A VERY PERTINENT PETITION
I have just spent an hour of my extremely limited time responding to an Avaaz call per email to get my friends to join me in signing a petition to help save Zimbabwe.
The Avaaz.com email includes a mock-up of a poster advertisement the organization will flight in the press, particularly in South Africa. It is very pertinent. I can't reproduce it here but it states: "Mugabe Saved Zimbabwe from Colonialism - Now Help us to Save Zimbabwe from Him".
I am not sure that petitions will have any effect, but one can only hope. Meanwhile, I must get on with my memoirs of a lifetime in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, sadly interrupted by the serious illness of my best friend, my husband. I have resolved, for now, to concentrate entirely on the work and close my eyes to any further petitions, and even to limit my news-watching (very hard to do) until the work is done.
One final hope, when I look around again, Mugabe will be gone and the man's madness that has almost destroyed my former home will have gone with him, together with his abominable friends and supporters.
There is still hope for the more distant future of Zimbabwe. Here is how I see it:
Genocide is the wrong word for what is happening in Zimbabwe. Massacre and scorched earth would be better words to describe the actions of Mugabe's storm troopers.
A Genocide is a lethal attack by one ethnic group upon another. The MDC is made up of representatives from every every racial or tribal group of its citizens. Mugabe is hell bent to rid himself of every Zimbabwean who no longer admires him or recognises him as a legitimate President.
I was in at the founding of the MDC; was present when Morgan Tsvangirai was elected, unopposed as the party's leader. The split in the party's ranks was unfortunate but the two sides are now reconciled.
That is the hope for the future: never before has such unity among the people been
so bravely and so determinedly pursued. The old racial and tribal divisions
have been forgotten and that is what the liberation struggle aspired to.
This last step of a united people, ruled by democrats awaits the departure
of Mugabe....
... and the rest is repetition. So far, endless repetition.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell
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