From Nawal El Saadawi’s Prison Memoir:

Over the ground, my fingers sketch letters and interlacing circles. My hand trembles with anger, and my heart quickens. If my fingers had not come to know the pen, perhaps they would have known the hoe. The pen is the most valuable thing in my life. More valuable than my children, more than my husband, more than my freedom.

I prefer my place in prison to writing something which has not originated in my mind. The sincere word demands a courage akin to that needed to kill and perhaps more.

My fingers chisel letters in the dirt…To this moment, I don’t know why I am in prison. I have seen no investigator or prosecuting attorney or lawyer. I heard the shawisha say that she heard they were saying I entered prison because of my writings…my crime, therefore, comes under the rubric of crimes of opinion.

Is free opinion a crime? Then let prison be my only refuge and my final fate!

Source: Newsweek

I’ve just discovered Afrographique, a site of useful, interesting, attractive and easy to understand images depicting data about Africa – There’s a map of Facebook users, a graph of African mobile subscriptions, a map of foreign investment in Africa, a look at LinkedIn users, amongst other graphics.

It’s exciting because the images are so well presented – they’re clear and accessible and simple to view. But it’s also impressive because they give you at a glance powerfully displayed information about Africa. And, assuming you think that things like investment, mobile phone penentration and social networking usage are good things, they’re images of Positive developments in Africa.

According to the website:

Afrographique is Ivan Colic’s small contribution to assist the changing perception of Africa and it’s people – hopefully you will be able to learn something as well. This blog aims to collect as much data as possible with the aim of presenting the information in an exciting and digestible format to all.

From the looks of it, Ivan regularly adds new maps and graphics to the site – so it’s worth flagging the site or subscribing to his RSS feed so you know when he’s added something new. I’m really looking forward to seeing what he depicts next.

Like a dog in the day
Like a dog in the night.
The main goal here is to score.
1, 2, 3 and maybe 4 more.

The art of mingling
Requires a little poison
Some liquid, some hash,
Some powder, some ash,
We really don’t care.
As long as it burns.

To lose sight of reality
We are drawn to noise.
Our senses crave release
The longing for touch increases
As our connection to love decreases.

Wasted energy
Wasted hope
Wasted dreams of the future
Wasted youth,
Better check yourself
Before you wreck yourself.

By Sanele Mpofu

So often we are hit by a barrage of bad, bad news leaving us wondering where does all the good go? We asked Kubatana subscribers to email us their experiences of what’s positive about Zimbabwe. Here’s what we got – enjoy!

My Zimbabwe is about all the unemployed young people who make it happen, against the odds, and do it with innovative style.  It is the young woman, pictured recently in a weekly publication, who needs to make a living to raise her daughter but is unable to afford a babysitter.  So everyday she takes the toddler with her to work and places the girl in an enormous cardboard box.  While the mother sells her wares at the corner of a busy city street, she keeps an eye on her child who frolics about in the safety of her makeshift playpen.

Despite the harsh economic conditions and the uncertain political future, Zimbabweans still have the spirit of ”Ubuntu”. My Zimbabwe is a country in which women came to assist during our bereavement in early March in Bulawayo. They cooked for others on a fire in the blistering heat, washed all the plates and still had the energy to go back and do their household chores. The men braved the evening chill to keep my brother and cousins company. These people were saying to my family: ‘‘we cannot reverse your loss but we are here for you, we share in your grief.”  It is this spirit of ”Ubuntu” that makes me proud to be Zimbabwean. No matter how bad things may get, our neighbours and others around us are there for us, they give us shoulders to cry on. The mere feeling of belonging makes each day easier to bear.

My Zimbabwe is the young man who offers me his seat in a bus from Kwekwe to Harare because I am pregnant and he stands all the way to Kadoma. It is the police officers and the eyewitnesses, both men and women, who rush to the scene of the accident without protective gloves to assist the injured before the ambulance arrives.

It is a politician who decentralised education from the scenario of the pre-Rhodesia era by establishing day secondary schools to equip black children with literacy. My Zimbabwe is a local legal practitioner who defended the hairstyle which those pre-independence, half pint advocates said was illegal to sport when attending the House of Assembly. Let’s face it, constitutionally; a hairstyle is of no importance in the House.

The women who in their diversity tirelessly contribute to family, community and national development despite being marginalized, embody my Zimbabwe. They always ensure that there is food, water, love and care at home even in times of power and water cuts or any social, economic and political crisis.

It is a country where the literacy rate is very high meanwhile teacher wages are some of the lowest in the region. From tattered uniforms in rural areas, we produce internationally recognised graduates yearly.

My Zimbabwe is the street vendor in Victoria Falls who wanted to pay me for the airtime I didn’t need and was trying to give to her. The political leader who had the courage to try to work with the people who had beaten him close to death. The people who voted for change in 2005 and 2008 when they knew they could suffer for their stand for freedom in their country. And apart from all that, my Zimbabwe makes the best cakes in the world in the Vumba.

It is the people in Gutu South whose families were decimated at an attack during a pungwe in the 1970s at Kamungoma Farm.  (More than 50 were killed in one night.) They have kept on going, with their physical and emotional wounds, without asking for compensation or sympathy from anyone, let alone the government. They took it that the liberation struggle was for us all.

It is a woman called Precious Nyamukondiwa who runs a small organisation in Chinhoyi. She and her colleagues have gone a long way in assisting people living with HIV/AIDS. Their work has long gone unnoticed while affected and infected little children have been taught ways of positive living. It is Mai Zenda, a volunteer at Felly’s Orphanage at Stodart Hall in Mbare. Felly’s orphanage is a place where orphans in Mbare are fed one meal a day. These orphans live with their relatives who are too poor to feed them. Mai Zenda currently cooks for an average of 69 children from Monday to Friday all on her own. If there is no relish, she goes to Mbare musika to ask on behalf of the orphans. She has been a volunteer there for 4 years for no income. Mrs Zenda is determined to support these children as best she can.

My Zimbabwe can certainly look bleak on the surface but a closer look shows a myriad of rainbows. It is a place where black people have discovered the value of entrepreneurship. Everyone is thinking of how to set up a business whether informally or formally. We have started changing the colonial mindset where we were groomed to be worker bees that strive for someone else.

My Zimbabwe is the once a year visit to Honde Valley in the Eastern Highlands. Eating bananas, roasted maize cobs, pineapples and mangoes in my grandparents homestead.

It is a place where you can send children to school on their own and not have to worry about kidnapping and abuse. A place where they can go about visiting their friends and being children without having to grow up too fast for their age.

My Zimbabwe is a place where we have time to stop talk and enjoy meeting friends and family in the streets because we still hold relationships dear and understand the value of maintaining them.

This article was co-authored by Zimbabweans believing in the positive: Thandi, Yeukai, Cherish, Sally, Peter, Ethel, Farai, Donald, Chirikure, Tabitha and Nomqhele

I’m feeling really proud of people in the art and culture community who have come out so publicly in support of Rooftop Promotions during their trials and tribulations with the Zimbabwe government who have been so set on silencing the arts.

Here are some of the solidarity messages that Rooftop got – together we can do more.

“We celebrate this judgment with Rooftop Promotions, the Rituals Cast and the artists in Zimbabwe in general and believe this will only help and enhance the development and promotion of arts and culture in Zimbabwe. Congratulations! Makorokoto! Amhlope! and look forward to the artists producing more creative work for the upliftment and betterment of Zimbabwe” – Elvas Mari – Director:- National Arts Council of Zimbabwe

“May this give you encouragement in your other projects that may help to move our country forward. Glory to God for Zimbabwe’s courts!” – Ray Mawerera – Words and Images

“Well, congratulations and makorokoto to you and the Rituals team – as well as your lawyers, of course! As you say, the actors’ acquittal on charges of causing a public nuisance was a predictable outcome – what other conclusion could the magistrate have come to? But the case illustrates the overzealous nature of those applying the rule of law in Zimbabwe and highlights the undemocratic and dangerous habit that has become normal practice in this country of depriving innocent citizens of their liberty even on the most flimsy accusations. In most democracies depriving citizens of their freedom – let alone their right to free expression – is an extreme step taken as a last resort to ensure the successful administration of justice.” – Andy Moyse -Project Coordinator , Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)

“Congratulations. This is our Zimbabwe, and that is what it does also”!  – Tsitsi Dangarembga – Novelist and Film maker

“I can only say Makorokoto Justice has been done.” – Marie – Luise Tebbe

“Makorokoto daves and all involved, gives a little hope for the judicial system.” – Alice Hamilton

“Congratulations – a victory for one is a victory for all. Enjoy! (and then move on to the next struggle with renewed energy and the knowledge that you are in the right!)” – Margaret Ling

“Congratulations. I said it was a waste of time and tax payers’ resources. Well done my brother. Pass my regards to the Rituals team! A victory for Rituals team is a victory for Africa!” – Karegwa Muchiri – All Africa Dance Festival – Kenya

“Good news indeed!” – Ms Tafadzwa R Muropa, Co-ordinator- Gender Alternatives Trust (GAT)

“Congratulations on the outcome of the courtcase!” – Laura Mackenzie Stuart, Scotland

“Makorokoto. The just always prevail. The truth remains just.” – Nicholas Moyo – Deputy Director:- National Arts Council of Zimbabwe

“Thanks to God that wisdom has prevailed over confusion! May there be more such outcomes. I am hoping that as painful as this experience was, the resulting good will be immeasurable – for your team members, for the police and other authorities who were involved, for Zimbabwe’s justice system, for the arts, and for our National Healing and Reconciliation process.” – Reverend Shirley DeWolf – Africa University

“This is the moment we have been all waiting for, the verdict is out! The Court has delivered justice in favour of freedom of artistic expression. the benchmark has been set. hence forth, we can not settle for less as far as demanding and defending the right to free creative expression.” – Josh Nyapimbi Country Rep Arterial Network

“Congratulation on acquittal of all artists Thank you for taking a brave stance in using theatre voice as a powerful communicating tool in the rural areas especially. The whole case shows there is a lot of paranoia involved from the security forces. And does their paranoia mean they fear loosing the whole battle?” – Zuzana

“Congrats, despite the whole fiasco being a complete nuisance in itself. Aluta continua!”. – Chirikure Chirikure – Poet

“Hilarious irony, comic incompetence. If only it were not about people’s lives, we could laugh at it!” – Anonymous

“I watched Rituals and I think it is a brilliant piece of work. The cast is amazing too. It is a shame if it is viewed with such suspicion. We know what happened in the past and, if national healing is to work well among our people, we need such productions so that we may debate these things with the intention of not, and never going back there. We are talking of neighbours and relatives who need to reconcile, who need to heal the wounds etc. “Nxa singazenzeli akula ozasenzela” – Albert Nyathi – Poet

“Rooftops have given everything to keep Zimbabwean theatre at the top. Is this the only way the Zimbabwean authorities know to pay them back? Soyinka said, I don’t care about the colour of the foot pressing my neck.–I just want to remove it.” – Stanley Makuwe – Playwright

“To the cast, “do not be alarmed!! It could be worse. You were arrested by a department (ZRP) of the home affairs ministry after getting a performance licence from another department (censorship) of the same home affairs ministry. Can you imagine what could have happened if it was a different ministry altogether!!!” – Walter Muparutsa

“Please convey my commendations to the ‘Rituals’ team for triumphing in refusing to be co-erced into paying fines against their wills and consciences- if more people do that then justice can have a chance to prevail. And congratulations also to their lawyers for a job well done! Best wishes for as Zimbabwe can only move towards freedom of speech and conscience. It is neither possible nor permissible to go backwards!”  – Jessie Majome MP, Deputy Minister – Women Affairs, Gender & Community Development

“I applaud the team for their efforts in liberating art and media in Zimbabwe. As far as I have seen, every nation that once suffered some form of oppression was blessed with artists gifted in various arenas, who would use their tools to fight to emancipate the suffering. What you capture will be part of a future syllabus in History. I know your pain and suffering having once walked that bitter path too and I encourage you to let that which burns alive in you live on!”  – Christina Chemhuru

Your pain is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder
at the daily miracles of your life, your pain
would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your
heart, even as you have always accepted
the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the
physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink
his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided
by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter
has moistened with His own sacred tears.

~ Khalil Gibran