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Zimbabwe suffering inspires protest art
Agence- France- Presse
March 24, 2008

http://www.mywire.com/pubs/AFP/2008/03/24/6011099?&pbl=205

Born in 1980, Comrade Fatso was once a proud member of Zimbabwe's "born-free generation". Twenty-eight years on from independence, he feels only pain and sadness for the former British colony.

Samm Farai Munro, better known as Fatso, released a CD earlier this month to coincide with the run-up to March 29 general elections, called "House of Hunger", mirroring the crisis in the one-time model of post-colonial success.

Viewed by some as one of the most overtly revolutionary musical albums in recent years after a series by exiled leading musician Thomas Mapfumo, the compilation gives expression to the discontent and disillusionment pervading the country.

Fatso sings about a house of hunger fashioned out of "bricks of corruption, indoctrination, green bombers (a derogatory reference to ruling party militias) and hunger."

"Welcome towards fear and anger," goes a verse on Fatso's album he composed with a group named "Chabvondoka", local lingo for "all hell has broken loose."

"Our dreams are blistered, hear the blood of hope scrapped, ...those with open heads (are) beaten and battered and left for the dead, hear activists' wrists twisted".

He mocks "parliamentary democracy where fat chefs sit in the kitchen cooking ...famine".

Fatso is one of the dozens of Zimbabwean artists radically and creatively expressing sorrow and anger over the economic and political crises rocking the former Rhodesia, using theatre, music, poetry, dance and literature.

"It is a very loud way of protest," said Fatso.

"I speak and stand in defence of our people whose rights are being trampled on," says poet and radical trade unionist Raymond Majongwe, whose latest album Dhiziri paChinhoyi (Diesel at Chinhoyi) caricatures President Robert Mugabe's government for believing a woman who claimed to have discovered diesel oozing from a rock in the northern town of Chinhoyi.

"ZANU-PF (the ruling party) is perpetrating brutalities and I speak about these injustices without fear," he said.

At an international day of poetry commemoration in the capital last week, Fortune King Rozvi Muchuchuti recited a poem on the deteriorating rights standards in the country.

"We walk sullenly to the graveyard to bury the strength of our bearer cheques (local currency). We saunter to the cemetery to bury the confidence of our people, burying the pride of our Africanness."

"Napukeni" (napkin or diaper), a song by one of the country's top dub-poets Chirikure Chirikure was banned on public radio for metaphorically calling for a change to the country's mess in the way a soiled diaper is changed.

In a country where insulting the president can earn one a jail term and street protests can be brutally broken by riot police, artists are giving expression to the growing anger.

Theatre performances have been targeted by authorities infuriated by the open and stinging attacks.

Anti-riot police last year stormed a performance in the second city of Bulawayo, driving out theatre goers who were watching a satire "The Good President", which was inspired by police brutal attacks on opposition leaders who had tried to stage a protest rally.

Late last year police in the capital arrested the cast at the end of "The Final Push", a play whose title was derived from a plan by the main opposition to bombard Mugabe with protests until he loosens his stranglehold on power.

The police made actors repeat the performance more than 20 times while in custody, while accusing them of being opposition activists hiding behind the mask of art.

"There is direct interference from the state with such plays being banned and people chased out of theatres. We should not expect the leadership to give us space," said Chirikure.

Authorities have blacklisted several productions, but the artists won't be cowed from churning out productions such as "All Systems out of Order", about the country's crumbling infrastructure.

Last year, the Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights was launched by a group of young bards.

"With the economic situation deteriorating, the human rights situation is getting worse now... violations are getting worse day by day," said its coordinator Robson Shoes.

But the hardships help fan the artists' creative flames.

"The environment is not conducive, people can't afford to buy books, live shows are expensive for people and audiences are dwindling, but this fires up our emotions up into more creations," said Chirikure.

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