Dead. A cold body in a mortuary. That’s how they found Tonde today. Abducted last week, he was tortured and beaten to death. An inspiring, young township freedom fighter whose words were in my ears last week, his breathing body in my eyes. Today the breath has been beaten out of him because he dared to believe that his people could be free. And dreams here are criminal things these days.
Tonderai Ndira was an example of everything that this military junta is trying to weed out and destroy. An energetic township organizer for the MDC, Tonde was inspiring to watch as he would lead us through his tree-lined Mabvuku suburb showing us his community’s problems and how they were determined to solve them. He was a true community activist, greeted by all who walked by and more popular than the local MP.
Once me and other comrades joined him for one of the most creative actions I’ve been in here. Mabvuku has had endless water shortages due to a corrupt City Council so letters supposedly from the Council were sent out to residents calling on them to come to the local Mabvuku council offices to discuss their plight. Soon there was a gathering at the offices of hundreds of Mabvuku residents, from water-bucket-on-head grandmothers to dread-locked scud-in-hand youths. The council representatives were overwhelmed and denied ever sending the letters. Angry residents told the officials and police where they wanted to stick their empty water buckets. Tonde, as usual, was in the forefront. The young and the old were united in their disdain for the answer-less officials. The riot police were called in. Santana trucks began hungrily chasing us and other township youths as we all evaporated into the sprawled out veins of dusty Mabvuku. But the point was made. No justice for us. No respect for you. And that is the message that Tonde’s activism has left written in the soil of his much-loved Mabvuku.
This is Comrade Fatso's Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period. See: www.comradefatso.vox.com. For blogs by other MAGAMBA! poets and activists see: www.myspace.com/magamba
To buy Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka’s new album, House of Hunger, go to: www.comradefatso.com
To see Comrade Fatso’s Exclusive Blogs for CNN go to: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/14/zimbabwe.blog/index.html
To see Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka live in concert go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cyv-ozu3JA
So now we have a date. June 27th. This means the limbo is over. It also means that the violence is going to rage beyond belief. It already is. Over 40 opposition activists killed, thousands displaced, 87 year-old women beaten to death. It seems that life is the only cheap thing in Zimbabwe these days. Everything but death is beyond our reach.
The streets are empty. The state has retreated. So has the opposition. All we are left with are their torn posters, pasted over each other in a confusing collage of symbols and slogans.
"We used to respect him. But we don't any more", says the old taxi driver. "Mugabe should have left power and been a hero like Mandela", he continues,"Now there's no food, no fuel. He's fucked it up." Everyone in South Africa has an opinion on Zimbabwe and it appears today that that even includes the ANC. Their statement that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe is step in the right direction. But just that. A step.
Zimbabweans in the diaspora began taking steps today as those in South Africa began a march to the border demanding election results. Meanwhile in the UK Zimbabwean activists have planned a three day vigil at the Zimbabwean embassy. I've been doing interviews with South Africa national radio, SAFM, and various newspapers raising awareness about the Zimbabwe struggle and our activism. Our revolutionary music played all over South Africa today as SAFM let our album, House Of Hunger, do the talking. We are taking our word to the airwaves.
The stayaway failed as expected. It will take many steps to win. And they have to be new and clever actions. Not tired, worn out ways of doing things. South Africa is emerging more and more as a key to the crisis in Zimbabwe. Now in South Africa we have to use our many feet and many steps to gather the diaspora, the political parties, the ANC, the movements, the artists into one new popular movement pushing for justice in Zimbabwe. It can happen. One step at a time.
Buy Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka's brilliant new album, House Of Hunger, online: http://www.zimaudio.com/artistPage.php?artistSent=Comrade%20Fatso%20and%20Chabvondoka
Fast, arrogant, blind, seductive. This is Egoli, Johannesburg. The City of Gold. Attracting hordes of Southern African moths with its sensual shine. Prosperity lives here. So does poverty. It's a city that has a passionate night with you and then tells you to leave in the morning. Jo'burg.
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
Hope easily becomes frustration. People’s dreams are daily being butchered into a nightmare. The dream of last week becomes the agony of this week. A week is a short time in politics. Here in Zimbabwe we have learnt that in the most painful way.
ZANU (PF) is trying to steal the election before the results have even been made public. Meanwhile the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has been intimidated and virtually disbanded. ZANU has been beaten but it’s determined to push for a re-run of the election by intimidating election officials and beginning a new wave of violence. These are the last kicks of the jongwe that I feared. We know this beast all too well. If the Zimbabwean democratic forces and the international community don’t act quickly and forcefully then our country is going to descend into darkness. At the moment the daily response to ‘How’re things?’ is ‘Zvinhu zvakangomira’. Things are standing still. Yes, they are. A moment of calm before a vicious storm.
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
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
Torn posters of presidential candidates on durawalls. At every intersection. At every street corner. It feels like something from the past, from another era. But this is the era we are in now. Still hanging on the sun-soaked slogans of these ripped-apart politicians. The fist and the fury is our daily bread, our breakfast. As we sit at the robots, the traffic lights. Still. Not moving.
And now we have fear. A new, complex emotion to add to our ragged shopping basket that also holds anger, hope and anxiety. We fear that the regime may begin to end the beginnging of the end by trying to end our new beginning. We fear that the last kicks of the jongwe may last more than a few seconds. It may be weeks. Or months.
One shortage our rulers don't seem to have is a shortage of humour. Their make-believe propaganda makes you smile and shudder at the same time. They have started a new propaganda offensive. White farmers are about to invade the country and steal back their farms. The MDC rigged the election by bribing the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). It would be funny if it wasn't so morbidly real. They have allegedly started arresting ZEC officials and invading farms.
So fear is in our stomachs. We're in a state of limbo between where we were and where we want to go. Between an old Zimbabwe and a new Zimbabwe. The waitress comes to my table, serves my food and then delivers what she really wanted to put on the table. "What are they doing now? Do they want a re-run or a re-count? We have no president. We haven't had one for over a week now. Now they've started invading farms again and the riot police are on the streets. We are being calm but we are scared." Fear. Our familiar staple diet in this hungry land. Msavaya, a comrade of mine, was in the townships yesterday when a police man announced to a group of drinkers oustide a bottle store "We may not have a president but that doesn't mean that public drinking is now legal!" The police know it just as the waitresses do. We are in limbo. And we are in fear because we know this beast. It has started kicking and lashing out.
Those of us in the democracy movement here need to campaign for the results to be released. If ZANU claims the need for a re-run then we must push for it to be within 3 weeks of the election. Together we must give birth to a nationwide campaign that keeps hope alive, from township to growth point. Those in the international community need to push for the results to be released. We must avoid a re-run because it could be bloody. But if ZANU wants a re-run then we must give them a re-run for their money. And their dirty wealth. We are so close to that sun on the horizon. I can almost see it through the dust. We need to walk together towards the sunset. We need to be crazy enough to keep hope alive.
This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election Period
For the MAGAMBA! Daily Election Blogs by Zimbawean artists and activists see www.myspace.com/magamba
Winter is a refreshing month. Clean, pure skies of sunlight. No clouds. It almost feels as if Zimbabwe has cleansed itself and is starting anew.
