Zim graduands: Hawkers or professionals?

DELICATE BALANCE . . .This student at Midlands State Univerity reads books and sells maputi and lollipops at the Hunger Square, an open space where students sit and talk as diversion from gnawing hunger.

University students, who have been exposed to the full wrath of the prevailing harsh economic environment, have been forced to use implement serious fire-fighting measures to keep the wolf at bay.

Parents and guardians’ disposable incomes have been rudely trimmed, consequently shortening “the hand that giveth” Hence students are at the wrong side of the bank account. While maputi, lollipops, roasted ground nuts and other foodstuffs enjoyed copyright at Mbare Musika and other like areas, hawking has become a major source of income for students at Midlands State University in Gweru, and other institutions of higher learning.

So the question is on the caliber of graduates that Universities are churning out. These are graduates who have survived on selling maputi. Can they formulate any meaningful company growth objectives? Can these starved, hand-to-mouth-is-my-business graduates become real corporate players who can be trusted with shareholders’ money? Because most of them are peddlers first and academicians second.

Maybe it was time serious mitigation maneuvers were chore-graphed such that we stem the downturn in our education sector.
By Abel Dzobo (edzaidzobo@yahoo.com

MSU students pray for peace, calm

Students going to the MSU library. . . Fourht year students are afraid all the years of education were wasted.

Midlands State University (MSU) Undergraduate students who are now on their fourth and final year of degree programs are worried about the volatile political landscape, as they are afraid they may have to abandon studies, the Varsity Voice has learnt.

The first semester of the year, which usually begins in March, only started in April so as to accommodate the March 29 Harmonised Parliamentary, Presidential, Senatorial and Council elections. But it is the run-off that has raised concern among students, as they are afraid the results may be delayed again, as happened with the Presidential election polls in the first round whereby the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) took about a month to announce Presidential vote ballot result, citing the overwhelming task of vote collation and verification. The University, which has seven faculties, which are Arts, Commerce, Education, Law, Natural Resources Management and Agriculture, Science and Technology and Social Sciences, had offered a lifeline by announcing that the exam timetable, which indicated that exams would start on July 7 to 24, would not be altered.

But it is the recent bombshell by Movement for Democratic Change President, Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw his candidature that has threatened to render insolvent all the four years of academic toil. This has brewed uncertainty in the students, who are starting to see their dreams of prosperity being attacked by weevils. Incidences of political violence have been reported countrywide and it is the students’ wish that the political and socio-economic fabric is not shredded in orgies of politically motivated violence.

A fourth-year Music and Musicology student, who asked not to be named, said that, “I thought by June 30 I would have completed my degree, but now maybe I will have to wait a bit longer, or maybe not even finish it” he said. This view was echoed by a Media and Society Studies student, who said that she only wished the runoff, had been penciled a month later, that is July 27, such that elections would have been conducted while she would have finished her degree.
“I have been doing media monitoring and the latest developments on the political field are disturbing. But all we can do is to be optimistic that this political impasse ebbs soon such that we can finish our degrees. It has been a painful four years,” she said.
Most of the students were enviously eyeing the first week of October, when they graduate and the constant temptation of the 2010 South Africa Word Cup soccer jamboree. The runoff, pitting Mr Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African Natonal Union (ZANU PF) and MDC was necessitated by the fact that in the first election no candidate attained the 51 percent that is needed for one to assume the President’s post.
By Abel Dzobo (edzaidzobo@yahoo.com)

Musicology band wows MSU

Top Left: Enchore! Enchore! -part of spectators at the MSU Lunh Time Mbira Concert

Top Right-Jeff Warara, organiser of the event.

Bottom Right: HEADS DOWN, THUMBS UP. . . Strictly mbira Business- from left: Chimukuyu, Jeff, Watida and Tendai.

Bottom left-Get Down . . . Godfrey Simango goes through his act

The Hunger Square, notorious for its empty stomach tag, assumed the status of The Book Café as the Midlands State University (MSU) Music and Musicology band put up an electrifying and enthralling performance, belting out gems that had a natural flair during the Mbira Lunch Concert held recently.

The band, starring, unplugged, the likes of Jeff “Vhirirengoro” Warara, Phillip Chimukuyu and Watida Chikondo, among others, was a powder keg of vibes as they thumped the mbira (thumb piano). The mbira beat soothed strained senses, massaged tense muscles as it bored into the tedium of books, impending assignment deadlines and tensions of everyday college life, pummeling all the vestiges of monotony into submission. As the mbira vibrated under the coaxing of skillful fingers, twanging in its meek, but decisive metallic sound, students flocked to the summons of its decibels, a priceless melody that even birds would take time to listen to.

The concert, which was for free, the lush green grass, the open airs setting, coupled with the conspicuous absence of the Public Address System (PA System), beautifully connived to bestow a rare, rustic elegance upon the event. This was a cultural product in its uncommodified nature, whereby all partake because of real enjoyment, without the interfering and artificial pleasure motivated by the resolve to unlock monetary value. A crowd of around two hundred students who had come to witness the event, clapped hands to the beat, enjoying every second of the performance.

But it is the antics of lead vocalist and performer, Godfrey Simango that will be talked about for years to come. While some would point at master of the “Snake secretary dance”, Hosea “Kwachu Kwachu” Chipanga as the best sole singer and dancer, Simango merely needs to contend with a couple of rungs for him to attain such prowess. http://www.flickr.com/photos/27802508@N02/?saved=1 Wielding a knobkerrie, and lithely alternating between dance and vocals, he sang Nhemamusasa. Nhemamusasa is a powerful vibe by mbira legend, Chiwoniso “Sister Chi” Maraire, and when she performed the song at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) 2007, she had even the white audience members chanting “Nhemamusasa” after her, and they literally refused her permission to leave the stage. With backing vocals equal to the task, featuring the likes of Lindsay Mhlanga, Chiedza Makowe, Sthabile Mahubaba, Tendai Mlambo and Rumbi Rundazha, among others, the band stitched up a memorable act.

Then came the song folk song Chemutengure. The band executed a virtuoso perfomance that would have reminded one of Chimurenga music and mbira icon, Thomas “Mukanya” Mapfumo, who is dubbed “Lion of Southern Africa”, which attracted audience members to take to the dance floor with reckless abandon. Slideshow, check http://www.flickr.com/photos/27802508@N02/show/ Next was the drum and mbira rendition of the song “Kumasowe” by Cephas “Motomuzhinji” Mashakada, which, in the name of justice, Mashakada should be let to choose his preference between the former and his own guitar version. This song had one of the senior members of the library staff, Mrs Faith Munyama, on her feet and she later acknowledged that “the mbira beat was irresistible”.

As emotions lightened, spectators turned actors as audience members also took to the dance floor, exhibiting such rare energy and grace, which stamped the notion that the country is still in touch with its tradition, especially with undergraduate populace, who will soon occupy higher echelons in the socio-economic and political spheres of the country. And this reporter, in trying to capture the event on camera, faced formidable competition as he had to jostle with students wielding mobile phones with inbuilt cameras as they ensured that the precious event would attain immortality.

Mawere Kongonya, Musango Ndodzungaira and Taireva followed in quick succession, and Simango turned villain at announcing that the lunch session was over as many would have wanted it to go into the night. Organiser of the event, Jeffinias Warara, a fourth year student, hailed the event as a success.
“What you have just witnessed is the true mbira vibe in its natural element, no PA System. Turnout was good, and as the Music and Musicology Department at MSU, we will always strive to keep the University community well entertained,” the prolific mbira player said, flashing one of his bright smiles.

By Abel Dzobo
edzaidzobo@yahoo.com

Unmasking ‘Operation Dzikisai Madhishi’

Unmasking ‘Operation Dzikisai Madhishi’
By Abel Dzobo
13/06/08

ZANU PF’s determination to strangle and streamline the communicative spaces in Zimbabwe has allegedly taken a new twist through the deplorable “Operation Dzikisai Madhishi”, a purge aimed at satellite dishes such that in the run-up to this month’s Presidential run-off election, government-controlled ZBC TV can enjoy monopoly in news coverage.
This move is believed to be a ploy to ensure that all Zimbabweans watch ZBC TV, where ZANU PF is confident that the combative Happison Muchechetere, who has been put at the helm, will broadcast programmes that forward its cause, unlike the era under the recently dismissed Henry Muradzikwa.
Muchechetere is a trusted ZANU PF lieutenant who succeeded former ZBC boss Henry Muradzikwa who was fired last month for allegedly failing to use the state broadcaster to successfully campaign for President Robert Mugabe, who lost to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the March 29 presidential election.
But it is the blitz on satellite dishes that has raised the ire of the populace and civic groups as evidence that the party will go to great lengths, despite how crooked, to win the June 27 election.
Satellite dishes, such as DSTV, Wiztech and Fortec Star, among others, mushroomed in the country as the fairly affluent citizens sought to evade the ZANU PF propaganda clout, championed by ZBC TV.
Nonetheless, like with the print media, where online and foreign newspapers have flourished, satellite dishes were bought such that citizens could have the other side of the story.
Foreign news stations, among them BBC and CNN, were banned from ZBC TV in 2000, during Professor Jonathan Moyo’s tenure as Information Minister, a development which was extolled as a noble move to consolidate communicative sovereignty.
Ironically, that communicative sovereignty has been ceded as propounded by ZUJ President Matthew Takaona in his May 3 2008 Press Freedom Day speech in which he heralded Zimbabwean media’s spectacular fall from grace.
“For those who are so much concerned with sovereignty; we want to say the Zimbabwean media scenario is a grand example of the loss of it. Thanks to the work of the restrictive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA).
“For any self-respecting nation, it must be a big shame that when independent Zimbabweans think of news, they keep the bulletin times of Studio 7, an American radio station broadcasting thousands of miles away from home, they cuddle small radios to listen to the Voice of the People, another radio station that is based outside the continent, they tune in to their cell-phones for tit-bits of news from SW Radio based in the United Kingdom.
“It must also be a shame that Zimbabweans must hear or watch events that have happened in their backyards from BBC, Botswana Television, E Television, SABC and many others,” Takaona said.
Muchehetere has already claimed the scalps of “errant” ZBC TV, following the dismissal of eight members, including Business reporter Brian Paradza, a move roundly criticized by media representative bodies.
“ZUJ condemns the suspension of journalists from ZBC by the new management,” said Matthew Takaona.
Takura Zhangazha, the national director of MISA-Zimbabwe, was quoted in the media said,
“It is a chilling message to those remaining that if they fail to toe the line they will be hounded out of the institution. It is really a worrying trend, especially in the context of the presidential run-off.”