I arrived in South Africa today and was bemused to find that my South African driver and a fellow passenger from Ghana are more passionate about ‘the Zimbabwe issue’ than I’ve heard any Zimbabwean in Zimbabwe be.

“Mugabe must go!” proclaimed the driver.

“Only Tsvangirai can save Zimbabwe now!” chimed in the Ghanaian.

I started to give my opinion, that Tsvangirai is not the great Bantu hope and in some ways Mugabe has a point. I was shushed. What could I possibly know?

The only one of these two to have visited Zimbabwe was the driver, in the early eighties ‘when things were still good’. They both knew better. After all, they were both better informed of the goings on in my country than I. They both agreed with each other, smoothly leaving me, the only person in the car who has lived, worked and survived gore riya renzara under the Mugabe regime well out of the conversation.

We proclaim to ourselves that the Diasporans need to come home to get in on the ground floor in re-building Zimbabwe, but perhaps we’ve gotten it wrong. Increasingly I’m finding that important conversations about Zimbabwe, are taking place outside of Zimbabwe. Where does that leave those of us who live and work in Zimbabwe?

I hmm-ed where appropriate, but for the most part, I was silent in that car this morning, as are Zimbabweans when our country and its future are being discussed. Investment conferences, vigils and even talks regarding the existence of sanctions which may or may not be causing additional suffering are discussed without the people they are supposed to be helping. There is zero consultation and the only opinions that seem to matter are those that are self serving at our expense.  If Zimbabwe is to have a revolution it is that Zimbabweans should learn to speak for themselves. Mwana asingacheme anofira mumbereko.

It is unsurprising to hear that youths in Zimbabwe are rampaging. What else do they have to do? There are no jobs. And Zimbabwe has a poorly resourced and outmoded education sector, which equal a grim future. Being reasonably healthy and alive have become liabilities.

What is surprising is that they are rampaging for all the wrong reasons. They have turned into dumb oxen in the middle of a bull run, mindlessly going wherever they are directed. Reports allude to both political parties’ youth wings being involved in inciting and causing violence regardless of the pointedly biased reporting.

The MDC side is said to have been inspired by the Prime Minister’s irresponsible statements implying that a Jasmine Revolution is a much-needed cure-all for the problems that plague this country. Equally culpable is the President who has inconsistently issued weak statements calling for an end to violence in the name of politics.

It is as simple as this: if either side wanted the violence to end, it would.

“If you watch cartoons these days you get this depressing feeling that it’s all been done before and it’s not new, and I think my idea takes a different angle. And how many movies do you get by an African screenwriter? How many cartoons do you get by an African screenwriter? I think Africa is a market that the West needs to tap into right now. ” – Mirirai Moyo, on why she wants her story, Belonging made into an animated film.

She went on to say:

“The government gives so much money for soccer or sports events and this is only 90 minutes and then it’s over. You invest in art, literature, for example, lasts forever. The government needs to invest in the arts. There are so many kids out there who can write. One of the things that I find frustrating is the way people treat writing like a hobby. I was watching a movie with a friend, and at some point the main character says he’s a writer and the old lady who lives upstairs goes; “Isn’t that a hobby?” then my friend says ‘Yah, but I’ve always thought it’s a hobby’. But I’m like you think that at some point I’m going to fold up my books and do something serious, are you implying that this is not serious?’

We need to appreciate that people can make a living from art. Not everybody wants to be a professor, or lecturer or an accountant. People want to do different things and we need to invest in the creative industry. And you know ZIFA has got ZIFA village, all they need to do is start a writer’s village somewhere. I mean why is it that they don’t want to invest in the arts? What are they afraid of?”

- Mirirai Moyo on government investment in the arts

In an op-ed for the New York Times Egyptian author Mansoura Ez-Eldin gives a personal account of the Egyptian protests:

ON Friday, the “day of rage,” I was in the streets with the protesters. Friends and I participated in a peaceful demonstration that started at the Amr Ibn al-As Mosque in Old Cairo near the Church of St. George. We set off chanting, “The people want the regime to fall!” and we were greeted with a torrent of tear gas fired by the police. We began to shout, “Peaceful, Peaceful,” trying to show the police that we were not hostile, we were demanding nothing but our liberty. That only increased their brutality. Fighting began to spread to the side streets in the ancient, largely Coptic neighborhood.

…Clearly, the scent of Tunisia’s “jasmine revolution” has quickly reached Egypt. Following the successful expulsion in Tunis of the dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the call arose on Facebook for an Egyptian revolution, to begin on Jan. 25. Yet the public here mocked those young people who had taken to Twitter and Facebook to post calls for protest: Since when was the spark of revolution ignited on a pre-planned date? Had revolution become like a romantic rendezvous?

…In Suez, where the demonstrations have been tremendously violent, live ammunition was used against civilians from the first day. A friend of mine who lives there sent me a message saying that, Thursday morning, the city looked as if it had emerged from a particularly brutal war: its streets were burned and destroyed, dead bodies were strewn everywhere; we would never know how many victims had fallen to the police bullets in Suez, my friend solemnly concluded.

After having escaped from Old Cairo on Friday, my friends and I headed for Tahrir Square, the focal point of the modern city and site of the largest protests. We joined another demonstration making its way through downtown, consisting mostly of young people. From a distance, we could hear the rumble of the protest in Tahrir Square, punctuated by the sounds of bullets and screams. Minute by painstaking minute, we protesters were gaining ground, and our numbers were growing. People shared Coca-Cola bottles, moistening their faces with soda to avoid the effects of tear gas. Some people wore masks, while others had sprinkled vinegar into their kaffiyehs.

Shopkeepers handed out bottles of mineral water to the protesters, and civilians distributed food periodically. Women and children leaned from windows and balconies, chanting with the dissidents. I will never forget the sight of an aristocratic woman driving through the narrow side streets in her luxurious car, urging the protesters to keep up their spirits, telling them that they would soon be joined by tens of thousands of other citizens arriving from different parts of the city.

…Hour by hour on Friday evening, the chaos increased. Police stations and offices of the ruling National Democratic Party were on fire across the country. I wept when news came that 3,000 volunteers had formed a human chain around the national museum to protect it from looting and vandalism. Those who do such things are certainly highly educated, cultivated people, neither vandals nor looters, as they are accused of being by those who have vandalized and looted Egypt for generations.

…Late Saturday, as I headed toward Corniche Street on the Nile River, I walked through a side street in the affluent Garden City neighbourhood, where I found a woman crying. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that her son, a worker at a luxury hotel, had been shot in the throat by a police bullet, despite not being a part of the demonstrations. He was now lying paralysed in a hospital bed, and she was on her way to the hotel to request medical leave for him. I embraced her, trying to console her, and she said through her tears, “We cannot be silent about what has happened. Silence is a crime. The blood of those who fell cannot be wasted.”

I agree. Silence is a crime. Even if the regime continues to bombard us with bullets and tear gas, continues to block Internet access and cut off our mobile phones, we will find ways to get our voices across to the world, to demand freedom and justice.

The first I ever heard of Deng Xiaoping was in my O Level history class. We were learning Chinese history, the excesses of Chairman Mao, the suffering of the Chinese people during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Then in stepped Deng Xiaoping, Dengism and the beginning of a new era. To hear my history teacher describe it, Deng was the Messiah, and the Chinese Communist Party the flock gone astray.

According to Wikipedia, the Peoples Republic of China is one of the last five communist states in the world. China’s government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably on the internet, the press, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights and freedom of religion.

Deng Xiaoping served as de facto leader of China for almost twenty years. He put it firmly on the path to becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world. All without the trouble of having regular elections, ‘people driven’ constitutions or misfortune of an Inclusive government. This, despite China effectively being a one party state. In a 2008 Pew research Centre survey 86% of Chinese people expressed satisfaction with the way things were going in their country and with their nation’s economy.

When ZANU PF looks East I wonder what it is looking at. Is it examining the Chinese Communist Party’s successes and failures and how these may be instructional for them too? The same words that describe the Chinese Communist Party may be applied to them. It is not far-fetched that ZANU’s policies could successfully be implemented. Then an all ZANU PF government could also have an 86% approval rating from it’s oppressed citizens. Oppression is subjective. If most people are happy most of the time, are they really oppressed?

Democracy was never a prerequisite for a successful government or economic growth. It’s a nice idea, but I would wager that the majority of people, including myself, would give up a measure of freedom in return for prosperity. China’s one billion plus population is nothing to laugh at.

When ZANU PF looks East it sees the fat wallets of Chinese investors and turns a blind eye to the deals that short change the people. While the president lectures about sovereignty, his ministers systematically turn Zimbabwe once again into a client state for a different ideology.

The trouble with regime change as sold to us by civil society and political parties, is that it is not as simple as it is made out to be. Changing one government for another in the hope of ushering in democracy is not the answer. Democracy itself should not be reduced to a periodic election, yet this is what ordinary people are told. Elections are not a salve that will automatically repair failing or failed states. Zimbabwe has held regular elections for the past thirty years, but that does not make us a democratic state. Neither will replacing ZANU PF with MDC.

In his opinion piece for the New York Times Chinua Achebe writes:

First we have to nurture and strengthen our democratic institutions – and strive for the freest and fairest elections possible. That will place the true candidates of the people in office. Within the fabric of a democracy, a free press can thrive and a strong justice system can flourish. The checks and balances…and the laws needed to curb corruption will then naturally find a footing. And there has to be the development of a new patriotic consciousness.