Friday to watch the opening ceremony and first match, and we included this announcement in our newsletter today:

Regional soccer solidarity . . .

Get your fingers tapping today!
Deadline: Wednesday 9 June 2010

Over the next few weeks the eyes of the world will be on South Africa for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. The tournament starts on 11 June 2010 with the official opening ceremony and the opening game between South Africa and Mexico.

The hosting of the tournament presents us with an opportunity to get behind our neighbours and Bafana Bafana as they take on the best teams in the world.

SANGONeT, a South African NGO, is collecting and coordinating “NGO messages of support” for Bafana Bafana and the successful hosting of the World Cup.

All you need to do is to forward a short message of support from Zimbabwe (no more than 50 words), to info@sangonet.org.za by Wednesday, 9 June 2010. Please copy info@kubatana.net

All messages will be published on NGO Pulse – www.ngopulse.org

A consolidated document with all the messages will be submitted to the South African Football Association (SAFA) on 10 June 2010 to be handed over to the Bafana Bafana team before the start of the World Cup and their first game on 11 June 2010.

We’ve already received these messages of support from our subscribers:

Bafana!Bafana…this is an African cause . . . “Cry the beloved vuvuzela” . . . from the Cape to Cairo the echo of victory shall be heard!
- JM

You are like Excalibur, the great and mighty sword that never lost any battle. You have been given the platform to show the world what Africa is made of. Here is a good luck note from a Zimbabwean lady who is wishing all the best. I salute you.
- RZ

I believe I speak on behalf of many fellow Zimbabweans as I say to Bafana Bafana – “what ever the outcome . . . .we are proud of your our brothers, raise your flag high, and play from the heart . . . for Africa”
- IC

Bafana Bafana, you are the pride of our land,
South Africa, your light will shine to all,
You have already shown the world what you are made of,
You prepared for these games with pride and courage,
Now this is the time for you to shine to the whole world.
- CM

Congratulations on hosting the tournament. Play fair and do it the South African way. Make Africa proud by seizing the opportunity to keep the World Cup in Africa. Ishe Komborera Africa
- ZS

Viva Bafana Bafana Viva. I wish you and the people of South Africa triumph at the prominent Fifa Soccer World Cup Finals. Hold high the golden trophy for victory is already Africa’s. Viva Bafana Bafana.
- KM

Bafana Bafana 2010, it’s historic! Remember it is an African World Cup and belongs to Africa! Go Bafana Bafana you can win it. It is very possible!
- CM

Wish all African teams competing in this year’s World Cup all the best. Make Africa proud. To South Africa: Thank you for bringing the World Cup to our doorstep.
- SC

Get involved! Send your congratulatory message to Bafana Bafana. Write to info [at] sangonet [dot] org [dot] za by Wednesday, 9 June 2010 and cc info [at] kubatana [dot] net

This text message we just received sums up one person’s perspective on Zimbabwe’s inclusive government:

We mixed good and rotten tomatoes in the same basket

Whilst Natasha might have enjoyed her FIFA moment, and gotten a real buzz out of the Brazil / Zimbabwe match last week, other Zimbabweans are not so convinced. Teachers and civil servants remain poorly paid. Water and electricity shortages persist. But Zimbabwe paid US$1.8 million to get Brazil to play football here. Below are more responses from our subscribers, most of whom are disappointed by government’s priorities.

Better paying electricity with that money

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Personally I don’t support that otherwise that money should have been injected into the education sector

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Crazy priorities. Upside down. What would you expect?

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Its just unfair

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It is disheartening

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That is total negligence of systems that can rebuild Zimbabwe. It signals failure to prioritise and lack of political to improve e welfare of civil servants.

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We mixed good and rotten tomatoes in the same basket

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That means they like leisure than the people’s needs

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Its not fair enjoying soccer at the expense of other people. Zvinhu zvakaoma vamwe varibusy kuputitsa cash

Political activist and commentator Rejoice Ngwenya recently sent this through to us. If you know someone who was killed during the Gukurahundi, email rngwenya [at] ymail [dot] com

In the 1980s, a decade of so-called ‘economic growth’, I and four million other Zimbabweans of Ndebele origin lost friends, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters in an orgy of political madness that cost the lives of more than twenty thousand people of Matebeleland and the Midlands.  Repeated attempts by courageous Christians, progressive political parties, civic activists, sympathetic regional and international organisations to get the government of Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF to acknowledge the massacres have failed.

Now that the organ of national healing – whatever that means – has been accorded a status to pursue the Gukurahundi issue as a good case for ‘reconciliation’, I propose that everyone in Zimbabwe who knows someone whose life was wasted by the cruel bayonet of the notorious Fifth Brigade send names to the e-mail address below so that I can forwarded them to this ‘organ’ as a first step in seeking redress, with eventual incarceration and prosecution of all perpetrators. Contact rngwenya [at] ymail [dot] com

Downstairs at Libby’s restaurant, football fever is alive and well. People of all shapes and ages and sizes are streaming in to watch the Brazil-Zimbabwe World Cup warm up match being played in Harare as we speak.

But unfortunately, the facts behind the match provide a demoralising reminder of the business side of the sport. As The Telegraph reports:

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe, which struggles to pay its teachers and doctors, had to fork out 1.8 million dollars to the Brazilians to get them to play in Harare, financed in part by corporate donations.

We sent out the following text message to our subscribers asking what they thought of this.

Kubatana! Fly the Zimbabwe flag today. Go Warriors! While civil servants get peanut salaries Zim pays US$1.8 mil to get Samba boys to play here. Wot do u think?

Many were less than impressed. The first messages we’ve received are below:

As one of the civil servants, that’s inhuman we are really suffering togther with our kids strikes have proved fruitless

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Desperate theives

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Good it  reliefs stress at times.
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I think vanofanira kupa mari ma civil servants inotenga
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I wonder what exactly the country is set to benefit from playing Brazil when we wont be at the WC. Maybe someone else knows?

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I ws deadly embarassed too by dat

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If i say they are mentally disturbed it’s mockering them.Ngatiti ndibaba vanosiya mumba musina hupfu vachindosasana

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Its inhuman

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It’s not fair. Wait til elections are here. It’s time for change.
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ITS TERRIBLE
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Nonsense.they.don’t.think
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Not fair. What do we gain frm that game. Chasing history wl civil servants wallow in poverty.
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That’s crazy!

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The authorities are cruel and shameful. It was even more demeaning that they chose to give the servant time to watch da game yet they don’t have to spare

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The move is worth the money!
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They must strike and pasi nehurumende yeuori

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Unrelistic & Outrageous

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Wasteful gvt