normblog

Wolf at the door

That didn't take long - or much:

"There are no objections of EU countries" to Wolfowitz, Belgian Development Aid minister Armand De Decker told The Associated Press after the meeting.
.....
[A]fter hearing him speak, European Commissioner Olli Rehn said he "was satisfied with everything he heard from Mr Wolfowitz concerning free trade and also on poverty reduction and development policy," a Commission spokeswoman told a news conference.

A nation goes to the polls

As Zimbabweans queue to vote, here's an interesting item from Stephanie Nolen in the Globe and Mail:

[T]his electoral process will be more transparent than in recent years, because of both intended and inadvertent government reforms. As a result, there is suddenly discussion here of different possible outcomes, rather than the guaranteed ZANU-PF victory previously predicted.

"Suddenly people are interested in the election," said Noel Kututwa of the Southern Africa Human Rights Trust, the deputy director of the civil society election observers.

"There was voter apathy caused by resignation. People thought it was already in the bag. But when the MDC said it would contest the election [after initially planning a boycott] and there was less threat of violence, more tolerance - that changed the apathy."

There are other changes: Ballots will be dropped into translucent boxes, so it is clear the box did not start half-full of ZANU-PF ballots. The MDC has been allowed to campaign in previous no-go areas and air its platform on television.

The debate here is about whether the government eased up because it was so confident that, through pre-arranged rigging, it had the election sewn up, or because of pressure within the ruling party to restore some badly eroded legitimacy to the government.

"There must be an intrinsic belief in ZANU-PF that even if the playing field is level, they can still win," said Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network. But he said that whether they meant it or not, the government has produced a much more fair environment.

"If you open the door a little bit" - he mimed a door being slowly creaked open - "you can't close it."

All of this leaves Zimbabweans, for the first time in a long time, contemplating a number of different scenarios. Were the election totally fair, the MDC would likely take the parliament; one Western diplomat said it would be "a tidal wave."

In the current environment, that seems unlikely, but they could still win. Many predict this would provoke a bloody response from the government as it refuses to relinquish power.

And see these two Sokwanele updates.

MacShopping

Linda Grant has been shopping - again. She has some observations on globalized capitalism and on shopping in Britain and America:

We think we live in the time of corporate globalisation. We think we are MacShopped, but we are not. The Gap Corporation Inc, which we believe to be a global brand, has stores in only three other countries outside the US: Britain, Canada and Japan. One of its other brands, Banana Republic, extends only across the border to Canada...

In Britain we don't know the first thing about American retail. Few of their chains have successfully crossed the Atlantic and fewer still have even tried. Both sales staff and shoppers would have to unlearn their life's experience. You have to be educated in how to shop in America, it's no use just getting off the plane for the great two-for-one sale, $2 to the pound. The function of American retail is to get you to part with your money, and this is not a passive exercise on the part of the retailers. They have ways of making you spend.

Linda gives examples. Have a look and see. I must say I was somewhat concerned to note WotN reading this article over breakfast. Particularly in view of this:

Unless you have to have it now, you can get it for 70% off if you wait till next month.

And this:

I come home from America with three coats, a skirt, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of black pants, seven tops, a pair of shoes, two handbags, gloves, scarves and an addiction to walk-in Vietnamese manicure salons, unfulfillable in London.

Well, I am not in danger on this score... I'm sure.

For Zimbabwe

As Zimbabwe prepares to vote tomorrow, and Mugabe warns that an opposition victory 'will not be tolerated', please read this personal testimony, an email from inside Zimbabwe two days ago, about the fight of the people of that country for their future:

We go to the polls here in Zimbabwe in three days time! Those of us who are deeply involved with the MDC are totally exhausted, many are hoarse from speaking at meetings two and three times a day for weeks, many are both physically and mentally exhausted by the effort they have put into the campaign.

I have often pointed out to any who will listen, that the MDC is a Party of the Poor. If you had visited a Zanu rally you would have been astonished at the variety of vehicles in the vicinity - army, police, CIO, Mercedes, BMW, every form of 4x4 and luxury twin cab you can name and a few you probably have never seen. By contrast at the MDC rally on Saturday, with 35,000 people crammed into a stadium that holds 15,000, there were a handful of battered pick-ups and the now familiar armored twin cab that carries the President.

On Wednesday evening we will deploy our own army to their posts. An army of peasant farmers, widows, grandmothers and low-income workers. This army - numbering 35,000 - have all volunteered to have their names printed in the newspaper for all to see, along with their ID numbers and physical addresses, and will go out to witness and supervise the elections at 8,300 polling stations.

They will have to walk to their stations in most cases; many will sleep at the stations they are looking after because they live too far away. Only a handful will have their own transport and the MDC simply cannot move them to their stations because they themselves have no "wheels".

They will vary from illiterate people who cannot write their names to teachers and headmasters who have defied their government employers to help. They will carry small packs - a candle, a box of matches, some toilet paper, 2 kilograms of maize meal and some form of "relish" to go with it. Perhaps some water in a plastic bottle.

They will have to man their stations for up to 24 hours straight - no sleep as people will vote all day and in some cases well into the night. They run the risk of physical violence and intimidation and offers of money to abandon their posts or allow the operation of the station to be subverted while they are there.

After the election they have been threatened with the loss of their jobs, transfers to hostile places and the denial of food and medicine for their families. In Masvingo the Head of the Armed forces said this past week that the "bushes would become soldiers and MDC supporters beheaded".

At their polling stations they will enter a totally hostile environment. There will be police present, probably youth militia, peasant farmers will be faced with their traditional leaders all of whom are paid to work for the State and Zanu PF. All the officials in the polling station will be hostile - probably drawn from the army or the CIO. Even the staff of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will be vetted by Zanu PF and will be proven Zanu supporters and cadres.

And into this situation will march our rag tag army of polling agents - some barefoot or in sandals made out of old tyres, wearing their best clothes because this is an honor. They will be armed with two pens, some stationery and their commitment to democratic principles and a free and fair environment for our people to vote in. They will only be allowed one at a time into the polling station itself and there they will watch the whole voting process. They will be alert for any actions that may result in the returns for that station being subverted in some way.

They will have had a day's training from the MDC and a couple of hours with the ZEC. They are the only way we can stop the kind of activity that we saw and experienced in 2000 and 2002 and which resulted in the election being stolen from the democrats. For that is what we are - we are the only democrats in this race - for the others, this is not a test of public opinion, it is just a front for electoral fraud on a massive scale.

What astonishes me and gives me hope for Zimbabwe and for Africa is that the commitment to real democracy at this level of our society is so strong and alive. These may be the poor, but we have found that they not only fully understand the value of democracy but also want it to work for them. Ask any group of poor Zimbabweans if they are "ready". You do not have to explain, they know you are asking "are you ready to vote?" and the answer without exception is yes!

So here you have an army of the poor, going once again into battle for their future, the future of their children and their country. A battle that they have fought twice before and been beaten - not by fair means but by foul. An army that has not given up despite propaganda, threats, hunger and worse. Hundreds of thousands tortured, hundreds beaten or even killed. They go against armed forces numbering 120,000, armed with AK 47s and strutting with pride and arrogance. They go against a State-controlled system that has been designed and built to frustrate their desires and will.

They are in small groups - three per station, in lonely places, many kilometers from the nearest town. They are armed only with their principles and pens. They cannot call on reinforcements if they get into trouble and we may not even get news of them for hours after any incidents. But these are the people who are holding the line for democracy in Africa and I am so proud to be one of them.

Eddie Cross

Bulawayo, 28th March 2005

Name-dropping

By a rare piece of good fortune for a mere blogger, I have come into possession of an original document, containing information that hasn't previously been available to the general public. You will see that, amongst other interesting materials, this document reveals some startling facts about Theodor W. Adorno, well-known theoretician of Frankfurt School Marxism. I reproduce it here in full:

Name-dropping

Isadora Duncan?
No, a door's a door.
Theodor Adorno
Lying on the floor.

Isabel Allende?
No, a bell's a bell.
Theodor Adorno
Lying where he fell.

Theodor a door? No,
Theodor no door.
Theodor, we all know,
He opposed the war.

It has been vouchsafed to me by others with an expertise in the interpretation of Frankfurt School esoterica that 'the war' in the final line refers to the Iraq war. Readers will see, therefore, that this constitutes documentary proof that Theodor Adorno was with those who marched on February 15 2003. Some may quibble that he was by then already long dead. But in a companion document to the one above, Jamie Daniel explains how that difficulty is to be got round. It hinges on the concept of empathy:

No one was better than Adorno at dissecting the psychic and emotional brutality of capitalism's regimes of commodification and the increasing pressure it exerts on individuals to define themselves through consumption. This, he argued, led to the compulsion to shut off one's capacity for empathy, whether with working people whose labor produces commodities (how could we shop at Wal-Mart otherwise?) or those whose homes, lives and futures are being sacrificed in the name of a market-friendly abstraction called "Iraqi freedom."

Jamie Daniel perhaps knows something that others don't: like that nobody capable of empathy could have supported a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein; or that nobody critical of capitalism's brutalities could be moved by other kinds of brutalities. Call claims such as this 'zhnarguments'. Zhnarguments have something in common with arguments, except that they're never any good. (Hat tip for the Daniel link: TH.)

On dogs

On the whole pit bulls are, as a breed, singularly lacking in that ironic sensibility cultivated in other dog breeds that would allow them to appreciate the almost absurdist, neo-Beckettian and Kafkaesque gallows type humor inherent in such a situation.

For that situation, and much more on dog psychology, visit Akaky's place.

Bach and Schubert shock

As normblog readers all know, I don't have much time for polls. But I do pander to your insatiable desire for them, and so I thought I would share with you Classic FM's 'snapshot of the UK's classical music taste'. Following the link will take you to their top 300 pieces of classical music. You will also discover that J.S. Bach comes only fourth on the composers list, which is a terrible mistake by the voters, because, well, it's a mistake... and also because, as everyone knows, Schubert is fourth.

Leftists not voting Labour

The Guardian today has a crop of letters from people who aren't going to be voting Labour. That, of course, is their democratic right. One of them is Hilary Wainwright, who expresses herself unpersuaded by her 'former comrade in the Young Liberals', Peter Hain. Hilary, as it happens, is a former comrade (and old friend) of mine - from one or two organizations rather to the left of the Young Liberals. But she's not keen on anti-war voters voting Labour, and she wants Labour MPs who voted for the war to 'admit they were wrong and join the call for the troops to come home'. Leaving aside the likely effect of this course of action on the future of Iraq itself, it's an index of how far the anti-war standpoint of a section of the British left has unbalanced them on most other things - as if a defeat, or severe reverse, for Labour would benefit working people in this country.

Zimbabwe's hopes

> [W]e are tired and [absolutely] fed up of living like this. When we vote on Thursday it will be for food, clean water, affordable schools for our children, hospitals which have drugs and leaders who will respect us and our universal rights of speech, movement and association. I have a picture in my head of a man on a horse trailing a yellow banner in the middle of this weeks revolution in Kyrgyzstan. That image from the other side of the world in a country whose name I cannot even pronounce, gives me hope.

> One of Zimbabwe's most outspoken church leaders Sunday called for a peaceful uprising against President Robert Mugabe's autocratic rule, days before a parliamentary election that rights groups say is tainted by years of violence and intimidation.

> It is hard to have hope when you are surrounded by suffering. Viva Pius! Thank you for giving the people a voice. Thank you.

> At this point I noticed there were some members of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission watching the commotion from just a few meters away. I picked them out by the insignia they were wearing. It struck me that they should be doing something about this unwarranted attack upon innocent members of the public who gathered lawfully and peacefully to hear the opposition leaders.

> The Zimbabwe Vigil will hold an all night vigil outside the Zimbabwean Embassy on The Strand, London on Wednesday March 30, starting at 8pm.
.....
On Thursday March 31 from 5am to 5pm the Vigil will be holding a "Mock Ballot" outside the Zimbabwean Embassy. These times have been selected as they coincide with [the] period of polling in Zimbabwe.

"We will have mock transparent ballot boxes, ballot papers and polling officers. We will be asking Zimbabweans to come and symbolically cast their votes throughout the day," said the spokesman. "On Friday April 1 we will attempt to give the results to officials at the Zimbabwean Embassy as a way of expressing our voice, as we have no other avenue to do so."

The Mock Ballot has been planned to demonstrate the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of exiled Zimbabweans in the UK.

> Barney Mthombothi, Financial Mail, South Africa, March 25: "Zimbabwe is our albatross. It is our backyard. It is the prism through which we're viewed or judged by the international community. Our support for Mr Mugabe - that's what quiet diplomacy is in a nutshell - has eroded our credibility... The elections are a non-event. They solve nothing. Democracy will have to await the departure of Mr Mugabe and his friends..."

> It started with a whisper, a mother besotted with grief at losing her son, people said afterwards. As she muttered the single word "hungry", the crowd around her shifted uneasily and looked scared. Nobody wanted a night in a Zimbabwean jail.

On a platform in front of them, their great leader Robert Mugabe was denouncing Tony Blair for "spending sleepless nights plotting how he can remove the Zimbabwe government" and telling them to "bury Blair, vote Zanu-PF". But then another woman, shaded from the sun by a large coloured umbrella, repeated the word: "Hungry."

The people of Gwanda had been gathered to hear the president tell them why his party, which has been in power throughout Zimbabwe's 25 years of independence, should be voted in for another term. Instead, they thought about the fact that the Lutheran priests who used to bring them food had been driven out by the government and a low chant of "hungry, hungry, hungry" reverberated through the crowd.

Agitated secret service men from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) started to take names. The 81-year-old president, perspiring behind his large, plastic-rimmed glasses, was hustled away. But the damage was done.

The story of the Gwanda rally may prove apocryphal but by the end of last week it was being recounted in villages and bars across the country. From Matabeleland to Manicaland, the refrain of "hungry" seemed to be on everyone's lips. Along rutted tracks winding between failed maize crops, one person after another held up open-fingered palms and said "chinja" or change, the slogan of the opposition.

Does blogging damage the brain?

Quite possibly:

Instead of evacuating after the tremor, we, bloggers staying in high rise apartments, sit here n blog about it, oblivious to the risk should the building topple over or collapse. I, for one, was furiously typing away as the floor swayed under me...

(Via Jeff Jarvis.) My friend Gareth seems not to have blogged - except afterwards.