A message for Nel Ust Wyclef Jean, the disappointed aspiring president of Haiti

So, this is what the universe has decreed. And by universe I mean the Haiti Electoral Council. You are not eligible to run for the presidency of Haiti because you have not fulfilled the mandatatory residency requirement. You did not live in Haiti for five continuous years prior to the election.

I know, I know, it is outrageous, isn't it? 'I don't agree with the decision', you said. I am not entirely sure what you disagree with. That the Council was wrong and you actually meet the requirement? Or that the mandatory residency requirement should not apply to you?

Still, no man, no cry.

If you are truly serious about this, you know what to do, that is, if you really want to run in five or so years' time. That's right. Live in Haiti for five continuous years.

No?

You won't do that?

I didn't think you would. Still, it was worth a shot.

Now, do go away. Work on another album. And make it good this time. Incidentally, I will never forgive you for ruining an otherwise perfectly good remake of 'We Are the World' with your theatrics. Talk about simultaneously milking it and chewing the scenery! Off you go then. Good bye and good luck!

Reading and loving "Sunflowers in Your Eyes"

On my long flight from Harare to Geneva a week ago, I read three books: Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac, VS Naipaul's In a Free State, and Sunflowers in Your Eyes, an anthology of poems by four Zimbabwean women. I picked these three for their slimness, they fit nicely in one hand, and they were engrossing for different reasons. I loved Hotel du Lac, and will now hunt down Anita Brookner's other novels. I absolutely hated In a Free State, I cannot believe that a book this bile-filled and cynical not only won the Booker, but has been hailed as a deep and meaningful reflection on the agonies of post-colonial Africa. I loathed it with every fibre of my being --- and yet I have deep respect for Naipaul and love his early work.

I also read the wonderful Sunflowers in Your Eyes, an anthology of poems by four Zimbabweans: Fungai Machirori, Ethel Kabwato, Blessing Musariri, and Joice Shereni. I especially loved Ethel's spare and haunting lyricism. With the publisher's permission, I hope to post my favourite poems from each of the four writers soon. It was more than a little jarring to read the anthology after the Naipaul, the contrast could not have been sharper: Naipaul, an outsider with very defined notions of what Africa is, contrasted with these four women who grapple with their sometimes ugly reality without cynicism or bitterness. Marvellous.

And the bonus was that I was handed the book by one of the poets: I had coffee in Harare with Fungai Machirori, a poet and public health fundi. She writes prose too, she has a blog on society and mores, and is not afraid to tackle delicate matters. Read it here. And in the meantime, hi thee to the Book Depository, where Sunflowers in Your Eyes is a snip at £5.49, with free worldwide delivery. I have, incidentally, become a little obsessed with the Book Depository's real time purchase tracker, where you can see what books are being purchased where. Click here. It is great fun, but be warned, it is highly addictive.

Matthew Norman on the woeful inadequacies of the Nuremberg trials

I badly want to write on the Charles Taylor trial, particularly the ghastly event of last week, by which I mean the Naomi Campbell-induced interest of the global press. Unfortunately, Kush's father is on the Taylor defence team, and I feel uncomfortable about writing on it while he is involved. It is not that I am conflicted, because I absolutely am not, I just feel that it would be more appropriate, from his perspective, for me to write about the trial after his involvement with it is over. Caesar's wife and all that. And, no, the impressive Courtney Griffiths QC is not the man in question. One of my favourite comments on the trial came from a Guardian below the line commentator who wrote: my dream now is to see Tony Blair in the Hague with Courtney Griffiths prosecuting. Heh. Here is some great writing from Matthew Norman at The Independent, who, in any event, says what I would have said better than I could.

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Looking down the years from this vertiginous height, the war crimes trial you feel sorry for is Nuremberg. No doubt it thought it made quite a splash, what with the convictions of 19 of the 22 Nazi defendants. With the benefit of freshly minted hindsight, however, its flaws become painfully apparent.

Marlene Dietrich may have appeared in that timelessly magnificent 1961 film Judgment At Nuremberg, but neither she nor any major female celeb gave evidence at the trial itself. Not Leni Riefenstahl, not the Andrews Sisters, not even, God help us, the Mitford sisters.

... The oversight cruelly denied Alvar Lidell the chance to intone: "This is the home service of the BBC, and here is the news. In Nuremberg today, Diana Mitford told the court that she assumed the large diamond Herr Hitler gave her, during a visit to the Bertesgarten in 1936, was zirconium. She further insisted that the pearl earrings she received from Hermann Göring during that same visit 'looked like the most frightful tat that might have fallen out of a Christmas cracker, so I gave them to Frau Boormann'.

"Mrs Mitford's evidence was later contradicted by Betty Grable. Having remonstrated with the court for delaying the completion of her new musical motion picture, Mother Wore Tights, Miss Grable claimed that she overheard Mrs Mitford telling Eva Braun that the earrings were 'perfectly exquisite', and that she planned to wear them to His Majesty the King's dinner dance, Adolf's Other Ball, to be held in the Royal Albert Hall shortly after her return from Germany. In other news..."

What did they know about how to stage a decent war crimes trial back then? We shouldn't be too harsh on Shawcross and his colleagues if they naïvely assumed public attention could be held by nothing more captivating than the intimate details of industrialised genocide. Who knows, in the banal world of 1945 perhaps it was. In these enlightened times, no horror that unfolds beyond our borders - avoidable malarial deaths in the developing world, the trafficking of human beings, or malevolent acts of God - has profound meaning and the power to affect until sprinkled with the magic dust of fame.

Read the rest here.

"Who killed Captain Alex?" The funniest trailer you will ever see.

I almost bust something laughing at this. This is the trailer of a film called "Who Killed Captain Alex?" Everyone seems to die pretty gruesomely in this "best of the best movies ... now on sale" in Uganda. If you happen to be in Uganda, please send this DVD to me asap. I will love you forever.

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In defence of reason ... and Reason Wafawarova

Here is part of an essay I wrote a long time ago for the Zimbabwe Times. The Zimbabwe Times seems to have unaccountably disappeared into the ether, but this article survived because its subject, Zimcommentator Reason Wafawarova, posted it to his blog.

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I do not support the deportation of Reason Wafawarova from Australia. I have not supported this in the past, nor will I do so in the future. All I know of Mr. Wafawarova is that he uses his prodigious energies to write impassioned columns in support of Zanu-PF. The most attention I have paid him is, in the one sentence quoted by the Zimbabwe Metro, to mock his views. I disagree with almost all of what he writes. I will say it again – I believe that anti-Western rants from one who is not loath to take advantage of the freedoms and comforts of a Western nation are rank hypocrisy.

This does not, however, mean that I want the man gagged, bound or deported.

That he may be a hypocrite may be a reason to make fun of him, but it is no reason to deport him from a country where he has committed no offence beyond that of having, in my naturally subjective view, the bad taste and poor judgement to support Zanu-PF. To call for his deportation is to say that he has no right to speak his mind.

Everyone has that right, MDC supporters and Zanu-PF supporters alike. If MDC supporters have a right to debate, to criticise, to mock, to offend and to speak their minds about Reason Wafawarova then he has the exact same rights to debate them, to criticise them, to mock and offend them and to speak his mind in support of the political party of his choice. Caesar Zvayi has that right. Peter Mavhunga has that right. Even George Charamba and Jonathan Moyo have that right too.

We would do well to remember the words of John Stuart Mill that “there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it might be considered.” This is the ultimate paradox – that the enemies of freedom must, as a matter of conviction, be given the very freedoms that they wish to curtail. Voltaire put it this way: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

This is painful for those with strong views – the instinctive response when someone says what we do not want to hear is to shut them up. This is particularly painful given how polarised we have become in Zimbabwe. But there can be no compromise on this. There can be no other way. Freedom of expression cannot be only for those we agree with.

We can criticise our opponents, we can debate them, we can mock them – all this we can do without shutting them up. To do otherwise is to take on the attributes of the monster we say we are fighting. Zanu-PF has made its name synonymous with the banning of newspapers, the bombing of newspaper offices, the arresting of journalists and the stifling of freedom of expression. Those who oppose this tyranny must ask themselves: Are these to be our methods too? Freedom of expression must be for all or for none at all.

Three Days in Harare: A Very Bad Poem

Power cuts and deadlines,

Sushi at Amanzi.

ZOL Hotspots with

Flickering wireless.

'Go to hell, go to hell.'

Dirty, dirty dollar bills.

Anger over dog-eating

Chinese man.

Chilly nights, freezing floors.

Blue flea-market

Stompies on my feet.

Newsday, Newsday,

'Tsvangirai Attacked'.

'Go to hell, go to hell'.

'Gloves off in MDC-M'

'Go to hell, got to hell'

Sweets for change,

Coupons for change.

Filth-encrusted dollar bills.

'I won't apologise to Mugabe'

'Go to hell, go to hell'.