• MDC Vice-President's Wife dies
• Zimbabwe Marks Difficult Christmas Season
• 5 People, 60 Cattle Die of Anthrax And Rabies
• Shopping for Roots
• Public transport operators allocated 354 400 litres diesel
• Ten people drown countrywide
• SA beauty queen mauled by hippo
• Mobile phone use grows in Africa

Ntombizodwa E Sibanda, wife of MDC Vice-president Gibson Sibanda passed away
at Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo last night.

Sibanda, born on 3 April 1946, was suffering from stomach cancer. She leaves
behind four children.

The MDC President, Morgan Tsvangirai, National Executive and all members of
the party are deeply saddened by the loss of a real hero of the new struggle
for freedom and a better life in Zimbabwe.

Sibanda was part of the struggle for independence in Zimbabwe, and was
detained for a year in 1977 alongside with her husband by the Smith regime.
In the mid-1980s she was again detained for six months on suspicion of
political subversion by Robert Mugabe's government.

Since the formation of the MDC she continued to play a critical role in the
struggle for freedom. She spearheaded the formation and chaired the
legislators' Spouses Association, which supports MDC MPs in their work.

She led from the front and as a result of her active involvement in peaceful
democratic actions was detained on a number of occasions.

We shall miss her guidance and inspiration because she was a born leader, a
true mother, a grown fighter and a brave warrior.

Burial arrangements are currently underway.

Paul Themba Nyathi Secretary for Information and Publicity

In predominantly Christian Zimbabwe, people marked one of their most
difficult Christmas holidays ever on Thursday. But political deadlock and
hard economic times did not totally dampen the Christmas spirit.
Since the introduction of Christianity in this part of the world,
Zimbabweans have celebrated Christmas with much merrymaking. Christmas has
been a time of family reunions, going off on holidays and giving thanks.

At a Harare shopping center this Christmas eve, some of that spirit was
evident among last-minute shoppers.

"For me as a Christian it's a time to remember what our Lord Jesus Christ
did for us on the cross and on the family side, social side, it's family
time," one shopper said.

But another shopper, who declined to give his name, said the harsh economic
climate, including more than 600 per cent inflation, has meant a scaling
down of the celebrations for those who can still afford to celebrate at all.

"It's actually a miserable time for many around me. Christmas time is when
you should have fun, enjoy yourself eat more than you normally do and eat
all the goodies that you normally don't eat," he said. "But I think it's
going to be very hard this year in fact for me it's the most difficult
Christmas in as far as expenses go."

Other shoppers expressed the hope for a better life by next Christmas. "We
think it would be a good Christmas box if our politicians talk to each other
and maybe bring us something positive," said another shopper. "I have never
seen beggars in Harare before but this time around I've seen a lot of people
asking me for money and I think that's the most humiliating thing for any
human being." Another expressed his feelings by saying, "I wish we could go
back to the 80s."

'Back to the 80s' means back to the days of euphoria after Zimbabwe got
independence from Britain. But that euphoria seems far away. The most
Zimbabweans can hope for these days is success in planned talks between the
ruling party and the opposition, which many see as the first step toward a
possible return to normalcy and prosperity, and perhaps a merrier Christmas
next year.

The Herald (Harare)

December 24, 2003
Posted to the web December 24, 2003

George Maponga
Harare

Five people and more than 60 cattle have died of anthrax and rabies in
Masvingo since the outbreak of the diseases in the province last month,
Ministry of Health and Child Welfare officials said yesterday.

Two people and 50 cattle died of anthrax in Gutu, while another person and
10 cattle died of the disease in Chivi since the end of November.

Two people also died of rabies in Chivi.

Masvingo provincial medical director Dr Tapiwa Magure said the outbreak of
anthrax and rabies was a cause for concern. He said the Ministry of Health
and Child Welfare was now working flat out to contain the disease.

He said anthrax was more rampant in Gutu, Chivi, Bikita and some parts of
Masvingo district where mostly cattle had died.

"Two people and about 50 cattle have died of anthrax in Gutu district while
one person and 10 cattle also died of anthrax in Chivi district since the
end of November this year.

"We believe more cattle might have died in other districts like Bikita and
parts of Masvingo but we do not have the exact figures," said Dr Magure.

He said his ministry had stepped up "active case findings" as part of
efforts to curtail the spread of anthrax which might claim more lives during
this festive season when more people will have the propensity to consume
more beef.

Active case findings involve the visit to homesteads by health officials to
identify the disease.

"We are working hand in hand with officials from the Veterinary Services
Department so that they vaccinate more cattle and we have already alerted
them to intensify the vaccination process.

"We are also going to carry out educational campaigns in those areas hardest
hit by anthrax to discourage people from consuming beef from cattle
suspected to have died of the disease," Dr Magure said.

A major crackdown on butcheries, he said, was already on the cards to make
sure that they were not selling infected beef to the public.

Dr Magure called upon people in the province to approach their nearest
clinics whenever attacked by dogs suspected to be carrying rabies.

"The whole country at the moment does not have adequate stocks of rabies
vaccines and we urge people to attend the nearest health centre whenever
they are bitten by stray dogs, most of which might have rabies," he said.

He also implored people to have their dogs vaccinated and be on the lookout
for stray dogs as they might infect them with rabies.

A Masvingo provincial veterinary officer refused to comment on the issue
yesterday and referred all questions to the department's director, Dr Stuart
Hargreaves, who could not be reached.

In October, five people showing signs of anthrax were admitted at Howard
Hospital following an outbreak of the disease in Chiweshe.

Last month, two people died and 20 others were infected by the disease at a
new resettlement area and at two villages in Bindura.

They were suspected to have eaten meat from a cow suspected to have been
infected with anthrax.

One summer day, on a gay chorus discussion list, a conductor programming her
December holiday concert solicited "suggestions for decent Kwanzaa pieces."
She was not the first to have that multicultural inspiration; a colleague
quickly shared a song entitled "Harambee" (A Call to Unity). The irony of
this exchange between two white musicians was that there is nothing in the
history of Kwanzaa, a seven-day African American festival that begins on
December 26, to suggest that the unity in question was intended to encompass
either white people or gay choruses.

Should Americans uncritically celebrate any and every alternative cultural
expression, even when the alternative in question actually repudiates that
inclusiveness? Are everyone's values entitled to be defended except our own?
Can we at least try to understand what we are singing?

I am aware that a critical examination of Kwanzaa by a non-black author is
bound to be met with suspicion by many blacks. A number of white
conservatives have already slammed Kwanzaa for what they call its ancestor
worship, or for its having been invented by an American. Those do seem
rather brazen criticisms, considering that the critics honor their own
forebears and have no objection to Thanksgiving. As someone who has written
a same-sex wedding ceremony for friends, and as a fan of free markets, I
respect the entrepreneurial spirit of those who respond to a hunger for new
celebrations by risking creation. As to whose business it is, that is one of
the questions I wish to explore.

My first impression of Kwanzaa was of an enrichment of holiday celebrations,
an expression of pride in African heritage, and another aspect of diversity
within the broader American community. Upon further examination, the
philosophy and politics behind Kwanzaa are more troubling, precisely because
Kwanzaa represents a turning away from the wider American community and a
repudiation of the free markets that its own success exemplifies.

According to the official Kwanzaa website, the celebration was created "to
reaffirm the communitarian vision and values of African culture and to
contribute to its restoration among African peoples in the Diaspora," and
"as an act of cultural self-determination, as a self-conscious statement of
our own unique cultural truth as an African people." [1] In this one sees
not only the primacy of the collective, but the erasure of the American in
"African American."

Kwanzaa, or "First Fruits," was invented in 1966 by a black American named
Maulana Karenga (formerly Ron Everett, now chair of the Black Studies
Department at California State University, Long Beach), who drew inspiration
from various African harvest festivals. [2] Kwanzaa and its father were true
creatures of the Sixties. The year before Karenga created Kwanzaa he founded
US, or United Slaves, a radical black nationalist organization. US (which
Karenga has also explained as standing for "us black people") followed the
"Path of Blackness," summarized by Karenga thus: "The Seven-fold path of
Blackness is to Think Black, Talk Black, Act Black, Create Black, Buy Black,
Vote Black, and Live Black." [3]

One wonders which of these was being practiced by the two US members who
shot to death two Black Panthers at UCLA in January 1969 in a dispute over
leadership of the university's new Afro-American Studies department. And how
did Karenga's path of blackness lead him to torture two black women in May
1970, for which he was convicted of felonious assault and false imprisonment
the following year? [4] I am not inclined to dismiss a creation as
illegitimate based on the unsavory past of its creator, but looking to
Karenga's past for insights into Kwanzaa's origins seems appropriate given
that Kwanzaa is itself about origins. [5]

One seeming incongruity of Kwanzaa is its timing. December is not a
traditional month for harvest festivals in either the Northern or Southern
Hemisphere. There may be something harvested somewhere in Africa that month,
but in fact the explicit reason for the scheduling of the festival was to
create an alternative to Christmas, not to mark a particular event on the
African calendar. While this may be a jarring note from a Pan-Africanist who
seeks to break with the colonialist past and rediscover African roots, it is
a pragmatic enough consideration. After all, Christmas itself was placed on
the calendar against the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

Karenga in 1977 described Kwanzaa as "an oppositional alternative to the
spookism, mysticism and non-earth based practices which plague us as a
people." [6] The chief spook in question is the same Christian God that
inspired a generation of African Americans to lead a non-violent revolution
for civil rights. But Karenga, as we have seen, is not strong on
non-violence. In fact, the red in the Kwanzaa flag stands for the Struggle -
that is, the blood that must be shed in order for black people to be
redeemed. In this at least Karenga shows greater affinity for American
tradition, since our own flag and history also contain plenty of red.

From One Middle Passage to Another

Another incongruity of Kwanzaa is that the Seven Principles (Umoja,
Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani) [7] are Swahili words,
despite the fact that Swahili is an East African tongue while most African
Americans are descended from West Africans. The notorious Goree Island, for
example, which was used for three centuries as a slave warehouse, is off the
coast of Senegal. [8] Those who passed through Goree Island were more likely
to speak languages like Akan, Mende, Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. Most African
Americans, unfortunately, are not able to trace their roots. Kwanzaa,
therefore, is an attempt not to retrieve the past, but to reinvent it.

It is curious that in an effort to return to African sources Karenga should
choose a language like Swahili, which was so heavily influenced by the
trans-Arabian slave trade. Imani, for instance, the Seventh Principle of
Kwanzaa, is from the Arabic for "faith." An Arab hearing Karenga refer to
the Seven Principles as Nguzo Saba would recognize his own phrase for "seven
parts." Swahili is euphonious and exotic enough, but what point is there in
renouncing one's own legacy of past slavery only to adopt someone else's?

As a festival drawn from many sources, Kwanzaa tends to treat African
traditions and cultural values as if they were monolithic, whereas Africa is
notoriously tribalist and there are vast differences from region to region.
If unity (the First Principle of Kwanzaa) existed in Africa, there would be
far fewer languages and far more Tutsis alive today.

Among the African variations that receive little mention from Karenga and
his fellow Afrocentrists are the indigenous forms of homosexuality that have
been observed in cultures throughout the continent. This is reported in the
1998 collection, Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African
Homosexualities, edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe. [9] When
African leaders like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe denounce homosexuality as a
Western vice, they overlook the fact that what was introduced by the West
was not homosexuality but intolerance towards it. Nor are the cultural
"corruptions" only from the West. In the case of Nigeria, anti-gay laws
derive from both British law and Islamic Sharia law.

The greatest incongruity about Kwanzaa is that it is based on Marxist values
more than African ones. [10] This is evident in the emphasis on collective
work and cooperative economics, the subordination of the individual to the
community, the utter silence on the subject of liberty.

Even if these values can be traced to African roots, there is nothing
liberating in the embrace of doctrines that have succeeded nowhere in the
world, certainly not in Africa. Ujamaa, the fourth principle of Kwanzaa
(Swahili for "familyhood," from the Arabic for "community," translated by
Karenga as cooperative economics), was the very word used by former
Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere when he forcibly relocated tens of
thousands of his citizens to collective farms in a disastrous socialist
experiment. Nyerere actually suppressed an existing coffee cooperative that
did not conform to his theories, while demonizing the Swahili concept of
soko huria, or free markets.

The largest African economy, South Africa, provides perhaps the best
refutation of Karenga's cooperative economics. Nelson Mandela, despite his
loyalty to his Communist allies, knew quite well that his goal of a
non-racial democracy would be doomed if he did not keep the capitalists from
fleeing the country after the collapse of Apartheid. The leg up that South
Africa has on the rest of the continent is dramatically illustrated by a
NASA composite photo of Earth at night, in which virtually the entire
continent south of the Mediterranean coastal region is shrouded in darkness
until you reach Johannesburg. [11] The light of Africa is not fueled by
Marxism any more than the AIDS pandemic can be defeated with traditional
healers. Those who reject Western economics and medicine do so at their
peril.

Liberty by Any Other Name

African Americans can hardly be faulted for wishing to reclaim the African
heritage that was stolen from, and beaten out of, their ancestors. Indeed,
it can enrich all of us, just as American music was immeasurably enriched by
African American music. This is called cultural appropriation by those who
take a jealous view of their heritage, but such appropriation occurs
naturally whenever different peoples encounter one another. However
inequitable the circumstances, both sides contributed to what we are.

Facing up to that legacy, rather than escaping into a mythologized past,
would be a more useful focus of collective effort. The cross-fertilization
of intersecting cultures holds the key to a constructive approach to
reclaiming one's roots. Instead of choosing between the different threads
that make us up, we can embrace all of them without romanticizing them. Most
of our ancestors, whether African or European, were not kings and queens.
Neither can we overcome the legacy of slavery with a steady-state conception
in which whites are forever the designated villains and blacks the
designated victims. Idealized or demonized historical narratives provide
little guidance for facing our common future.

Our destinies are inextricably intertwined by our shared history. Whether
they like it or not, the heritage of white Americans contains African
threads; and whether they like it or not, the heritage of black Americans
contains European ones. You do not shed the European portion of your
heritage merely because you take an Afrocentric name, nor do you give up
your stake in the greater society of which you remain a part. In addition to
colonialism (which existed in Africa before the white man came), Western
heritage includes free markets and individual liberties, as well as the idea
that all men are created equal.

Rejecting that idea four decades ago as a sham, Karenga and other radicals
adopted a revolutionary posture and an Afrocentric program. In doing so they
repudiated integrationists like civil rights strategist Bayard Rustin, who
pointed out that Black Studies "will hardly improve [black students']
intellectual competence or their economic power." In the campaigns by
Karenga and his comrades to "Buy Black" and create autonomous communities,
the language of liberation was a poor substitute for development capital. As
Rustin wrote in his 1970 essay "The Failure of Black Separatism," "The call
for community control in fact represents an adjustment to inequality rather
than a protest against it." [12]

Ultimately, we cannot escape the challenge presented by our diversity. For
all our differences, we share a single economy, we ride the same planes, we
work in the same office towers. Whether we accept it or not, our nation has
not a collection of balkanized destinies but a.single American destiny.
Despite our inequities, each of us can hurt and be hurt. Each of us can
create and tear down. Whatever needs to be done, we cannot do it by
withdrawing from each other.

Being the heirs of Western civilization and free markets carries
responsibilities. There is something corrupt about enjoying the fruits and
freedoms of the West while speaking only of its faults. Yet we are blinded
by arrogance if we imagine that the only worthy fruits are our own. The
world is not a zero-sum game. The vast continent of Africa offers many
riches for those prepared to study it without ideological blinders. This
does not require pandering. The white choral directors I mentioned earlier
should ask themselves how progressive it is to applaud a message that
essentially tells black people to stay in their ghettos.

There is another word that was brought to Africa by the Arabs, a good
Swahili word that does not appear among the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa:
Uhuru, or freedom, from the Arabic for a freeborn person. In the course of
its travels, a word can be embraced by a new people and gain new meaning.

Thus Uhuru, taken long ago from Arabian slave traders and more recently
adopted by groups like the African People's Socialist Party, [13] is no
one's exclusive property. Now there is a fine theme for a festival.

Richard J. Rosendall (rrosendall@starpower.net) is a writer and activist
whose work has appeared on the Independent Gay Forum and the Liberty
Education Forum.

      Access to mobile phones in Africa has transformed communications for
many businesses, which had long complained about unreliable and costly land
lines - run by inefficient state-run companies.