Exiled writer Chenjerai Hove responds to Morgan Tsvangirai’s recent call for Zimbabweans abroad to return home with a call of his own: dismantle the climate of fear that prevails in Zimbabwe first:
Zimbabweans are generally a peace-loving people to the point of sometimes being desolately apathetic. One unarmed man in a small powerful position can torment dozens of Zimbabweans and subdue them to silence. I remember a bus driver tormenting and threatening to throw me and another man out of the bus for protesting about his bad driving and the bribe he had given to a police officer manning a roadblock to be allowed to drive a bus with worn-out tyres.
None of the passengers supported our protest. They unanimously agreed to have us thrown out of the bus without a refund of our fare money. We were allowed to continue our trip only on condition of silent humiliation (“you don’t own a bus, so you can’t control a bus”).
But shortly afterwards, a front tyre burst and we ended up in a wheat field, lucky enough to have missed a huge tree on the roadside. It was only when their lives had been seriously threatened that the other passengers realised their folly in supporting the driver.
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Photo courtesy My little camera 2005
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