Above the drone of the generator, I can hear the helicopters roaring past, taking Mugabe back to State House. Tsvangirai now has a motorcade & a portrait. What’s next – Chematama’s chopper?

On Monday, the front page story on the state controlled Zimbabwe Herald newspaper announced: National healing begins. The article quoted from Vice President Joyce Mujuru’s address at a (belated!) International Women’s Day event in Bindura. Apparently, Mujuru said that a national healing taskforce, set up by the government, “is going to ensure that all our grievances are addressed to the satisfaction of the involved parties. The national healing programme is coming down to the grassroots and will leave no stone unturned in handling every grievance.”

Something about this statement left me uneasy. Maybe it is the top down approach that government seems to be taking regarding “national healing.” I do think some kind of national reconciliation process might be an important part of resolving some of Zimbabwe’s national scars. But for this process to be truly meaningful and effective, I think ordinary Zimbabweans need first to be involved in agreeing on what this process should look like. What are the objectives? Will there be prosecution or just discussion? Is there some kind of process for restorative measure, or is it just a space to air testimonials? How will those who testify be protected from future retaliation?

Also worrying about Mujuru’s remarks at Bindura was the dismissive way in which she spoke about violence on the ground. “Do not waste time fighting each other,” she told the crowd. “We, your leaders, would be drinking coffee together. President Mugabe mooted the idea of the inclusive Government after realising the enemy was infiltrating us and taking advantage of our political differences. Come and see us at Parliament, we will be drinking and eating together across the political divide.”

This wilful rewriting of history – and the deliberate distancing of top political leaders from violence carried out on their behalf by those much farther down the political tree – is deeply worrying. How genuine can a proposed government healing process be if political leaders are not willing to take responsibility for their role in encouraging violence?

A recent Institute for Security Studies article by Max du Plessis and Joloyn Ford outlines and articulate several reasons both for and against a truth and reconciliation process for Zimbabwe. One reason against a Zimbabwean TRC is that “social forgetting” is a valid strategy for processing grievances. In Sierra Leone, for example, the ordinary citizenry, “who were tired, afraid and too well acquainted with ‘the truth’ of the violence,” preferred to “forgive and forget.” Other reasons not to engage in an organised national healing process include a desire to leave the past behind, potential of the process to be a source of conflict, that it would be a waste of scarce and precious resources, and that there is a cynicism associated with reconciliation that is seen as to strictly political.

However, the authors write, “most experience in other societies points the other way, especially when there are concerns about who gets to decide what is ‘forgotten.’ The passive response to Rhodesian-era abuses has left many legacies sill affecting Zimbabwe today, including a culture of impunity. Other reasons for a TRC include the symbolic closure of a violent chapter of Zimbabwe’s history, creating a forum for forgiveness, and a desire to channel tensions into more constructive outlets.

Importantly the paper asks: “Where will Zimbabewans place themselves in relation to politics and principles of justice in the current interim phase – and who gets to decide for Zimbabweans on these issues?”

Worryingly, in light of documented reports of ongoing political violence in Domboshawa, Chilimanzi, Cahsel, Marondera, Masvingo, Mberengwa, Mudzi, Mutoko, Muzarabani, Odzi and Shamva, it may be too soon to think about a TRC for Zimbabwe’s poltical violence since 2000. In the past two months, 27 farms have been invaded, displacing 3310 farm workers and their families. While violence continues, an arbitrary “end” date, like the swearing in of the interim government, might leave many important current cases unresolved. Surely it is too soon to begin a TRC whilst violence is still occurring? What about fears of retaliatory attacks against those who testify, if peace has not yet been achieved on the ground?

Zimbabweans deserve the respect of substance, not patronising political posturing. We need a real end to the violence, actual peace, and genuine healing.

I’ve just finished Petina Gappah’s collection of short stories, An Elegy for Easterly.  In a recent interview with Emmanuel Sigauke, Gappah said “I think of my writing as a compulsive form of theft.”

You can see this clearly in Elegy for Easterly. The stories explore key issues in modern Zimbabwe – inflation, the Diaspora, family, relationships economic hardships. Each story has a different narrator – which enables these issues to be explored from a range of different angles, by a variety of voices. But, because the stories are all rooted in Zimbabwe – and therefore share a common background, some of the details overlap from one story to the next. A reference made in one part comes back from a different perspective in another.

I found Gappah’s book also gave a useful reminder of what we have lived through in the past few years. Just six months into dollarisation – and the concomitant stabilisation of prices and disappearance of inflation – and the confidence with which I counted trillions and quadrillions, and the ease with which I converted billion dollar prices into US dollar costs at an ever changing exchange rate is slipping. I can feel myself going soft. So it was interesting to read stories that so clearly drew on that period, and be reminded of those times.

But even as Gappah acknowledges the ways in which her own experiences, and others’ feed into her fiction, her stories are still that: stories, works of fiction.

So I was taken aback to read Richmore Tera’s scathing review of Gappah’s work in The Herald on 8 June. Gappah: Today’s Judas Iscariot, the article headlines. It goes on to dismiss Gappah as a running dog of the West, who “sold her soul, words and country to her Western paymasters, all for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver.”

“It is clear,” Tera writes, “that her only mission in the book was to blacken the image of the President.”

Well now. It’s unfortunate if some of what Gappah writes makes Tera uncomfortable on behalf of Zimbabwe’s President. But An Elegy for Easterly is clearly rooted in Zimbabwe. It shines a light not only on the country’s challenges but on its potential, its beauty, its language, its history, the promises of the liberation struggle and its culture and unique identity. How does this make Gappah a running dog of the West?

In her own blog entry commenting on this article, Gappah sheds a bit more light on the author, Richmore Tera, but even she seems confused as to where the vitriol is coming from.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been in the US this week, fundraising for Zimbabwe’s recovery. So far, he hasn’t scraped together nearly as much as he is looking for. But all the money in the world won’t help Zimbabwe if this is the kind of journalism that continues to fill the pages of our state newspaper.

I’ve been dipping in and out of the news around South Africa’s election, particularly around the curious ways gender and sexuality seem to have played out there.

Both the number of First Ladies to now be catered for, and the number of men in Helen Zille’s cabinet seem to be at issue. And somewhere at the core seems to be the ANC Youth League, shaking their fists and making their statements.

On the one hand, Jonny Steinberg reckons that Zuma is seen as “more of a man” by many young black South Africans, because he has more wives.

On the other hand, Marianne Thamm reckons that the real problem is that men’s and women’s experiences of sex, and particularly their understanding of what constitutes “good sex,” are so fundamentally different, it’s no wonder it’s hard for the one side to understand the other.

Meanwhile, we have Helen Zille explaining that she just didn’t have many women to choose from when it came to selecting her cabinet – and the DA is opposed to quotas.

In all of these various arguments and explanations, however, one thing is clear – it’s the arguments that make sense – the ones in which the author tries to Explain things – are the ones that are the most helpful.

Take, for example, a recent discussion with Radio 702 talk show host Redi Direko interviewing ANC Youth League Spokesperson Floyd Shivambu.

Direko asks Shivambu to explain what, exactly, the ANC Youth League meant by saying that Helen Zille appointed boyfriends and concubines to her cabinet. When asked to clarify, Shivambu says “There’s no other explanation you can give except to say that the reality and the truth; that these are her boyfriends that she continues to sleep around with and we stand by that particular statement.”

But what do you mean, “sleeping around,” Direko asks. “Is she having sex with them?”

Shivambu responds:

Sleeping around means sleeping around. There’s no other explanation that we can give except that she is sleeping around. Unfortunately, you can ask me a million times. We’re not going to change that explanation. We mean what we say and we say what we mean. Exactly that.

And it gets better . . . Read a transcript of the interview here. And the saga continues – you can also read Shivambu’s response to the interview on his own blog here.

This shocking 2-minute video shows police officers beating the new recruits at a Zimbabwe police depot.

One by one, recruits come up to a small group of policemen, lie in a push-up type position and are beaten on the buttocks with sticks. They are then dragged off to lie down on their stomachs off to the side, or are kicked out of the way. These are not beatings of rage or annoyance. They don’t even look like they are punishment for a selected “non-performing” police recruit. Rather, they are orderly and methodological. It’s only when a recruit resists, or acts too “soft” that the beating lasts longer. The recruits know the drill and get into position. The officers deliver the blows and move onto the next victim. In the video you can see the recruits who have already been beaten – and the queue of others waiting for their turn.

The video is reminiscent of the images that came out of Abu Ghraib– the policemen laugh, threaten and insult the recruits with cries of “kill him” and “beat him.” In one frame one officer takes a picture of the beatings with his camera phone. But in a way it is all the more disturbing that the police are beating their own co-workers.

What are the implications for policing in Zimbabwe if this is how new recruits are “hazed” by their superiors? Is it any wonder then that the police are quick to respond to civic demonstrations with violence, and that there are frequent reports of detainees being mistreated by the police? What are the long term psychological implications if this is how police routinely deal with their own? If your superior beats you for being new on the job, what more might he (and in the video they are all men) do if he thinks you have disobeyed him?

The Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the Zimbabwe Republic Police, is now co-held by Zanu PF’s Khembo Mohadi and the MDC’s Giles Mutsekwa. Email the Ministry on moha@gvt.co.zw and the MDC on mdcnewsbrief@gmail.com and demand that they investigate these beatings and change the way the police force is run.

This week started out with a few small signs of hope. Two public demonstrations were staged, with no arrests. According to a WOZA statement, on  Monday, “over 1,000 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise marched through the streets of Bulawayo, to articulate their demands to the power sharing government.” And according to SW Radio Africa, on Tuesday, “Law Society of Zimbabwe held a peaceful demonstration in the streets of Harare to protest continuing harassment of members of the legal fraternity.” – This despite the fact that the police had previously banned the march. In both cases, the police watched the demonstrations, but no arrests were made.

Surprised by this, we sent out the following text message on Wednesday:

Kubatana! Inclusive govt may be opening up democratic space. 2 successful demonstrations this week with no arrests. WOZA in BYO Monday and lawyers in HRE Tues.

One enthusiastic subscriber replied: “Ah, ko lets march to state house w a petition 4 bob 2 step down muone mashura mtHarare! kana kuenda kuRBZ 4 gono 2 go! Tinofa (or go to the Reserve Bank and tell Gono to go. We’re dying.)”

But Fambai was less convinced: “Kubatana puhleeze, what democratic space? Honestly we cant b celebrating the false benevolence of bloodthirsty riot police not using their baton sticks!”

Good point Fambai! Clearly two zero-arrest-demonstrations do not a happy democracy make. So. Is there any genuine change in the works, or is this all the same crocodile, just conveniently disguising itself for a bit?