By Bridgette Malenga
Right in the midst of gloom and doom, something amazing happened. Right in between the Limpopo and the Zambezi. For 36 years, we were deaf, dumb, mute, blind, crippled. Such is the magnitude of the miracle, that millions can speak.
Something happened. Something so crazy happened – Zimbabwe spoke. Up. Spoke up and loud! From every compass point within, and beyond our borders. Something amazing happened here. I can’t say that enough times.
So often, we were reduced to whispering in dark smoke filled bar corners, even then, one always chose their words carefully wary of the friend of a friend sitting at the table.
Then Baba Jukwa started saying some things. We were all afraid for Baba Jukwa, but gosh did we cheer Baba Jukwa on from the sidelines!
Then that something happened. We stopped commenting from anonymous accounts online accounts on online news pages. We actually began tweeting and sharing on Facebook. Then began discussing loudly. At the banks. At parties. At work. And now look! We are posting videos of ourselves, running commentary on shared statuses and posts.
Suddenly that peaceful Zimbabwe, so long silenced by fear of disappearing and no one knowing why or where you are being held, has nothing to lose. So, the best thing was to say, ‘Haaaa, vakomana, haaaa!’
That voice has swept through every single one of us. Those of us, who didn’t know how to change anything before, now are finding a way of engaging. It begins by voicing it. Begins by saying aloud that we are unhappy, hungry, cold, hurt and humiliated. Absolutely humiliated.
Every new policy designed to bleed our souls bit by bit, has finally taken so much of us that there is nothing left to give. There is nothing left to lose for so many Zimbabweans. Famine. Illness. Death. Forced migration. Poverty. Drought.
All avenues of creative industry for the average family, ruthlessly and shamelessly thwarted by a ruling elite that continuously remind us how they died and died and died – 36 years over – for the independence of this country.
Justify photocopying of colonial laws and bans, reproducing them now for the no longer fledgling democracy to experience – because see, they especially died for it.
Are we to be punished that we weren’t born before they took up arms to fight for our future? Boy, are we paying, in tax through and extortion …. ZIMRA, police roadblocks enforced by ZRP, Indigenisation policies that serve a handful, and the gravy train?
Then along came some commentators, who said loudly that what are we but social media activists? I say, remember that before this ‘something’ that happened, we dared not speak what was in our hearts.
We began to say it, aloud, on social media. Then – look! Beitbridge border post shut down, Bindura, Epworth, Ruwa, and Hatcliffe, Cape Town and London stood up and on the 6th July 2016, and our voice of silence was so deafening, we have yet to hear from the powers that be. Being hard of hearing through both age and arrogance, we have to understand that it has to happen again. And again. Pity.
On the 13th and 14th July, Zimbabwe speaks again. Make it your choice to be a part of this, because this is the one way that we, a peaceful, hardworking, cheerful, loving nation, speak. This is Zimbabwe, let those in parliament tremble at the voice of the people!
We have not had much to celebrate in Zimbabwe for 36 years. But, in the middle of doom and gloom, something amazing happened here!
Welcome to a new Zimbabwe… well, almost, more like coming soon.
- Bridgette is a keen observer of the world around her. Often running her opinions and questions off at the most importune times, she if a firm believer that there is always more to learn and better to aim for.
