yours most sincerely
N. Pikes

I must apologize for not responding to this post much earlier. I just haven’t been able to do much over the past week.

Thank you for your passionate and authentic input. I for one believe that part of the reason why Zimbabwe’s civic action quorum has failed to rise above lukewarm mediocrity is becuase of a marked absence of self evaluation you do at the start of this post. There isn’t enough gutt checking going on among the activists. So we continue to float in meaningless mediocrity and can’t really acheive much. Can you imagine what it would like if we all engaged in the introspection that led Jenny Williams, and hundreds of other brave women to enthusiastically choose to die than to live in chaos wrought on us by this callous regime?

Those are just my thoughts on your internal struggles. I endorse it.

In as far as your critique both Accoustic Motorbike’s and my response to the languid commerations that took place, I have to say that I will have to respectfully disagree with you.

You seem convinced that I was neccesarily being “against the commerations.” This is not the case, as you will note right at the beginning of my remarks on the commeration, I begin by complaining that small events that did occur did not enough support from the people,

“Zimbabwe’s streets aren’t buzzing with a contemplative reminiscence befitting an evil as great as Murambatsvina was.”

In other words, they weren’t commeration enough. I want us to remember, I want us to honor the value of every single human life we have needlessly lost over the last seven years.

My piece, rather than being a rebuttle of those who did turnout for the commeration marches, was an exploration of possible reasons why the commerations didn’t engender public support. Maybe fear, as in your case, was the chief culprit. I happened to notice from my vantage point and life experiences that the idea of “face-saving” and an unwillingness to concede that we cannot do anything about our problems as a nation seemed appropriate as reasons for why the nation wasn’t ready to mourn yet.

Interestingly, your post does not deal with significant cultural aspect.

Further, with Accoustic Motorbike’s response you quickly conclude that her opposition to the commeration stemmed out of her perception that there wasn’t enough defiance in the marches. On the contrary, I would agree with you that those who did show symbolized defiance. I believe everyday you and do what we do we are doing so in abject deviance of the powers that be. However, you sidestepped another important issue she brought up; namely that Murambatsvina is still going on today.

What I think she was saying is not that we should not commemorate, but that it was too early to do so.

My position on this is that, in a country which sees so little PUBLIC action, that any attempt to do so should be supported and applauded. The value of that action was not only that it was public, but also because it was openly challenging towards the police (witness the poem and the determination to go ahead regardless), and because it sent a signal to the isolated victims that, despite the fact they may feel totally ignored and forgotten, and despite that fact that Murumbatsvina is still continuing, that there are individuals determined to demonstrate that they remember, that they care, and that they will not forget.

You both seem to agree with me to a certain extent that this commemorative action was worthwhile and should have gone ahead.

However, some of the thoughts you’ve respectively expressed have strayed off the immediate topic of this post, and point instead towards the post I say I’ve been meaning to write but have been struggling to articulate. So I’m going to stop talking about it now and try and write something, even if its just a start, and post it up in the next couple of days. I’ll pick up on some of the things you’ve said then…

Until then - many thanks,

Hope

But the defeatist drumbeat from Zimbabwe seems to focus on what the “international community” is going to do about the plight of the Zimbabwe people, and for many non-Zimbabweans such expectations are masking a weak tendency to scape-goat a hard, cold reality: It is YOUR country, it is your people, and it is your culture and philosophy which must be the solution to Zimbabwe’s problems. Even the most casual review of the “international community’s” complete failures to help in Rwanda and Darfur until too late suggests that hoping for outside help is simply expressing a palliative defeatism.

The Zimbabwe people deserve a better government. However, there is also an old saw that says that we all get the government that we deserve. Which implies, if our government is not what we want, do something to fix it, or toss the bums out!

The very first thing to do is to fix our thinking, our philosophy. If we adopt the defeatist thinking that outsiders are the cure, nothing positive will be accomplished. No army was ever victorious, no nation was ever formed, no people have ever achieved greatness by whining, scapegoating, making excuses or wallowing in pessimism.

One pro-active suggestion for Zimbabwe freedom: adopt a symbol. Islam has a green flag, recognizable everywhere in the world. Socialism has a red flag, also universally recognized. Consider adopting variants of the color blue, as a silent symbol for freedom. Are there Zimbabweans who fear marching or demonstrating who would instead be willing to wear a blue scarf on their head, or a blue shirt or blouse? Perhaps carry a blue flag in a march, or wear a bolt of blue as a silent symbol of their THINKING, of their philosophy! Imagine the eventual effect of an entire nation of people walking down their streets during the day and nodding to one another silently whenever they see a blue ribbon in the other’s hair, or pinned to a shirt. How about wearing something blue to church services every Sunday? Our world is a blue marble encased in a blue sky: that means, freedom is universal.

Get a positive philosophy, a positive Zimbabwean philosophy, adopt a symbol of that philosophy, and then watch the growing positive results.

Freedom has NEVER come from without, or from pessimistic, defeatist thinking. Always, freedom is earned, by dedicated personal effort to a positive philosophy.

‘Be free.’

‘a Duoist’
http://www.duoism.org

When there is revolution in the air, when mass strikes, mass civil disobedience, or even mass armed resistance appears, then the world will know, and more people will read around and discover the terrible history of Mugabe and his cronies. Until then, only those with special interests in the region will know or understand.

Human rights abuses occur all over the world. The media barely pays attention to them unless there is large-scale resistance. That is why it is so important for people to organize, to show a support base for resisters. That is what allows people to overcome their fears and get out into the streets.

Yes, every act you mentioned, especially the public reading of that poem, is an act of defiance. However, there is a difference between defiance and resistance.

I am not attempting to preach here. Perhaps the Zimbabwean public is not yet ready for revolution. These acts must come from inside, not from people like me who sit far away at their computers and comment. Please do not interpret my words as admonishment. I admire and support what you write and what you do. Each person does what he/she can do. Thank you for your wonderful work and amazing writing. Thank you for providing a resource for people who are interested and worried about Zimbabwe and its people.