Editor's Desk: Bed-hopping Tsvangirai soiling his own image

Obituaries
When we were schoolchildren many years ago, one of our teachers came for a lesson with his zipper undone.The boys looked down in shame while the girls giggled in mischief.

But one of the more precocious boys wrote something on a piece of paper and threw it at the teacher. The teacher read it and walked out of the classroom; he returned a few minutes later with all his dignity restored.

 

At break we mobbed the boy who had thrown the little paper at the teacher asking him what he had written. He said he had written only three letters of the alphabet “XYZ” which meant, “close your zip”.

Can someone write the same three letters and please throw them at Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai? In the wake of his November marriage, or whatever it was, no one knows what he will do next. Sing Zuma-style Mtshina Wami, Mtshina Wami (Bring my machine gun) or like Silvio Berlusconi, host bunga-bunga parties?

President Jacob Zuma is a former guerrilla who was, we guess, good with his Kalashnikov but as he inched towards the presidency the world got to know his AK47 was hardly the only machinegun he was an expert at.

November madness! — What is wrong with the month of November? People say there shouldn’t be any celebrations in November; no marriages, no weddings, no parties! No one, until last week, had explained to me why this was so.

 

A friend told me that November, in Shona called Mbudzi or Month of the Goat is considered sacred in Shona culture because it is the month that marks the beginning of the rainy season and the beginning of the Shona calendar.

 

It is the month when the cropping season begins and cattle regain their weight because of the new grass after the long dry season. It is also the month when nanny-goats give birth, hence the name. People therefore shelved all ceremonies to concentrate on planting and looking after the goats’ kids. Quite fascinating!

It is because of this that whatever Tsvangirai did is deemed taboo. But in the new circumstances marked by urbanisation can we still be talking about goats? The real taboo that Tsvangirai committed was that he made yet another woman pregnant.

Why is this taboo? How much bed-hopping can a man continue to do in this age of HIV and Aids? The fight against Aids needs role models. As leader of one of the biggest parties in the country, Tsvangirai is well-placed to play that role. But Locardia is not the only woman in the recent past to confirm that the premier does it without a condom, taking a shower perhaps, after the act! Can some cartoonist begin to put a small shower on his head as controversial South African cartoonist Zapiro does with Zuma?

Tsvangirai is loved in this country and respected the world-over for the change he has brought to this country but it will be these little indiscretions that will begin to eat away his armour.

November madness! November was also the month that the onslaught on the freedom of the press reached new heights. Newsrooms were invaded by the police and journalists taken away and locked up.  Forget about the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which had hitherto been used as the weapon of choice to suppress the media.

 

There is a more obnoxious piece of legislation called “criminal defamation”. With this tool any journalist who publishes the truth about how the powerful are involved in acts that break the law and disadvantage the poor is picked up by the police and locked up. Instead of seeking damages through the civil process, the powerful want to first punish the scribes. What is interesting is that police are fully complicit in this. Instead of advising the offended official of the proper channels to follow, they pander to his whim.

The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is a constitutionally set up body to deal with complaints on published articles considered defamatory by individuals. It then arbitrates and where damages are due the offending newspaper has to pay. Many journalists and media organisations are not against this aspect of the ZMC; it is its licensing role that they loathe.

There is also the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ). It was set up to allow journalists and their organisations to self-regulate. One of its key functions is to arbitrate between members of the public who feel aggrieved by what the media publishes and the offending publications.

But many powerful individuals in politics and business choose to ignore these and instead seek to punish journalists by having them locked up. Incidentally, individuals who continue to use this legislation are linked to the former ruling party Zanu PF.

What we haven’t heard is an outcry from the other two parties in the inclusive government against this patently unconstitutional legislation and its continued abuse.

The awarding last week of free-to-air radio licences to Zimpapers and AB Communications shows how low Tafataona Mahoso and his Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) can sink. Not only is the body unconstitutional, its also clearly partisan.

 

Its chairman, Mahoso, has never hidden his political affiliation. He is Zanu PF through and through. For him to scandalously award the licences to organisations so blatantly affiliated to Zanu PF is not only shameful but flies in the face of what the Global Political Agreement (GPA) sought to do. One of the clauses in the GPA advocates for the opening of the airwaves so independent players can also play a part. BAZ has not done this; instead it has tightened Zanu PF’s grip on the dissemination of information.

The MDCs must reject this and ensure the BAZ is properly constituted and applications for radio licences are re-invited. If need be the assessment of the applications must be done by a body chosen by the new BAZ which would be non-partisan. No organisation that is affiliated to any political party should attain a radio licence; radio stations should never be used for propaganda purposes.

BY NEVANJI MADANHIRE