When my brother violates me

I sat in a dark cinema yesterday and revisited Richard Attenborough's CRY FREEDOM.  In that cinema i fell in love with Biko all over again.  Over and over again Biko was attacked for encouraging a new form of racism, black racism.  As the apartheid government propagated hatred,Biko preached his gospel based on a new found pride in being black.

I look at my Africa today and i cannot wondering how Biko would have felt if he lived today.  There is so much black on on black violence and all our calamities are blamed on the white man.  A lot of crimes are committed in the name of righting the wrongs of the colonial era.  Remember that is how the Hutus justified the genocide in Rwanda.  This is how we justify black on black violence today.

I find black on black violence to be the deepest betrayal of all that is African.  It is deplorable to rape your sister because she will not agree with your outlook of the world, to murder your brother because he sees things differently.  African politics today is characterised by leaders who believe they earned the right to violate their brothers when they participated in their liberation.

Am i saying that a bullet hurts more when the weapon is fired by a black man  than when a white man fires it.  The answer is no, violence is deplorable no matter who the perpetrator is. I just feel that when my brother violates me i feel alone because then i know no one will be there to defend me.  When my children grow up fearing their neighbours,  how am i going to teach them about black pride.  If i have to travel to a foreign land in order to be free then it means all the men and women whose ideologies i follow are all wrong.  When my own brother violates me then he insinuates that people who claimed we had no capacity to rule ourselves were right.  I wish those who have decided to rule Africa by employing a culture of fear understand the perils of their actions.

Scribes of death

Sensationalism, sensationalism viva Zimbabwean media, after all it sells newspapers.  Hospitals of death, what on earth is that? A series of articles from journalists who are not really interested in objectivity.  How many people are discharged from public hospital on a daily basis? Did this journalist ask this question?  Well i would at least try to compare the numbers, how many died how many went home after receiving effective treatment.

Our public hospitals leave a lot of room for improvement but imagine if tomorrow morning they announced the closure of the Parirenyatwa, Harare and Chitungwiza hospitals.  How many would die then?

It is not very responsible to term these hospitals "hospitals of death".  Just this morning i met a young woman who is scheduled for an operation at Mbuya Nehanda, guess what she is now afraid to go in.  How can she deliver at a death centre?  Who is going to tell her about all the lives the hardworking men and women at Parirenyatwa are saving?   Who will tell her about a neonatal unit that treats babies born weighing less than a KG and discharges at least forty five after treating them for two months and nursing them around the clock.  Who will write about young junior doctors taking on the work of consultants and executing it perfectly. Yes some Doctors and nurses are not doing their work but such is reality, in every group of professionals you will find the unprofessional ones.  Why do you think the term was created in the first place?
These hospitals are understaffed, grossly underfunded and also plagued by corruption but very important work is being done, they are still saving lives.

A few visits will never be adequate for such an article, journalists need to research sufficiently before dismissing our hospitals as "hospitals of horror".  This article is not an article that inspires change in these hospitals. All that is missing is a recommendation to close down the hospitals.

The truth is very important, we need to know and appreciate the sorry state of our hospitals but we also need to know that they are still working and lives are being saved.  "Hospitals of death" might result in Zimbabweans who have no access to private healthcare dying because they were too scared to seek treatment at  a "death centre".

The rubbish dump

So the rubbish dump in front of my house is finally disappearing.  For more than five years
i have been battling with a rubbish dump, the more i tried to clear it the bigger it became.  Finally it looks like it is going to go away, not because my local authorities care about the enviromental effects or the health hazard but because someone is going to pay them to build on the site.

Chitungwiza is the only place where we attend a funeral because someone's beautiful baby boy has fallen into a sewage pool.  It is a place where people are getting cancer because an aerosol exploded close to their leg.  Rubbish dumps and burst sewer pipes are a trademark.  The local authorities do not believe in waste management they believe in building on every open space.  Even the recreational grounds have disappeared our children have to play soccer in the streets.  Very soon there will be a funeral somewhere after a young boy is run down by a car playing on the street.

The women in the dormitory spend all their days fetching water and then they have to clear rubbish dumps after this.  If you fail to clear that dump its your child who will end up with broken glass in his foot.

I'm optimistic about the vote for a woman campaign.  Maybe this year we will vote women into local government.  They will understand that waste management is part of their job.  Just maybe these women will understand the pain of a toddler drowning in a sewer pool.  I am very optimistic finally maybe someone will care that there is no water.  Please someone needs to do something before this council leaves the next council with nothing to administer.

Well the rubbish dump in front of my house will disappear after someone builds a house on my doorstep but it will reappear in front of another woman's house.  Be rest assured it will become another woman's problem

Policies polices

New gender policy for Zimbabwe

We have had a gender policy that has been active in Zimbabwe for the past eight years.  Has it made a difference?  So much money is put into developing these policies and then what?  We put more money into the strategic plan but still certain demographical groups do not benefit.  Some are even claiming we are closer to gender equality than ever before.  We are forgetting that the rural population in Zimbabwe is largely made up of women have these women attained it.

With the women i meet in the streets of Harare of course i admit they are getting there.  What of women in the high density suburbs?  What of the women in the rural areas?  I don't see the really marginalised women being considered when we formulate policies and sit in hotels to draw up plans.  I see them struggling to get enough water to wash a tub of laundry.  I see them hiding the bruises that resulted from last nights beating.

As for our approach to attain a gender sensitive media well thats a laugh.  I appreciate that finally media and ICT's have been recognized as a thematic area but i don't believe affirmative action will reform Zimbabwe's media.  If more women own the media houses will that automatically guarantee that the profiling of women in our media will become positive?  The journalists coming from our tertiary institutions cannot even distinguish between gender and women.  When they hear gender issues they translate it to women's issues.  I believe the reform has to start at the training institutions then we can move to the newsroom only then can we take it to the boardroom.  I am all for women owning the media but it is not the magic pill that will finally allow to us read the papers without flinching.

The funniest one though is the one about community radios and televisions.  Where will we get the licences?.  What legal framework will guarantee this?  Community radio and television is important but right now in the Zimbabwean government who really cares?

I support good policies that project a positive vision but they will never change a country.  What Zimbabwe needs are men and women who will commit to implementing the good policies that we already have not new policies that will be ignored.