In September this year, my cousin Norman died of an HIV related infection. It was very wrong, not too surprising and painful news. Wrong because we live in the era of ARVs and no one need die of HIV related infections. Not surprising, because if you are living with HIV in Zimbabwe where there is an absolute collapse of the health system death is highly likely. Public hospitals are closed, no medicines, private health care and medication too expensive, and besides you need over 200 days of daily queuing for cash to get a 30 day supply of ARVs. Painful, because I hadn’t spoken to him for months and the last time I spoke to him I was so angry with him and my anger had not yet subsided. Angry with him, because firstly I discover he is HIV positive. How can Norman, in his early 30s, well educated, intelligent and a switched on guy be HIV positive? He knew how you get it and how you can prevent yourself from getting it? Where did he slip up? How could he be so stupid!!?

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/384/48995electionlinezim.jpgSADC and other African countries need to recognise that the fate of Zimbabwe is in their hands. We are not seeking the west to rescue our country, we are calling on our brothers and sisters to help us at our most dire need. The Heads of State in the SADC region now need to stand with the people of Zimbabwe and not its political leaders, writes Janah Ncube.
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Morgan Tsvangirai dropped a bombshell by his withdrawal as a candidate from the Presidential runoff elections scheduled to be held on June 27, 2008. This certainly cannot have been an easy decision for Mr. Tsvangirai who recently got the majority vote of 48% over President Mugabe’s 43%. The first time he contested as a candidate in 2002, the elections were marked with significant irregularities and he lost. This time, he does know for a fact that the majority of voters wanted him to be the next President but due to a recently introduced Constitutional clause, the next President of Zimbabwe must have 51% of the votes.

His decision has caused much chaos and confusion and a lot of people have been left perplexed and some feel betrayed by this move. Mr. Tsvangirai in his statement states his reasons for withdrawing as being state sponsored violence, his crippled campaign, the decimation of his party’s structures, the partisanship of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, MDC media blackout, the threats of war by the ZANU PF candidate and the backing they have received from the leaders of the army and the police and the planned rigging by ZANU PF.

The whole world has been following events in Zimbabwe since March 29 2008 when Zimbabwe held its harmonized elections whose results took over 2 weeks to be released. The situation has continuously deteriorated to become grim, tense and unbearable for Zimbabweans. The escalated levels of violence have seen the continuous brutal murder of ordinary Zimbabweans, their being mutilated, defaced, and having some of their body parts dismembered. There is a lot of blood being spilt in Zimbabwe right now in name of patriotism and change. As said by the [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The AU Protocol on women's rights has breathed new life into the feminist movement in Africa and centralised the issue of women’s rights on the continent. But Janah Ncube says African women cannot afford to be complacent if implementation of the protocol is to be achieved in the near future.

The protocol is a vehicle/mechanism that is now creating the appropriate legal environment to enable equity and equality to be realised for the African woman. It is the evidence of our winning the fight for women’s rights in Africa and it shows that it is only a matter of time before we completely win the fight. The Niger set back was overt evidence and testimony to the progressiveness of the protocol as an offensive assault against patriarchy. The fact that they considered and debated the protocol and realised that if they ratify it they would lose patriarchal privileges and desecrate patriarchal structures is affirmation that the women’s movement has developed as a tool, an instrument designed to challenge and pull down the strongholds of patriarchy. What we need to work on now is ensuring that the Protocol is implemented. So we must mobilise our governments, institutions and peoples to ensure that they are implementing it and making demands on the protocol.

Indeed we saw the protocol breathing life back into the African Feminist movement as many began to coalesce around its drafting, its adoption, its ratification. It again triggered conversations on sensitive and taboo issues which for this continent where difficult to converse about. It revitalised the long forgotten issues of women’s basic human rights which have been for a long time not realised and had been left to the dustbin of history. Most importantly, it put women’s human rights back into the centre of the continent’s agenda.

Cynics and critics will argue that the protocol is only a legal instrument but is in its-self not tangible rights. Indeed many countries have laws and policies that grant women’s rights but have not appropriated those rights. Do legal instruments deliver equity or equality? My response to that is that they do set a basis and a standard and their existence is an admittance that there has been a wrong which through the instrument is being made right. And wherever there is rule of law and a just legal system then any woman whose rights are denied and/or violated can make claim and get those rights.

We have to be realistic about the challenges that will face the implementation of the protocol. Challenges of structure, adequate resources to ensure delivery and most importantly political will to see this protocol benefiting African women. We must not be satisfied by the existence of the protocol, we must refuse to be comforted by its ratification. Instead we must be stubborn, have tenacity, be bold, be courageous and keep on with the agenda. The agenda was not the protocol, the agenda is African women enjoying their human rights. The protocol is one of the vehicles that can deliver that.

Until there is not one girl child afraid of her father molesting her, until there is not one woman afraid of her husband’s kicks we can not say we have won the fight. Until our decision makers in all sectors, spheres, levels are gender sensitive and have equal representation of women and men then we can not rest. It may not be a fast process but we can ensure that it is a sure process that will deliver African women not just their rights but their dignity.

Three things we must do; mobilise the African woman; let her be aware of the protocol as an instrument to engage her communities about her rights and let her make demands based on the protocol. We must target the rural woman who is in the majority and also target the urban woman who many times is ignorant of these civic issues. We must build a strong feminist movement across the continent; it has delivered the protocol and without it the protocol will lose its momentum and force.

The women’s movement must confront and engage with the broader politics; time to talk to women alone is over, its preaching to the choir, we must start to ‘evangelise’ preach to those who do not know/understand the issues we articulate about women’s human rights. This of course means confronting one’s own personal beliefs, things at home, in our work places, the institutions we engage with in our daily lives and indeed our governments. These things are very political and so we must be political actors. Our political legitimacy and clout increases when we engage with politics in all issues that affect our lives and communities and not only the ones that concern women’s issues.

* Janah Ncube is Gender Thematic Manager at The Agency for Co-operation & Research in Development. Ms Ncube is also a contributing author to “Grace, Tenacity and Eloquence: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Africa” published by Fahamu – Networks for Social Justice. Copies of the book can be purchased through the Fahamu.org website.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Can protocols and legislation really be an effective weapon against gender discrimination? Janah Ncube examines the Southern African Development Community and contends that while law may not change a moral belief, it can stop a husband from beating his wife to pulp, penalize unfair employment practices, and punish rape. “Legislation has proved that with the state upholding it, social norms eventually conform to it if it is beneficial to all peoples.”

It is no longer business as usual in the SADC region for development and gender stakeholders. After representatives from SADC Member States in government and civil society, regional NGOs, inter-governmental bodies and SADC Secretariat met in Botswana in December 2005, they concluded that if any integration in the SADC region is to be successful, sustainable and achievable, it has to be gender based regional integration.

The Executive Secretary of the SADC Secretariat Dr. Tomaz Salamao urged SADC governments to facilitate the implementation of the SADC Gender programme to enable the gender equality and equity objective to be attained. The driving force behind this consultative conference was the head of the Gender Unit at the SADC Secretariat Mrs. Magdaline Mathiba-Madibela who had the foresight to lobby and push for an action plan. Thus the 5 year SADC Gender Based Regional Integration Strategic Implementation Framework (2006 – 2010) was developed by the 110 participants.

The SADC Gender and Development conference was held in the backdrop of a region that is currently facing increasing poverty with over 70% of the region’s population living below US$2 per day and 40% below US$1 (SADC 2003), severe drought, extremely high HIV/AIDS prevalence (of the world population living with HIV, 60% come from the SADC region and of this number, 57% are women), serious food insecurity, high unemployment and cross border economic migrants.

While the only country in the SADC region experiencing ‘active conflict’ is the DRC, Angola is still reeling from the immediate effects of conflict including the problem of landmines, which Zimbabwe and Mozambique among others are still dealing with. Poor infrastructural development at national level and within the region in terms of connecting SADC Member States to facilitate trade and other cross-border initiatives is another such limitation.

All these limitations and challenges overbearing SADC precipitate as problems for women at practical day in day out experiences. This is because of the gendered nature of allocation of roles and responsibilities in our societies both at primary level (in the family) and at secondary level (in the public space). When the state cannot provide for its citizens, women become the subsidizers of the state by providing for unrecognized and unrewarded skills and services. The drastic expenditure budget cuts on social expenditure by governments in the late 1980s to 1990s due to structural adjustment programs give such evidence. African countries saw the negative impact of SAPs through the increased burden of care and basic food provision being shifted from the state to women (Maramba, Olagbegi & Webanenou 1995).

Women in the region have been facing increased challenges, marginalization and appalling gender crimes - despite vigorous gender awareness campaigns, women’s empowerment policies, legislation and programs adopted at national level since Beijing and other much earlier processes. What also is unique about the SADC region with regards to dissipating typical gender stereotypes is that women’s emancipatory efforts in this region were evidenced by their active participation together with the men in our liberation struggles (Campbell 2003).

However basic human rights, human dignity and human freedoms for them are still contested and have to be implored for diplomatically from our Heads of States. As seen in slavery, colonialism and apartheid, denial of rights of any persons is a mere facilitation of fictitious justifications for their exploitation. Until January 2006, adult women of Swaziland were being denied the dignity of being legal entities. Up to today, adult women in Botswana who decide to marry cannot open a water utilities account without the substantiation of their husbands. The way women are still portrayed in our media as trivial, sexual, insignificant entities of course perpetuates their secondary status in our societies.

Gendered violence is rampant in the SADC region and the conspiracy of silence around it in our homes, in our communities and indeed within the law has seen it multiply and become even more reckless as it is stealthily inflicted with impunity. Some of this abuse includes sexual crimes against baby girls as young as 3 days old; rape of primary school girls by male teachers and headmasters; gang rapes in daylight and cold and bloody murders sold to the world as ‘passion killings’.

While SADC is generally perceived as a region ‘enjoying’ peace, there is no peace in ordinary women’s everyday lives as husbands and lovers who claim to love them beat, kick and plunder their bodies. Of course this is called ‘domestic violence’ and has been found rather difficult to ‘treat’ in the justice system as it is a ‘household’ affair. Of course what is not being admitted here is that this is a security threat on the person of the victimised woman and is a denial of dignity when an external entity can bruise and break her body parts without legal recourse (see UDHR 1948).

The gendered division of labour within the region has resulted in the trivialization and marginalization of women’s work and their economic activities, which is practiced through denial of ownership and impossible access to resources such as land and capital; the criminalization or non regulation of the informal sector and lastly the non-costing of women’s work despite their long manual work.

This further buttresses not just the secondary status of women but is one of the key reasons developing countries have remained stuck in the poverty rut (UNIFEM 2005). SADC’s priority is to address the poverty that is in our region and unless we wake up to the reality that we have exhausted our capacity to further develop and grow the economies of our region based on exclusion and exploitation of women, we will stay in this rut for generations to come. The equality and equity agenda is not just about improving the situation of women, it is about improving the situation of our families which ripples into improving our communities, industries, countries and the region. It is about Africa utilizing all of its human skills in appropriating its resources to the best of its peoples. It is about attaining Africa’s potential by Africans for Africans.

In 2003, SADC came up with the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) to guide SADC policies, programmes and actions. The RISDP re-enforces the strategy of regional integration which Oyejide (2000) argues is the most basic ingredient for attaining high and sustainable economic growth. The task of building a regional community in light of inequalities amongst the member states in terms of development and economic status and indeed those inequalities inherited from the colonial and imperial legacies based on race, gender, class and so forth, requires courageous and capable leadership, skills and resources.

However in light of global trends and the influence of International Financial Institutions (IFI) in local economies of developing countries such as SADC Member States, including trade agreements that are continually being made on North-South differential agreements, integration also becomes about synergies, pooling resources together, widening export markets, and enhancing capacity of the region while negotiating and engaging on international platforms and indeed negotiating for progressions within the region itsself (see ADB Report 2000).

The RISDP also recognizes that greater equality between women and men contributes to both development and economic growth. In light of this, gender mainstreaming has been adopted by SADC as a strategy for ensuring that all SADC policies, programmes and activities take into consideration the fact that women and men, boys and girls are affected differently by macro and micro initiatives and policies due to the gendered nature of our societies. Such disparities that leave women worse off than men must be addressed to achieve the goal of gender equality and equity.

At SADC secretariat level, the Gender Unit (GU) has the task of ensuring that gender is mainstreamed in SADC policies and programmes while at national level Member States have set up National Gender Machineries (NGM) as institutions to do the same in all government structures and initiatives and also advance the empowerment of women. As Win (2005) points out, NGM have failed to achieve the conceptualized and intended gender justice which they promised. They instead became token entities to ‘shut women up’ as either departments in ministries or fully-fledged ministries with other issues lumped together with them such as community development, youth, children etc.

As the ministers of Gender in Africa observed during the Beijing +10 process in October 2004, NGM lack capacity, authority and resources to implement the enormous task of engendering all of government. A capacity assessment of NGM commissioned by the GU also pointed out that NGM have no clear mandates, are peripheral entities in government and are poorly resourced (see GU Needs Assessment Study 2004). Despite this, NGM still remain the most effective institutions to mainstream gender in governments if they address these limitations and adopt the Gender Management System as a strategy. (The Gender Management System (GMS) is a network of structures, mechanisms and processes put in place within an existing organization to guide, plan, monitor and evaluate the process of mainstreaming gender.)

Indeed many peripheral analyses of the gender inequality/discrimination problem blame women for perpetuating this phenomenon. What they fail to acknowledge is the power of the socialisation process which does not separate women from men in reinforcing the messages of superior males and subordinate females stereotypes in our societies (see Oakley 1985). However the greatest challenge with changing gender-based disempowerment is that it is about women who are engaged in personal/intimate relationships with men who evoke their discrimination.

The racial discrimination fight was easier because the “other” was disengaged and not connected to the “us”. However this struggle is about going against the wisdom of a father, the perceptions of a husband, the practices mother taught. So sometimes it seems to be an internal fight between being loyal to what one has always known and believed and what one sees to be the path to attaining their potential, freedoms and security. The progressions that we have attained through legislation and policy changes indeed give hope to women that the equality goal can and will be attained. This is why the Gender and Development Conference called for the upgrading of the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development (1997) and its addendum on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Children (1998) to a protocol. A protocol is a legally binding instrument which Member States will have to enforce. This protocol will incorporate all the targets of existing regional and international instruments and will at the same time incorporate existing issues which are highly impacting on the region such as HIV/AIDS and the trafficking of women for sex trade and other exploitations. Currently member states are in the process of consulting different stakeholders and mobilizing for support for the proposed protocol, targeted to be tabled before Heads of States at their next Summit in August 2006 in Lesotho.

While it is true that discrimination, exclusion and exploitation of women are moral issues that have been justified through traditional and religious interpretations and despite numerous progressive laws, they have continued to prevail and this has lead to myths that propagate ideas that protocols and legislation cannot solve these problems. Truth is, the law cannot change one’s interpretation of the Bible or one’s moral belief. However legislation has codified gender discrimination and to borrow from Martin Luther King Junior’s rationale on legislation (1968); legislation can regulate behaviour and keep a husband from beating his wife to pulp, legislation can penalize and consequently restrain an employer from paying women less than men for the same type of work and legislation can show men that they can not rape and get away with light penalties. Legislation has proved that with the state upholding it, social norms eventually conform to it if it is beneficial to all peoples.

The challenge for SADC is to move the SADC region from goodwill and commitments to implementation and tangible changes women can see in their daily lives. Member States can start by adopting, ratifying and domesticating the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. The rhetoric has to be replaced by budget allocations of at least 10% for women’s empowerment and gender related programs in each line ministry’s budgetary allocation. SADC needs to accelerate its pace on increasing women’s leadership in political and other decision-making processes. Current trends are too slow; we missed our target of 30% by 2005 and have not felt ashamed by it.

National Governments must strengthen the capacity of NGM by increasing resources, clout, access, skilled senior personnel and defining clear mandates for them. Women’s NGOs and NGM must discard mistrust and adopt the spirit of the conference resolutions of seeking ways of collaborating and sharing information to achieve national targets. Civil society must continue to mobilize and educate the peoples of the region on action areas and issues identified and prioritised for the next 5 years. The energies generated at the conference must be fanned into even greater momentum as more stakeholders in the region run with the agenda. The SADC Executive Secretary recently pointed out that without peace, all of SADC’s efforts to integrate the region are futile. Truth is they are doomed to fail unless meaningful gender conscious and pro-women paradigms are what inform the region’s developmental and economic growth agenda.

* Janah Ncube is Technical Advisor to the Gender
SADC Secretariat in Gaborone Botswana

* Please send comments to [email protected]

References:

ADB (2000) Afican Development Report 2000: Regional Integration in Africa www.afdb.org

Campbell, H. (2003) ‘Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation’ South Africa: David Philip Publishers

Commonwealth Secretariat (1999) ‘Gender Management System Handbook’. Commonwealth Secretariat UK

Maramba. P, Olagbegi. B, Webaneno R. T. (1995) ‘Structural Adjustment Programs and the Human Rights of African Women. WiLDAF. Zimbabwe

Martin Luther King Jnr (1963) Speech given at the Western Michigan University on Conscience of America: Social Justice December 18, 1963 www.wmich.edu/archives/mlk/transcription.html

Oakley, A. (1985). Sex, Gender and Society. Gower Publishing Company Ltd: Hants

Oyejide, T. A. (2000) “Policies for Regional Integration in Africa”. Economic Research Papers Series Issue No. 62. African Development Bank, Cote d’Ivoire.

SADC (2003) Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan. Southern African Development Community, Botswana.

SADC Secretariat (2004) Needs Assessment Study for Capacity Building of National machineries for Gender Equality I SADC Member States and the SADC Gender Unit. SADC. Botswana (unpublished)

UN (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. www.un.org/overview/rights.html

UNECA (2004) 7th African Regional Conference on Women (Beijing + 10) Decade Review of the Implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Actions. Outcomes and Way forward. October 12 – 14, 2004. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

UNIFEM (2005) The Progress of the World’s Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty. UNIFEM New York

Win, E (2005) in “Reclaiming the Women’s Rights Agenda” OSISA Quarterly Journal Open Space Volume 1, Issue 1 April 2005

There is much anxiety that is gripping Zimbabweans concerning the upcoming general elections at the end of March this year. In 2000 and 2002 the country’s voting population was clearly divided into those who vote for the MDC and ZANU PF. Any attempts by the smaller political parties or independent candidates to have an impact on the political process was immaterial. Those who cast their votes for the MDC did so because of the hope and change they anticipated for the greater Zimbabwe democracy project but indeed more importantly how this change would translate to their being more secure, better fed, housed, clothed and being employed.

Many of those who cast their votes for ZANU PF were intimidated into doing so and of course as I have said before, there are still those who have clung to it for the ideals that ZANU PF used to stand for and represent. Yet others have remained committed to it because of the benefits to their pockets and stomachs it has brought them.

Because the political climate in Zimbabwe today is much different from both 2000 and 2002, it is highly likely that the voting patterns and trends of the electorate will change and give a completely different picture to what we saw happen in the last general election. My greatest concern is that this election will see a very low and poor voter turnout. This would be ominous for MDC and is probably what ZANU PF hopes for. If the 2003 urban local government elections are anything to go by, then my suspicions will materialise to actuality. The highest average voter turnout in those elections was 37% in Redcliff and the lowest average was 12% in Chitungwiza and Bulawayo, the rest were between 25 and 34%. Considering that previous trends show the MDC’s strongholds to be urban locations, this does not look good for them. However, if the figures for ZANU PF’s primaries are to be used as a gauge, they too should be just as worried as they will rely on their staunch membership for votes as compared to the ordinary voter who is not involved in party politics, this time, both in the rural and urban areas.

There are many reasons that can be given for a likely poor turnout. The extent of the desecration of Zimbabwe’s socio economic state has sucked joy from most of Zimbabwe’s hardworking people and instead impregnated them with despair, hopelessness and disillusionment in the political process as a means to solve the country and everyday individual problems. People are suffering. Most can not afford to feed themselves and their families, they can not afford to pay their bills such as rent, water and electricity, they can not afford to send their children to clinics or hospitals neither can they find or afford doctors and medicines. Reserve Bank Governor Gono can brag all he wants about how much better our economy is doing, it means nothing to those who know that each day is more expensive for them to meet their basic needs. The quality of life for the greater majority of Zimbabweans has been amazingly eroded as basic necessities such as transport to work, lunch at work and recreational activities have become luxuries that are out of reach.

Other factors include the violence and intimidation people have been living with for the past 5 years. The senselessness with which ZANU PF unleashed its terror armies and used state organs such as the police and army to sustain its assault on civic society, the MDC, activists and the general public has indeed left a dent on many who suffered for sins they did not even commit. Others will be too afraid to vote and yet others will not care to vote as that particular action will not emit a different experience for them; you will get harassed whether you vote or not, so why bother.

Because of the closure of the Daily News, which had enabled news that was not ZANU PF and voices that were not ZANU PF to be regularly heard, the MDC lost a spot were it could continually visibilise itself, defend itself and send out its own messages. This did generate a perception to the general public that they are not active, are not doing anything or saying anything. People would complain that the MDC had gone silent and they would not realise that the MDC had been denied a platform by the ZANU PF to go about its business of engaging the public. Even though it’s a matter not of its own doing, it will dent the MDC. If people keep on hearing the same message over and over again they will eventually believe what they hear or will use what they hear as a basis to measure truth, especially in the absence of a different message. The consistent propaganda people have been listening to over the past three years without a counter voice has formulated in people’s minds as a basis of some-version-of-truth.

While I have always paid tribute to the MDC for being a David that challenges a Goliath (much stronger, bigger, older, more resourced and fierce looking) it is truth that it has made many blunders with its internal politics, which were heralded, to the public by their enemy’s mouth pieces. What people heard about the MDC, they heard from ZANU PF mouthpieces and so their image to the average Zimbabwean who is not in its structures is a bit disfigured by ZANU PF’s sinister exaggerations. ZANU PF on the other hand is also seriously fractured right now due to its own internal conflicts centred around the much loathed professor Jonathan Moyo and his Tsholotsho bandwagon, to add to this, they are still recovering from cheating, beating and stealing from each other at the primary elections.

Yes, ZANU PF was in power and could still pass the legislation it wanted since they had the majority in Parliament and as government were in the driving seat. It may look like there isn’t much that was benefited from having an opposition like the MDC in Parliament as unconstitutional and regressive laws that assault our rights kept on coming out of Parliament. What needs to be observed as well is that for the first time in a long time ZANU PF was continuously being challenged every time Parliament was in session. This time it was not a lone Margaret Dongo but there were over 20 MPs relentlessly debating, questioning, challenging, calling to account and speaking down at ZANU PF. This in itself is a score particularly in such restrictive and limited space. For every unconstitutional bill ZANU PF voted for, they had to work for it, some MPs actually had to be mobilised to attend Parliament so they could succeed in their endeavours. With as much contempt the ruling party has shown to the ordinary person of Zimbabwe in the past 5 years, I shudder to think what this period would have been like without the fierce opposition and pressure they got from MDC. If anything at all, more alternative voices must be increased.

This election, like in 2000, will be fought on the strength of the political parties and not on the individuals running the race. However, minimal performance and delivery by some individuals in the last parliament particularly in constituencies with strong independent candidates is a possibility. I will use my own constituency Harare Central to illustrate my point. In this case, the incumbent MP Hon. Zwizwai must not assume he will be voted back in as voters may be persuaded that having a strong independent candidate like Margaret Dongo may actually be more beneficial for them compared to having an MP whom they know little about, have seen little performance if any; have never read about him in the paper (or the Hansard for that matter) to have said anything in parliament, have never seen their constituency profiled through him at any platform. In the case of Hon. Zwizwai, it’s exacerbated by the fact that he took over from a more visible and vocal MP, Hon. Mike Auret. Hon. Zwizwai won the election with around 3,000 votes in August 2003 about the same figure (less) as votes ZANU PF received in 2000 (3, 600 votes). In 2000 Mike Auret got over 14, 000 votes. Margaret Dongo may actually make it back to Parliament in her own steam and not that of a party.

My point is, this election is not that easily predictable. Any party, any candidate, may get the biggest surprise of their life and thus must do what they need to, to show people they are the best candidate. Due to the context of the country as I have highlighted, I believe those who will vote already know how they will vote. However, I believe a lot of those we witnessed vote in 2000 and 2002 may need to be persuaded to exercise their responsibility to vote.

ZANU PF must refrain from using violence before or after the polls and must stop using delay tactics as it did in 2002 during the presidential elections and Harare local government elections. This disenfranchised Zimbabweans their right to vote. I witnessed in horror women and men being tear gassed and chased like dogs from the voting queues by riot police in Glen Norah. Such obscenities must not be repeated and must not insult the lives of the comrades who died in the liberation struggle so that all Zimbabweans could exercise the right to vote.

* Please send comments to

Another year has dawned on us and I realise that my attitude will greatly determine how it deals with me. While I may not be able to change the many sordid realities that my beloved continent Africa faces, while my efforts for a new Zimbabwe may at times seem like mere drops of water questing to water a desert and while my work for dignity, freedom and equality for the black African woman at times makes me an object of ridicule to many, I chose to continue fighting, to continue challenging and I continue to hope. Yes, I chose to hope rather than despair. I hope because hope gives me the energy and the inspiration to fight on and go on. I suppose I also chose not to be depressed by the dilapidated socio economic conditions my country has been dragged to by an illegitimate, corrupt and cowardly government. Instead, I rather focus on just how many Zimbabweans over the past 5-7 years have given themselves to the fight for a better and freer Zimbabwe.

I have watched courageous women and men putting their lives on the line to speak the truth and to live according to their conscious. I have held the hands of ordinary women who were raped, beat up, persecuted and infected with HIV for choosing to participate in the political life of their country. Countless courageous men and women who have been incarcerated and tortured whilst in the hands of those who swore to protect and serve them. A growing list of champions who have died because they were murdered by agents of their government and ruling party, several hundreds died because they could not get adequate health services due to improperly equipped or resourced health facilities, several hundreds died a harrowing slow death from starvation and not because there was no food in the country but because they were being punished for their political persuasions. All these efforts, these lives surely have not been meaningless but rather been part of a build up which will ultimately amass to a force than can not be defeated. It has been done elsewhere both in and out of Africa and it is shaping up in Zimbabwe. People are not fools even if they seem simple and ordinary my Pastor Dr Shana taught me, the people of Zimbabwe will victor in the end.

I hope because I persuaded in the depths of my soul that Zimbabwe deserves better and more than it has been subjected to. I hope because I know that Zimbabwe has the most important resource any country really needs, its people. Zimbabwe’s daughters and sons are intelligent, articulate, capable, are hardworking and more importantly are courageous. It takes courage to survive under a regime that once was your defender but has turned on you and become your accuser. It takes tenacity to survive in an economy that does not even have enough of its own currency, that has to fix its exchange rates through manipulation so as to keep its debt figure down, it takes courage to work up and try to provide for one’s family without a secure means of income, without a pantry stocked with food, without fields full of harvest.

The solidarity we have received and continue to receive from our African sisters and brothers, from our friends everywhere else in the world truly spurs us on. Sometimes it is hard to face some of them because they do not understand why we fight someone they see as a hero, someone who seemingly stands up to the hegemony of Western powers, as Mugabe seems to do. I know Africa needs heroes. I submit that the kind of hero we need is the kind that first looks into his/her eyes to check if there is a log before pointing the log in the other person’s eye.

I think we now know this is not a sprint race but a marathon because most of our fatigue, frustrations and disappointments have emanated from the fact that the desired change was not as sudden, dramatic or as instantaneous as we needed it to be. These are lessons that the women’s movement has learnt, you fight, you continue to fight and do not stop. Sometimes it may seem like you are not gaining any ground but you continue and eventually you get yours. So, welcome to 2005 and comrades, Aluta Continua!