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Defining the crisis in Zimbabwe- personal reflection
Tafadzwa Muropa¹
July 05, 2007

The crisis in Zimbabwe has not been really defined in its broader context and that can be a bit worrying for most communities who feel excluded in the process of seeking lasting solutions to the challenges that Zimbabwe faces at the moment. Alternatives to the Zimbabwean crisis is not a matter of achieving democracy and ensuring that civil liberties are respected for every person but it all has to do with ensuring that all people have a basic right to life, food, health, shelter, voice, education and dignity.

This has become a dilemma for many human rights organizations and movements in Zimbabwe and they seem to divorce issues of bread and butter from the civil and political rights.

In a country where unemployment has reached over 80 % and many people are now involved in the informal economy to make ends meet², communities are facing a crisis of taking care of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) whose parents have died due to HIV/AIDS and other related diseases as well as road accidents among other incidents. The voices of the vulnerable children are not being heard within the Zimbabwean crisis and if they are, their concerns are not articulated within the broader crisis. To make matters worse, for people with disabilities, they can-t seem to find their space within the broader civil society and articulate their voices. Some of the organizations that represents the interest of people with disabilities³ are doing so much for their communities, but aren-t being recognised by the mainstream NGOs, and for me, that really defines the crisis in Zimbabwe, of failing to accommodate each person-s view and failure to fight stigma and discrimination.

Going to the area of people living and affected by HIV & AIDS, the story becomes even more depressing. The HIV & AIDS movement⁴ over the past years has been able to shackle the powers that be within the health sector in demanding accountability and transparency on how the AIDS funds have been disbursed , so as to ensure that people-s health is restored in the face of HIV & AIDS. But not many support groups have been absorbed into the mainstream of the Zimbabwean crisis in trying to articulate the HIV & AIDS pandemic as a broader crisis that affects people from all walks of lives, including those that hold power in the highest places.

In trying to find ways of seeking a long lasting solution to the Zimbabwean crisis, issues of power dynamics between men and women also have to be tackled from the community right up to the top level. In most research work carried out by developmental organizations, researchers and activists, it has been noted that most women do acknowledge power imbalances that exist between them and men, but since most of them are economically dependent on their husbands, they can-t seem to break away from abusive relationships and end up enduring all forms of abuse from their male counterparts. Hence, if there is disharmony and violence⁵ within a family at community level, this also reflects the cancer that has spread nationwide which has to be addressed coupled with other crises in the country. Discussing on patriarchy (domination of male power over women) and trying to seek ways of empowering women (economically, socially, politically, culturally) is also one of the ways of ensuring that peace, harmony, stability gets to be achieved in Zimbabwe across all boards.

Analysing the people of colour and minority groups⁶ in Zimbabwe, most of them are not being mainstreamed into the civil society, in as far as highlighting their issues in relation to health, employment, inclusion, education, among other issues. Most of them are dying in silence and no one really knows their story, and this should be analysed as to why the voices of the people of colour are not being heard in union with the rest of the broader population.

In addressing the Zimbabwean crisis or any other crisis in a country, there is need to harmonise all factors that has led to the crisis, and for me, the crisis is Zimbabwe is multi-faceted, and this has to be tackled in a broader manner. One cannot achieve freedom of expression without having food on the table at the end of the day. Hence, civil society and broader movements in Zimbabwe should be able to harmonise their issues in a holistic manner and be able to seek ways of ensuring that the crisis in Zimbabwe is dealt with in a peaceful manner. At the end of the day both civil and political rights as well as social, economic and cultural rights are both in important in restoring sanity in Zimbabwe and on the region as well.

References

1) Tafadzwa Muropa is the author of this article, an HIV & AIDS Programme Officer at Action Aid International-Zimbabwe, a socio-economic justice activist and writes this article in her personal capacity.

2) Researches conducted by the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute in Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) have revealed such information

3) Networks of People with Disabilities include- Disabled Women-s Support Organization(DWSO), NASCOH, among others

4) The movements in the HIV & AIDS sector include ZNNP+, Network of Women Living Positive in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Aids Network (ZAN), SAFAIDS, Women and Aids Support Network (WASN), Women-s Action Group (WAG), Padare - Men-s Forum on Gender, Chitungwiza Utano Support Group, among others

5) Women activists, including Women-s Coalition in Zimbabwe, Musasa Project and other developmental organizations like Action Aid International ,OSISA,UNIFEM, among others have embarked on campaigns that look at eradicating domestic violence, especially against women and how this is linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. For more information, visit http://www.womenwontwait.org.

6) People of colour refer to the community that has parents or grandparents from the white race and the black race-emanating from the colonial period. The people of colour also refers to the Indian community and the white community as well. Minority groups in this context refer to the Tonga people in the north western part of Zimbabwe as well as other groups in the South Western part of Zimbabwe.

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