A LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

Saturday 21th April 2007

Dear Friends.

Londoners have a saying, 'You have to laugh.' It refers to situations that could be described as tragi-comic, where laughter is the only recourse which will save you from downright heartbreak and tragedy. In other words, you have to laugh or you will weep.

Zimbabwe is like that. Sometimes, when you listen to the ministers and top cops defending the indefensible, you simply don't know whether to laugh or cry. Is this man serious you ask yourself. Can he really mean what he's saying or is he so brain-dead that he no longer knows the difference between sense and nonsense.

Last week it was Kemba Mohadi in an interview with SW Radio Africa that was pure slapstick. Tears of mirth at the utter stupidity of the man as he denies the sickening brutality going on all over the country. He doesn't even make excuses; he simply denies the evidence! An estimated six hundred people beaten and bruised, two murders and parrot-like the Minister repeats ' Not true, not true.' You have to laugh!

This week it's the Department of Statistics trying to find ways of NOT telling us the true rate of inflation in the country. At first, we were told that there would be a delay while 'the technical glitches were ironed out'. We all know what that means; it's called 'massaging the figures' After the rate for February shot up to over 1730%, it was patently obvious that the government simply hadn't a clue what to do about it. There was no way they could disguise the fact that the country was in hyper-inflation with the rate probably nearer 2.500%. But you know what? It doesn't really matter whether they tell us or not. Zimbabweans don't need statistics to explain their desperate poverty as they struggle to put even one meal a day on the table. It's not statistics the people need, it's solutions.

Today I read the latest excuse from the Dept of Statistics is that their computers have a virus! And we all know what the virus is called, don't we? It's the Zanu PF virus and there is no known cure for this deadly condition except total eradication in free and fair elections. This virus clearly affects the whole body politic but particularly the brain function where powers of reason and logical thought are seriously impaired, if not destroyed forever. How else could otherwise normal human beings talk such blatant nonsense?

Look back over the last seven years and remember some of the excuses these brain dead officials have come up with; the failure of Zesa to deliver electricity was caused by a naughty monkey tampering with the transformer, it was obviously an imperialist primate imported from Blair's Britain; the food shortages that were just not going to happen because the then Agriculture Minister Made had flown over the country and seen for himself the flourishing harvest - of grass! Read the Herald or listen to ZBC and you will find dozens of similar examples of Zanu PF idiocy. You have to laugh!

It all reminds me of my favourite homework story. The village boy who says he was crossing the flooded river on his way to school when a crocodile leapt from the raging waters and devoured his homework. Result: the whole class and the teacher collapse in side-splitting mirth. But, and here's the rub, the boy still gets punished - and he still has to do his homework. So these brain dead Zanies can invent as many nonsensical excuses as they like, no one believes them. And in the end they will have to pay for their criminal stupidity... What goes around comes around!

This is my last Letter from the Diaspora. The Litany Bird will return to her nest next week; let's hope she finds it as she left it.Keep smiling through the tears, Zimbabwe. We shall overcome.

Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH