A child was born in Zimbabwe today

By Tino Chinyoka

When people have spoken about Zimbabwe of late it has been in lamentation or exhortation, rarely in praise. Very little has occurred that has been worthy of praise. Yet I refuse to give up the hope that life will one day be better in our motherland.

I refuse to accept that this generation’s mistakes will taint our country forever. I know that an oasis of hope is only the next crest of the dune away, because a child was born in Zimbabwe today.

A Prime Minister convenes a meeting with his supporters and the very same police force that should be answerable to him waylays him with riot gear and prevent the holding of his peaceful gathering.

The police spokesperson blames this on a ‘mistake’, without stopping to think that the mistake is in having a law in the 21st Century that requires people of like mind to apply for permission to meet and have a discussion if they want to.

One should despair, but hope springs eternal, as children are born and the country renews itself. And indeed somewhere, a child was born in Zimbabwe today.

ZANU PF met somewhere in Zimbabwe today and hatched up plans to beat up the local MDC organising secretary. Like the murderers that they are, they met in secret, voices hushed even as they talk amongst themselves, murder their intent but shame their feeling.

They will waylay him and teach him a lesson, they agree, never knowing why it is that they feel compelled to act this way, but knowing only too well that their bosses in Harare will quietly approve and publicly deny any connection.

I should despair and be repulsed by this but I refuse to give in to their politics of death. I should lose hope as they intend but I do not: for somewhere in Zimbabwe a child was also born today, and that is where I will invest my feelings.

For life springs eternal, and hope abides forever when children are born to retake the land and chart a new destiny for themselves.

A teacher was the subject of discussion by the local ZANU PF cell today, her attempts at teaching history and social studies deliberately perceived as support for the MDC. They will have to go and remind her of her obligations, it is agreed.

Instil fear in her until she knows to either leave politics out of the classroom, or is scared enough to simply abandon her job and flee back to the city or into the diaspora, another trickle in the brain drain that has sapped our country of all sorts of talent even as ZANU PF celebrates around their bonfire of vanities and glories past.

I know I should despair, as Zimbabwe thirsts for the talent of her bosom even as her acorns spread far and wide, enriching lands far and wide, but a child was born somewhere in Zimbabwe today, and hope abides yet again.

They will not allow the MDC to organise in Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe today, or tomorrow for that matter, and will claim that the MDC supporters that claim to have suffered beatings at the hands of ZANU PF youths were in fact hired thugs from the city.

They will arrest the victims for disturbing the peace, and a compliant magistrate will give them a small fine after finding them guilty as charged. Their names will be catalogued, so that when statistics are compiled it can be claimed that there were MDC members convicted if crimes of violence against the ZANU PF, thus evening out the blame.

Such blatant manipulation of the statistics will in fact work, as it always does, but despair not, for a child was born in Zimbabwe today. Life renews itself and tomorrow is always better than today, yesterday is but a memory gone.

A man will be arrested today, on trumped up charges of incitement or some such dubious violation of POSA. A family will thus go the weekend without a husband, a brother, a son, a cousin. They will deny him bail, and he will stay in jail longer than robbers or thieves, a victim of a police system clogged with rabid disrespect of the law that they are sworn to defend.

Tears will be shed, another life wasted. Despair their aim, to breed quiet acquiescence and obedience, but that will not happen: hope springs in the knowledge that somewhere, a child was born in Zimbabwe today. With a new hope, dreams of a better tomorrow invested in her.

A man got hired today, at a plant in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, engineer by training, Zimbabwean by birth. His education paid for and offered by the Zimbabwe people at the University of Zimbabwe, he misses home as he drives home through the snow.

Driven from his land by those that would seek to harm their own over a mere disagreement over who our leaders should be, he sits down after a long day of developing Canada and fires up his Apple Mac to scour the social sites.

His friend and classmate from Gweru has posted that he is buying a house in Windhoek, an ex girlfriend got promoted in Dunedin, New Zealand, while his former history teacher just posted while on night shift somewhere in Luton,England.

An NGO was raided in Harare today, he reads, and a Zimbabwean started school in Dushanbe last month. Like autumn leaves scattered across the vast extremities of this earth, Zimbabweans populate and enrich lands far and wide while the riches of their motherland flow into well oiled ZANU PF pockets even as the country burns.

I know I should weep tears of sorrow and cry in lamentation at the loss of talent and resources but I do not: for a child was born somewhere on Zimbabwe today, and hope springs eternal once more.

An MDC meeting will be disrupted by ‘youths’ with their grandchildren in tow today, the participants marked for further attention. Their names will be passed around, those brave enough to meet in aid of a party that gives them no farms nor arms of defence and stupid enough to believe in a rule of law.

Before the election season is out, a few of them will be beaten up, some raped, more driven away from homes and their famines consigned to a fearful existence. Their tormentors will brag about the intelligence of the Dear Leader and extol his witticisms as if they are on a first name basis with him, sure in the knowledge that the police will do nothing even if the victims complain.

I should despair at the breakdown of law and order, and lament the politicisation of our very way of life into fear and cyclical torture episodes but yet I do not: for somewhere in Zimbabwe a child was born today.

The rain falls to wash away the chaff, the leaves grow and trees spring to life, and a country is renewed by the birth of a new generation, endowed with the knowledge of how not to mess up a country.

A child was born in Zimbabwe today, and I refuse to accept that this generation will leave this mess for her generation to muck.

Tino Chinyoka is a former student leader who is now a lawyer based in the United States. He is a regular columnist for Nehanda Radio.com