So many times people sit at a bar, or family gatherings or even stand in supermarket aisles and complain. It’s almost as though complaining is the first thing we were taught at school.

We complain that it doesn’t rain, and when it does, we complain that it’s raining. We complain about the economy, we complain that there aren’t enough jobs. We complain about the banks, we complain about having to bribe the police. We complain about poor service from ZESA, ZINWA and City of Harare, and when we feel there isn’t anything left to complain about we complain about the government.

So much time and energy is put into articulating these complaints to anyone who will listen. It’s always someone else’s fault, never our own that we let things go so far in Zimbabwe. And we take it further, expecting someone, anyone to fix our problems. We have become so passive as a nation it’s no wonder that corrupt politicians and businessmen feel that they can get away with anything, who is going to stop them?

What would happen if all those complaints, those endless hours spent complaining about how terrible everything is were translated into action? What if instead of passive complaining we collectively did something about our complaints?

Mahatma Gandhi said ‘You must be the change you want to see in the world … In a gentle way you can shake the world.’ No one has to start a revolution in order to be a revolutionary. People like Wangari Maathai, Mother Theresa and Rosa Parks created change just by being – doing the little that they could. They were committed to their beliefs, and defended them when necessary, even though they didn’t have the loudest voices.

It doesn’t take very much to do the right thing every day. Every step taken, every word spoken and written, counts.

The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation, in collaboration with the Mass Public Opinion Institute hosted a conference recently for politicians, civil society and scholars to share their perspectives on Zimbabwe’s Transition. Among the presenters was Cyprian Nyamwamu who shared some experiences of Kenya’s transition.

In concluding his presentation Mr. Nyamwamu made the following remarks:

Monitoring and enforcing accountability in government must be made a systematic process that is carried out by political non-state actors. In Kenya this has been largely successful except that the entrenched culture of impunity makes it to secure behaviour change and governance.

The state cannot be left to reform on its own. It is the role of forces outside and inside the state to escalate the demands for reforms. This requires a deliberate construction of democratic movement that galvanises the energies to force democratic negotiations about the future of our democracies be it in Kenya or in Zimbabwe. Innovative strategies for ensuring sustainable reforms can only be realised if reforms are held within a political and transitional justice framework where reforms are broad rather than confined to some formal changes that do not open up the state to concerted reforms.

In Zimbabwe like in Kenya, democratic reforms and political transition shall not be sustainable without a thorough transitional justice agenda where public and private citizens, officers and groups get to account for violations and injustices that may have been committed in the past. A new democratic state and cohesive nation cannot be expected in countries where victors’ justice is the order of the day and where impunity has taken root.

There is need for the Inclusive government of Zimbabwe to be sustained even with it inherent limitations until the national democratic project is delivered. V.    It is our view that elections in Zimbabwe before 2013 shall not add value to the Zimbabwe democratic deficit. It is feared that elections before 2013 may precipitate a return to the multiple socio-economic, humanitarian and political crises that were witnessed in the aftermath of the 2008 elections.

It is hoped that the democratic forces in ZANU-PF, MDC, civil society, the private sector and other sectors of the political economy shall adopt an attitude of ‘no reforms no elections’. Reforms here must mean both reforms on paper and in the real world. Reforms cannot happen if the only logic of the political actors is power for the big boys. Those in power must be convinced including through positive sanctions to embrace and champion reforms for the sake of the people and the nation.

SADC must construct a better national democratic reform framework for Zimbabwe than the current one. In the 1989 Poland political Transition example, the President was offered assurances and immunities and Western European countries invested economic incentives into the reform pact that saw the end of the monolithic one-party state rule. This is important seeing as is the case that unlike Kenya, the international community seems ready to leave Zimbabwe to suffer on the ropes for longer. In the Kenyan case in the wake of the post election crisis, the international community made it clear that Kenya was too important to be left to Kenyans alone.

Last Saturday as a friend and I were driving along Borrowdale Road we witnessed a full commuter speeding at an estimated 120km/hr as compared to the 70km/hr speed limit. To make matters worse the driver was bullying other cars out of his way!

Commuter transport operators have become a law unto themselves. In a report published in The Herald last week, Inspector Chigome from the Zimbabwe Republic Police named commuter transport operators as the main culprits in road traffic accidents that have killed 1 500 people and injured more than 12 000.

The majority of the public have no choice but to take their lives into their hands and board a combi because what other transport options are there?

The police are useless to the public. The recent police blitz on combis ended in commuters having to walk several kilometres to and from work. This is not the first time the operators have taken out their frustrations on the public. In more than one incident, I along with other passengers, have been forced off a combi after complaining about many things, including fares that double or treble after leaving the commuter rank, change not being returned, reckless driving, or overloading.

Police corruption doesn’t improve matters either. I have witnessed for myself a commuter driver bribing the police to get a car that was obviously overloaded and unroadworthy past a roadblock.

This is no way to live. I have had enough. On Saturday I took this picture of the combis licence plate – ABJ 7892. For your own safety, if you see this combi don’t get on it. If you are driving and you see it on the roads, stay very far away from it.

My friend, being an entrepreneur, has established a t-shirt business. Of course anyone will tell you that the key to a successful retail business is marketing. So, a few week ago, she decided to launch her brand in style with a launch party.

As good citizens, we went to our local police station to get the necessary clearances. Now last year, the Co-Ministers for Home Affairs publicly announced that all anyone needed to get a police clearance for an event was to report the event, who was holding it and how long it would be. The Ministers even said that as this was being done in the interest of public safety, there would be no need to pay any fees. It sounded simple when they said it, and being the Ministers responsible for this, I would think that they knew best.

It even seemed simple when we went to the police station. We told them about the launch, what it was for, and who was the contact person for it. The police checked if the bar had the necessary council licences and we got our clearance.

The afternoon of the party, I received a call from the police informing me that we did not have any clearances and I was to report to the police station. It wasn’t a problem with the licences for the establishment, which were in order; the police had a problem with the company that owned the brand. The exact problem, the officer could not articulate, but it was imperative that we go to the police station immediately.

Panicking, I consulted the bar manager who went, came back and reported: “Ah, they want a bribe.”

The bribe was a couple of T-shirts for the desk sergeants and some officers. It seems a small price to pay to establish a successful business. But isn’t it a sad state of affairs when any service involving a government institution must also necessarily involve bribery?

While my friend could afford to hand over t-shirts to the policemen, what happens to those entrepreneurs who cannot afford to pay? It’s not just the police that are asking for bribes, almost every government department involved in the establishment of business from the Company Registrar’s office to the City of Harare itself is illegally extracting large sums of money and goods from entrepreneurs. Surely the government, and in particular the Ministry of Small to Medium Enterprises must understand that corruption is killing small businesses.

The policy of encouraging entrepreneurship is a laudable one, but it will not work as long as corruption is allowed to flourish. If our politicians really want economic recovery (for further looting opportunities), then before they start looking East for handouts, they must plug the leaks that are happening in their own back yard.

“Ah! Ndozvinoita varume . . . (That’s what men do)”

When confronted with a cheating spouse, this is what women tell each other. Tradition advises that every man at some point in his marriage will cheat, and then it is up to the woman to forgive, tolerate it, and move on.

The Standard recently published an article charging that “Extra Marital Affairs Derail AIDS Fight”. In it, Pyke Chari from Action said that extra marital affairs threatened to reverse progress made in the fight against the HIV pandemic.

Action conducted a research study in 11 countries including Zimbabwe Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa, which found that married couples are now the group with the highest infection rate, because of the widespread prevalence of extramarital affairs. Presenting the findings, Chari said, “In all countries, the polygamous mindset was prevalent.”

I’m sure polygamy made sense in the days of yore. It amounted to cheap labour. Africans had no concept of the ownership of land, so a man could till as much land as he was able and as apportioned him by the chief. The more labour a man had, the more land he could cultivate, the more crops he reaped, the wealthier he became. Not only that, but having always been biologically weaker, women and children needed men for protection from predators like lions, cheetahs and other men.

Why is it then that an ancient tradition and attitude rooted in a society that has since changed drastically has not evolved with that society? What is most baffling is that the very people it turns into victims perpetuate it.

We live in an age where women are educated, and as a consequence financially independent. Where even though there is still progress to be made a woman may own property, vote, and sell her skills and labour to work and accumulate her own wealth.

Women don’t even need men to have children!

Yet the attitude that a woman is nothing without a man prevails. And because of that attitude women settle for bad and potentially life threatening behaviour. Because of it married women find themselves unable to negotiate safer sex or regular HIV testing, lest their husband leaves them for someone more docile.

Until women collectively realise that it is they who determine how they are treated, that men need us as much as we need them, that it is possible to feel whole without being in a relationship; then multiple concurrent partnerships, polygamy, AIDS and STIs will continue to exist. And men will continue to cheat.

There are very many reasons why men cheat, but the biggest one is because women allow it.

There are times when it is undeniable that Zimbabweans are a menace to themselves. Now those of us who reside in the Diaspora have got a bad reputation. Where once we were hard working, educated individuals capable of working anywhere in the world, we have quickly turned into global pariahs.

Zimbabweans are committing fraud in America and in the UK, evading taxes and even being jailed for knowingly and intentionally infecting people with HIV, all the while using Robert Mugabe as a scapegoat.

Take for instance the case of Gamuchirai Nhengu an 18-year-old Zimbabwean contestant on UK talent search reality show X-Factor. She made headlines a few months ago when she made it through several rounds of judging and even won praise from the mercurial Simon Cowell for her singing.

Gamu and her family now face deportation. She and her two brothers were allowed to stay in the UK as dependents of their mother while she studied nursing. But the visa ran out and the family’s application to remain in the UK was rejected. It turns out the deportation order was issued as a result of an investigation by the Home Office into £16,000 in benefits wrongly claimed by her mother, Nokuthula, reports The Sun. Nokuthula, received benefits and tax credits for her children, but her visa rules strictly forbade her from any state payouts.

This was followed by Gamu conducting a tearful interview with a Scottish newspaper in which she claimed that she and her family would face a firing squad if they returned to Zimbabwe.

“I’ve been in the public eye now and people there know I’ve fled [Robert] Mugabe’s regime. They will punish us if we go back. They’re going to know where we are; we’re going to be very unsafe. People have been approaching our family members; we think they could be working for Mugabe. And we know how brutal he can be. I would be in danger, it’s blatantly obvious. My family would be in danger.”

Gamu has even been quoted as saying she regrets being on the show as it drew attention to herself and her family.

Gamuchirai Nhengu is a child, whose sole claim to fame is mediocre success on a British reality show. What does she or for that matter her mother know about Roberty Mugabe’s brutality? They didn’t go to the UK as asylum seekers, they are economic migrants, hoping to take advantage of a generous welfare state.

She is a Zimbabwean child seeking to manipulate the image of Zimbabwe as a country in which total chaos exists and in which no one is safe, to justify her mother’s illegal actions. What is worse is the readiness of the British public and even Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop to believe her. It may be lazy thinking to accept her word without the slightest critical examination of her claims; but what else can one expect when Zimbabwe has been reduced to a single despotic individual who is demonised in the media. Their comprehension of the complexities of Zimbabwean politics is superficial and informed by racist thirty-second television spots selling ring tones that depict Mugabe as an incompetent bespectacled hairy, black baboon.

We cannot deny that political violence exists in our society. Even today two years after the 2008 elections, when there is a semblance of stability in the country, we still have incidents of political violence. This situation was and is painful for many people, not least those directly affected. Gamu’s claims diminish the struggle by all those working to make this country a better place, and they are a slap in the face for anyone against whom actual violence was perpetrated.