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Of deliberations on liberation
Fungai Machirori
November 14, 2008

I-ve recently stopped reading, watching or listening to any news remotely relating to Zimbabwe-s power-brokering deal. At the rate at which the talks between the ruling party and the opposition are dawdling on at, I think I-d rather watch cement-paving set in, if offered the option.

And so over the past few months, I-ve turned my attention to more fruitful pursuits like the Obama/ McCain presidential race, the splinter Lekota/ Shikowa formation and the Formula One motor racing championship. At least, unlike the incessant chatter happening across the SADC region, they have all born something reasonably tangible and satisfying for the people. Quite frankly, I think our Zimbabwean dialogues have become a talk show to rival even Oprah-s expertise. All they seem to lack now is their own customised signature tune. And God help us all if we go into the new year with these deliberations still hovering over us like a hellish halo.

But sarcasm aside, the plight of many ordinary Zimbabweans has become unspeakable. Like a leper picking away at her open sores, Zimbabwe has become the unbearable sight no one wishes to set their eyes upon. Her people pour and bleed from street to street and bank to bank in search of basic survival. Her waters, so scarce, have become infested with disease, and her dejection shows on the countenance of her decaying infrastructure. And as I write this, I am sitting in the flickering waning light of the last candlestick in this house wondering when exactly the electricity will come on for the night. The only certainty that remains in this land of so much unmet promise, it seems, is dysfunction.

Perhaps I should say there still remain two certainties; the other being our passive acceptance of this horrid situation. For as long as we are content to forage for basic commodities like our hunter-gatherer predecessors and retrogress into primeval existence, we will never affect the course of history. And we will be merely recorded in the annals of the world-s course as the nameless, faceless, nebulous forms that inhabited this land but never became its citizens.

It-s easy to talk, especially before one has felt the sour strike of a policeman-s baton stick against bare flesh, or felt their heart quake in fear at the sound of a soldier-s rifle riddling the air, fertile with protest. But Steve Biko, in his writings on Black Consciousness noted that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. He added that, "Once the latter (the mind of the oppressed) has been so effectively manipulated and controlled by the oppressor as to make the oppressed believe he is a liability . . . ., then there will be nothing the oppressed can do that will really scare the powerful masters."

The mind is the key battleground for all forms of emancipation. And it is the fear of death, of further pain and strife that prevents us from demanding our own liberation. So it-s easy for me to sit at my table writing this article with decorative English words that don-t mean anything to the many who need water and not wit, order and not ornateness. But it-s not so easy for me to take to the streets and demand change because, like so many of us, I know that the battle is not against men or machinery or artillery. The battle lines are drawn across our minds and deepest apprehensions.

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