‘This is Zimbabwe’ : our first anniversary

This is Zimbabwe is one year old today - one year since our very first post. Some of our contributors have written anniversary entries, which we will publish each day through the course of this week. Our first anniversary coincides with reports in our local media that Mugabe’s government is planning to fast-track the ‘Interception of Communications Bill’ through parliament. Previous attempts by the government to enact repressive laws designed to control private communication have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because they violate Zimbabwean rights to freedom of expression, freedom to receive and impart ideas, and freedom from interference with one’s correspondence. The government plans to ignore all those rulings and proceed regardless - more detail from The Zimbabwean Independent:

The Bill restores the provisions that were ruled unconstitutional. It seeks to empower the chief of defence intelligence, the director-general of the Central Intelligence Organisation, the Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner General of the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority to intercept telephonic messages passed through fixed lines, cellular phones and the Internet.

The Bill also empowers state agencies to open mail passing through the post and through licensed courier service providers.

It authorises the Minister of Transport and Communications to issue a warrant to state functionaries to order the interception of information if there are “reasonable grounds for the minister to think that an offence has been committed or that there is a threat to safety or national security of the country”.

If passed into law, government will use it to set up a telecommunications agency called the Monitoring (and) Interception of Communications Centre from where spy units will operate facilities to pry into messages from both fixed and mobile phones. Sources yesterday said government had already ordered equipment to be installed at monitoring centres in Harare and Bulawayo.

The Bill says operators of telecommunication services will be compelled to install software and hardware to enable them to intercept and store information as directed by the state. The service providers will also be asked to link their message monitoring equipment to the government agency. Such equipment should be able to render “real time, full time monitoring facilities for the interception of communication”.

Are laws like these a threat to the writing of a blog like ours? Well, consider this: on Tuesday last week the press carried stories that a legislator for the Movement of Democratic Change had been arrested for ‘insulting the president’, a crime that can carry a prison sentence. His offence was to ask this question of soldiers that he’d been giving a lift to: “Why do you let Mugabe let you suffer?” In democratic countries (Zimbabwe is supposedly a democracy) that would be considered dialogue, an opinion, a point to debate, a normal function of a free society. In our country we discover that to even question the president, let alone call him names or publically vilify him, is deemed insulting and therefore criminal. What chance do we have? Or any group like ours that feels it is their moral duty to call to public attention the fact that the Zimbabwean government, and therefore also the Zimbabwean president, has profoundly failed the people in our country? When does a fair-minded reasonable objection to squalor, corruption, mismanagement and poverty stop being a question and turn into a presidential insult?

Sokwanele started This is Zimbabwe shortly before the parliamentary elections last year. We were looking for a medium that would enable us to get information to the world easily and quickly before and immediately after elections which we knew (as everyone did) would be very controversial. On March 30th - the day before elections - The Guardian (UK) identified This is Zimbabwe as their ‘Pick of the Day’ and the result was a surge in visits to our website. We decided there and then to try and keep the blog going beyond the elections and our webstats now reveal a whopping 650% increase in visitors to our blog and website since March 2005, with a continuing steady increase every month.

The success of that is down to ordinary people who have contributed entries on a regular basis, and it hasn’t always been easy for them. Writing anonymously, unable to discuss or share an idea with a friend or family member, is lonely work. Trying to communicate a surreal experience to an invisible and unknown audience is also difficult - especially if you are a person who would not ordinarily describe themself as ‘a writer’. But the hardest thing to do, when tired, disheartened and battered by relentless repression, is to find words that will contribute to our broader committment, which is to make a difference to the people in our country who need it the most; people who are homeless, hungry and struggling to survive. To find those magic words - say something, anything, that will keep Zimbabwe in the mind of the world - that’s the hardest thing of all. Yet our contributors have managed to keep going and as a result people from all around the world visit our blog every day to read their words. Your comments and your emails are appreciated and help us to keep going. Thank you for your warmth and support.

Sokwanele has never been under the illusion that This is Zimbabwe would reach the people who crave and need truthful and honest information the most - namely, Zimbabweans living in Zimbabwe - but we hoped that it might give the outside world a feeling for what life was like for ordinary people in Zimbabwe.

Our nation has slid into the ‘African basket-case’ category, but we, the Zimbabwean people, are unwilling participants in this train-smash - we have been force-marched with repressive legislation, violence and intimidation, into a tragic cliché which we reject and want no part of. We ask ourselves the same question that you would ask yourselves every day if it happened to you: ‘I cannot believe this is happening to me; what have I ever done to deserve this?’. Just because we are African and living in a poverty-stricken and war-torn continent doesn’t make our experience any easier for us to live with or adapt to. We are - as you would be too - shocked, stunned, horrified, frightened and angry. Zimbabweans are more than catastrophic headlines in the mainstream media: we are individuals, families, and communities, and we are living in a state of seige.

If the Interception of Communications Bill is passed - which it probably will be - keeping This is Zimbabwe going is bound to be more difficult and more dangerous. The government reveals with this latest legislation that its top priority remains its determination to ruthlessly control the hearts and minds of the people in our country. That is despite the fact that the Zimbabwean economy has failed with inflation at nearly 1000%, despite food shortages, an erratic fuel supply, never-ending power and water cuts, and even sewerage flowing in some streets. This is why it is so important that we find a way to keep going: Zimbabweans are entitled to, and deserve, a government that instead prioritises the eradication of poverty, basic human rights, and freedom and democracy for all. As hard as it may be, we plan to do whatever we can to continue doing what we do until Zimbabweans finally get what they deserve. Our decision to pursue that objective has nothing to do with ‘national security’ or ‘preserving the dignity of the president’; it’s about democracy, pure and simple, and we are exercising our right despite every attempt that has been made to deprive us of it.

Sokwanele - Zvakwana - Enough is Enough

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Sokwanele, Zvakwana, democracy, Interception of Communications, mugabe, freedom of information

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