Police permission for kitchen tea

BY TRUDY STEVENSON
HARARE - The Zimbabwe regime is now so terrified of revolt that you have to get police permission to hold or even attend a kitchen tea.
They literally tremble in their shoes at the very idea that a group of 30 or 40 women might feel free enough to organise a tea party and h

ave the audacity to invite their MP. What might those women say, at their tea party? Heavens above, they might start complaining about the cost of bread or mealie meal! That won’t do, at all.
Why, they might even whisper that their husbands are not working, or that they cannot pay school fees so their children are sitting at home. One of them might bring up the lack of ARVs for her family member who needs them, and someone else might wonder aloud how she is going to pay for her father’s funeral, when she has absolutely no money.
But women don’t only complain, they also laugh and joke, and that could be even worse! They might laugh at the crowd of riot police sweltering in the hot sun at the corner. They might start swopping stories about which chef was seen with whose girlfriend at the weekend, and which minister’s wife has found a more attentive escort recently.
Maiwee – someone might even start sharing rumours of the big guys’ performance in bed! This is the height of disrespect, and cannot be allowed to happen. More serious could be the ladies swopping information of how many houses and cars the big chefs have, or how many farms. Or even just who bought that house in Borrowdale Brooke recently, and how much the furniture cost. Such information must not get out.
As for music – turn it off this instant! It might get the women dancing and enjoying themselves – and that is not allowed, please! They should be good patriots, standing quietly in a queue all day for a food hand-out, or sitting in the sun all day guarded by police waiting for His Excellency or some lesser mortal to shake their fists and shout a few well-aimed international threats.
No, music off, sit down quietly, ladies, please. And don’t listen to those songs, either, and especially don’t actually sing them! They might suggest the Old Man is getting old or losing his grip, and all Zimbabweans know he will always be Young-Old, ready to box whoever might think of taking him on.
No, ladies – very sorry. We cannot allow you to have your kitchen tea, or top-up, or tea-party or whatever, unless you have our permission, in other words unless you invite us to be there to watch you and listen to what you say and sing and who you meet.
It is simply not allowed, in Zimbabwe. Be patriotic, and ask our permission to have fun, to dance, to invite whoever you want and to be a Free African, for five minutes – to celebrate your simply being. It is not allowed. We have POSA, and AIPPA, and Miscellaneous Offences, and Criminal Codification. We have the Government of Zimbabwe, which is dedicated to its self-perpetuation until time immemorial, and we simply cannot allow women to enjoy themselves at a kitchen tea, without our permission.
Sorry, ladies. Freedom was something else, when we were fighting the Chimurenga. This is not the freedom we were thinking about. This is not allowed.

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