Five weeks ago, Zanu PF and both MDC’s signed an agreement “on resolving the challenges facing Zimbabwe” They signed that they were “committing ourselves to putting our people and our country first by arresting the fall in living standards and reversing the decline of our economy.” But where is this commitment in action? As the politicians argue about passports and summit venues, hunger is increasing in Zimbabwe, and those men and women brave enough to protest this are being denied their rights.

One week after leading a peaceful demonstration in Bulawayo, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu remain in custody. These two, and seven other members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), were arrested as part of a protest of hundred of men and women on Thursday 16 October, demanding food aid for millions of starving Zimbabweans.

The other seven members were released later that same day, but Williams and Mahlangu were charged under Section 37 1(a) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act – ‘disturbing the peace, security or order of the public’. In pressing the state to deny the two bail, prosecuter Chifamba argued that there was still an outstanding case pending. Chifamba was referring to the May 28 arrest of the Chikurubi 14. But the group had been removed from remand on Wednesday 15 October – so the prosecuter’s argument to deny bail should have fallen away.

Instead, the Magistrate, Maphosa, gave the state until 21 October to verify this fact. When Williams and Mahlangu went back before the Court on the 21st, Magistrate Maphosa reserved judgement as the ‘court is very busy’. In Zimbabwe, bail hearings are normally heard on an urgent basis. But not for these WOZA women. All this despite the 15 September political agreement. As the WOZA update from last night says, “the on-going detention of Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu and the delaying tactics and machinations of the state are a clear violation of their rights and the power-sharing agreement signed by the political parties in September 2008.”

Register your discontent. Phone the Bulawayo Attorney General’s Office: +263 9 77651/61603 and the Bulawayo Public Prosecutor: + 263 9 63173 (ask to speak to Prosecutor Chifamba) and ask why the women are being denied bail when they have never been convicted of an offence – the state should not imprison to investigate.

Along with roughly 500 others, I attended the SAfAIDS/ZAN meeting at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC). The regional meeting provided feedback form the International AIDS Conference held in Mexico in August 2008. In addition to 14 plenary speakers and a poster exhibition at HICC, there were six thematic breakaway sessions (children; women and gender; clinical research; PLHIV; youth; faith-based responses; workplace programmes). Across the breakaway sessions, 23 individual presentations were on the agenda, and as I understand it, each was a repeat performance of a presentation given in Mexico. I’m not sure what to make of the notion that at least 23 Zimbabweans were in Mexico – Is that excessive? Is that insufficient? I don’t know.

In any event, I attended the women and gender session and was intrigued by a comment regarding a non-Zimbabwean paper presented in Mexico which compared adult HIV prevalence data with gender gap data. Intrigued by what comparing the data reveals, and perhaps more intrigued by the way the comment seemed to encourage the audience to feel threatened by the comparison. Read more

Greetings in Shona usually go something like this; “Makadii?” (How are you?) The answer usually goes; “Tiripo, kana makadiiwo?” (We are well, if you are also well). Infused in this greeting is this society’s ethos. The recognition that our destinies are intertwined. That no person is an island. That we belong to the human family. That each person has responsibilities not just to themselves, but to the community to which they belong. That you are what you are because of others. Hunhu, ubuntu.

Last night l was in my office on Selous Ave working late when something happened that is symptomatic not just of the serious decay in this country, but perhaps also of the reason why as Zimbabweans we have not risen up and done something about our mess. It was about 8:45pm and all was quiet in this area of the Avenues, when a sudden scream rang out. It was a woman screaming for help. There was terror in her voice. Although such screams are common place in the area around Selous Avenue/ Livingstone Avenue/ Third Street going towards Fourth Street, as people fall prey to the thieves and robbers who haunt the area, they are still shocking and frightening when they happen. We all ran out of the office to look out. What normally happens (and l use the word normally advisedly) is that because it is so dark, (on account of there being no street lighting), you hear the agonised screams of a person as they succumb to the thieves, long before you see them running for dear life.  You peer into the dark but you cannot see the victims until they come to a lit up area near one of the offices. And so it was that last night we heard the screams of the woman long before we saw her. She was screaming for help and it appeared to us that the thieves were still in pursuit, shouting as they went after her. So loud were her screams that she drew the attention of a number of people who were in nearby offices. People were calling out to her to run towards the light. Hearts were pounding as we waited for her to emerge from the night. We were gratified to see an armed police officer who had been checking the nearby Beverley Bank ATMs for cash, emerge and run towards the screams. And then he stopped short. The woman emerged into the lit up area, as did her accosters.  They were about three police officers who were roughing her up. She was screaming that they were hitting her as she came up to the armed police officer who was her would-be rescuer. She kept asking “why are you hitting me? Why are you hurting me? What have l done?” She was clutching her handbag to her chest and there was real terror in her voice.

As they came to the lit up area where people had gathered, the police officers pulled back a little but continued roughing the woman up, pulling and shouting at her. All this without arresting her. The would-be rescuer was at a loss as to what to do l guess, given that these were his fellow police officers. He did not ask what was going on and he just started trailing after them as the three went off, still assaulting the woman. The three of us who had been watching this tragedy just stood impotently, consumed with a mixture of guilt, fear, helplessness and despair.

The security guards went back to their posts, muttering that she was probably a prostitute. The implication being therefore that she deserved whatever abuse the police officers were subjecting her to. Other people went off, muttering and wondering what she had done. Again the implication was that she must have done something to deserve the abuse, otherwise why would the police be doing that? 

No one problematised the role of the police. No one said that even if she had broken the law, the police should have arrested her and taken her into custody, not assaulted her like criminals. There were three of them; they could have done that easily.  Even if she was a commercial sex worker, that still did not give the police the right to rough her up as they were doing.

Now, l do not know the facts of the story. I do not know what she had or had not done.  I do know however that the police take an oath of office in which they swear to uphold the laws of the country. If someone is suspected of committing an offence, he or she should be arrested and taken into custody. As far as l could tell, the woman was not resisting arrest. One is therefore left wondering why the police were behaving as they were. I have my theories as to why, but will not go into them.

The guilt we felt at not having intervened kept pulling at us long after her screams had fallen silent, we kept wondering how she was, what had happened. We questioned whether they were real police officers or they had been thieves dressed as police officers.  We wondered perhaps if they had tried to proposition her and she had rejected their advances and therefore the assault and harassment was retaliation. We wondered if perhaps they had tried to steal from the woman and were roughing her up to facilitate this. (One certainly hears enough stories in which police officers are implicated in criminal activities) They were certainly not behaving like officers of the law as they assaulted the woman. 

Our guilt arose from the fact that we had kept silent when we should have spoken out. We had stood back when we should have stepped up and stepped in. We were relieved that it was not us and we were safe. We felt sorry for the woman but that was not enough to compel us to act.  We were afraid that the lawless louts would turn on us. We were afraid perhaps of the inconvenience, so we sacrificed the woman to her doubtful fate. We were after all working late because we had to. Getting ourselves involved would have meant that we would lose valuable time getting embroiled in a messy and dangerous argument with the apparently lawless police, or so we told ourselves.  The irony is that the incident so disturbed us that we could not continue working.

Our response l think is part of the problem we have in Zimbabwe. We all know what’s wrong and what’s right but no one is willing to do what it takes for the common good. The shelves are empty, but as long as l am managing to put food on my family’s table, who cares that my neighbour’s children are going to bed hungry? As long as l can access cash through various means, who cares that someone has been spending days and nights outside the bank waiting to withdraw their paltry money. We look at them, we feel sorry, we despair but we are relieved that it is not us standing in the baking sun as we go about our business. We do not intervene. We do not speak out when we should.  As long as l is managing, it is enough. Hatisisina hunhu. We have lost our ubuntu. That which makes us members of the human family.

I hope as the Prime Minister and his two deputy prime ministers are inspecting their swanky new offices in Munhumutapa Building, they are thinking of ways of healing our community and restoring our values. 

A recent CNN Opinion Poll indicates US Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin is well supported.  Among American men, 63% have a favorable opinion and among women, the figure is 53%.  Very scary, I think, the level of support for this mooseburger-eating, right wing fanatic, governor of a small, small state who has zero foreign policy experience.  Maybe it’s due to the side of the fence I’m on, but it seems the 47% of women who oppose Palin are a whole lot more vocal.  Gloria Steinem and Eve Ensler have both written thoughtful and detailed analyses of all that’s wrong with Palin.  Opposition is strong in cyberspace.  And I would add that this is happening in interesting and innovative ways. Five different people have forwarded me a letter written by Wasilla, Alaska resident Anne Kilkenny who knows Palin.  Despite her request not to do this, Kilkenny’s letter has made its way onto 100s of blogs. One even looks like an official US government-sponsored blog. I suspect it’s not official since the ad currently running reads:  How To Write A Sex Scene.  A Romance Author Gives A Peak At How She Does It.  Four different people have forwarded me an email from a couple of New Yorkers who encourage readers to send their views to womensaynopalin@gmail.com .  So far, 140,000 women have expressed their views.

One important element central to all of this commentary around Palin is similar to a set of arguments Alex Magaisa made in his article entitled:  Politics and prejudice: plight of Zimbabwean women.  It happens in various ways and to different degrees of unjust, unscrupulous, and sadistic objectification.  But still, world over women in politics tend to be viewed as just that.  Women in politics.  As opposed to non-sexed, non-gendered politicians involved in public service because they believe in their leadership qualities, and believe they have solid ideas.  It’s not a perfect parallel to look at female politicians in the US in comparison to female Zimbabwean politicians.  But, in a way, it’s like looking at two sides of a coin.  And both sides are bunk.

John McCain picked Sara Palin because he believes that any old woman will do.  As long as it’s a she, she is what will win him votes.  The situation in Zimbabwe, as Magaisa articulates, is such that female politicians signal more space for men to cast and further embed into the fabric of society objectifying eyes.  In paraphrasing Magaisa:  More space for men to ridicule women, not for their ideas, but about their private lives.  More space for men to describe in precise detail their wild imaginations or fantasies about a woman’s reproductive organs and how she uses them, etc.  I mean what kind of person would look at pictures of Grace Kwinjeh after she was beaten and come up with comments about “what they could ‘do’ with a woman endowed with her features, if given the chance.”

Anne Kilkenny made the important point that democracies require being able to distinguish between disliking and disagreeing.  She even went so far as to say:  I like Sarah Palin. I disagree with her.  Personally, I can’t go quite that far.  I both disagree with and dislike John McCain and Sarah Palin.  And more so, the politics and prejudices Magaisa describes are beyond just disagreeing.  All one can do is dislike.  And fight for change.

The ink has dried. The cameras have flashed. The champagne popped. The king has spoken. The dry humour has done just that: dried. Everybody is happy. Oh! Happy day, when Thabo walked and washed our woes away!  Elsewhere, a poor woman lies in a filthy hospital ward groaning in pain. For days a bulging belly refuses to let out that life that has been growing inside her. Day two, the eve of the signing, doctors decide a C-section is the only option to free this poor woman from the pain, to give the baby a chance to enter that brave new world. Day three. The baby is having difficulty breathing. Hours later, that little bundle of joy has stopped breathing. Elsewhere, big men in neat suits promise a new beginning. The poor young woman has no clue what that means. She closes her eyes and tears – like water from the giant Zambezi dam – keep falling. The young man who planted the seed decided to do a Harry Houdini on her – he is nowhere to be seen. Men, men, men! She bears a permanent C-section scar and will carry it for the rest of her life as a reminder of not the “historic power sharing deal” but that life lost on the very day Zimbabweans were being promised better things ahead.

I am happy I cried
A man needs tears
Without tears, he is incomplete
~ From When a man cries, Siphiwo Mahala

Ezra Chitando, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, is looking for Zimbabewan male leaders who can cry. He was speaking at a discussion on leadership and masculinities in Shimmer Chinodya’s Strife, published by Weaver Press. Chitando made a plea for leaders who can look at the desperation facing Zimbabweans today – the poverty, the queues, the hunger and collapsed health care system – and feel compassion.

Where the male characters of Strife fall short, argued Chitando, so might one observe other male leaders in society falling short. “Zimbabwe’s collective failure of leadership is perhaps an outworking of exhausted patriarchy,” he said. “Men have not been effective leaders – of families, extended families or of nations.”

Read and listen to more of the discussion with Chitando and lawyer Nokuthula Moyo here