Lest we get caught napping!!

Reblogged from MaDube's Reflections:

On Friday the 17th of May 2013, the Parliament of Zimbabwe gazetted Statutory Instrument 68 of 2013. This piece of law contains regulations by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission- in line with the Zimbabwean Electoral Act- that govern processes of registration.

On Wednesday 22 May, I attended a huge civil society meeting of individuals and organisations allegedly working on elections and only 2 had seen, read and analysed the implications of that instrument to the conduct of elections.

Read more… 1,388 more words

Many thanks to my dear friend Rumbidzai Dube for enlightening me and breaking down the legal jargon....hope you find this as illuminating as I did!

These elections won’t just “leave us alone”


The shadow being cast by the forthcoming harmonized elections is so vast that hardly any of us can afford the luxury of shrugging a nonchalant shoulder, wrapping ourselves in swathes of indifference and hoping that these elections will ‘just leave us alone’.

If you don’t want to vote FOR anyone in the upcoming elections… then decide who you will vote AGAINST but for goodness sake – vote!

There is too much at stake for the eligible voter to merely decide that their pink finger is not worth staining or to make the ignoble choice of sitting at home, flipping through DSTV channels and pretending that elections are none of their business.

The elections are everyone’s business… no, in fact they are everyone’s battle.

Elections are not a business they are battles.

They are a battle to elect the people we want and the people we want to vote for are those whom we think will protect and advance our interests.

You see elections are as much about self-interest as they are about any other more ‘noble’ human quality.

The self-interests of the voting public reigns supreme in the ballot box – not the will of politicians but the will of individuals, expressed through one ‘X’ after another until cumulatively thousands upon thousands of individuals collectively morph into millions saying the same thing.

Millions of individuals, like you, determining whom they will entrust their wards, districts, towns, cities, as well as provinces and ultimately whom they will entrust their country to.

So do the selfish thing – go and vote! Elections are all about you.

FYI…they [elections] won’t just leave us alone!

Nice Politics

Reblogged from zanakay:

Click to visit the original post
  • Click to visit the original post

Just recently I was arbitrating a serious conflict between 2 tenants. I will not get into the details of the circumstances leading to the conflict but just point out that upon listening to both sides of the story, it was quite clear that both parties were wrong. The one party though after I pointed out that she had equally contributed to the conflict ,instead of apologizing ,defended herself by stating how good, humble and spiritual she is and how the allegations were completely ridiculous.

Read more… 1,301 more words

My girlfriend Zana Kay outdid herself in this piece! Absolutely profound and so insightful! I highly recommend it..... Are you a NICE person or a GOOD one? Because apparently - there's a difference!

You lied, Delta


In 2011, I said something so unpopular that several of my close friends took me to task over it.

But of all the people who vehemently disagreed with me; I remember that Munyaradzi (who’s more like a young brother to me) called me a liar.

In reaction to a blog post titled, I once met a Zimbabwean…, Munyaradzi really let me have it, lol… and given the fact that he is quite fond of me…it says something for him to have responded in such a vehement fashion:

I must say how disappointed I am in you for allowing emotions instead of simple logic to run you my dear, first of all, you as a journalist you must be aware of the donor funding that is circulating in this country, if the Americans want to fund internet access, they can, and let us not be naive about that.

The issue that America does not have a perfect democracy does not exonerate us from the injustice that has been suffered in this country.

It is no reason why there were land grabs that caused more harm than good, it is no reason why the militia was let loose on the general populace.

The violence that has been a common feature in the political landscape, families that have been crippled families.

It is not all rosy as you were trying to paint.

We have weaknesses and the first step of emancipation is accepting who we are and that we surely need help.

The economy is struggling because of people who are so ignorant and refuse to be told anything. You lied as our representative Delta.

“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.” ― Joseph Joubert

And in my response, on the comments section of the same blog post – I said:

You are proving my point Munya….. my point was and is – that what you have just narrated is ALL that is known about Zimbabwe…

But if anyone, including you, wants to argue that what you have outlined above is the entirety of the Zimbabwean story – then I certainly differ with them.

You want to talk about the land grabs; why don’t you go right back to the beginning of the dispute over the land and to why the land was such a contentious matter?

That way you can fully appreciate the extreme sense of frustration that must have driven those people to take such drastic and unlawful courses of action.

While I totally condemn the unlawfulness of what they did – no one can deny the legitimacy of their grievances – not even you.

No one can deny the moral claim that they (and we all) have to the land.

Please don’t just pick out nyaya yema-land grabs as if it was all an isolated event and not part of a greater process in which blacks tried (without much success) to remedy a historical wrong of land dispossession.

And in trying to remedy this wrong – some took the law into their hands and invaded the farms.

They were wrong – it is true.

BUT what was done to them – to us – (dispossession) was wrong as well.

There is no need for me to be emotional when there is a clear historical context to explain the events and possible motives that I believe contributed to the chaotic, violent and infamous land grabs.

My question now is – who ever tells that side of the story? The story that goes beyond just the grabbing of the land?

Who ever tells the story of a disenfranchised black majority and a privileged white minority?

Who ever bothers to explain the deep feelings of frustration, disgruntlement and genuine grievance that I believe fueled the land grabs?

Who ever bothers to mention that men and women went and got killed fighting to own a piece of land?

This is the missing part of the narrative Munya.

I am not disputing what you have raised but I think in leaving out the context (or regarding it as irrelevant) you perpetuate an incomplete narrative of Zimbabwe and a distorted account of the land dispute.

So I told the stories no one else seems to bother about and the stories no one seems to care to remember…because they are all stories about Zimbabwe – in its various epochs and each successive event triggering a myriad of reactions.

If you concentrate only on the “consequences” of things and ignore the causes… how can you then state that you have done justice to the story of our nation?

In it’s ugliness, in its splendor – we must own our history and we must tell it and we must occasionally use it to understand our present.

What you have narrated is what is already out there – who is going to tell the bits that you have left out??

So having established in my post from yesterday that I have a right to be wrong – this post is about continuing a conversation around the emotive land issue.

It is a conversation I started in a YouTube video (whose backlash was the subject of my last blog post) and it is a conversation that carried over to the blog post which is the subject of this current post and it is a conversation that carried over into my MA dissertation where the enlightening views of academics such as T.O Ranger, Blessing-Miles Tendi, Sabelo Gatsheni-Ndlovu, Sarah Chiumbu, James Muzondidya, Brian Raftopolous, Norma Kriger, Sue Onslow among many others shed a lot of light on my own preoccupations with Zimbabwe’s history and the centrality of the land question.

I am still on a quest to fathom the meaning and nuances of it all. And if advancing unpopular views and playing the devil’s advocate is a price to pay for a more honest reflection on the issue – then I will exercise my right to be wrong and defy every ideological bully who would presume to insult me into ‘submission’.

How can we know the answers if we’re too scared (of what people will think of us) to ask the questions?

I have a right to be wrong


There is something defiant and vulnerable about speaking one’s mind.

Defiant because we are often not forgiven if what we think is at odds with what others expect us to think. Vulnerable because people can only attack your ideas if they know what your ideas are.

Perhaps that’s why so many people succumb to the temptation of concealing what they really think to avoid being criticized.

And criticism hurts.

…I reserve the right to be wrong

I have just recently recovered from the smarting of a stinging attack on ideas I held two years ago which are contained in a YouTube video that was made by some High School kids I interacted with in the USA.

The video was posted on Facebook by someone I don’t know (although their name is familiar) and the backlash was instantaneous, unrelenting, venomous and vitriolic.

My ideas were attacked, shredded, pummeled, stomped on, spat at and dare I say, generously covered in all manner of verbalized excrement – all in a bid to voice just how disgusting my point of view was to most of them.

In the video I stated that I believed the land issue in Zimbabwe was a moral justice issue and that framing it as a political one and particularly framing it is a ‘Mugabe-is-the-problem’ one was advancing a narrative that was incomplete.

…it’s so safe to remain in the bud of ‘popular opinion’ because blossoming into a contrary way of thinking can make you an easy target

Given the audience I had availed to me and given that the conversation was an informal one the following flaws are evident:

i) my ideas were paraded naked as I spoke off the top of my head, ii) my ideas were presented in their raw and unprocessed state un-subjected to the rigors of research iii) my ideas were un-propped by facts and iv) my ideas rested precariously on the notoriously unreliable premise of broad, sweeping and overly simplified generalization v) my ideas were informed by a skewed and biased narrative on the unequal distribution of the land and consequent economic marginalization of the black majority.

In short – I was wrong.

In any event, I ended the conversation on a flippant note by drawing parallels between the Zimbabwean land narrative I had presented and the storyline of the film Avatar! because it occurred to me that the audience I was addressing would be able to relate.

This was in 2011.

I don’t know about you…BUT I celebrated when the blue creatures in Avatar won their planet/land back! And I would celebrate a similar triumph in a just and equitable land re-distribution in Zim!

I came back home and all but forgot about it, because conversations around the land rarely made it into the conversations I ordinarily engaged in.

 As I pointed out above - I am guilty of uttering several inaccuracies but inaccuracy is almost inevitable when offering an opinion or interpretation of historical events that you have no living memory of.

Reflecting on that video many months later when it came up in a class discussion during my Masters’ studies in the UK; I realized how much of what I said was what I had heard incessantly in the public media.

It occurred to me that my recollections of the history of land dispossession in Zimbabwe was part of a broader public and institutionalized narrative of the nation’s past – a narrative that advanced the political interests of ZANU PF at a time when it faced overwhelming opposition.

…studying for my MA taught me how to confront my wrongness and challenge my assumptions

I began to think of why there had been no alternative discourse – no rebuttal – no disputation – no challenge and almost no counter narrative.

I began to think of how the media influenced what I remembered and how I remembered it and about the framing of the land narrative.

I began to think of how I could challenge this obviously biased telling of the nation’s past when (a) I had no living memory of those events (b) I was part of the ‘born-free’ generation and (c) I never fought in any war and when my ignorance deprived me of the capacity to create an alternative narrative.

It was with these preoccupations and frustrations that I later went on to write my MA dissertation on the framing of collective memory in Zimbabwe’s post-independent generation who – like me – were either too young to remember or had not even been born at independence.

I still maintain that the issue of the land is as much about  JUSTICE as it is about anything else but there is a lot that I would amend from the views I put forward in the YouTube video that has come back to haunt me in recent weeks.

I don’t suffer from belief perseverance…In case you’re wondering what it is – belief perseverance is a tendency to cling to ideas even when confronted with evidence to the contrary.

It is a great source of relief that I do not suffer from belief perseverance. I have never asked for anyone’s permission to hold an independent thought, I just do. In a blog post, when I stopped to think about it, I asked why do we “beg” to differ? Why can’t we just differ?

In the political conversations that I have been privy to, belief perseverance appears to be an ailment that afflicts many Zimbabweans.

But I suppose it is to be expected when you live in a country where the political conversation is monopolized by ideological bullies who will take it as an attack on their person – equivalent to the mentioning of their mothers’ unmentionables – if you happen to hold a different point of view. 

I don’t mind having my ideas attacked. I may not like it and it may not be a pleasant experience but if my ideas hold no merit and are un-constructive then they should be attacked.

…I’m going to get things wrong every now and again; but I won’t let that stop me from cultivating my mind

But attacking me personally is an entirely different proposition because when I’m provoked I don’t think my silence is a gift I should bequeath to me provoker.

I resist being bullied and maintain that I have a right to believe what I wish and to express it whilst retaining the right to change my mind about any stance I take.

In other words, I have a right to be wrong.

And when I am wrong, you have a right to point it out but that right does not afford anyone the luxury of hurling insults at me.

I once remarked in a blog post I wrote about Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo titled a woman who said something important:

Sometimes even when what we have to say is wrong… if it is important – it will get a reaction precisely because its wrongness points to what is right.

I think with regards the YouTube video – I must have said something important if the backlash is anything to go by. For all its wrongness, perhaps it forms a premise to have conversation about what could be right.

With hindsight, my MA dissertation did just that – it unpacked the fallacies I once held as fact and granted illumination upon those narratives I once held as gospel truth.

“it’s very dangerous to have a fixed idea. A person with a fixed idea will always find some way of convincing himself in the end that he is right” ― Atle Selberg

When it counts, I enjoy being my own critic – it eases the sting of hearing it from others whose dissension often comes laced with malice and marinated in venomous diction that seeks not to counter my view but to demean my person.

Anyway. There are no hard feelings.

I recently did an inventory of all my vital organs and precious body parts following the thorough cyber-bashing that my good name and person were subjected to on account of the views I expressed in the aforementioned video – I am delighted to inform you that I am still intact. Thank God, criticism is not life-threatening; I may well have been staring at death’s door.

It is said we have to live today by what truths we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Today I let my thoughts roam naked and be prepared tomorrow to point out the flaws, the stretchmarks, the unsightly cellulite and the blemishes on the surface of those nude ideas.

I don’t fear having my voice drowned by the hysterical disapproval of others because it is impossible to drown the voice of a writer.

Besides, when I write… who can shut me up?

The story of Beatrice Mtetwa: A Red Herring ?

Reblogged from MaDube's Reflections:

Right in the middle of a historical exercise, the holding of a Constitutional Referendum- something monumental had to happen. Merely a few hours after voting had ended, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) -in its unfathomable and incomprehensible wisdom-decided to arrest Beatrice Mtetwa. Previously I wrote about Beatrice in my Feminist Chronicles, having identified her as one of the most influential women in Zimbabwe, whose bright intellect and sharp and keen sense of reasoning was above many.

Read more… 1,041 more words

The dreams we deferred… in the name of love


We used to have conversations in our final year of varsity when the thought of entering the job market weighed heavily on our minds and we worried about where to go from there.

In some of those discussions the view was often expressed that the female graduates were at an advantage because they could always look for a husband instead of stressing too much about their chances of penetrating the job market (as if marriage were a career path) while the males would have no such reprieve.

In the haze of idealism, we thought that perhaps such arguments had merit and that a male graduate might have to work years before they could own a car while a female graduate might happen upon a wealthy man and be driving within a few months.

This line of argument was further buttressed by the fact that many female students often fell pregnant and got married in the final year.

It seemed to the male students that their female counterparts would be spared the torment of agonizing about finding jobs because they could rely on husbands to support them financially.

So it was, when we graduated the majority of male students began from entry-level positions in various fields while an equally vast number of females prioritized their roles as wives and mothers superintending over their households while seeking jobs in a more leisurely way.

...sometimes you jus can't have it all...

…sometimes you jus can’t have it all…


It was not that these female graduates did not dream of occupying corner offices and commanding boardrooms or realizing long-held ambitions of rising to the top of their chosen profession.

It was just that they reached a forked road and realized they could only walk one path.

They faced the dilemma of trying to reconcile their personal career-related ambitions with the responsibilities and expectations they assumed when they became wives or mothers.

They chose their husbands and children over chasing after their dream careers taking comfort in the thought that their dreams could wait and receiving strong assurances from their husbands/partners that they would be “ungrudgingly” taken care of.

Then there were many of us who tried to do it all and be it all.

Tried to hold down full-time jobs in demanding professions, tried to be available mothers and tried to be supportive wives.

We tried to do it all and when we realized that we could not juggle every responsibility all at once, we took to desperately running our households through the conduit of housemaids who walked in and out of our family’s lives with dizzying frequency.

Navigating the professional world, some of us excelled only to deny ourselves the enjoyment of promotions because the promotion presented yet another forked road.

The promotion meant better benefits but greater responsibility. Receiving a job promotion sometimes meant longer hours and perhaps added frequency in work-related traveling that would keep us away from home for long periods of time.

So once again, many chose to pass up such opportunities for professional elevation thinking it would compromise our ability to be hands-on mothers and available wives.

We felt that we needed to be there to pack the children’s school lunches and be at hand to help the husbands locate a misplaced tie or missing sock in the mornings. Promotions could wait.

Always at the back of our minds was the hope that eventually we would be able to jump-start our career and do something that would provide us with some fulfillment outside of the joy of watching our children grow.

Yet because none of us had a crystal ball back then, we could not have known that the spouses we had so eagerly supported, stood by through thick and thin — for whom we had shelved our dreams and hopes would wake up one day resentful of the fact that we felt entitled to the money they earned, to being supported financially as we too, had supported them domestically.

Who knew back then that at some point these same men would sneer at us and talk about “yimali yami leyi, yindlu yami leyi, yimota yami leyi, wena wabuya uphetheni lapha?” {This is MY money, this is MY house, this is MY car, what did you contribute towards these acquisitions?}

Who would have imagined back then that the sacrifices we made would mean little in the face of title deeds that said nothing of us being owners of the houses we had turned into homes?

Who had stopped to think back then how getting a husband did not translate to economic empowerment even as we drove in luxury vehicles whose ownership papers did not carry our names?

Who would have known then, that we would rue the day we came to the various forked roads available to us and chosen to trust in love thinking that deferring our dreams to support our husbands would mean we would share and be entitled to every success they had?

In the name of love we gave up a bit of our autonomy at every forked road, sliding further and further into the rut of financial dependency and secure in the knowledge that out sacrifices would be rewarded by loyalty (and financial security) on the part of our spouses/partners?

Then the unthinkable happened and the same husbands we gave up our own dreams for decided that we were parasites – milking them dry and in return we gave nothing while they provided us with shelter, food, clothing and even “status’’.

Those same men could now look us in the eye and say dismissively, “you were nothing when I found you’’.

And we would lie awake enduring long nights thinking that perhaps every engine that hums down the street was heralding the return of the husbands who would come back carrying with them the scents of other women’s perfume, reminding us how we were nothing when they found us and gloating about how we can never leave them, because, after all where will we go and what will we do?

Long nights of lying awake and remembering the forked roads that represented opportunities we bypassed and the chances we chose to forgo and all the dreams we decided to defer — dreams we deferred in the name of love.

And a cursory glance will tell us how wrong we were all those years ago at varsity when we thought we had an advantage over our male counterparts because when we meet each other on the roads we know they own their cars whilst we ‘own’ the husband who owns the car we’re driving in.

We know too, that when they speak of developing a stand and building a house, their names are registered on the title deeds, whilst our houses are ours by proxy because we ‘own’ the husbands who built them.

So where would we be had we followed our dreams and deferred the marriages and delayed the pregnancies and waited until we had secured our own financial stability?

It is a scary thing to trust so completely in someone else and hope that they will not betray you tomorrow or decide you are no longer good enough . . . but it happens all too often.

We forget to love ourselves enough to do what is best for us first before laying our lives down for the ones we fall in love with… every now and again it would serve us well to remember that love is sometimes a fickle thing.