Zimbabweans might just be vindicated in their reported claim that they do their politics differently from Kenyans, and that the "Kenyan way" (the Kenyan inclination to resort to violence to resolve political/electoral disputes) is not only not for them but also something not to write home about. I guess we'll just have to wait a little longer and see.
The month-long delay in announcing the results of the general elections -- both Presidential and Parliamentary -- led world opinion to the conclusion that here was a country which was violating basic electoral principles and trashing democracy even more blatantly than Kenya. Mugabe was simply going to go on despite his apparent rejection by the governed -- a rejection which seemed confirmed by the Electoral Commission's refusal (under orders from above, it was feared) simply to report how the people had actually voted. He appeared hell-bent on confirming all the negatives that were being labelled on him.
But then the results of Parliamentary elections were announced after a suspenseful wait which, it appeared (while it lasted), would not end. And MDC turned out the winner with a majority. Soon, however, a highly ssuspicious decision was made to recount parliamentary votes in just about the number of constituencies which gave MDC its majority. Eventually, however, that majority was confirmed -- to the surprise of most observers (including yours truly) who had feared the worst of intentions on the part of the ruling party. But MDC supporters were in no mood to celebrate, their eyes unblinkingly cocked, as it were, on the main prize -- the Presidency.
And then, about a month after the March 29th elections, it was officially announced that MDC's Tsvangirai had actually, sobject to verification, received more votes than Zanu-PF's Mugabe (47% to 43%). This was, of course, taken by MDC as Mugabe's way of subverting the people's will, since MDC believed what its own figures told it -- namely, that Tsvangirai had scored an outright win with some 50.3% of the Presidential votes cast. The percentages officially announced meant, of course, that there would have to be a run-off between the two leading candidates, according to a constitution which stipulates that a winner on the first ballot must obtain at least 50% plus one of all the Presidential votes cast.
MDC has rejected the official figures, and threatens to boycott the run-off. This would be extremely unwise, and would be something of the very "Kenyan way" which Zimbabweans are disdainful of. You cannot be both a player and referee -- a contestant who arrogates to himself/herself the right to announce who the winner is (precisely/invariably the contestant). The threat to boycott is also based on another kind of fear, reflected in what is already happening. The fear is that Mugabe's goons will terrorize opposition strongholds to ensure a narrow victory in the second round.
But the MDC leadership has survived this terror before, and should not appear overly inclined to flee. Staying put is a posture it can indeed learn from Kenyans -- or re-learn from its own recent past. The Kenyans, of course, are at a different point in the trajetory of political succession -- the December 2007 elections having presented a real opportunity to elect Kenya's fourth President since independence in 1963. Zimbabwean's are still struggling to replace their founding President, by the ballot.
Legitimate as the fear of violence and intimidation may be, Tsvangirai and his MDC must agree to participate in the Presidential run-off election. They owe this to themselves, to Zimbabweans, to Africans (including Kenyans) and to Democracy in general. Let them use the vaunted Zimbabwean discipline to block all rigging avenues and mount a winning campaign -- just as they did in March. Let them call on all well-wishers to help them monitor the run-off. If they don't participate, they certainly cannot (will not) win. If they do participate, in alliance hopefully with Simba Makoni's side, victory appears certain. Perhaps this is Mugabe's honourable exit strategy. And even if it is not, let us see this election season to its logical conclusion
Friday, May 02, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
On Music Video
In the heyday of the radio, music was all about listening. Music video has changed all that. Far more than the musical, it has forced dance upon the song – and then pushed song to the back row. It pays more attention to body movement than to sound. The song would indeed disappear if the dance could continue alone, but it can’t. Things didn’t use to be like that. Now, we spend more than half the time hearing the dance.
And yet, I think, video was meant to reunite what radio had put asunder. That is, to put a face to the song – to make the singer, howsoever far away in body, sing in spirit before our very own wide eyes. It was the means by which our eyes could feast upon the singer’s virtual, spirited presence. And it so happens that the thrill, the emotion, of co-presence sparks motion, which fires up even more emotion – till, that is, we tire. Thus did the singer begin to strut – and likewise the band, and the back-up singers. We joined in, mirror reflections of the very stage-act which reflected our spirit. Strut called in the services of choreography, and the camera. Which is how this history is writ.
Is a time not coming, in humankind’s uncertain future, when we will agree that we have seen enough, and had enough, of music video’s dance routines? I think the time, such as it is, cometh. Soon enough, the youth will run out of dance ideas, so that each new routine, however fine-tuned, will smack of the last. So that, more and more, everyone will, against their will, dance clips of just the same extended dance.
And then what? Tradition. Traditions are extended routines. They are routines which have become too routine. They are habits we do not think much about; habits which, in fact, inhabit us.
Such routines suggest how traditional performative art forms were born. How they were borne, place to place – time before time. Why people occupied them with a singularity of mind which allowed them to ask where you went wrong if you didn’t go along. That is how sure-footed cultural envoys, complete with ostrich feathers and all-too-familiar drumbeats and garb, come to journey among the un-initiated with fancy footwork. And to sing songs which only the dance enables us to truly hear.
That is how the new melts into the vast terrain of what we call heritage – and sometimes kultur. What we call yesterday. That vast, tiresome landscape from which the youth, who must people another era (and other places), will as surely as tomorrow’s sun will rise, and with a certain slyness of purpose – with a certain meekness of means – seek to distance themselves; but from which they cannot, in form (as opposed, perhaps, to content), entirely escape.
You see, it is just that, if you are deep inside the thing, you will never see (you will really never know) how not-so-very-far in time your actions have in effect drifted – even as the bell loudly tolls for another way of turning, curving, bouncing the supple body. The earth-coloured body. The not so certain – not always – body. The some-time bounty-less body. You will never escape the fact that all dance is in the end routine; and the body has just so many possibilities. As routine, dance is a closed system, subject to entropy, music an open one. Music transcends routine.
Another time and place, another sort of leather and feather, another kind of garb – another sound, even. That is how life always was, until the emergence of mass communication and travel. But today’s technology hybridizes and homogenizes, even as it creates new traditions. Being less localized, being more regional and global in its effects, it can only create them on a grander scale than witnessed in the receding past. What sort of popular dance will there be 500 years from now; and how will they regard Thriller, whose 25th anniversary is now?
And yet, I think, video was meant to reunite what radio had put asunder. That is, to put a face to the song – to make the singer, howsoever far away in body, sing in spirit before our very own wide eyes. It was the means by which our eyes could feast upon the singer’s virtual, spirited presence. And it so happens that the thrill, the emotion, of co-presence sparks motion, which fires up even more emotion – till, that is, we tire. Thus did the singer begin to strut – and likewise the band, and the back-up singers. We joined in, mirror reflections of the very stage-act which reflected our spirit. Strut called in the services of choreography, and the camera. Which is how this history is writ.
Is a time not coming, in humankind’s uncertain future, when we will agree that we have seen enough, and had enough, of music video’s dance routines? I think the time, such as it is, cometh. Soon enough, the youth will run out of dance ideas, so that each new routine, however fine-tuned, will smack of the last. So that, more and more, everyone will, against their will, dance clips of just the same extended dance.
And then what? Tradition. Traditions are extended routines. They are routines which have become too routine. They are habits we do not think much about; habits which, in fact, inhabit us.
Such routines suggest how traditional performative art forms were born. How they were borne, place to place – time before time. Why people occupied them with a singularity of mind which allowed them to ask where you went wrong if you didn’t go along. That is how sure-footed cultural envoys, complete with ostrich feathers and all-too-familiar drumbeats and garb, come to journey among the un-initiated with fancy footwork. And to sing songs which only the dance enables us to truly hear.
That is how the new melts into the vast terrain of what we call heritage – and sometimes kultur. What we call yesterday. That vast, tiresome landscape from which the youth, who must people another era (and other places), will as surely as tomorrow’s sun will rise, and with a certain slyness of purpose – with a certain meekness of means – seek to distance themselves; but from which they cannot, in form (as opposed, perhaps, to content), entirely escape.
You see, it is just that, if you are deep inside the thing, you will never see (you will really never know) how not-so-very-far in time your actions have in effect drifted – even as the bell loudly tolls for another way of turning, curving, bouncing the supple body. The earth-coloured body. The not so certain – not always – body. The some-time bounty-less body. You will never escape the fact that all dance is in the end routine; and the body has just so many possibilities. As routine, dance is a closed system, subject to entropy, music an open one. Music transcends routine.
Another time and place, another sort of leather and feather, another kind of garb – another sound, even. That is how life always was, until the emergence of mass communication and travel. But today’s technology hybridizes and homogenizes, even as it creates new traditions. Being less localized, being more regional and global in its effects, it can only create them on a grander scale than witnessed in the receding past. What sort of popular dance will there be 500 years from now; and how will they regard Thriller, whose 25th anniversary is now?
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