The Blank Billboards

The billboards are blank. Like the people’s faces. Everything seems to have stopped. Billboards that used to be megaphones for products now become the products of politics. They are littered around the city. Huge metallic creations that proclaim nothing. Empty. Apart from several dressed in makeshift ‘Vote Robert Mugabe’ banners. Holy underwear on an otherwise naked body.

Billboards and advertising are about consumerism. The endless consumption of products for the sake of buying and consuming. A life dominated by desire for the latest brand, the newest product. It can border on being sickening. We are on the other side of the spectrum. Instead of the over-consumption of the West we are down to gritty survival. There is no bread to advertise. No products to sing of. The basics have become luxuries. The shops get emptier by the day while rumours persist of trucks carrying foodstuffs into the country being denied entry. It feels like we’re being starved for daring to believe in change. Like the ‘X’ the people place on ballot papers is seen by the regime as the people’s cancellation of their right to food.

This is Comrade Fatso’s Daily Election Blog. See www.comradefatso.vox.com

To listen to music from Fatso's new album, House of Hunger, click on: http://comradefatso.vox.com/library/audio/6a00d4142fa2f4685e00f48ceaa51d0003.html

For Daily Election Blogs by other MAGAMBA! poets and activists see www.myspace.com/magamba