MTV’s US university campus outreach wing is promoting the Avaaz petition on Zimbabwe. Their site includes several different advocacy videos, a piece by the Dispatch Foundation, and a series of short video interviews with Morgan Tsvangirai on questions like “What do you think young people can do to help the situation?”, “Do you believe music is a force for mobilising change?” and “Power Corrupts – how do you make sure this doesn’t happen to you if you come into power.” Have a look here.

A subscriber, Livingston, recently wrote to us with some useful reminders for next Friday’s election:

I would like to remind Zimbabweans that this election is not about how many people Mugabe is going to kill, butcher, murder, rape, torch for him to win or how many rallies Mugabe is going to hold for him to win or how many posters Mugabe is going to put up for him to win or how big Mugabe’s posters are for him to win. This election is about the stomach. This election is about food. This election is about the future of our children. This election is about our education. This election is about our health delivering system. This election is about our freedom of expression, association as well as worship. This election is about a government of the people by the people. This election is about our dignity. This election is not about how many hate stories or speeches ZTV, Herald, Sunday Mail, Kwayedza, The Voice, The Chronicle, Manica Post are going to publish for Mugabe to win. This election is about getting rid of brutality, maiming, hate. This election is about Zimbabwe. This election is about getting rid of Mugabe. Yes getting rid of Mugabe. Together on 27 June let’s vote the Tyrant Mugabe out of office. This election is not about the past. This election is about the future. People of Zimbabwe let’s unite against brutality, murder, torture, and rape. Let’s unite against poverty. Let’s unite against hunger. Let’s unite against power cuts. Let’s unite against Chatunga and free ourselves. Together with Love, Care and Sympathy we shall conquer.

Every effort is being directed at putting out the light . . .

MDC have been banned by the ‘ruling party’ from campaigning on local TV
People have been told to take down their satellites as they are picking up ‘outside’ news reports
wind up radios have been declared a tool of opposition
NGO’s have been banned
recharge cards are unavailable for many cell phone networks  – no ‘juice’
many land lines are down – cables stolen
Biti is still in jail
militia camps have been set up in all high density and many low density suburbs in Harare
Zanu youth roam the streets at night
forcing people to all night rallies
to join the ranks of the destruction

E’s old father left his rural home last week
threatened by Zanu youths for voting wrongly
last night he had to return
called back by the invaders to face them
‘or we will burn the whole village’
an old man held to ransom
showing such courage
his fate is still unknown

it is a dark curtain that has been pulled over the land

and yet . . .

the light still shines
in small bubbles

in the back yard of a mechanic’s garden
where they celebrate work completed on his minivan
by sitting in the back
and imagining the places they will visit
the mechanic, his wife, their 2 large dogs, the assistant mechanic, and the old sekuru who cleans the yard
all crowded into the back
imagined what they were seeing
a wonderful escape
all without moving

out of the isolation of having the home fires broken
they gather in an old woman’s small kitchen at night
a mother with her 3 children from a house in the next suburb
an old woman who has brought 2 girls in from the rural areas
a man who has his arm in plaster from a police beating in Marondera
all have walked through the fire

new found friends at a new fire
gently praying for this to end

in the circle at Kufunda
when they dedicate this time to gathering their gifts
and holding their spirit

in a suburban garden
where an activists sits – alone
at the foot of an oak tree
watching the leaves fall
listening to its wisdom

in a suburban garden where 70 young children
left behind in the invasion of their villages
are being cared for
awaiting their scattered parents return

on our veranda at night
watching the gold of the sunset through masasas
and the bush babies at the feeding tray
and the acrobatics of two joyful jack russels

and our back door in the morning
counting the new flowering of the sweet peas

from this place of such beauty and courage and grief
to a web of light out there that holds us
I wish you a golden sunset

Nelson Mandela’s birthday is at least a month away yet there has been so much fuss around it already, since March if memory serves me right. Some big bash where international musicians will perform is being planned, there is a campaign of sending him a text message and the proceeds go to charity or something like that blah blah. I like him a lot too, but I don’t want to talk about his birthday. I want to talk about what Christopher Hitchens unpacks as to why Mandela hasn’t spoken out against Mugabe. Anybody else notice? Such a deafening silence from Madiba, with all due respect. Not that it would make much of a difference, but if all the other elders are busy issuing statements and what not . . . They have even signed a petition that wouldn’t have been too bad even with a halfhearted signature from this great man everybody loves. Bev, Madiba one guy you forgot to mention who is also present at the party. How the hell does anybody have a party when their neighbor’s house is on fire? Well, those are probably just petty nigglings, just a wonder that’s all. We are all different.

Hitchens mentions that:

“I recently had the chance to speak to George Bizos, the heroic South African attorney who was Mandela’s lawyer in the bad old days and who more recently has also represented Morgan Tsvangirai, the much-persecuted leader of the Zimbabwean opposition. Why, I asked him, was his old comrade apparently toeing the scandalous line taken by President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress? Bizos gave me one answer that made me wince­that Mandela is now a very old man and another that made me wince again: that his doctors have advised him to avoid anything stressful. One has a bit more respect for the old lion than to imagine that he doesn’t know what’s happening in next-door Zimbabwe or to believe that he doesn’t understand what a huge difference the smallest word from him would make. It will be something of a tragedy if he ends his career on a note of such squalid compromise… It is the silence of Mandela, much more than anything else that bruises the soul. It appears to make a mockery of all the brave talk about international standards for human rights, about the need for internationalist solidarity and the brotherhood of man, and all that. There is perhaps only one person in the world who symbolizes that spirit, and he has chosen to betray it. Or is it possible, before the grisly travesty of the runoff of June 27, that the old lion will summon one last powerful growl?”

How about that? The guy is probably just avoiding stress. One would think he’d share this invaluable advice with his colleague right next door.

My boss and I were discussing the other day, how or what the idea is behind beating someone into (supposed) submission? How and why is it, that somebody can be motivated and paid to kill fellow citizens, yet remain no better off or even close to the chefs whose interests they serve? What makes anybody think that by burning my house, beating a piece of my buttock off or taking me to a reorientation base or even killing me, will make me vote for them? Doesn’t it just make sense that I’d be more bound to actually vote against you for beating me? Then a different school of thought is of the opinion that it actually works. Get beaten so bad and you wont want to risk that happening to you again. I don’t know. But what I do know is, from what she wrote in an email, a friend of mine is simply going to vote ZANU because:

I’m so scared sha, but sekuru for sure wont step down easily you think we gonna have war that’s what I’m afraid of the most. I didn’t come this far to die in war or to have my life turned upside down. I want my children to see what a beautiful country we have. I think for now all we have to do is pray and right now I’d rather Zanu won for the sake of peace and no war…

A lot of people are taking the old man’s threats seriously, and I don’t blame them, knowing what he’s capable of doing. Recently, he promised war if he lost the run-off. He didn’t mince words when he said, “We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed. We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?” The warning came a day after he declared: “We are ready to go to war.”

Look at zanupf’s ‘promotional’ materials for the run-off.
Notice they’ve dumped the grimacing, threatening Mugabe.
In its stead are colourful, smiling images,
Even the co-opting of Makoni’s cheerful yellow background.

Gone the threat of ‘fist of fury’.
Now replaced with real beatings, coersion and crippling encounters.

These colourful ambassadors of zanupf.
First clean in white t-shirts, smiling Mugabe on the front,
Our proud colours on the scarves around their heads.
Now wielding sticks and chains in hosepipe.
Now blood spattered from their labour.

We are clear,
Who you are,
Is not a future we can afford.

I will vote. Against this.

Reading the book, American Protest Literature, a chapter entitled Poetry Is Not a Luxury, in which the writing of Audre Lorde is examined, got me thinking about a recent poem by John Eppel. Audre Lorde suggested that “the question of social protest and art is inseparable.” Lorde’s work involved “the transformation of silence into language and action,” realising that “if I cannot air this pain and alter it, I will surely die of it.” To her, poetry was not a luxury.

With this in mind I share John Eppel’s evocative poem, Broke-Buttock Blues where he shares the reality of political violence in Zimbabwe.

Broke-Buttock Blues

They beat me with branches wrapped up in barb-wire,
they beat me with branches wrapped up in barb-wire;
my baby she crying, her face is on fire.

They say you are sell-out, you vote Tsvangirai,
they say you are sell-out, you vote Tsvangirai;
my baby, she dying, please God, tell me why?

They beat first my head then my back then my bums,
they beat first my head then my back then my bums;
they laugh and they say is like playing the drums.

I beg them for water, they say go ask Blair,
I beg them for water, they say go ask Blair.
Please, put out the fire in Mucheche’s hair?

My bottom is broken, can not sit or stand,
my bottom is broken, can not sit or stand;
Mucheche can’t breathe with her mouth in the sand.

They burned all our mealies, our chickens, our dog,
they burned all our mealies, our chickens, our dog;
my uncle, they hit him to death with a log.

For hours they beat me, for hours I cry,
for hours they beat me, for hours I cry;
please God, save my baby, do not let her die?

When they leave, like a tortoise I crawl very slow,
when they leave, like a tortoise I crawl very slow;
but my baby stopped crying a long time ago,
mwana wangu stopped crying a long time ago.