We arrived in Zimbabwe on Monday evening from Johannesburg. I was accompanied by Brother Samuel Monyamane, SSM, a member of my community who is also a healing of memories facilitator. Along with a significant number of passengers, our luggage did not arrive. A number of people told us that this is a regular occurrence. Because the plane cannot refuel in Harare they have to carry enough fuel for the return flight. To keep the plane lighter, a percentage of the luggage is deliberately left behind.
There was a constant refrain from everyone we met from the moment of arrival that things are bad, life is very difficult and getting worse by the day.
Our media in South Africa told us that the cholera epidemic is on the border with Zimbabwe and that there is now a health crisis in that part of South Africa. Only when we arrived in Zimbabwe did we learn that there is already cholera in the high density suburbs of Harare.
We learnt that there in many parts of Harare there had been no water in the taps for the last 7 months and in some places for the last seven months and two years in others.
Fear was expressed that when the rainy season comes the lack of hygenic sanitation could lead to a very rapid spreading of cholera with devastating consequences in a malnourished population
Our first meeting was with Fr Paul Gwede, of the Harare Diocese of the CPCA under Bishop Bakare. He is the parish priest of Waterfalls and has also been asked by Bishop Bakare to focus on projects. We had met briefly once before when I was a speaker at the Christian Counsellng Centre
He has a vision of setting up a Centre/Institute for human security. Because of the conflict between Bishop Kunonga (who has the support of the police) and the Anglican church, his congregation meets in the local Methodist church
Paul expressed interest in being involved in future healing of memories work in Zimbabwe.
We promised to send him a DVD.
We were joined by Christina Anderson, a storyteller married to William Anderson, the country representative of UK's Christian Aid in Zimbabwe who had assisted us in a workshop with the majority of the Angican Dioceses in Zimbabwe in December last year.
Several people told us that on the day of our arrival soldiers, frustrated that they cannot draw significant amounts of their own money from the banks had begun to riot and loot. It was suggested that this was an ominous sign of what may lie ahead for Zimbabwe in the not too distant future. Outside every bank we saw hundreds of people queuing for many hours (without safe water to drink) in soaring summer temperatures.
On our first evening we were invited for dinner by the Swedish ambassador, Sten Rylander and Kirsten a member of staff of the embassy focusing on conflict resolution. I had met him a couple of weeks previously at a Human Rights seminar in Lulea in Northern Sweden. He has been much pilloried for his outspokenness about all that has happened over the last few years in Zimbabwe. Sweden was very active in supporting the liberation struggle and has remained committed to development in Zimbabwe. It was good to get the perspective coming out of diplomatic circles, particularly someone with more than twenty years of experience in the region.
The main focus of the second day of our time in Zimbabwe was a memorial service for Hugh McCullum, an extraordinary Canadian journalist. Hugh had died in Toronto a few weeks previously. Both Sr Janice McLaughlin, a Maryknoll sister, and I had known Hugh well and we were both in New York at the time of his death. We both opted to be at the Harare memorial He and his partner Rebecca Garrett took me to the hospital the night I opened a letter bomb back in April of 1990. My visit to Zimbabwe was deliberately timed so I could be present to lead the memorial service for Hugh. It was a simple but poignant event which took place at the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) where Hugh was employed on two separate
occasions. Some of the staff had been profoundly shaped as young writers and journalists by Hugh whilst some had joined more recently but were exposed to his vast journalistic and research output on a wide variety of issues affecting Southern Africa.
We began the event by playing the same DVD which was played at the Toronto memorial service of a recent interview of Hugh by Rebecca with a particular emphasis on the profound impact of the Biafran war and its underlying effect on Hugh's life and outlook We also read excerpts from the Globe and Mail obituary. Several staff members of SARDC spoke. Munetsi Madakufamba, Deputy Director,of SARDC spoke and also produced a cd with a collage of photos set to music. Justin Gope a well known Zimbabwean artist was present but did not speak. Professor Reg Austin spoke of the witness Hugh provided of someone living out their faith in society and of people like Hugh who had come from other quarters of the globe and made common cause with African people. Val Thorpe and Sr Janice spoke of their friendship with Hugh. I shared my own experience of both Hugh and Rebecca and all they meant and still mean in my life.
One of the people we met at the memorial was an old friend Val Thorpe with whom we met the following morning. She raised the possibility of doing healing of memories with a group of women who had suffered from political violence.
The final meeting of our short visit was with 3 members of the leadership of Zimbabwe Christian Alliance lead by the Revd Useni Sibanda. We began to explore the possibilities of a long term relationship.
We left them material including our dvd of the healing of memories process which they could use to prepare people for a workshop
We have proposed a full healing of memories workshop in February followed by a day of strategic planning to see how we can take the process forward.
Zimbabwe and Harare in particular remains a place of great contradictions. Staying as we were at a 3 star hotel you are sheltered from the increasingly grim life experienced by most Zimbabweans.
On the day of our departure we heard about the abduction of Ms Jestina Mukoko by Zimbabwean security forces from her home in Norton Harare in the morning of 3 December 2008, at approximately 5:00 am. Jestina Mukoko is the Project Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), an organisation monitoring and documenting violence and human rights abuses across the country through a network of peace observers.
As we left Zimbabwe we were also told that not only is there no medecine in the hospitals but school are closed.
For those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see there are all the hallmarks of a failed state with immense and increasing suffering for most of its citizens.
Those who have dared to speak out and resist the Mugabe regime have been treated mercilessly and brutally.
I was reminded of the words of Bertolt Brecht. "Woe is the land that has no heroes, Nay, woe is the land that needs heroes". To be a decent human being in
Zimbabwe today requires heroism
Tribute to Hugh McCullum by Father Michael Lapsley,SSM
Director of the Institute for Healing of Memories, Cape Town, South Africa
In 1983 I came to Canada on a joint SWAPO - ANC speaking tour.
That was when I first met Hugh McCullum. He was Editor of the United Church Observer and also the Chairperson of CANSAS which was a Canadian Solidarity organisation during the darkest day of apartheid
When Rebecca Garrett and Hugh moved to Zimbabwe we immediately became firm and close friends.
On April 28th 1990, Rebecca and Hugh hosted a welcome and farewell party for me.. I had just returned from another speaking tour of Canada and was about to relocate to Bulawayo. Shortly after returning to my house from the party, I opened a letter bomb. Hugh and Rebecca took me to the hospital. They helped to save my life.
At the time of the bombing I was wearing a cross of horseshoe nails which somehow disappeared.
Whilst I was in hospital Hugh and Rebecca brought me a small Coptic cross which I have worn every day since.
When I returned to Zimbabwe, from hospital treatment in Australia, it was to Hugh and Rebecca's home. When I returned from exile to live in South Africa, that farewell party was also at their home.
I have no doubt that other speakers will pay tribute to Hugh's extraordinary contribution as an advocate for Africa and all her people. Dare I suggest that it was in Africa that Hugh was most fully alive.
Thank you Hugh for all that you did in your life, in multitudinous ways, to make the world a fairer and more just place.
Thank you Hugh for all that you meant in my life.
I am a better person because I knew you.
Today I thank God for your life and pray that you rest in peace.
I pray for consolation for all who grieve your passing.
ends
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