Three Men On a Boat
Friday, April 18, 2008
The ballot box is full of lice
Today, Zimbabwe celebrates the 28th anniversary of the handover of the country from white minority British rule. Things are different and the same. The revolution still goes on.
The reality on the ground when you deal with matters of that nature of course is very different from that which is delivered from Bush House in London or any such derivative of a driven western media house. I am not about to preach a gospel against the west because in reality, it is an exercise in futility but all I can point to is what i deem the relative will of the people.
To illustrate there was a time when as a young boy I would be censured by one of my parents and would be required not make a contribution to the discussion as a sign of consent. Anything to the contrary would be met with an unilateral exercise in the collision of my cheek with an open hand attached to the aggrieved. The repeated dogma of acceptance carried itself through most of my generation and was translated to behaviour in the public domain. You see, as long as my mother or father knew they could get away with saying something without it being challenged, it translated into my accepting their will even where there was a distinct departure in our ideologies. Only a systematic regeneration of my individuality that is traced back to one particular moment involving an opinion that I held true at that time which they refused to accommodate gave birth to the emancipation with restitution.
Such is the same with the people of Zimbabwe. The will of the people rests in the incumbent as long as they allow him. Unless there is an open defiance against the system then it is acceptable to them even if begrudgingly. The only thing is the person making the most noise is one who peddles an agenda that does not accept the other's view.
That having been said there is much to celebrate in the Zimbabwe we see today. Sure the economy is just about as relevant as Hillary Clinton's recanting the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or at least her version of the Bosnian incident but there is a relative liberty that has existed that was not there before independence. That young men and women collectively and individually decided to take arms to fight for liberty should not be scoffed at. They had no rights, no access. In short they had nothing. It is they who must be celebrated on this hour.
About the ballot box, well when we have cleaned out the lice we will figure out what happened there...
Respect to Aimé Fernand David Césaire who passed away at the age of 94 yesterday. A brilliant poet and activist his work with the Negritude movement helped mould conscious thought in the 20th Century. A life lived indeed, the torch has now been passed on
The reality on the ground when you deal with matters of that nature of course is very different from that which is delivered from Bush House in London or any such derivative of a driven western media house. I am not about to preach a gospel against the west because in reality, it is an exercise in futility but all I can point to is what i deem the relative will of the people.
To illustrate there was a time when as a young boy I would be censured by one of my parents and would be required not make a contribution to the discussion as a sign of consent. Anything to the contrary would be met with an unilateral exercise in the collision of my cheek with an open hand attached to the aggrieved. The repeated dogma of acceptance carried itself through most of my generation and was translated to behaviour in the public domain. You see, as long as my mother or father knew they could get away with saying something without it being challenged, it translated into my accepting their will even where there was a distinct departure in our ideologies. Only a systematic regeneration of my individuality that is traced back to one particular moment involving an opinion that I held true at that time which they refused to accommodate gave birth to the emancipation with restitution.
Such is the same with the people of Zimbabwe. The will of the people rests in the incumbent as long as they allow him. Unless there is an open defiance against the system then it is acceptable to them even if begrudgingly. The only thing is the person making the most noise is one who peddles an agenda that does not accept the other's view.
That having been said there is much to celebrate in the Zimbabwe we see today. Sure the economy is just about as relevant as Hillary Clinton's recanting the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or at least her version of the Bosnian incident but there is a relative liberty that has existed that was not there before independence. That young men and women collectively and individually decided to take arms to fight for liberty should not be scoffed at. They had no rights, no access. In short they had nothing. It is they who must be celebrated on this hour.
About the ballot box, well when we have cleaned out the lice we will figure out what happened there...
Respect to Aimé Fernand David Césaire who passed away at the age of 94 yesterday. A brilliant poet and activist his work with the Negritude movement helped mould conscious thought in the 20th Century. A life lived indeed, the torch has now been passed on
Labels: independence
posted by 3Men On a Boat at 1:23 PM
1 Comments:
problem with us zimbabweans, we are too complacent, and as a result, our liberty is now held at ransom. things will never change, unless of course the number of zeros on our currency which only seems to escalate to unreasonable proportions. and, the calamity has been calmly accepted.
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