Congratulations Zimbabwe

The news from Africa this morning is apparently good news. Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF has been heavily defeated in the election and the new president will likely be Morgan Tsvangirai, of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In several countries, mock elections were staged outside Zimbabwean embassies, since one of the government's edicts was that people in the diaspora were not allowed to cast votes. The MDC and other opposition parties worked hard for a victory over dictator Mugabe, under repressive conditions and a climate of both state and opposition violence for months leading up to the elections. Tsvangirai himself was beat up by the police last fall, which predictably just served to inflate his determination. There's a short interview with him on the Guardian site, worth taking a look at just to get an idea of who he is (at least compared to Mugabe, who certainly does not have files on human rights violations scattered around his office).

After what happened in Kenya earlier this year, and given conditions in Zimbabwe itself, the concern about the country collapsing into post-electoral violence is substantial, especially if Mugabe declares himself the winner. The guy's campaign slogan was Get Behind the Fist, which succinctly characterizes his own political evolution over the past 30 years. i remember when the Zanu-Zapu coalition put Mugabe in power in 1980, in the first elections following independence from Britain, and the future of the country looked pretty good then. When i was there in 1989, Zimbabwe was full of refugees from apartheid South Africa, and i spoke with groups of them in Harare and elsewhere who all asserted they wanted their future to be free, as the Zimbabweans' was. The forests on the border with Mozambique were in flames, and SWAPO was still fighting to the east. Yeah, at that time, Zimbabwe was relatively safe and peaceful. Yet, like so many of the post-independence rulers in sub-saharan Africa, Mugabe became increasingly invested in his own omnipotency, driving the country's economy and political system into the ground. So today, there are Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa in a kind of reverse twist of history.

Well, let's hope for the best following this elections and that Tsvangirai will succeed in bringing some tranquility by initiating programs and projects that reverse the country's tragic decline. Zimbabwe is a stunningly beautiful country, the people are gracious and warm, and the music is outstanding. Leaving off here with a video clip from one of my favorite Zimbabwean musicians, Leonard Dembo. who sadly died of AIDS earlier this decade. i had the opportunity to see him play with Jonah Moyo at a football field outside some little town near the Great Zimbabwe ruins, and it was a spirited night, to say the least. Zimbabweans drink a sorghum beer that can have the color of a strawberry shake - it's cheap and gets you drunk pretty fast, though not to the point of forgetting how to dance :-) At that time, back in the days of cassettes, both Dembo and Moyo had only recorded in small local studios and tapes were everywhere for about ZW$1-2 each. As Ziggy Marley says, "If you don't have good music, you don't stand a chance." So here's to the future of Zimbabwe, where the music won't let you stand still - hopefully better days ahead.