Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 09:05:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: FW: commentary by Chenjerai Hove


Dear Christina,
We're looking for somebody who would propose a
well-documented article about the current situation in
Zimbabwe (French or English). Would you recommand us
someone?
Best regards
Matt
Organdi Quarterly
http://www.geocities.com/organdi_revue


--- cs <christina.sharpe-AT-tufts.edu> wrote:
> 
> ----------
> 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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> postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


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