The HIFA opening show was far less spectacular than in previous years but hugely enjoyable nonetheless. Sitting under a starry Zimbabwean sky watching the colour and energy of the performers made me feel very pleased to be alive. Of course a lot of the talk about town is that HIFA have succumbed to pressure and toned down on the political content of the opening show, and its probably true. Some of the people that I’ve spoken to have been disappointed by this. Last night’s show was all about love, harmony, respect and peace. Many Zimbabweans embody these sentiments … if only our politicians did too.

HIFA 2012, themed “A Show of Spirit” , opened last night with a bang!

Despite the many years I’ve either worked at or covered HIFA I’ve never seen the opening show for myself (first day festival deadlines!).  I wasn’t disappointed. From the moment the backing musicians struck their first cord to the second the onstage lights were turned off the Opening Show was expressive and magnificent. Over 5000 people attended to watch the show, which was directed by veteran choreographer Neville Campbell, and whose score was arranged by Zimbabwean Musician Vee Mukarati. The Show opened with a transcendental duet by Chiwoniso Maraire and John Pfumojena. Among the featured artists were Josh Meck, spoken word artists Aura, Dickson and Cde Fatso, and the Tumbuka Dance  Company.

Kubatana’s thinking about producing Tsoro Boards and putting them into communities in the hope that messages published on the boards will prompt debate amongst the people playing draughts and those gathered watching the game. Recently we had the pleasure of interacting with art students at the Harare International School whilst they experimented with different ideas and designs for potential Tsoro Boards. Here are a few very colourful examples to share with you.

I got inspired by this article called If you Change, your World will Change by Andrew Horton and I hope you will too.

You play an integral role in the way people treat and respond to you. If you are not enjoying the way people in your environment are treating or responding to you right now, there is only one thing you need to do. Change the way you treat and respond to all the people around you. As you know it is impossible to change anyone else, but changing yourself is one simple decision away. As you change the way you treat people and you begin to show people how you want to be treated, almost as if by magic, everyone around you will begin to treat you differently.

Action Idea: Evaluate your own behaviour and try to discover how you are contributing, allowing or encouraging people to treat you the way they do.

People will only ever treat you the way they are allowed to treat you. You behaviour, actions or lack of action, is encouraging people to treat you in a certain way. If you want to change the way people treat or respond to you, then break the pattern, which is allowing the current circumstances to prevail. You are indeed in charge of everything in your experience. If you want to change anything in your environment, the change needs to start with the one person you have 100 % control over, namely, you.

When you accept that all change begins and ends with you and you finally take responsibility or said differently you take charge of your life and future, you empower yourself to begin making progress towards the life you have always dreamed about. What are you waiting for? If you want to change anything or everything in your life, that change is only one decision away. By making one different positive choice, you can completely change your life for the better. We are living in one of the most volatile, changing evolving environments mankind has ever experienced. These times we live in are both exciting and scary, but offer the most incredible opportunities for anyone, who wants to explore and discover new horizons. The thinking and ways of doing business, which have got companies and individuals to where they are today, will most certainly not get us to where we want to go tomorrow. Open your mind and start exploring new and better ways of doing things. It is no longer an option to vegetate in front of the television every night watching other people’s lives and successes. The world has opened up and the global economy we work in every day has moved the goal posts and changed the playing field forever. The people competing for your job are not similar people to you who live in your suburb. Your competition sits all around the world, in some cases with empty belies, eager to grow and become more. If you are to remain competitive, open your eyes and begin to see that if you are not growing your knowledge and skill base every day, you are actually going backwards. Time is the ultimate equal opportunity employer, it never ever stops or rests, has no reason to hesitate or to look at the past or the future, it simply expends itself entirely in the now.

Once time has passed it is gone forever and can never be recovered. Stop wasting even one more minute on frivolous activities, which may deliver pleasure in the moment. Start to invest into improving and growing your knowledge. I am not suggesting that you stop entertaining yourself completely. I am however suggesting that you reduce the number of hours you spend a day entertaining yourself and increase the number of hours you spend educating yourself every day. As you grow and become more, everything in your life will change. Resources which may have been unavailable to you will almost miraculously appear in your experience. People, who you only dreamt of as possible allies, will see you in a very different light and approach you and want to support you. Everyone around you will begin responding to you very differently, you entire world will change, when you change and commit to a path of on-going learning and growth. I have no doubt that the more you invest into learning; the more you will end up earning.

Kubatana recently hosted a field visit from 5 young feminists from the Harare International School. We watched a documentary on women’s rights called From Fear to Freedom. Reflecting on her experience one of the girls said …

From Fear to Freedom was a very emotional movie. When I saw it, it made me feel good to have a family that treats each other right. What gave me hope was the women at schools teaching young boys to respect women, if they continue like that i think that there can be a big change.

Interesting to read in the Mail and Guardian about “Colonial past haunts Britain again”, where 8800 files from 37 former colonies have been unearthed in Hanslope Park, and other UK National archive hideaways. More interesting might have been the ones they burned from 1961 on. At that time, a policy was put in place (it’s in the files) to burn and hide (destroy) some files from the former colonies, and to leave a select few (‘legacy’ files) to the new Independent countries.

Some of the hidden files have been found, and some of the information in them is quite damaging (that is why they were hidden), describing torture, murder, cover-ups and other ‘wrong’ activities by Her Majesty’s government.

Even regarding the standard rule of thumb, that you cannot judge the past, and activities from the past, by today’s standards of behaviour, we just know that some things are ‘wrong’, and would have been then. For example, the death of Captain Cook in Hawaii. Was he killed, or murdered? He certainly died, but was what he was doing wrong, or was what the islanders doing wrong, or was it all a big accident, a misunderstanding? Well, we cannot take Roman Dutch law in Zimbabwe today, or Royal Navy High seas doctrine now, or even USA law as currently practiced

All those basic matters aside though, the real point is that, 50 years after – over 50 years after – the activities took place, they are being revealed. And the perpetrators – who are guilty by standards in place at that time – are being found guilty and are paying.

How does that apply to today’s life? Simple. Don’t do anything wrong. You know what is wrong. It is inside you. It may also be currently written, but mostly it is known. “You know”. The only safe path is not to commit a crime or do anything ‘wrong’. A pardon (from the King/Queen/Head of State/Head of Government) will not help. Time will not wash it away. Your only defence is do what is right. And you know what is right, no one can tell you.