Zimpapers Logo

There, village elders say, a mother’s womb is technicolour, it gives birth to any kind and character of children. Zimbabwe, our motherland, has given us an array of politicians, five of them eyeing the Presidency.

In the village, five is never a bad number, after all Zimbabwe’s womb is huge and, after all, any villager can easily count the first five fingers, what with our 91 percent literacy rate.

The election is upon us in reality, although some politicians are visibly quaking in their boots, while at the same time showing brave faces. Was it not William Shakespeare who said there was no art to find the mind’s construction of the face?

As the election drama unfolds in the first week or real campaign, guess what, this villager is having his last laugh.
The villager is not a politician, so it helps.

Politics is good and exciting when you are sitting on the terraces. Never in the ring! Never, ever.
Now our Zimbabwe is very unfortunate. There is a lot of outside interference. Some of it is extremely stupid.

One of the major political players, Robert Mugabe is going into the elections under sanctions.
His main challenger Morgan Tsvangirai is going into the ring with the support of the entire European Union and the world’s super power, the mighty United States of America. Call it free and fair?

Anyway, in the village, there are some outsiders who mourn more than the bereaved. Not that it is acceptable, but it happens. It is laughable. For this election three foreigners have been mourning more than the bereaved.

In this case, the bereaved is MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who despite all the support from the US and EU, backed with an illegal sanctions regime, financial support and the multifarious array of Eurocentric NGOS, still remains a cry baby.

Lindiwe Zulu, the girl from the colourful, but not so rainbow nation, Bruce Wharton, the super US Ambassador to Zimbabwe and Ian Khama, the bachelor Botswana President, who has not seen it fit to marry and be dignified, have been at the centre of trying to lecture Zimbabwe on the route it should follow.

Khama . . . Khama . . . Khama, three times. For one strange reason or the other Khama sees it strange for Zimbabwe to continue talking about the liberation struggle 33 years after independence, but does not see it strange not to have married at the age of 60.
How ironic?

Back in the villager, a bachelor does not arbitrate over conjugal matters, because if you ask him how babies are made, he thinks they are bought from hospitals.
Fine, Khama can fight the land revolution in Zimbabwe on the corner of his grandfathers, the British, but is that normal to have grown up to 60 without dating a woman?

In Shona when you grow to that age, uri pfunda! If history was not important Khama would not be the President of Botswana, he does not deserve it,  fair and square. Who does not know that he is riding on the crest of the legacy left by his father? And, how many years ago did his father rule? Stupid stuff and very myopic! All right thinking Zimbabweans will definitely identify with the liberation struggle and will vote for the vision and values of the struggle that is underpinned by the desire to be masters and shapers of our own destiny.

Zimbabwe is not an extension of Botswana and will never seek to be, one. Our struggle is the one that gave us the dignity we have today.
Ambassador Bruce Wharton, the super US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, had the guts to write to small ZBC, the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the Registrar General’s Office and had no shame to expect a miracle from the two organisations that are reeling under illegal sanctions, premised on Zidera. How people forget? How can you be both a referee and a player in one match?

Ambassador Wharton should know that as the chimpanzee gets higher up a tree it exposes its unflattering behind.
The US funds and support pirate radio stations as part of its support to MDC-T to and at the same time, demand that ZBC tows its line. Power can be dangerous.

But in any case, the people of Zimbabwe are not stupid and they will speak in July 31. If anything, it is such brazen interference that has pushed many Zimbabweans against MDC-T. The US’ continued fighting in the corner of Tsvangirai is what has made him a clear project of the West and Zimbabweans are fortunately ideologically clear and will not play into the hands of the same West we have fought since the colonial era.

Public announcements in favour of Tsvangirai by the West, actually cements villagers in their anti-West drive. The US and its allies have taken Tsvangirai to Zimbabwe’s grand political battlefield but unbeknown to them, the horse can take you to the battlefield but cannot do the fighting for you.

The US and its allies cannot vote and will not vote. It is the poor villagers who have braved the effects of the illegal sanctions who will vote. It that not poking the US’ eyes? When your eyes are poked your grip on someone’s throat loosens.

Lindiwe . . . Lindiwe . . . Lindiwe Zulu, our sister from the villages in Zululand has so much energy put to wrong use. But this villager was in South Africa a few days ago and hey, the rainbow nation does not seem to have much depth of character to deal with real issues, yet it wants to superintend over other countries.

Recent events in Cape Town have shown that the black part of the indigo is unrecognisable. Now, 20 years after independence black South Africans in Cape Town use the bucket toilet system, where they offload the bucket every Monday into a city council tanker, clean it and take it back home. If you miss the tanker, you will have to live with the stuff in your house for another week. Imagine?

It is not good to tell this story in polite company but I have to dedicate this one to Lindiwe Zulu. It is a story no one would want to regale friends with at a dinner table. The story was told by Fred Khumalo in the Sunday World newspaper and this villager dedicates it to Lindiwe Zulu.

“With what has been happening in Cape Town of late  — so-called protesters throwing human waste at their political opponents, or dumping the smelly mounds at the doorstep of Helen Zille’s offices — I felt obliged and liberated to share the tale with whoever cares to listen.

“I must give it to my cousins in Cape Town: it takes someone with balls to take his or her own home toilet bucket, walk to the train station, board a train with his singing and ululating comrades and go and dump excrement at the targeted office in town.

“Yes, a few days ago scores of people were arrested at a train station carrying night soil buckets. Argh! Give these people a Bells for their balls.
“In response to this, the chief of police in Cape Town — these Kaapenaars are creative! — has launched an Anti-Excrement Unit, which is a sub-unit of the Anti-Refugee

Contingent, which is modelled on the apartheid-era dompas squad. During apartheid, police would do random searches for people who did not have their passes.
“Now, members of the Anti-Excrement Unit are on the lookout for people carrying suspicious-looking buckets.

“Excuse me, sir, is that bucket full of sour milk, or your brown deposits?” they would ask.
“Just to be safe, the uniforms worn by members of the unit are made of plastic, and their faces are covered with those scary masks reminiscent of the Saddam Hussein era where American and western soldiers went to Iraq in search of chemical weapons.

“Come to think of it, what we are dealing with in Cape Town is an instance of biological warfare at its most basic.
“When you are dealing with an instance of a biological warfare, you know what to do. You supply your populace with masks, you create bunkers.

“But how do you deal with people throwing buckets of squishy brown stuff?
“I wonder what these pungent guerrillas talk about after one of their raids. Would it be something like: ‘Comrade Stinky, did you see how the contents of my bucket put Zille’s shoes to shame?!’

“I know, I know, it’s not a comforting thought that in a country beset with so many challenges we should be analysing sh*t.
“Unfortunately there it is, right there on our doorstep. We can’t ignore the smelly guerrillas. To paraphrase the poet Arthur Nortje, some must storm the castles, others describe the happening.

“Imagine having a criminal record alluding to the fact that you were arrested for throwing a bucketful of the brown stuff at a public building!”
Now there’s a smelly thought. Can Lindiwe Zulu help her country out of this mess where a huge black population in South Africa in Cape Town lines up with bucket of excreta awaiting for collection from the city tanker, 20 years after independence?

Should you miss the truck that collects once a week, you will have to live with the stuff for another week – in the rainbow nation. Lindiwe, Lindiwe, Lindiwe Zulu!
The village soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of wisdom and knowledge, says “Neither situations nor people can be altered by the interference of an outsider. If they are to be altered, that alteration must come from within.”
The election is upon us and we must speak.