Why I voted yes in the referendum

I voted yes. I stood in the short queue and within less than 10 minutes, I had cast my vote. My son Andile who turns 19 soon, was thrilled to cast his first ever vote. He kept wondering if it was really over? Whether there was anything else required of him? We took several photos of our pinkies in the parking lot. The police looked on disinterestedly.  

I voted yes because indeed I like this draft constitution. I have read all of it for myself.  I didn’t understand some parts, so I asked my dozens of lawyer friends to explain it to me. This was after I gave up on civil society organizations getting round to explaining it to those of who are legally illiterate. I could not rely on the parliamentary committee because they were too busy serving their parties. In mid 2012 when the first draft leaked out, it was immediately seized upon by several “experts” who trashed, twisted and interpreted it for us in what have become the hallmarks of Zimbabwean public discourse – hate speech, hyperbole, and plain old partisanship. Because it did not say things in exactly the way they wanted them said, my fellow NGO workers were having none of it. For several weeks, I kept asking some of the organizations my international NGO funds, “What exactly is the content of the draft constitution and what should we as citizens know and think?”  The conversation would start off nicely, but within a few minutes it would degenerate into a fully fledged attack on the former ruling party, and their (evil), leader Robert Mugabe. We never got to the good parts, if there were any in their minds. I was left none the wiser.  So were millions of Zimbabweans.

I did not trust any of the media to translate the draft either.  They are all hung up on either Mugabe, or Tsvangirai, so their ‘analysis’ focused on these two men.  We all got earfuls on what the draft provides for ‘Mugabe’, as if he will forever be the President of Zimbabwe.  Even as we went to vote, the so called international media obsessively reported on Mugabe going to vote, what the draft means for him, what will happen to HIM, and what he is likely to do. When they got tired of that they turned to what the draft means for Tsvangirai, in particular that the post of Prime Minister is not provided for in the draft.  As if to say we want Morgan for Prime Minister now or for posterity!

If it wasn’t about these two men it was about gay rights. Following the ruse cleverly created by ZANUPF,  several sections of Zimbabwean civil society fell over each other denouncing gay rights, telling us how Christian/God fearing or good Shona-Ndebele peoples they were, and they would   never tolerate gay rights.  It was open season for hate speech. Yet on closer inspection, gay rights were and are still not in the draft! Grave omission if you ask me but that is the subject for another day.

Only in the last few weeks, after the referendum date was announced, did both the media and the NGOs start complaining that they had not had enough time to study the draft and tell citizens what’s in it. The average Chipo and Themba have been short changed not only by the state in its current form, but even by those who should have known better.  I am privileged to have had access to the various drafts, to some of its writers and to the few spaces where serious analysis of the draft happened.   I refused to cede my personal choice and right to be informed to someone else. I went out and looked for the information, because the single narrative of my country was beginning to feel too simplified and too narrow. The average citizen was left stranded by politicians, the media and civil society, way back in July 2012. Yet these are all people who all claim to be on their side or working on their behalf. We should have known better.

I voted yes because I am tired of this unending constitutional conversation – if one can politely call it that.  I was there in 1997 when we started a movement for a new Zimbabwean Constitution, the National Constitutional Assembly. Myself and a few other activists were invited by two young men, Tawanda Mutasah and Deprose Muchena to work with them in creating what became the NCA. Back then I was a bright eyed, easily persuadable feminist activist in the making, leading a network of women’s organizations – the Zimbabwe Chapter of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF). Our membership was 38 women’s organizations and movements. Deprose and Tawanda, working under the auspices of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches spearheaded the formation of a movement that was to catalyse constitutional transformation and would forever change the face of Zimbabwean politics and civil society activism.  Our message was simple, constitutional transformation was about crafting new content, through processes that involved all Zimbabweans. It has been ‘16 years of hard struggle’, as ZANU PF would say! Sixteen years in which the people have been engaged, mobilized and they have spoken, through various means.  It has not been a perfect process. It has not been totally participatory. The journey has involved tears, and in some cases blood. But in my book, I felt involved, engaged, asked what I want, and felt I had my say.  When I didn’t want to engage I made my choice and didn’t participate. I also know that the women’s movements valiantly talked to and educated women. Inevitably they too would get caught up in the partisan politics and get lost in the melee. It has not been easy to go against the grain, whatever the grain was at that moment.

There are a few things that I don’t like in terms of content. There a few things missing or which I would have wanted to see writ large. But on a scale of one to 10, I give this draft constitution a 7.5. As I have grown older, less cross-eyed and not easily persuadable, I know that one never gets their wish 100%.  The Zimbabwe we lived in 1997 is not the Zimbabwe we are in today. If there is only one indicator of this fact, it is that this society has careened to the fundamentalist right, culturally, socially and religiously. So the bar some of us had set 16 years ago on women’s rights has had to come a tad lower. And I know that the women’s rights that I would have wanted to see fully in a new constitution are going to have to be vigorously fought for whether a Mugabe or Tsvangirai is in power tomorrow morning. I still hold up high my feminist values and principles which I took into the NCA. I define those and stick to them, but I adopt my strategies, alive to the context around me at any moment.

 I voted yes, because I like this new constitution. It promotes and protects women and girls’ human rights in so many ways and far much more than we have ever been protected in our national history.  I see a lot of opportunities for women’s movements to use it to gain more rights in the near and distant future.  I claim my voice as a founder of the NCA to say, I voted yes, because part of my dream and vision is now within reach. I don’t want this moment to pass. I want my son who voted for the first time today to set a new agenda for the Zimbabwe he wants. I want Andile to go to elections in a few months to choose leaders who will speak to that agenda. I don’t want him burdened by an unending conversation on one document, as if there is nothing else to talk about. More importantly, I want him to be spared the agony of seeing and hearing the same people spewing hatred, intolerance and violating his rights. As I told him before he voted, this constitution is about you and your rights, not about those men.