Outside Looking In

A letter from the Diaspora

Good friday 6th April 2007
Dear Friends.

I checked 'diaspora' in the dictionary and it's defined as ' A dispersion, as of people originally belonging to one nation.' Zimbabweans have certainly spread all over the world. Between three and four million people, black brown and white have left the motherland and are scattered through Africa, Europe and North America. That fact more than any other tells you there must be something seriously wrong at home.

Like so many others I am here in the United Kingdom. I have been here just over two years now, watching events at home and wondering if the suffering for the Zimbabwean people will ever end. Sometimes I think it's almost worse to watch from the outside knowing that there seems to be absolutely nothing one can do except weep for Zimbabwe and respond as best one can to the desperate requests for pounds.

The news this week that fourteen SADCC states had refused to condemn Mugabe's brutality against his own people was not unexpected but it was very depressing. Placed alongside the horrific pictures of Zimbabweans beaten and tortured in police cells it highlighted the shocking hypocrisy of the African leaders. When he got home from the SADCC meeting Mugabe boasted that he had not received condemnation from one single country. He added, ' Of course, he (Tsvangirai) was bashed. He deserved it. I told the police 'beat him a lot' He and his MDC must stop their terrorist activities.' That statement sounds even more shocking when we hear it from thousands of miles away; this is the President of the country we call home.

But this time in exile need not be completely wasted. We can learn something from the experience. The one advantage we have of living in a country with a (relatively) free press is that we can see how the rest of the world covers 'our'story. Possibly because there has never been a completely free press in Zimbabwe, it is sometimes difficult for us to understand the power of the media in a democratic society. We need to do whatever it takes to keep Zimbabwe in the news; whether it's the activism demonstrated by the Zim Vigil or the Free Zim youths or something less active, we can all keep the issue alive.

Personally, I write letters to newspapers, MPs, radio and TV editors and anyone else I can think of to air the Zim question. I also keep newspaper cuttings, records of Zimbabwe's human rights abuses carried in newspapers all over the world. There are names of victims and perpetrators and sometimes even the precise locations where the abuses occurred. One day my overflowing cuttings box may provide just a part of the evidence to bring the wrong doers to justice. You know what they say, 'What goes around comes around'! Last week the media here was full of pictures of two once bitter enemies Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting peaceably together at a news conference. Paisley, of course, is the man who said he would never, never, never sit down with the IRA - remember Ian Smith said that Africans would never never never rule in Zimbabwe! You'll remember too that Mugabe says he'll never, never, never sit down with Tsvangirai. It seems unlikely that Thabo Mbeki is the man to persuade Mugabe otherwise. Since Mugabe got home from the SADCC meeting he has unleashed an orgy of violence against the people – and Mbeki hasn't said a word.

But miracles do happen, look at Northern Ireland! Perhaps there's hope that even Robert Mugabe will one day have to accept the inevitable. Sure, he seems all-powerful at the moment. He can beat the hell out of his opponents and tell the world they deserved it because they are 'terrorists, he can fiddle around with the economy and blame the collapse on sanctions, he can rig the elections, he can con other African leaders into supporting him because of his 'liberation credentials' but there's one thing not even Robert Mugabe can do. He cannot make the people love him again. And Robert Mugabe is a man who likes to be liked. He may deny there is crisis in Zimbabwe but the fact that the SADCC conference took place at all is evidence that Mugabe's powers of persuasion are fading. His once loyal African brothers have admitted, if only to themselves, that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe can't seem to see that, he prefers to live in the past when everyone loved him . 'I have 83 year of struggle, experience and resilience. I cannot be pushed over,' he boasts. To me that sounds like delusions of grandeur; perhaps Morgan Tsvangirai is right when he says; the man needs a psychiatrist!

More next week.

Ndini shamwari yenyu. PH.