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If Only Kids Could Vote

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"If only kids could vote then Mugabe would have been really beaten", says my partner's 11 year old child. "They should let us vote because there are more kids than adults. All my friends at schools want MDC to win", she continues. Asked why her and her school mates don't like the old man she replies “He’s boring and old. He needs to go.” Radical common sense has now become common currency in Zimbabwe. Even amongst teacher-less school children.

 

The waiting game has infected our social lives. Today’s House of Hunger Poetry Slam was maybe more interesting for its crowd than its performers as rowdy audience members shouted election-related comments. The three year-old live poetry competition at Harare’s Book Café had young, angry, subversive poets performing to our town’s impatient residents. Each time the crowd disagreed with points awarded to a poet someone would cry out that the score was rigged. Others shout out that the judge in question is from ZEC, Zimbabwe’s unpopular electoral commission. And when it comes to the final round of poetry performances the crowd unilaterally decide it’s a ‘run off’, a reference to the probable second round of voting between Mugabe  and Tsvangirai. Harare is waiting. So in the meantime all we have from the election is freedom to use its jargon. 

 

This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period.

See www.comradefatso.vox.com

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




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Run Off

The only run off we want is for Mugabe to run off. Is this an election or an erection because everything seems to be standing still? These are the words on Harare's lips and in its text messages. Our joy is agony. So close but yet so far. We are tired. We can't take this anymore. Everyone I talk to wants the old man to go. If he doesn't they will. Some say they will take to the streets. Others will leave the country. Everyone has a plan in Zimbabwe. Most of us plan to be here. But many will leave if Bob doesn't.


Elections have become hello and goodbye. They have become our speech. 'Results' and 'delay' take on a new meaning. 'Zviri sei' which normally means 'How are things' has come to mean 'What is the latest in the elections'. But the response is always the same. 'Zvaka dhakwa'. 'Things are drunk'. Drunk with emptiness in our kachasu society. Drunk with more of the same if we don't win freedom this time. If there is a run off many more than those in the first round will run to vote out Mugabe. If Mugabe stays in power through rigging and violence many Zimbabweans will just run off.

We held our Get Up! Stand Up! Concert today at the Book Cafe. It was a concert for a free people. With music and poetry MAGAMBA!, our cultural activist network, hopes to inspire and incite people to believe in their dreams and to struggle for them at this history-making moment. The crowd danced and toyi toyi'd. We sung freedom. We created a window into the freedom we fight for. My band, Chabvondoka, played music that is food for us during these question-marked times. We will need much food in the next few days and weeks. Food for the soul and for the body as we walk this potholed street called freedom. This street-light dark street that we walk down one step at a time, seeing only a metre ahead of us. But we walk still.  


This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period.

See www.comradefatso.vox.com

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

 




 





     

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We are Zimbabwean

The rumours bite again. Foreign journalists have gone into hiding this evening after hearing that state security agents were raiding hotels. If the hotels were raided is another question but the fact is that the journalists and their laptops have disappeared from Harare's cafes as I write. Fear is married to our cautious joy tonight. We are so close. But we are Zimbabwean too. And we have been so close so many times. So we are ready to have both our cynicism and our joy proved right. We are that contradictory.  

We didn't erupt into celebration yesterday. Foreign journalists and activists expected us to be jubilant, drunk with joy. But for us it's not over until this entire house is demolished, brick by brick. Today the forex dealers are smiling at the fleamarkets. The township activists have a bounce in their step as they trod potholed streets. The waiters talk faster, confident in their banter. But we are not ecstatic. We are Zimbabwean. And we know we haven't won it all yet. Hatisati tahwina. We have been through as many rigged elections as we have stood in bread queues. They have the same stale taste. We await the repression. We await the results. We await the rigging. We await the victory. With a hesitant joy. And a bounce in our step.

This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period.

See www.comradefatso.vox.com

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

 

   

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The Dream

Anyone know someone with a truck? There's a guy wanting to move all his stuff from State House to Zvimba. The jokes spread as text messages refer to our aged dictator relocating to his rural home. People really do believe this is a general election - because our generals decide who gets elected. Another joke walking the streets of Harare is that the only difference between an election and an erection is that you can't rig the latter. 


The mood is lightening in repressed Harare. The sun shines here too. With the MDC having claimed parliament people are beginning to dare to dream. Beginning to believe that the 10 year old dream may be coughing its first breaths. And that's what it is - the first breaths. Alongside the first breaths of the new are the kicks of the collapsing jongwe. Now is a time where history can be made or unmade. The last kicks of the jongwe could be bloody. And the new birth already seems to have something of the old. There is the likelihood of ZANU PF elements being brought into an MDC government to pacify the armed forces and ZANU PF itself. Some say any new birth is better than the old. True. But the struggle will continue under any new government. We will have more democratic space that we will need to burst open. We will have to struggle to make sure a new government delivers social services, that it doesn't repay illegitimate foreign debt, that it doesn't privatise our resources into the hands of the new elites. The struggle will continue. Freedom is always on the horizon. And we have to keep marching.     

So in the next few days let our joy be drunk with vision. The results we hear have to be defended by our actions. And when our actions win freedom and a new government let us know that the struggle continues. For our dreams of freedom to be born in our homes, our neighbourhoods, our communities. We are the dream. 


To listen to Comrade Fatso's hit song 'Bread And Roses' see:
www.comradefatso.vox.com 

For reports on Comrade Fatso's blog on BBC see:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7322727.stm


 

For Comrade Fatso's reports on France 24 see:

http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20080331-zimbabwe-waiting-election-results-rigging


This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period.

See www.comradefatso.vox.com

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

 

 

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The House Of Hunger Album Launch

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The Rumour City

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Rumour rhymes with ‘ruma’, Shona for bite. Harare has literally been bitten by rumours. Our city is famed for many things but one thing specifically. The ability to turn no news into headlines. The skill of spinning no knowledge into street wisdom. The hustle of selling unconfirmed stories on a hungry parallel market. Our only non-state daily newspaper was bombed so the people’s paper is the people’s stories, nyayas that circulate like a whisper at a bottle store. Mugabe has fled to Malaysia. Morgan has 68% of the presidential vote. Mujuru has lost her seat. Morgan’s win is being broadcast live on TV. A people starved of truth begin to manufacture their own. So truths roam Harare like street kids, tapping your window at every robot. Like an undelivered text message notification ringing on your phone. Constantly.

 

But just minutes ago some rumours may have become reality. Our hopes may be backed up by facts. When Morgan held his press conference at the Meikles Hotel he told us that after years of struggle we have a new challenge -  that of governance. The need to start to restructure and stabilize our country. MDC believe they have clinched victory. Morgan has never appeared so joyous. Once again the rumours begin to bite. MDC is said to be in talks with the armed forces and ZANU about negotiating a hand over of power. Morgan denies the rumours. So, many things are in the air. Hope and rumours. And once again the joy and the certainty of the press conference need to get out into the townships. The people need to taste the joy of a dream becoming reality. They need to be ready to defend their victorious dreams. Otherwise tomorrow will just be another day of spoken headlines and hustled truths.

 

This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period

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


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What We Don't Know

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Victory celebrations, confusion, uncertainty. That's the air that Harare's breathing today. 'Zvinhu hazvina kumira bho' says a well known forex dealer to me. 'No, its looking good actually,' I tell him. 'MDC is beating ZANU by far at the moment.' Jealous, a quiet waiter, serving me coffee comments 'So its bad heh?!' 'No, they're winning actually, Jealous,' I have to affirm. 'Tsvangirai is ahead in the presidential elections'. The MDC is holding press conference after press conference while many people are holding zvakapressa conferences. Many think things have gone terribly wrong in the elections because the message from the MDC hasn't filtered to them. And the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is announcing results at the pace of a wheelchair-less cripple making their way down a power-cut Parirenyatwa corridor. 

'Tahwina!' is the other popular cry that lives beside the uncertainty. Those who have got access to MDC information have erupted into parties. The popular suburb of Highfields was a people's carnival last night as residents celebrated the MDC success in their constituency. The riot police arrived and politely asked them to carry on partying the following day. The residents, stunned by the calm police force, agreed. The table next to me at the Book Cafe has been an all-day drinking session as they drink to victory and joke about ZANU's failure. Victory is in the air. But so is uncertainty. MDC has quite likely won a big victory in the polls but the updates aren't getting out to the people. The townships should be filled with flyers, pamphlets and megaphones updating the people. And the MDC should build this hope so that if ZANU does try and steal this election then the people will resist. We can defend victory. We can't defend what we don't know.



For local and international press about Comrade Fatso and MAGAMBA! see the following:

- A documentary on AlJazeera featuring Fatso and other prominent Zimbabwe artists:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8597805A-AF9B-4188-B60C-322E579D28D4.htm

 

- An article about Fatso's new album House Of Hunger:

http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com/index.php?view=article&catid=34%3Aentertainment&id=17649&tmpl=component&print=1&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=68

 

- A Reuters article about Fatso and other Zimbabwean bloggers in the struggle for democracy:

http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L31416570.htm?=_lite_&1=


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The Streets

Today the streets have a strange energy. People are waiting. Vakamirira maresults. Sundays are normally quiet in Harare’s city centre. Today the streets are shuffling from one foot to another like the thirty fourth person in a snaking bread queue. The streets are unsure. Hopeful. Young police recruits patrol the streets trying to stamp an authority they are no longer sure that they have. The cigarette vendor apologises for the high cost of her cigarettes. ‘Tichadzikisa maprices mangwana’. We will reduce the prices tomorrow. When change comes. The streets are waiting. We woke today to rumours of Mugabe fleeing to Malaysia and news of the MDC press conference. We carried our bababarazi’d selves to the conference after a night of ragga at downtown Harare’s Tube Nightclub. According to the MDC’s counting process they are way ahead in the polls. Victory is on people’s lips. But so is rigging. Because the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has yet to announce its ‘official’ tally of votes. It has yet to work out how to turn our dream into a nightmare. So expectant Zimbabweans have been subjected to endless music videos and football on the state broadcaster. It’s as if the elections never happened. So the streets wait. Shuffling from one foot to another. Waiting. Hoping. This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period. See www.comradefatso.vox.com For Daily Election Blogs by other MAGAMBA! poets and activists see www.myspace.com/magamba


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Peace


Today is peaceful. Calm. Like an anesthetised patient having her stomach slit open. We drove from the elite suburbs of Borrowdale to the peopled townships of Highfields. The queues of the morning had tired into afternoon strolls into empty polling stations. All over this expectant, pregnant town there was a feeling of calm. 'Peace'. The vote happened. We went through the motions. 

But it's a tense peace. Inside each polling station is an agent of oppression - a police officer. Youth militia parade townships 'peacefully'. As I write on the calm street outside the Book Cafe there are twenty police officers sitting menacingly underneath a tree. Waiting. Yes, there is peace. As long as you vote and shut up. As long as you don't disturb this fragile shack they have painted 'peace'. Peace is not the absence of war. Peace can also be the presence of rigging. 

This is where we stand today. In a peaceful election where my comrade, Godobori, registered to vote in the town of Chitungwiza, had to got to different polling stations in various suburbs of the next door town of Harare after he had been 'moved' on the voter's roll. He finally voted at 6:15pm. It is a calm election of ghost voters and living human beings who are dead to the voters' roll. The rigging has already begun as dreams are stolen while dreamers sleep. But democracy isn't about putting an X on a piece of paper every five years. Democracy means people reclaiming their lives and running their communities. Democracy means power at the grassroots where decisions are made face-to-face in neighbourhoods. Democracy means fighting to reclaim your power. So these elections will be determined not by the rigged result but by the people's reaction. ZANU (PF) want to steal our dreams and tell us it was a nightmare. We have to turn our dreams into action. 

This is Comrade Fatso's Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period.
For Daily Election Blogs by other MAGAMBA! poets and activists see www.myspace.com/magamba 

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Independence Eve

Hapana chakanaka! Toonana kumastreets! Life's bad! We'll see you in the streets! This is the cry that rang out in the Avenues this evening. A rebellious chant erupting in Harare's nocturnal heart. Black, white, coloured, German, Zimbabwean, Dutch, journalists, activists, state security agents. A multi-cultured crowd gathered at the Book Cafe in Harare on the eve of elections for our MAGAMBA! concert - The Day Before. A Concert featuring rebel MCs Outspoken, Upmost and Godobori aswell as Harare's most rebellious band, Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka. 


I'm writing from there now. The Book Cafe in Harare's dark heart. At 11:20pm. A revolution happened here today. We created a liberated space. Our words gave birth to a taste of what-it-is-to-be-free. The rhythms of chimurenga, hip hop and jazz combined with poetry to create a new sound of toyi toyi. A militant song that talks in everyone's voice. Our songs talk of the people's struggle and the people's resilience. And the crowd here today on 'Independence Eve' was in an uncompromising mood. Freedom or nothing. They demanded a replay of MaStreets, our we-want-freedom-and-we-don't-give-a-damn song. The people toyi toyi'd and sung. The people wailed. As if a new country were being born tomorrow. Over a hundred people are dancing around me at the Book Cafe as I write. 11:34pm. Harare is dancing tonight. They dance for the vadzimu, the spirits. They dance for rain. They dance for a new beginning. Tonight on 'Independence Eve'.

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