So. They have finally agreed to something.

Like everyone, I am just waiting to see the viability of the DEAL. I am just finding it a bit hard to be optimistic momentarily because for starters I know too well the people we are dealing with. I know there is a chance of somebody reneging on their role in the agreement simply because they have done it before and that is my biggest worry. Like President Tsvangirai (doesn’t yet smoothly roll off the tongue); we are gonna have to trust Mugabe.

Well, since this DEAL is supposedly in the name of the ordinary people, I have a few things that I’d like to see evolve from this agreement. Some of them are touched upon and promised in the agreement:

-A practical and sustainable economic recovery plan and fiscal policies that will gain back the trust of international donors and investors and see an end to food shortages plus restoration of public services. They can start with booting out Mr Gono, if the rumor that he’s quitting is not true. It would also be nice to have a reasonable daily cash withdrawal limit that actually takes you to work and back.

-Cessation of intolerance of divergent political orientation and the respect and upholding of the rights to freedoms of speech and association.

-An end to chaotic land grabs by so-called chefs and a plausible land audit to hold anyone sitting on idle land accountable. We need farmers who know what they are doing else we’ll continue to starve and beg.

-The setting up of a Truth commission should be in the offing to bring justice for victims of traumatic violence that characterized the contentious elections. This may only be done after more immediate needs like economic revival, but a lot of Zimbabweans hope for justice in a new Zimbabwe.

-A complete overhaul of the health sector with a possible replacement of the long-serving Minister of Health Dr Parirenyatwa. This time we’d appreciate a minister who is more focused on saving lives instead of threatening to take lives for political gain.

Those are a few among my many wishes, and I have a couple of smaller, more specific ones, like having ZINWA booted out for instance They have failed us miserably and we are just sick (literally) and tired of dirty water.

Above all, I wish that all parties keep their side of the bargain, cooperate and comply with the provisions of the agreement. Otherwise this DEAL is not for me. It would have been all just usual pomp and fanfair for an egotistic few.

Being the miserable pessimist my friends say I am, I’m glad in a way to find that there are several of us out there who just cant trust anymore and are concerned about any equation that equals Bob. History of the 1987 Unity Accord taught us that much. I find a number of people are agreeable to the deal; BUT with conditions. I’ve also heard a couple of whispers that if the MDC did not have something up their sleeve, they wouldn’t have signed. This remains to be seen.

Could it be that possibly the only way of ousting a tyrant is to do it from the inside?

Watching
Mtunzini in September

We sat on the shores of the Indian ocean
watching the sun rise over the sea and set over distant Zululand hills
we walked the dune forest
fruit filled, bird sung, butterfly danced

walking the edge
between earth and ocean

time to sit still enough
to listen
to the silence
through which we learn the changing voice of the sea
hear it moulded by the wind
called back and forth by the moon
shaped by the lie of the land

We came home slowly
through rural Zululand
through mountains made of ancient larval flows
we sat on the edge of gorges
cutting vertically through time
calling memories of billions of years ago

witnessing something wider than the angst  of our souls

Coming home
10 September

It was 39 degrees at the bridge in the afternoon
so we decided to wait and cross early next morning
and stopped in the Soutpansberg mountains
listening to the news from Zimbabwe

Talk of the agreement to be signed?
compromises being made?
power sharing?

the Zimbabwean way . . .

The South Africans were cleaning up their border post
collecting rubbish, scrubbing walls
but the surly silence of the immigration and customs officials
(who were on a ‘go slow’ )
and the rudeness of the guard at the gate to the bridge
left a sour taste as we drove across the Limpopo

. . . into the strangely organized chaos
of the litter-strewn, dust-shimmering Zimbabwean border post

‘Welcome home’

despite the heat and noise and money changing and confusion
the immigration officer is smiling
‘today is a good day’

The armed policeman at the road block outside Beit Bridge
signal us on with cheerful wave
down the potholed, edge-tilting road to Harare
watching endless miles of bush unravelling

People we see walk slowly between villages
listless and thin

I find some muffins packed for our breakfast
and hand them to two small thin children wandering down the side of the road
In the rear view mirror we watch as they run excitedly to distant huts
- home to share this meagre bounty!

A small group of children are getting out of the back of a truck
and as it drives on, they laugh and dance and clap hands with glee
‘we got a lift!’

And I am glad to be back home
to witness the spirit of my people

Signed
Full Moon – 15th September

It has been done . . .
the agreement has be signed
the two leaders have spoken to the nation
one of ‘the depths of his hope for the future, running deeper than his scars of the suffering of the past, of the healing’
and the other about ‘enemies’ and ‘sovereignty’ and ‘the evil of colonialism’

and somewhere between these positions
a new way begins

and the Zimbabweans ask
‘can this be the moment?
. . . can it be that the fear is gone?
that background angst?
the possibility of imprisonment ?
even torture?
the constant silencing?’

. . . for loss of money and water and electricity are overshadowed by comparison

but today it feels strange
like an old habitual response to ‘authority’
a frisson of distrust
- there will have to be a re-learning
that we are free to disagree without being harmed

even this moment is done the Zimbabwean way
no instant singing and celebration in the streets
but a questioning –
‘what does this mean?’

can we speak of our lives?
tell our stories?
come home from foreign countries?
will we own what we earn?
can we start the healing?

I hung our name plate back on the gate – after 5 years
reclaiming our right to live openly
in our home

the fig trees are flushing and the paradise flycatcher has arrived back from Zaire
the planet is turning,
and the southern hemisphere begins to show its face to the sun
and the full moon and Venus fill the evening with light

Today at Kubatana we sent an SMS to our subscribers asking them what they think about this new deal. We wanted to be able to get a sense of what Zimbabweans are feeling and what they understand about the provisions of the agreement. We got some touching responses, some of which are below:

Real governing powers for MDC. No to cosmetic executive powers!

The agreement is a sad death of democracy & why vote when people can talk. I don’t think we’ll ever have confidence in any election in this country again.

As long as Mugabe does not believe that he is the cause of all the problems and repents, it is not going to work.

We want a working union but those who committed crimes should be brought to book.

Its like mixing fresh & rotten fish but the country has suffered so long maybe it will be better for us.

I think it could soften the blow of the sanctions coz I’m sure most foreign leaders are more than willing to deal with Morgie.

They should not allow Mugabe to retain the powers that he used to torture, kill and traumatize the masses between 29 March and 27 June thereby depriving us of democracy. Our fight 4 the past 9 yrs has been about democracy. So if R.G retains those powers, it’s a raw deal.

I hope the deal will hold & stop the suffering of the general populace.

That’s a good move for a change into a better future.

Ahoy Mr. Prime Minister Ahoy!!!! Congratulations to Mr. MT 4 doing it, now Zimbabwe can be on its feet again. Our hope has been revived now we can look 4ward.

As long the agreement serves the interests of the people and the paves way for free and fair elections in a period they agreed then its okay.

Nothing wrong with the deal but should consider change of the constitution b4 anything and implement what is in the agreement.

It’s the beginning of a long process of exiting Zanu pf, lets accept the deal, we will get there.

Well since it came after extensive consultation, l believe something positive is in the making.

“Zanu yaora Baba . . . Zanu yaora Baba . . . .” It’s the middle of the night, the 25th of June 2000. I’m in a car full of MDC activists and we’re careening through the streets of Harare, singing our lungs out, high on the promise of a Parliamentary election in which the MDC, barely nine months old, might just win the majority of elected seats. As it turned out, we were close but not quite. And the giddy optimism that, just maybe, we could put Zimbabwe back on the path to democracy in a matter of months, not years or decades, proved hollow.

Eight years, four elections, untold campaigns, and uncountable political-broken-heart moments later, I’m older, wiser, and a bit more jaded about the whole process. So when Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and Robert Mugabe signed their agreement on “resolving the challenges facing Zimbabwe” yesterday, I have to confess to no small amount of cynicism.

But, thinking that it was perhaps unfair of me to be so suspicious of a moment where so many were finding hope, I decided to take my cynicism to the streets and have a look around. I’ve long said that I will know that Zimbabwe is on the right track again when Harare’s Seventh Street – the road past State House – is no longer closed after dark. So I was disappointed, last night, to find it still barricaded, and I’ve been thinking about things like attachment, expectations, and anticlimax.

Speaking with others on my street, the general mood was “let’s wait and see.” So I’m taking their advice and doing my level best to reserve my judgement until we see how things pan out. But I’m sceptical about a power-sharing agreement, particularly about one that seems simply to have expanded the size of the Cake of National Elite so that everyone can have a slice. And I’m wondering how is it all going to work. Where will Morgan sleep as Prime Minister? Will he move into Zimbabwe House, over the road from Bob? The Zimbabwe I dream of is one without any head of state motorcade – not two. And I’m waiting for the Zimbabwe without any head of state portraits on the walls – not two.

In the past few months, we’ve asked Zimbabweans what they think about a Government of National Unity, and what changes they’d like to see in a New Zimbabwe. Once the country starts making progress towards these issues, I’ll know it’s time to celebrate.

The ink has dried. The cameras have flashed. The champagne popped. The king has spoken. The dry humour has done just that: dried. Everybody is happy. Oh! Happy day, when Thabo walked and washed our woes away!  Elsewhere, a poor woman lies in a filthy hospital ward groaning in pain. For days a bulging belly refuses to let out that life that has been growing inside her. Day two, the eve of the signing, doctors decide a C-section is the only option to free this poor woman from the pain, to give the baby a chance to enter that brave new world. Day three. The baby is having difficulty breathing. Hours later, that little bundle of joy has stopped breathing. Elsewhere, big men in neat suits promise a new beginning. The poor young woman has no clue what that means. She closes her eyes and tears – like water from the giant Zambezi dam – keep falling. The young man who planted the seed decided to do a Harry Houdini on her – he is nowhere to be seen. Men, men, men! She bears a permanent C-section scar and will carry it for the rest of her life as a reminder of not the “historic power sharing deal” but that life lost on the very day Zimbabweans were being promised better things ahead.

At long last, singing and cheering have been the order of the day as I have been out for lunch trying to get some fresh air and to have a short break from the office.

People are relieved, by the signing, and that we have the office of the Prime Minister in Zimbabwe. For the first time members of the public can say their feelings and exchange their ideas openly with the members of the security forces without any harm.

May God bless Zimbabwe. At the cash queue people could not complain about the slow moving queue like they used to a couple of days ago. They were enjoying sharing this breakthrough from the crisis and some were busy texting and sharing the good, or rather breaking news.

The things people want to see solved soon is the availability of food, enough cash, and medication. Some were calling for a ‘Holiday’. People were saying now they can mix well with their relatives who are of the opposing side now that the newly installed Prime Minister has declared that people should unite.

However, it was a good 45minutes before I returned to the office having not eaten anything but I realized that people now are proud to be Zimbabweans at last.