The rumour went out this morning

‘They are about to ‘pick up’ particular ‘target’ people from civil society’

(for many have been speaking publically of their worries of rigging and corruption
and producing evidence  and reports to back their claims)
and Sunday is a good day to make arrests as there is no court open to bring a complaint

And we look, again, at the power that  fear can unleash on our energy
how one ‘reliable source of information’ can lead us away from our centers

years ago we responded to these threats by closing down
moving out of our homes/offices – our places of safety – taking refuge until normal life could resume

Today it feels different
a phone-tree between people is activated
the connections with webs already formed is alerted
we close the gates
(burn the Tamil cleansing smoke in the center of the herb spiral – if that calls to you)

make the tea
and watch the sun spread light into the Sunday garden

No amount of justification or guise can cleanse tyranny and so the people of Zimbabwe should wake up to that fact and call a spade by its rightful name. The conspiracy of Western domination and neo-colonialism should never in this world be the green light to take human life or suppress the natural dictates of freedom for all in the name of weeding out ‘sellouts’ to safeguard sovereignty. The people of my country should now stop looking at politics as a neighbourhood community with closed circuit but rather at a broader and open national society level. This should now be our starting point. A life lost and a right denied in Checheche should send shockwaves and quakes of concern to a fellow citizen in Gwabalanda. The country has been heavily divided at the moment and that is why the spirit of tyranny is still flourishing and the heavy hand of suppression striving as supreme. Our people should envisage and grasp spirit at a national level to completely stamp out this rule of the blue bloods that has deemed it worth to sacrifice every other soul in the country for the sake of personal accumulation.

Photographs by Linette Frewin

One of Zimbabwe’s best known singers, Chiwoniso Maraire, has died aged 37. More from the BBC here and you can share your memories of Chi on their page.

As far as most big news broadcasters are concerned, there is only one story worth reporting on at the moment – there is a royal baby! Nelson Mandela could die or Denmark could finally break off Europe and sink into the sea, but these are irrelevant stories since there is a new 3rd in line for the throne.

It is understandable that people need distractions from the normal doom and gloom news broadcasts, but media does have a tendency to overdo, and overcommercialise these events – and they really have gone all out this time. You can download an app that tracks the hourly progress of the baby, or read a book on the history of the diapers used by the royal family (because I’ve always wanted to know what type of diaper queen Elizabeth crapped in!)

Although a “guess the royal baby’s name” app would be more light-hearted entertainment than “guess how many people died in Syria today”, the hype does tend to eclipse far more life changing stories that still need to be reported, since the revolution in Brazil isn’t going to go on hold … while everyone dotes over the fact that it’s a boy!

There is an old, deep wounding that runs through our land
the pain of the torn flesh of old hatreds, bloodletting, abuse of power, colonialism and wars for ownership of land

However, 33 years ago our country gained independence
and we covered the wounds in an ‘agreed forgetting’
with the hope that the new dreams had the space to come in

but beneath the scarred skin,
the festering pain of the unheard stories continued

a legacy inflicted on our youth
old wounds – belonging times before they were born

and we used our children to bleed them back into the world
no longer in a battle framed by tribe or colour or religious ideal
but in the simple pursuit of personal greed and partisan political power

5 years ago
a ‘failed’ election left us with the dictator in control of the army and police, sharing the government with the opposition party
together they were tasked with creating a new constitution and putting in place a set of agreed reforms
to make way for a new election.

5 years with the hierarchy involved in a struggle
for the Mercedes/house on the hill/women/control of business/diamonds/ownership of land

5 years in limbo
as the country continued to suffer the abandonment of roads/schools/water systems/electricity/refuse collection
our children on the streets

for the people no longer counted in the way of things

5 years in which growing circles in communities across the country
have come to realize – we are on our own
and the survival of our communities is our own business
that peace will only come from our hands
that old wounds/new wounds could no longer buried
they had to be spoken before they could heal
and that they would only heal from the inside out

5 years in which we have grown to understand
that we have no place in battles that are not of our making
that the time is passed to ‘fight against’
that the time has come to ‘stand for’ something we believe in
for peace and truth and stability in our lives

This week we will have an ‘unconstitutional’ election
(the president fast-tracked changes to electoral laws agreed on by all political parties in cabinet and used a presidential decree to bypass Parliament)
almost 2 million of people under 30 years of age have been from prevented from registering
on a flawed voters role that contains the names of nearly a million deceased or departed
(we  surely have the largest population in the world of people between 100 and 120)
and 63 constituencies that have more voters than residents

We walk through a gateway of designed chaos
knowing that old men do not readily give up power

not knowing the next steps
other than that this time, we have something else to bring to our future
our own learning

tichaona – we shall see