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"I love the Queen; she is a beautiful lady. But I think time come." Who do you think this is? Incorrect! It is Portia Simpson Miller, the freshly sworn first female Prime Minister of Jamaica. I thought you would guess right by the interesting English syntactical construction, something I have always admired both Jamaicans and Nigerians for.
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Picture this: Charles Ray Honoured by Zimbabwe Organisation for Youth in Politics (ZOYP), a “human rights” organisation working with youth at the grassroots. The award, 2011 Diplomatic Human Rights Defender, was given to the American ambassador for, in the words of ZOYP’s national coordinator, one Nkosilathi Moyo, “critical helping hand that Ambassador Ray gave” ZOYP, for which ZOYP notes “with bounteous gratitude”.
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Maybe by the time the brand new year comes into being, Somalia will be warming from kind British bombs, all delivered
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Reared within a martial milieu, Chinua Achebe's Okonkwo mischaracterised his father for an utter failure, a man to be
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What has the American ambassador to do with a Zimbabwean Prime Minister who gets deserved societal flak for promiscuous misbehavior? Which part of the Geneva Convention, or of our bilateral agreement with the US government, empowers this messenger of white America to intervene in what in effect is a parochial, internal or in-house debate by a people weighing the social misconduct of one of their own, misconduct of a man who would be a king?
What impact is this intrusion supposed to have on us, on our society as it measures its own moral standards against ever-changing mores? Is the envoy hoping to bully and browbeat us all out of that that debate? Is he out to remind and even warn us that the man we mistook for a Zimbabwean, for one of our own and with an ambitious drive for national leadership, is in fact America's ward, indeed immunised against scrutiny by the American Embassy and the American Ambassador?
That Ray's interpretation of his own diplomatic assignment here covers and protects one Morgan Tsvangirai? Or is Ray's point greater, heavier, namely that our moral values are out of place in the scheme of national governance and leadership selection?
That we are moral prigs who can't even assess leadership on our own, by our own yardstick, that our moral sensibilities are a drawback -
As I have said, I am not interested in the Prime Minister's love life, good copy though it maybe. That side of things is his business, or more accurately, his problem. Let him solve it, or stew in it if he can't. He who dares swallow a pestle knows the circumference of his throat. No sob-tales please. My interest clinically relates to those who serve him, or more accurately put, who think they do. My interest is with those who support him, or more accurately, those who think they do.
Yes, my interest is how he handles sticky situations, however generated by whomsoever.
For in all three we have the sum total of Tsvangirai: the man, the father, the husband, the politician, the presidential aspirant, the gay supporter, above all, Locardia's man. -
Marutenga naZvanyanya/Sim-ukaiwo mupembere/Gwenya-mbira svika pedo/Uitewo makorokoto/Nhai maiwee-e kani tofara isu/Imi amaiwee-e kani tofara! Hurray, Nelson Mandela has turned 12!
This week's scoop by The Herald was stunning. A scoop against Trevor Ncube's stable. A scoop against Strive Masiiwa's stable. A scoop against supposedly all-seeing America's organs here. Above all else, a stunning scoop against the Prime Minister's spokesman, Luke Tamborinyoka. He had to read about his boss' amorous conclusions, to read it all in The Herald!
High pedigree
I don't care what the nuances to the story are. -
Far more interesting than political clashes in Chitungwiza last Sunday were many other unwritten factors which really matter to a good understanding of the state we are in.
I do not want to appear like I condone political violence. Or that I have no sympathies for those who got bashed in the process. But I don't come from that school where gore and weeping wounds, not hard, inconvenient facts guide responses, indeed trigger maudlin sentimentality.Blood and split bones are dramatic manifestations of violence; they are not its causes or explanation. The fact that you have a weeping wound, however deep, should never be used to grant you innocence
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Oops, what a week of sex and laughter! I am reminded of the late Dambudzo Marechera who when invited to address an august gathering at the National Gallery during the Book Fair Week in 1983, naughtily opened his short speech thus: "We are a sexually active Nation . . . " He never went beyond the phrase, as the late Edison Zvobgo - himself a poet - stood up in both consternation and protest, in the process unleashing his bodyguards who bundled screaming and kicking Marechera out.
His crime boiled down to impolite utterances in the presence of an esteemed guest, himself a Minister of Government! I was a second year English Honours student then, and found
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"Age: approximately forty years.
Race: white.
Height: approximately 5' 9" . . . The following injuries were noted in the general examination; 1. Bullet wound in the left clavicular region, with the exit in the scapular region on the same side 2. Bullet wound in the right clavicular region, with a fracture of the same and no exit 3. Bullet wound in the right costal region without exit . . . "
The story of Che Guevara
The above gory details are extracted from the death certificate of one Ernesto Guevara captured and assassinated by the American-trained Company B of the Ranger Battalion of the Bolivian Army. The capture was on October 8 1967 in the Churo ravine of Higuera, a hamlet situated on the Rio Pirainambi, itself a tributary of Rio Grande, in Bolivia.The day was a Sunday, the time, about 1pm. The assassination followed a day later, on October 9 1967. The death certificate was compiled on October 10.
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As I write this piece, Gaddafi has been executed by the so-called revolutionaries fighting in the name of the so-called National Transitional Council.
The NTC is baldly trying to convince us that it is not to blame for Gaddafi's death. The initial report was that Gaddafi died from his weeping injuries, somewhere while in transfer between Sirte and Misrata. Misrata, itself Gaddafi's supposed destination as deemed by the "revolutionaries", would not have been a place of love for the autocratic leader.
There pitched battles had raged against the NTC enjoying full air and SAS support from the West. Gaddafi had to withdraw, leaving -
On December 29, 2008, the British establishment, working thorough its captive Sunday Times' Martin Fletcher, ran what has turned out to have been a valedictory story on Zimbabwe for the year. That momentous year had seen Zimbabwe go through two significant polls that left the country's fate hanging by a slender string.
Of course September of that year had seen a glimmer of hope by way of an MOU that would pave way for the Global Political Agreement, itself the blueprint for the Inclusive Government we have had since 2009. One could say in 2008, Zimbabwe hung on a delicate balance that only needed a feather to tip it either towards chaos or second chance. Here, still standing
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I empathised with Constantine Chimakure, editor of Trevor Ncube's Zimbabwe Independent, when Professor Jonathan Moyo ripped open his head to reveal to the world its penny-worth innards.
I thought the man of big book had hit below the belt and my empathy for the flayed editor subsisted, undiluted. After all human sympathies are always reserved for the underdog, and measured against the professor, Chimakure was one such.
One such until yesterday when I read the editor's memo, the little column he runs. Clearly the man is empty, empty, empty, empty! The cylinder is empty and rings loud and hollow. His big head is remarkably blunt, blunter than a mallet! I am sorry
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FACED with a sub-region that grappled with the challenges of surviving under the shadow of a predatory empire; faced with a people who visualised their futures in terms of a powerful, rapacious northern empire they envied so unconditionally, so irrationally, Jose Marti, the founder of revolutionary Cuba, created a column in a US-based newspaper dedicated to Latino affairs.
The newspaper was called "Patria".His column was simply entitled "Notes on the United States".
The column reprinted articles from early United States of America, articles clearly showing that far from enjoying innate virtue and glory, innate greatness, the United States of America - that land of invading immigrants, of "genocideres" - had in fact started off with more than a fair share of rejects, rogues and scoundrels, with more than fair share in murderers and thieves, more than ever existed or could ever exist in the Americas. -
THE MDC have chosen a political response to a security issue. This column had given them a good tip on how to handle the matter, namely that they take up the matter through appropriate channels whose creation they themselves agitated for when they joined the Inclusive Government.
One such forum is the National Security Council. Instead of taking that sensible route, they have chosen the path of sonorous political resonance with nil returns on the ground.
Like a little naughty child who misbehaves in the presence of respectable visitors, they are set to enjoy momentary glory as their thoughtless MPs grandstand in Parliament, to equally sonorous headlines.
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- Nathaniel Manheru