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.
