The headline reads: “Mugabe’s wife raids bank vaults”. Remember Brecht’s poem about the worker who reads history, which ask, “Young Alexander conquered India. He alone?” She alone?
Grace goes shopping, Bob goes for `reflection.’ What does he see when he looks in the mirror? Who does he see? Does he see the starving, the dying, the tortured? Does he see Jestina Mukoko? Reporters Sans Frontieres do. They wrote yesterday to “Tomaz Salamao, the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), urging his regional organisation to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe’s government to release journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko as soon as possible. As soon as possible is always too late. Ask the citizens and residents of Gaza. Ask the citizens and residents of Zimbabwe.
The Times today posted a Civicus video made largely in Zimbabwe over the Christmas holiday. It’s called `Inside Zimbabwe’. Not a single woman is interviewed. They must have all been in Malaysia shopping. But it does have some great lines: “South Africa is acting like a condom to Robert Mugabe.”
Who built the bank vaults? Not Grace, not Bob, not the South African government nor the South African corporations, not SADC. Cooks, domestic workers, farmworkers, and others. As soon as possible is always too late.
(Photo Credit: Civicus)
About Dan Moshenberg