Blogging for Sky News – our Friday entry
Friday, March 30th, 2007
Sokwanele was invited to blog 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 Friday entry for ‘The Insider Blog’
There is only one possible thing I could write about today, and it’s the looming stayaway planned for next week – I am writing this with real hope in my heart. I believe that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions’ stayaway (nation wide strike) called for the 3 and 4 April might be successful.
I am hoping for the shops to be closed, the fuel queues gone, and the streets to be empty of cars and bicycles.
The stayaways called in the past have never been as visibly powerful as the vision I have just described.
Every stayaway is preceded by a lot of talk and soul searching on the part of both employers and employees. Everyone wants to support the stayaway, to stand united, but some people are scared. Some people have certainty about what they will do, but for others it’s more difficult.
Listening to someone talk about what to do on a stayaway is like watching a baby bird tremble on the edge of a twig: if it jumps, will it know that it can fly or will it tumble to the ground? You can almost see people nervously considering their odds.
There are many small signs that this stayaway might be different.
A very good friend of mine (who demanded I refer to him as a REAL war veteran in this blog) said to me yesterday that past stayaways presented employers with a “damned if you don’t” and “damned if you do” set of choices.
“Damned if you don’t†close your business and tell your workers to stay at home, because it means you’ll be passively accepting the terrible conditions of life in Zimbabwe. And “damned if you doâ€, because it means as an employer that you are publicly defying this regime and risking repercussions.
Make no mistake; those risks are still there. Even now, we are hearing stories that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is going around to factories and businesses in our town and threatening owners who close their businesses and warning them that they will be held responsible.
But we are also hearing that the police are abducting our leaders at gunpoint, and no one knows where they are being taken; and that the police are visiting the ZCTU offices and threatening and intimidating them; and we have fresh memories of the way Mugabe unleashed his vicious thugs on our leaders when they tried to attend the Save Zimbabwe Campaign rally.
This cannot go on anymore. We are angry and we have had enough.
My friend the real war vet has always honoured every single stayaway called and he has survived them all: his business has not been closed and his employees still work with him. He very strongly feels that the fear we all struggle with is mostly in our heads, and that Mugabe and his bullies are master manipulators of the state of fear.
The person who owns the business next door to his has never closed his business on a stayaway, but he does experience shame and guilt because he knows that fear has prevented him from supporting a cause he believes in.
My real war vet friend argues that our individual choices are different for this stayaway; they have changed to two options: “damned if you don’t” and “damned if you don’t”.
Zimbabweans are realising – just like that little bird – that the only way they will ever be able to fly free in our country is to take the risk and jump. The twig we stand on offers us no security anymore, because we can feel it breaking under our feet.
I was encouraged to hear today that the person who has the shop next door to my real war vet friend has said that this time he plans to close his business and join the stayaway.
He is still fearful, but he has no choice. His employees are talking about giving up their jobs because they can’t survive on their wages and he can’t afford to pay them more. He says he has to try and do something.
The fear he once felt for the thugs and bullies is now far outweighed by the fear he feels at the thought of losing his business and being unable to feed his family and his children.
I believe that the tide is turning and options are running out. The day when Zimbabweans all realise that they have no choice but to stand shoulder to shoulder and demand a new better government is not that far away any more.
I can feel the change in the air, and it really excites me.
Thank you for reading my blogs this past week. Please watch over us closely next week and in the weeks to come; pray for us, and stand with us in spirit.
Sokwanele was invited to blog for
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