South Africans help Egyptians to cry out, “Bread! Jobs! Education! Dignity! Democracy! Freedom of Expression!”

Today Friday the 4th of February 2011 at 2:40pm at the Egyptian Embassy in South Africa, COSATU, with people from organisations and groups around Gauteng will protest outside the embassy to raise their voices in support of the demands of the Egyptian people.

Read the story here

Yesterday I had a treat, listening to poems recited by members of the Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights (ZPHR). The forum was in line with celebrating Black History Month, which is in February each year. In Zimbabwe, ZPHR will be celebrating Black History Month under the theme, “Black Poetry and the Struggle for Black Self-determination.” Poetry has the power to motivate, give confidence, and lift us up during difficult times so its an important communication device.

Members of ZPHR performed three poems from American poets. These were then open to the forum for discussion. The poems recited were Maya Angelou – Still I Rise, Gwendolyn Brooks – Say to them and Sir John Betjeman – Diary of a Church Mouse. Betjeman’s poem was much debated as the audience sought to contextualise it’s meaning to Zimbabwe.

The local poets then took the stage to perform their own original poems. There is such talent out there and I left the forum truly acknowledging that ‘poetry is a verbal war for freedom”. Interestingly a poet performed a poem dedicated to Nelson Mandela who had been reported to be ill in the past week. The poem generally looked at the greatness of the celebrated hero. A poet named PSP performed his own poem titled, “Rhythm of Device, the System Suffers Violence”. It was a poet’s story of how they struggle each day. Almost all the poets performed poems that show their day-to-day struggles and inspirational ones on how they want to be vehicles for change. I was particularly moved by one gentleman who recited a poem entitled, “Zimbabwe has not come”. It was really thought provoking and it left me deeply in thought.

For more please make a date to listen to these poets as they celebrate Black History Month at The Book Café, on Saturday the 5th of February 2011 from 2pm to 5pm.

The December 2010/January 2011 issue of the Africa Report, included an article on 11 Ideas for 2011 to make real change. I read through the ideas and thought that the idea that suggests, “Nobody can become President over the age of 69″ was the best for me. I found it to be a low cost solution enabling freedom of choice among Africans benefiting the majority. I truly agree with the sentiment that says we appreciate the goodness that comes with ‘old wine’ – that is wisdom, experience and perspective. Surely our much older leaders in Africa deserve a round of applause for exhibiting these characteristics. However, having them in leadership positions for too long brings major discomfort to citizens as promises made go undelivered. Also when a leader stays in power for too long citizens begin to see their imperfections more clearly.

The pursuit of African leaders to stay in power even when the populace is no longer comfortable with them has proven not to be a general thing of late. This is evident with the protests in Tunisia and Egypt.  The anger brewing in the hearts of these citizens in these countries has been put in the limelight for the whole world to see. And the possibility of having other protests rising in other African countries cannot be ruled out. As Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe go to vote in 2011 we hope to see a new age bracket of leaders govern our countries. Simply put, we want new faces in leadership positions.

We have to continue to pray and be patriotic towards our desired change in Africa. We truly desire to have selfless and visionary leaders at all levels of the government. There is a need also to have youths in leadership, as they are the future of tomorrow.

I conclude with a quote by Nelson Mandela, which says, “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

Leaders will be more appreciated and recognized if they take steps towards these wise words.

The IFLA/UNESCO Public Library Manifesto of 1994 defines a public library as, “The local centre of information, making all kinds of knowledge and information readily available to its users.’ The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users and was founded in 1927.

The main Harare City library is at the Civic Centre and there are branch libraries in Greendale, Highlands, Hatfield, Mount Pleasant and Mabelreign. I stay in Chisipite so I decided to visit the Highlands Branch Library.

The location of the library is a good one opposite to a primary school, just off the main road making it accessible to users from other suburbs such as Eastlea, Newlands and Chisipite.

My visit made me to give my blog this title because the infrastructure is all there. All that needs to be done are upgrades. Library updates should be done in a similar fashion as upgrades of computer operating systems. Operating systems change now and then due to transformation in consumer needs, preferences and expectations and advancements in technology. We have witnessed operating systems running on MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows XP, Vista, Windows Live and Windows 7 just to name a few. My visit to the library was more of an experience of using a computer with an operating system of MS-DOS in this day and age.

The out-datedness, the unattractiveness, the slowness … you name it I experienced all that by merely entering the library.

The library’s opening hours are on the negative. Two thirds of the time the library is closed. I can justify the full day closure of the library on a Thursday because its important to do so that administrative work can be done without the librarian being disturbed by patrons.

Let’s hope the relevant authorities start taking our libraries seriously and upgrade them for the benefit of all Zimbabweans.

I attended a presentation by Dr Ruth Walkup on ‘Getting the Foundations Right for Leading in a Changing World’. She took us through the evolution of work from the days when people worked to survive, to the days of trade and the era of industrialisation. We have witnessed dramatic technological changes in all sectors of the economy from the 1960s and these still continue.

I will give the library as an example. A card catalogue, which was the entry point to the library’s physical holdings, was used back then. When one visited the library they had to manually go through a card catalogue on their own, select the book they wanted by using entries of title, author, subject or date of publication. They would then find a reference number for the book that was done using the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) for them to pick out the exact book. But now things are different; you can access a library catalogue on a computer and online using Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC). Where one goes through the same search process but this time it is done electronically which means it less tiring and less time consuming. Now we wonder what the future will hold and what libraries will be like. Are we going to be using voice recognition technologies where we just say an author’s name and ‘voila’ all his/her publications are revealed to us on a big screen on the wall, and we just click the book we need?

We just wonder, but whilst we are still in the wondering zone we need to go acquire some life skills.  Dr Ruth walkup emphasized that we need to be self-aware; that is we need to know ourselves, our passions, strengths and weaknesses. Also we should take time to reflect on ourselves, looking back in the past in order to understand it and do things better in the future. You cannot do away with communication skills, information literacy skills and decision-making skills. Engage yourself in Life Long Learning (LLL) where you continue to upgrade your professional skills. Imagine the Librarian who does want to take a course in computers, where will they be when people don’t visit the library physically but rather ask him/her queries through IMS, Chat or Email. We need to be creative as we face change in order to create opportunities for ourselves and break new ground.

Through inner dialogue we actually get to “know” ourselves better and increase the likelihood of achieving our highest potential.

To conclude Dr Walkup gave us a quote by Alvin Toffler, “The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.”

Zimbabweans have been urged by the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray, during the Martin Luther King Day commemorations to emulate Dr Martin Luther King Jnr where their voices are heard in a non-violent manner. Read more here. It is true that we need to use non-violence to bring change and address areas of injustice in Zimbabwe. I believe every Zimbabwean has a little ‘Luther’ living in them but the environment around us is not conducive.

Take the example of men and women working with WOZA and MOZA. In 2010 83 members were arrested while they were having a peaceful march to mark International Peace Day. In Bulawayo two were arrested during a public meeting with the Competition and Tariff Commission to present views on ZESA. In Mutare two women were arrested a day after a peaceful protest.

Mr Ray, like Dr Martin Luther Jnr, has an ‘I have a dream…’ for Zimbabwe that is. The dream that was instilled in the 1990s when the government promised, ‘Education for all by the year 2000′, ‘Housing for all by the year 2000′ and ‘Health for all by the year 2000′. I still feel this can be achieved some year, say 2020. But my question today is how then do I gather 10 people to listen to my dream and not be picked up for being a public nuisance? I don’t just want to use my voice, I also want to do silent acts that bring change to Zimbabwe, which I so much love and I am so proud to be Zimbabwean. Like Rosa Parks, I want to remain seated for the cause of my plight. But I’m rather scared to give up my life like the vendor in Tunisia.