On ‘Dependence Day’

I have a friend who was at the big Independence celebrations held in a Harare stadium. Morgan Tsvangirai apparently arrived fairly inconspicuously through what my friend described as a central aisle in the stadium. It took the crowd a while to realise he was there, but when they did, the applause and shouting and cheering for him grew to a swelling crescendo. My friend said it was quite something to hear.

Robert Mugabe arrived after Tsvangirai, more conspicuously through a side entrance that led him along a raised platform where everyone could see his entrance. The crowd applauded for him too, but the volume, my friend said, was about one third of that which Tsvangirai received.

The speeches started.

Mugabe was at the podium talking and talking on and on and on (as he does) and a camera linked to a large screen panned around the stadium picking up highlights and broadcasting them for the rest of the crowd to see. It started to focus in on the ministerial faces seated on the stage, and when it zoomed in on Morgan Tsvangirai’s face, projecting it large for the crowd to see, they went mad and started shouting and cheering despite the fact Mugabe was in the middle of a speech. Much to my friend’s amusement, Mugabe’s voice was drowned out: he said that was the last time the cameraman dared zoom in on Morgan Tsvangirai’s face.

I relayed this anecdote to another friend, someone who suffers from incurable optimism, and he responded that it was moments like these that showed that the power sharing deal was working. “People can, for the first time ever, actually see the people they respect in a position of power and they can publicly cheer for them without being thrashed. It builds confidence and is a really good thing”, he said.

I, who was cured of my optimism affliction a long time ago, wondered if, rather than building confidence, it instead built complacency.

I hope when people cheer that they really are cheering out of a sense that progress is being made, and not because they are lulled into a feeling that they have ‘won’ something. The truth is that the peoples’ voice has not been heard.:  this is a negotiated settlement bartered by the regional leaders and not by the ballot box, and we’re in a transitional period with no real sense yet whether this transition will deliver real democratic change. Today for example, the International Crisis Group warned

“There is a real risk of a coup, initiated by military leaders whose influence is beginning to wane and whose patronage system is being eroded … The unwillingness of some army generals to publicly recognise the inclusive government’s authority, and especially Tsvangirai’s role, lends credence to the threat. An assassination attempt on Tsvangirai also cannot be ruled out.”

There are other alarming realities too that we must never allow ourselves to forget and it worries me that dazzling displays of power might make the people who are whipped-up and cheering forget about all the other Zimbabweans who are still living in a state of terror.

The truth is that some of the most critical elements of our society still appear to function as servants to the will of one political party at the expense of the other, bluntly standing in the way of democratic change. The rule of law, for example: the incredible fact that human and political rights activists can be abducted and tortured and frog-marched through trials that should never have taken place because of the abuse of human rights and violations of due process that brought them into being in the first place. Or the fact that the media is still stifled, the state-controlled press still promulgating a single-minded view held by the party of oppression, doing all it can to champion Zanu PF’s ideology and views through the transition. Or the ongoing onslaught against farmers, despite angry words from Tsvangirai and Mutambara. Or what about the fact that Roy Bennett has still not been sworn in as Deputy Agriculture Minister, it seems for no other reason except that it sticks in Zanu PF’s throat.

The truth is, despite the new power sharing arrangement, there is evidence of autocracy all around us.

The MDC parties are understandably at pains to build confidence in the power sharing process and will champion moments of progress as evidence that ‘this is working’. I agree that things like food on the shelves is a good thing, but I have to say that the buoy that anchors me in the ebbs and flows of the political transition has four big fat words written on it that I return to over and over again to keep my head straight: “One person; One Vote”. That’s it.

So we turn to this year’s Independence Day – a day that I ignored on this blog just like most people in my town did : no flags or signs of joy in the day anywhere.

The MDC had to attend: Article 8 in the GPA binds them to respecting it, even if somewhere in their hearts they possibly don’t think the time is right:

8.1 In the interests of forging a common vision for our country, the Parties hereby agree:

(a) on the necessity of all Zimbabweans regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation and religion to respect and observe Zimbabwe’s national institutions, symbols, national programmes and events; and

How to explain the about-face to the people; namely, the fact that in previous years this day has been boycotted because ‘ Zimbabweans are not Independent’, but this year they would attend? The MDC-T release, mailed just before Independence Day cast the day as a day to rekindle hope. They said:

Our challenge as we celebrate this year’s Independence Day is to look back at the journey we have travelled and begin to carve out a new chapter where we say to ourselves never again should a people be subjected to terror, selective justice, poverty, lawlessness and fear by those that govern them.

This year’s celebrations must rekindle the nation’s hopes and aspirations; especially considering the consummation of the inclusive government in February 2009 which enabled Zimbabweans to open a new chapter of national rebirth.

But what of the word itself and the meaning of the day – ‘Independence’ – in the context of today?

The MDC-T statement went on to define what Independence meant:

“Independence means jobs, food, education, shelter, basic freedoms and better health care for everyone. We believe that the direction taken by the political leaders is an important step in the right direction in achieving these fundamentals.”

This is where I think we need to keep our eye on the ball and not be persuaded into different perspectives on fundamental truths. Contrary to what the MDC-T say, Independence actually means “Independence” – or, as a web dictionary helpfully elaborates:

freedom from control or influence of another or others
the state or quality of being independent

For me, with my pro-democratic ‘one person, one vote’ focus, the most critical precursor to real Independence has to be empowerment of the people via the ballot box. This may be an over-simplistic way of putting it, but in my view, if everyone had a right to vote, and every vote was respected, then those who failed to deliver jobs, food, education, shelter and better health care would find themselves butt-kicked out of power and incompetent fools would be replaced with competent leaders. What bothers me about the MDC-T definition is the implicit suggestion that once people are helped, healed and housed, they will magically be more ‘Independent’ – but they won’t, not if they rely on top-down crumbs dropped from elite tables.

Right now the power-sharing arrangement has Zimbabweans on the sidelines as spectators to a deal they had little democratic say in it at all, a solution they were forced to accept in lieu of their voice being heard. In fact, we the people have been forced into a position of DEPENDANCY – utterly dependant on three political parties and the regional powers to do what needs to be done to bring about justice and freedom for all Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe. In my view, this year’s Independence Day should have been called ‘Dependence Day’ instead.

We are not Independent – and that is why I think massive celebrations around this day are misplaced. The only way you could make me go and cheer for this nonsensical day is if, like with the MDC parties, you forced me to sign a legal document saying I had to go.

I am cutting the MDC parties some slack here, and hoping that many of them were there because they had to and that they were pretending to keep Zanu PF happy despite their misgivings. The truth is a farce is enough to keep Zanu PF happy: this is the party that rents mobs of people to cheer for Robert Mugabe at rallies. Whether those people want to be there or not is completely irrelevant to them.

But we as Zimbabweans need to keep it real and remember where we are and where we want to go. We need to keep pushing to ensure that what needs to be done is done. No amount of political spin and careful re-definitions of words is going to convince me that being dependant – our current state – is somehow a good thing. It annoys me endlessly that Zimbabweans are excluded from the right to determine their own destiny, and I will remain annoyed until the day our voices are really heard. This may be interpreted as churlishness by some, or unnecessary skepticism, but my goal and reason for doing what I have done for so many years is to work towards every Zimbabwean having the right to vote, and for those votes to be respected. Who they vote for is their business. I’m still working for that same goal.

As far as our basic freedoms are concerned – something also included in the MDC-T definition of ‘Independence’ – I would like to remind all parties that human rights are inalienable to all humans; we do not have basic freedoms only when we are in a state of Independence. The MDC parties can’t give us back what we already have, but what they can do, and should do, is take action against those who have violated and continue to violate our fundamental human rights.

There is going to come a point when the MDC parties are going to have to bite the bullet and do what they, and we, and the whole world KNOWS needs to be done, and that is to neutralise the abusive powers of those who persistently violate Zimbabwean human rights. Those individuals need to be removed from positions of power and stripped of the tools they have perverted and use everyday to oppress the people in our country. They need to be made publically accountable for what they have done.

‘Jobs, food, education, shelter, better health care’ are all well and good, and yes – thank you very much – I’ll happily and very gratefully accept a bit of that. Like animals, we need these things as a species to live. But to be human, to be free, to flourish and for us all to achieve the full realisation of our wonderful creative imaginative selves, we need the abusers of our rights to be stopped.

I’m not foolish enough to believe that a full stomach, a job, education and a roof over my head will help me if one day the State should come calling, abduct me, hold me incommunicado and terrify my family for my safety, torture me brutally, possibly attempt to murder me, and then force me to stand trial for crimes I did not commit.

I would like to know what the MDC parties plan to do about this sort of thing? And when do they plan to get started doing it?

This entry was posted by Hope on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 1:16 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.