Posts Tagged ‘Zimbabwe’

Yesterday was 16 December 2009. In South Africa, it’s the Day of Reconciliation. President of the Republic of South Africa Jacob Zuma spoke, in Tshwane, about reconciliation. The President spoke at length about the military, about veterans and about serving members of the South African National Defence Force. Reconciliation.
Seven days earlier, 10 December, was Human [...]

Regret is in the air this week. You might say, regret is the name of the game and, even more, the game of the name. From Geneva to the Gushungo Dairy Estate, in Zimbabwe, to Guinea, it’s been a week of declarations of regret.
On Monday, in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, thousands gathered in peaceful, [...]

Maids fill the rooms and haunt the stories in Petinah Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly, a brilliant and evocative narration of living and dying in Zimbabwe.
“The Maid from Lalapanzi” tells the heartbreaking story of SisiBlandina, a revolutionary, tragic, ordinary woman. Read the story and you’ll see. The next story, “Aunt Juliana’s Indian”, focuses on the [...]

“A mother is a mother for as long as she lives.”
Around the world, mothers gather in parks, gardens, public open spaces. As they sit and watch and talk, they gather and create comfort, wisdom, knowledge, strength, pleasure, laughter, sighs, touch, love, safety. They create spaces where truth can be spoken and heard. This is not [...]

Maps and tallies tell stories. They tell something about what’s going on, who’s in, who’s out, who’s where. They reveal more about the mapmaker and the list maker, the cartographer and the accountant.
Over the weekend, police in three major provinces of South Africa were accused of `fiddling’ with the statistics to make it look as [...]

The borders are everywhere, especially for women. Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldua taught that lesson, the borders are not only geographically everywhere, but they are also everywhere in our bodies, in our selves. Every act of violence is another border establishment. Every act of border is another act of violence. Let’s talk about fear, violence, [...]

I used to think that all prisoners are political prisoners because they’re `guests of the State’, housed and held in total institutions in which the very least the State was obliged to do was acknowledge the prisoners’ existence and maybe keep them alive. Given the convergent news of this past week, I have had to [...]

Now is the time to question the terms on which we organise our struggles and wage our battles.
Now is the time to claim our citizenship. 
Now is the time to do the work that ensures our lasting freedom.
In this time of “transition” in Zimbabwe, we need to be asking the hard questions of ourselves and each other.  [...]

To play the game you will need: 

Dice
Minimum of two players
Tiddleywink for each player.
Roll 6 on the dice to start.
Move along the game board and follow the instructions
Try to avoid finishing

Inspired by the game “Alternatives to Globalisation” designed by RW.

A rusted wire fence divides the old Zimbabwe from the new.
On the one side [...]

Birtukan Mideksa is currently being held in Kaliti Prison, in Ethiopia. Remember her name, Birtukan Midekas, and remember Kaliti Prison. There will be a test on prison geography and another on prisoners, with special attention to women prisoners. Women prisoners aren’t only in prison, however. Consider Mitmita. She’s an Ethiopian human rights activist. Mitmita is [...]