- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- Almost since the beginning of Zimbabwe's land seizures
in late February 2000, we have been bombarded with propaganda jingles on
the state run radio and television. I don't just mean the odd jingle here
and there, I mean total bombardment, every half hour, day and night, telling
us that now the land has been taken away from white Zimbabweans, life is
just wonderful. The irony is that throughout the four years of jingles
about land and prosperity we were hungry. We were standing in food queues,
waiting for hours for just one loaf of bread and traipsing from one shop
to the next desperately searching for a kg of sugar or a bag of maize meal.
-
- About a month ago the airwaves went blissfully quiet
making us realise for the first time the meaning of that old saying :"silence
is golden." This week a new propaganda jingle started up again and
every half hour, day and night, it is being played on state owned TV and
radio. This time the new jingle is not about land but about electricity.
According to the jingle it doesn't matter where you are, be it a castle
or a cave, in a city or under a tree in the middle of nowhere, electricity
is going to be available for all Zimbabweans.
-
- The irony of this jingle is that in the same week as
it was launched, the electricity supplier ZESA announced that due to chronic
power shortages, load shedding was being introduced across the country.
Even more ironic is the fact that ZESA can afford to advertise over 50
times a day on TV and radio and yet it has an outstanding debt of US$ 51
million to electricity suppliers in South Africa, the DR Congo and Mocambique.
So while we sit in the dark with candles waiting for the power to come
back on and women stream out of the bush with firewood on their heads because
they can't afford electricity, the jingles go on and on and on.
-
- Zesa do not often talk about the massive amounts of money
they owe to our neighbours but say that power cuts are due to "regional
imbalances." Perhaps I've gone mad but I must admit to wondering if
there isn't, at long last, a shift in our neighbours policies towards Zimbabwe.
This week, after a lot of stormy debating, the AU almost got to talk about
electoral and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Even though the report
was already 2 years out of date and even though it never actually got publicly
debated by the AU, it seemed for a brief moment that someone turned the
accountability lights on in the AU.
-
- There is a distinctly different tune beginning to emerge.
It is a tune which holds promise and gives hope, unlike the ZESA jingle
which has been on the radio 4 times since I began writing this letter,
typing faster and faster, praying that the power wouldn't go off in the
middle. Until next week I leave with you the closing line of the ZESA
jingle which I am sure doesn't mean to, but has a strangely appropriate
message for the Zimbabwean crisis: "Power to the people"!
-
- With love, cathy.
-
- Copyright cathy buckle 10th July 2004.
- http://africantears.netfirms.com
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