Zimbabwe is a nation of beef.  People produce it and people love to eat it.  Perhaps you could say that beef is part of a Zimbabweans identity.  But the tides changed.  At Spar they sell­ not beef­ but beef fat.  Not a speck of meat included, just the fat.  And for the astronomical price of ZWD240,000 per kg.

Zimbabwe is a nation where liberation war credentials have long been considered essential in legitimizing a politician, part of their identity.  One of the many places this political ethos has been enshrined is through use of comrade in front of politician’s names.  Perhaps a new era is on the horizon. It will be interesting to see if the new government yields Prime Minister Tsvangirai or Comrade Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe is a nation whose literature has centered on the liberation war.  However, now it’s become harder to see this theme or any singular theme across Zimbabwean literature.  Thus, an identity crisis and the question: What are current works collectively trying to say and do?  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, a literary identity crisis.  In fact, topically wide-ranging literature emerging out of one nation is a sign of vibrancy and rich intellectual engagement.

Zimbabwe is a nation in which, not that long ago, donor funding was shifting.  Decreasing was a dependency identity; things were moving away from handing out of basic goods and services.  Increasing were activities and longer term planning to analyze and address the underlying issues driving need.  Focus was increasingly and effectively the bigger picture questions. These days waned as recent advocacy around lifting the ban on humanitarian aid made painfully apparent how dependent the nation has become on donor programmes just to meet basic needs.  As important as meeting basic needs will continue to be, equally as important is rejuvenating mindsets toward the bigger picture once again.

Zimbabwe is a nation waiting to see what directions the new government will go.  Will it be a peaceful process allowing people to return to their beloved beef?  Or will it be continued peddling of beef fat?  I’m going to present the optimist stance.  The challenges of how to get the beef (not the fat) are many and complex. Many of which revolve around (corruption-free) economic recovery.  At the same time, it seems an identity crisis is in the air.  It’s an awful lot, a real challenge for people to let go of past pains and broken promises, to trust and believe that the queues, shortages, black market, etc. culminating in the identity of resourceful survivor might be on its way out.  But it seems part of ushering in change involves embracing the pending identity shift.  To continue the fight and stand poised for beef­–literally and in the form of partaking in vibrancy and rich intellectual engagements, which, when not suppressed and repressed, are at the core of Zimbabwe as a nation.

Newlands Shopping centre in Harare, where we have our office, is unusually quiet today.

The bank queues are shorter, the vendors are fewer and the streets emptier. From various shops I can hear the drone of Mugabe’s voice. People are huddled around radios listening to the signing ceremony speeches. Out in the car park I’ve just walked past a couple of guys mimicking Mugabe . . . “We will not have regime change”.

Last night a group of us gathered to talk over a couple of beers. Most of us have been in the pro-democracy struggle for many years but none of us were feeling optimistic about today. We shook our heads saying that we never thought it would end like this, in a bloated government of unity. Or an arrangement that simply accommodates two political parties. Sure, like many people say, this is at least a shift. And if the MDC have their wits about them they’ll use this opportunity to take full control rather than continue to be maneuvered and choreographed by Zanu PF.

Most likely this small struggling nation of ours now has the largest government in Africa. This certainly isn’t anything to boast about. Are we looking down the barrel of two of everything: two motorcades, two portraits, two macho men commandeering our national airline? How much money will get gobbled up by this power sharing arrangement while politicians like Morgan crow for aid to come in and resuscitate our economy?

The average person on the street in Zimbabwe only welcomes this expedient political arrangement because they want their life to improve. But will it? Just recently we read about the new swathe of MPs getting brand spanking new cars to the tune of US$9 million whilst the majority of their constituents do not have access to a regular clean supply of water. Of immediate importance is the need to hold these politicians accountable. To make sure that they deliver on improving the abyssal conditions that Zimbabweans are surviving under. As many ordinary Zimbabweans have pointed out, whilst it is important that we work on issues such as a new constitution, we can’t eat a constitution.

And, by the way, people are dying of hunger.

Is Morgan more than the power and the glory? Before he jumps on a jet plane and tours the world let’s see him, with his supposed new powers, focus on improving the everyday lives of Zimbabweans.

When Robert Mugabe opened Parliament last month, he was jeered and heckled by the MDC’s Members of Parliament. Some thought this was a positive sign – an act of defiance on the part of a long-suffering opposition party. A few people, however, thought the MDC was stooping too low in a childish act of name calling.

The exchange was shown once on national television before the state broadcaster yanked that part of the footage. But CNN got a copy of it, and the clip has since been posted online. In our email newsletter yesterday, we sent people the link to the footage, and asked them for their feedback.

So far, the responses have all been positive, for example:

There is nothing wrong with that kind of behaviour. Mugabe after stealing the vote several times, beating and murdering his own people, how can he expect people to respect him. People have been oppressed for very long and that is the only platform they had to express sentiments from their constituencies.

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Fantastic. They reflected the exact sentiment of the people they represent. That is their mandate is it not?

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Jeering and heckling in Parliament is the stuff of lively democratic debate the world over and a test of the temerity, wit and strength of the representatives. And puhleese, they have the arrogance to puff up and bluster about the heckling whilst our equally important honorable Members of Parliament are being hauled off and clapped in irons and being subjected to the degradation of our ever so proud government’s filthy prison cells. Pride comes before the fall. The critics of the heckling are also past masters of equally derrogatory behaviour in Parliament – they must now step up and get ready for some of their own medicine and prove their worthiness to the people of Zimbabwe – or are they all a bunch of wimps?

Watch the footage here or here and email info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw to let us know what you think.

Arthur Mutambara’s interview with Geraldine Doogue almost passed me by until thousands of miles away sitting in a lonely hotel room sans TV; l went onto the Kubatana website for news of home and came across the extract from his interview. I read with shock his responses to the interviewer. I have always spoken about the need for a different kind of politics in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans deserve politicians who respond to issues without resorting to the use vitriol, who speak without arrogance and who interact with the outside world in the dignified manner befitting their positions as heads or potential heads of state. MDC-M have sold Mutambara as the kind of leader Zimbabweans would be proud to have. His supposed intellect has been touted as holding the key to our success as a nation, but his utterances on ABC radio have for me dealt a mortal blow to these pretensions. His emotional outburst was for me, reminiscent of Mugabe’s infamous Sharm El Sheik incident, when he almost engaged in fisticuffs with one pesky journalist, as he charged “you idiot! You bloody idiot!”

The interviewer started by reading a summary from the Guardian in which Mutambara was referred to as a “shameless opportunist who has appeared to be currying favour with his former enemies” and asked him to respond. He of course denied this accusation. The interviewer then asked whether all the papers which had made similar assertions had got it wrong. This is when the interview went haywire. Mutambara responded by saying, “because they are stupid, they are very stupid”. Mutambara should have stuck to explaining why the papers have got it wrong in suspecting him of cutting deals with the devil. For MDC-M’s information, a lot of Zimbabweans are just as suspicious of him and his role in our crisis. The concern is not necessarily that MDC-M will cut a “bilateral deal from a three-party negotiations framework”- the concern is more about what clandestine clock and dagger deals he has been making outside of the framework. Deals for instance where MDC-M and ZANU PF sponsor the same candidate to run for the seat of the Speaker of the House of Assembly. That is the suspicion and fear. So no, one does not have to be “foolish” or “sick in the mind” to worry about these things happening.

And so to the next issue- the interviewer next asks about transfer of executive power of executive power from the President to Tsvangirai and this is when Mutambara totally loses the plot. After stating that there are some things he cannot discuss in the media, he goes totally ballistic. “Who are you? How dare you undermine our intelligence, how dare you are so racist to the extent that you can’t guarantee us….” (sic). The interviewer tries to interject, presumably to stop the tirade and Mutambara charges “you are collectively stupid!” “Collective foolishness!”  The interviewer again tries to stem the flow of vitriol but Mutambara hasn’t finished displaying his intelligence. In his wisdom, the imposition of sanctions while the parties are talking is a travesty of justice. Instead, people should have confidence in Tsvangirai, Mutambara and worse, Mugabe. Really Mr. Mutambara? And this is the brilliant rocket scientist? What about Mugabe’s conduct is supposed to inspire our confidence? The brutal murder of over a hundred perceived political opponents? How about driving 4 million of his people into exile? Oh and let’s not forget reducing the country into a pariah state? Should that inspire our confidence Mr. Mutambara?

The interviewer again tries to put Mutambara back on track and wonders whether the opposition could be walking into the same trap as Nkomo in the 80s. This question unleashes the Neanderthal in Mutambara-literally beating his chest he attacks the interviewer for daring to impugn his intelligence. His response is a cross between caveman and Mugabe. “Do you think I’m stupid? He charges. His pride offended. In a Mugabeesque turn he then goes on to claim “we are smarter than Australians, we are smarter than the Americans, we went to better schools than most of these leaders in America, in Britain and in Australia” He finishes by triumphantly crowing “I am coming out of Oxford! None of your Prime Ministers can challenge me intellectually”.

There goes the paradox. Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Mutambara should sit down and compare notes. They both display an identity crisis of Freudian proportion. The very thing they crave (acceptance by the West) is the thing they loathe (or at least purport to). In one breath the intelligent Prof pours scorn on the Americans, the British and the Australians and in the next breath he crows about his quality education at that quintessentially English Institution-Oxford. The standard by which he measures his intellect is a British standard. The irony is lost on the intelligent Prof.  If l were him l would not crow about my supposed intelligence for two reasons; firstly, when you talk about your intelligence but everything you say or do points at the opposite then there is a problem. If l were Geraldine, l would have pointed out that for all their collective intelligence, the three men are still fiddling while the country burns and for all their supposed stupidity and foolishness, the Aussies are still able to feed their country without begging for alms.

But that is beside the point. I started off by saying that we need politicians of a different calibre. People who are of sane and sober senses. Level-headed people who are not shaken by a few unfiltered questions from shrewd journalists. Leaders who do not go ballistic at the first challenge that comes their way. We want leaders who do not have an over-inflated sense of their own importance or indeed their own intelligence. We want humble leaders who are willing to listen to criticism however harsh, because they know they cannot have all the answers. We want compassionate leaders who are pained when their people suffer. “Intelligent” leaders who have eight degrees have brought our country to its knees. “Intelligent” men, who hold PhDs (honorary and earned) have decided that it is better to use scarce foreign currency buying commodities to distribute to the populace at sub-economic prices rather than invest in the country’s production capacity. Intelligent men have turned the Reserve Bank into an Agro Equipment wholesale. “Intelligent” leaders who believe that out of a country of 12 million people only one person has the brains to lead this country have presided over the disaster that is now Zimbabwe. Frankly l have had enough of men who think they are intelligent.

Life in general has always been a struggle requiring one to work hard for everything – from food to clothing. Now the situation has worsened. One works so hard but come the end of the month, the money is not easily accessible. With the withdrawal limit currently at $500 a day (only enough for a loaf of bread), one has to be geared up to go to the bank every day of the week to be able to buy something meaningful.

Everything has become so expensive and salaries fall short. Most of the basic commodities are being sold in foreign currency on the black market yet the majority of employees are paid in Zimbabwe dollars. What concerns me most is the way we all seem to be going about our business as if everything is normal. Nobody seems to question or challenge the way life has become in our country.

A few days ago I had one experience that got me thinking it is time something is done to improve the Zimbabwe situation . . . I took a trip to the doctor with my Medical Aid card for a Medical Certificate only to be told that they no longer accept Medical Aid cards. Instead the majority of surgeries I visited asked for a US$20 fee. I had to no choice but to return home and forget about the application. Surely if scholarships are for the less privileged, minor processes such as attaining a Medical Certificate should not be prohibitive.

A few months back I was so convinced some good economic recovery plan was on the way when I heard of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding and Power Sharing Talks. Now weeks have gone by and still there is no official position or detail on proceedings during the ‘Talks’. If these ‘Talks’ are being done for the people Zimbabwean citizens certainly deserve to know what is really going on from the officials themselves.

Sometimes I wish these leaders engaged in Talks would consider that whilst they are ‘dragging’ their feet in sealing a deal, people are dying every day. The health delivery system has deteriorated and drugs are not easily accessible. Some people are resorting to purchasing drugs from neighboring countries like South Africa while the majority of the disadvantaged Zimbabweans have no choice but to keep on hoping that life in Zimbabwe will improve before their souls give in.

Despite the numerous challenges that we are facing there seems to be a little hope in me that somehow Zimbabwe will rise again. This is my only sense of comfort. It may take time but our resilient spirit will see us through.