Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 10:39:14 -0500
Subject: FW: commentary by Chenjerai Hove



----------
From: Ken Harrow <harrow-AT-msu.edu>
Reply-To: H-NET List for African Literature and Cinema
<H-AFRLITCINE-AT-H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 14:41:22 -0500
To: H-AFRLITCINE-AT-H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: commentary by Chenjerai Hove

Comment from ZWNEWS, 1 December

Breaking the mirror



By Chenjerai Hove



Let us imagine a situation whereby all independent journalists and foreign
correspondents happen to be on the same plane, flying to some place for
some purpose. Just imagine, all in one plane, flying over Zimbabwean skies.
All of them: Geoff Nyarota, Willam Bango, Bill Saidi, Trevor Ncube, Iden
Wetherell, Basidon Peta, Mark Chavhunduka, Ray Choto, Chido Makunike,
Chenjerai Hove, Francis Mhlongwa, David Masunda, Andrew Meldrum and many
more. They are on flight 2001, to some place. And it so happens that the
plane crushes. I can tell you there are going to be celebrations in town,
with one recently announced composer of music and manager of football teams
going the whole way to script a song and stage it for the cameras, the
whole nation watching and wondering how it is that a prominent politician
can celebrate human death.



Or if your imagination is good, imagine all those gentlemen and ladies,
critical writers and journalists, being discovered to be staying in the
same block of flats, fifty floors. The Twin Towers of the United States
will be nothing compared to what some over-enthusiastic Zanu PF political
jihadists would do to us. The fact of the matter is that you do not have to
be a rocket scientist to know that critical journalists and writers are the
most hated in our country. Ask Nyarota and he will tell you that even if he
is in our beautiful country, he cannot stand in the open one Sunday
afternoon to admire the beauty of the setting sun. The Zimbabwean
government has put on hold all money for development projects in order to
ensure that the biggest development needed now becomes the elimination of
the writers and opposition politicians, plus a few innocent souls who have
the inclination to be caught in the crossfire of our politics.



I have always argued that the best that can happen to a country is to have
vigorous and intense criticism from those who are being ruled. Being ruled
does not mean that one is turned into a victim in one?s own country. The
country deserves to have its share of criticism in case it decays. The
mirror that shows your ugly heart and face does not deserve to be broken.
It should be respected for showing the viewer the reality of the place, of
the visage, as the French would say. Don't break the mirror, for goodness
sake, go for some more make-up or visit the plastic surgeon and have your
face reconstructed.



Many years ago, I watched on TV as President Robert Mugabe fumed about a
Sunday Mail article which detailed stories about how Zimbabwean students
who had tested HIV positive in Cuba were being sent back. He threatened to
'deal with the hand that held the pen.' Since I knew the journalist
involved - an editor actually - I could only co-miserate with him. I knew
he had lost his job; and he surely did. And my wild imagination saw the man
being amputated. I was only judging from the speech of the President in
front of the Cuban foreign minister who had actually lodged the complaint
about the article. What perhaps the President forgot is that once one is in
public office, one has to stand criticism of all sorts. And the best way of
handling criticism is not to put in place vicious laws which transform the
country into some form of maximum security prison. The best medicine is the
gift of laughter, to laugh with your critics, to share the stories, weird
and juicy, about the vagaries of being in office, the temptations and how
to resist them. Political maturity requires that the ruling party and the
opposition drink Chibuku together, joking at how the opposition lost
narrowly and what mistakes they made, and also how the opposition would
boast that the ruling party was almost sent into opposition.



This new version of 'terrorists' we now read about in the media is amazing.
I know the ruling party were heavily 'terrorised' when they realised that
they almost lost the 2000 parliamentary elections. But to put the
opposition and the truthful journalists in the same league as the Twin
Towers highjackers is to waste language. In fact, the ruling party has
never been one to be known for using language carefully. Instead of
cautioning the two Vice-Presidents about using public language carefully,
the President gets angry with the voters. Both VCs are so reckless with
language that it is advisable to tell them to keep their mouths shut.
Recently one of them spoke of 'a bloodbath', and the other one spoke of the
electorate voting for 'baboons' if it so happens that the ruling party
fielded baboons as election candidates. In fact, there is no worse abuse of
language or greater insult to the electorate. Me, voting for a baboon in a
country with over twelve million clear-headed citizens? That is
recklessness at its worst.

It is common knowledge that those who do not want people to comment about
their type of dress, should never walk in public. Worse still, if you hold
public office. Critical writers and journalists help to ventilate the
national imagination. I would hate to live in a country in which everybody
agreed with everybody on every subject under the sun. Just imagine, the
conversation will always begin and end with: 'Yes, I agree. Yes, yes, yes,
yes, yes,' till kingdom come. But the gods gave us some grey stuff between
our ears, and as long as we are alive, we will use it critically to examine
our condition.



Chenjerai Hove is a renowned Zimbabwean writer.



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