Our Wednesday entry for Sky News
Sokwanele has been asked to continue blogging for Sky News this week on The Insider Blog. The Sky audience is much wider and far more diverse than ours, so we encourage you to visit The Insider Blog and please participate in the comments and discussion being generated there.
Our Wednesday entry for ‘The Insider Blog’
I am writing this on the first day of the stayaway. The first part was written by hand on paper to be typed up later, because the day started with a power cut. There are power cuts every day now, and I consider this to be Robert Mugabe’s personal way of telling me that I need to take action.
When the lights go out, I picture our President and say out loud “Thank you for reminding me!”
I’m getting mixed reports about the success of the stayaway. My REAL war vet friend confirmed that the shop next door to his is closed today. It feels like a small milestone because that guy was really very very scared. To think he held his nerve makes me proud of him. I felt like cheering.
The roads earlier this morning were much quieter than usual in the early part of the day. There was hardly any school rush hour between 7 and 7.30am, but today is also the last day of school term. Either our children are all enjoying a stayaway too, or their parents have taken the opportunity to have a long extended weekend? It’s hard to tell.
At about 8am you usually see the work rush to town, with cars carrying executives. One friend reported that there were hardly any cars on the road at this time on his route into town, but he did see a rush of expensive 4×4 vehicles, twin cabs, and fancy cars heading along another route towards the industrial area.
His comment: “fat boys scared of losing their fat salary jobs.”
Someone else I spoke to said that one of their colleagues had reported that all their workers had turned up for work and that they, the employer, was the only one staying away. So they gave up and went in.
In complete contrast, another friend said that absolutely no one where they worked arrived for work. Their boss had looked in to check but turned around and went home again.
One of my work colleagues was very depressed by the number of shop doors she saw standing open for business when she drove through town today, until she heard about a couple of shops that were open, but very badly staffed.
One shop, for example, which usually has around 40 employees, only had a couple of people arrive for work.
It does mean that we cannot make a real assessment of success based on the number of shop doors open in town, because all that really means is that the employers and managers decided to open the doors. It doesn’t tell us how many workers turned up.
Everyone agrees that town was much much quieter this morning but seemed to slowly get busier as the morning dragged on. I hear from friends that Harare was also a lot quieter at the start of the morning, but got busier as the day wore on.
It’s a familiar pattern: people start out by staying at home to ‘wait and see’. If they think most people are staying closed then they continue staying away, but if they think most are opening, they’re scared to be exposed by being one of the few to stay shut and so tend to go in.
But the quieter the day is at the start of a stayaway, the more indication there is of how much people WANT to participate. They only go in because they feel too exposed if they don’t.
Intimidation is a real issue for many. For example, word of mouth talk in Harare is that many shop owners were visited in the days before and told to open up shops ‘or else’. I didn’t hear about a lot of that happening in our town, which makes me wonder whether the police here have the spirit for it
anymore?
I also heard about terrible acts of intimidation via an email message this morning, telling me that about 15 truck loads of riot police had descended on a high density area in Harare late the night before the stayaway started (Monday night).
The police apparently forced people out of their homes and beat many of them before forcing them to sweep and dig holes in the road with their bare hands. The residents were then told: “listen up you people, you are supposed to go to work tomorrow okay, otherwise we are going to beat the hell out of
you”.
It is very difficult. I don’t judge people for feeling fear, and I am confident that the time will come when they will feel more courage and I really do think that the time is sooner than we think. Examples like the guy working next door to my real war vet friend really give me a boost.
But the government is working hard to cultivate fear and divide people. The Chronicle - or ‘The Chronic’ as we all call it - today quotes the Minister of Information and Publicity asking people to inform on the organisers and anyone who supports the stayaway.
“The people must also cooperate with the law enforcement agents by reporting those who want to infringe on their rights or coerce them into committing acts of violence.”
I can go along with that one! I would encourage everyone to honour his request, and write to the Minister and tell him about the Zanu PF government’s infringement on virtually every single right Zimbabweans have and complain about the Zanu PF government’s use of violence against us!
Tomorrow is another day of stayaway. Past experience tells me that the second day is the hardest: this is the day you really have to hold your nerve as more and more people trickle back to work. It’s also usually when we start to hear the stories of threats and intimidation trickle down.
I have a terrible pain in my stomach … I really don’t think I’m going to be well enough to go to work tomorrow. What a shame.
