Election in Zimbabwe: Please Don't Be Cruel to Robert Mugabe. He Is Such a Sensitive Dictator

 1.
Please don't be cruel to Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe is such a sensitive dictator. And as we all know, sensitive dictators don't have any sense of humor. They are too busy torturing poets and worrying about their stool. So have a heart, have a little compassion for this aging dictator who may or may not become Dictator of the Century in Zimbabwe at this year's election.

To tell you the truth, no matter what happens I feel sorry for Robert Mugabe. I wouldn't want to swap lives with that man. Too many power hungry spirits are building nests in his short hairs. Too many vicious people are making fun of this proud leader who has never lost an election. Even when he has lost an election.


2.
Let me mention some of those people that humiliated him not that long ago: Raisedon Baya, Christopher Mlalazi, Aleck Zulu, Lionel Nkusi. These scoundrels had the audacity of writing and producing a play called The Crocodile of Zambezi. It premiered May 29, 2008; the writers and actors had worked on it for two years.

The play took place in a fictional country, depicting a weak 94 year old dictator in the middle of a crisis.

Robert Mugabe in crisis?

Don't these artists understand that Robert Mugabe was appointed by God? Does God have a crisis? Of course not. God takes care of business as He sees fit. God is in perfect control and if He doesn't win the elections, He still wins the elections. That's why He is so loved by His people.

By the way, Robert Mugabe didn't like that play back in 2008. Actually, He never saw it. Dictators don't have time for the arts. Well, maybe they listen to Wagner or watch the odd rerun of The Sopranos, but satire, no, that's not their kind of thing. Adolf Hitler never laughed at Charles Chaplin, and Osama bin-Laden wasn't too fond of Jon Stewart, only American porn. These are facts whether you like them or not!

So back in 2008, Robert Mugabe sent some of his boys from the secret police. They rounded up the actor Aleck Zulu and the production manager Lionel Nkosi and gave them a ride in their car. They tortured them and put a gun in their mouths. Maybe they broke a few limbs as well because you shouldn't insult the man who has given so much to his subjects .... sorry, co-patriots.

The play, by the way, was closed down after one performance, which is totally understandable, because who in their right mind would want to see a play making fun of the Supreme Savior of Zimbabwe? Instead these artists should lavish Mugabe with praise. They should write pompous poems to glorify His strength, they should construct endless bridges in His name, or create religious cults instead of telling lies about this Glorious Incarnation of Light.

3.
As I said, Robert Mugabe is a sensitive dictator. And maybe He sleeps a little better when plays like that close down. Maybe He's even proud that this election will be a little less rigged than the ones before?

So have a little compassion, have a little heart. Not for Zimbabwe but for Roberto Mugabe. The poor man had a difficult childhood. So why shouldn't the rest of his people?


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Rewritten blog from 2008. 

This entry is dedicated to the brave people of Zimbabwe who have the courage to laugh through tyranny, and to organizations like American and Danish PEN that tirelessly work for protecting the freedom of speech in countries like Zimbabwe. I'm proud to be a member of both. The brilliant cartoon above is all over the net, but I haven't been able to find out who the artist is.

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My Weird and Incredible Meeting With Israeli Author Meir Shalev (Which Just Goes To Show How Small The World Is)

Meir Shalev, the award-winning Israeli author who was one of the many participants at World Voices 2009 in New York.

1.
Life is a funny and strange four letter word.

Three years ago I was an official blogger for PEN at World Voices in New York.  At the party in a fancy midtown hotel on Manhattan I ran into Meir Shalev, the famous Israeli author.

I'd seen him on a panel a few days earlier where he'd made a wonderful impression, but apart from that I knew nothing about him. But after talking to the man for less than two minutes, I found out that he once met my Jewish Danish grandfather!

My totally unknown grandfather.

From a small town in Denmark. Far from New York and Israel.

Thirty-one years ago.

Ladies and gentlemen, how weird was that?

 2.
All this came to light just because I bragged to Shalev about being 25% Jewish (my left leg?). My maternal grandfather was born in Safed in 1898 and was abducted by a Danish missionary under mysterious circumstances, ending up in my cold Scandinavian country as a frightened six year old.

"Oh, yes, yes" Meir Shalev told me, "I've heard that story before. He was baptized against his will, wasn't he?  His name was David something. Actually, I met your grandfather twenty five years ago when I was in Denmark. He was a very interesting man."

I stared at Shalev. Was he a mind reader or some kind of memory psycho? Or was I on drugs without knowing it? But then again anything can happen in New York. Some one could have slipped a Semitic pill into my Chardonnay to take advantage of my body - or more likely, to force me from writing more novels.

Meir Shalev continued: "I met your grandfather through Herbert Pundik (a renowned Danish journalist and editor). Then I took the train and visited him an hour and a half from Copenhagen. He lived in the countryside in a beautiful house by a small pond."

I nodded and kept on staring at this strange Israeli writer. This was all too surreal, but at the same time, my granddad's life story was so incredible that most people would remember it if they heard it.

In 1998 I wrote a novelized biography about his life called Drømmeren fra Palæstina (The Dreamer from Palestine). It was my breakthrough to a larger audience in Denmark and stayed 85% true to the real events of his life, but unfortunately, the novel isn't out in English. It was published in French as Le Rêveur de Palestine (Gaia Editions, 2006), and got a rave review from French critic Mazarine Pingeot-Mitterand at the Salon de la Littérature Européenne de Cognac (Cognac Festival for European Literature) in 2006.



3.
My maternal granddad's name was David Huda. He was the son of a Arab father and a Jewish mother, and he was abducted by a Danish Christian missionary when he was six, probably because his Arab Christian father wanted him to have the "right" upbringing.

Then David was brought to Denmark and forced to live in a strange land with a pair of cold, Lutheran foster parents who tried to turn him into a "good" Dane. At that time, no one had dark skin in Denmark, so my grandfather was considered a freak or a circus act by the farmers of Kibæk in Western Jutland.

 My granddad's Christian baptism in 1906. The poor kid had his curls cut off and put in a white robe that made him look like a girl. The event traumatized him for life.

4.
On so many levels, David Huda's life has been important to me. My grandfather was a charismatic man with a great sense of humor, and the novel/biography I wrote about him was my breakthrough in Denmark to a bigger audience.

"I remember that David Huda escaped to Sweden during the Second World War in the bottom of a fishing boat," Shalev said. "He was very ill of cancer when I visited him in the early Eighties, but he made quite an impression on me."

I nodded. My granddad died in February 1982 but had just come alive on Lexington Avenue in New York on a cold May day, resurrected by a wonderful Israeli author I'd never heard of before and who definitely hadn't heard of me.

But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. American PEN and World Voices are about connecting writers from around the world. Well, what can I say, PEN? You're doing a damn fine job!

 Drømmeren fra Palæstina  (Lindhardt & Ringhof) will be out as an e-book in Denmark this summer. And it will re-released as an audiobook as well, so my old novel/biography is getting a small revival.


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A Joyous Countdown for Literary Droolers (PEN's World Voices 2009)

A bit of nostalgia: World Voices 2008. Nuruddin Farah from Somalia, Fatou Diome from Senegal, and silly old me. I know Nuruddin Farah from Ledig House where we both had writing grants in 2002.


1.
I love World Voices literary festival.

So would you if you were in New York at last year's event. I saw Rick Moody interview Israel's Edgar Keret, I was a witness to Chenjerai Hove's fist fight with Nuruddin Farah. (They were discussing tribal wars; I'm sure they're still cleaning up the blood). And I was at Housing Work Book Store where they offered free condoms to the audience. That's right. You could pick up a condom on the way out.

"What a great idea," I thought. "Everybody knows that bad literature is contagious. We simply have to protect ourselves against the STD of airport reading." But at the same time, the free condoms didn't make much sense because World Voices only does good literature. The festival is a class act. I should know because they haven't invited me.

Yes, dear friends, let me be brutally honest. I had hoped that I would have been a guest this year. As my blogreaders know, my translated novel, The Tsar's Dwarf came out last fall and has done well. But no such luck.

However, I want you to know that I've taken this humiliation as a man. I only cried for three days when I found out. And I've been heavily medicated ever since. Right now I'm on Valium and several herbal teas that make me fart, but my therapist has encouraged me to go to New York any way.

"Peter, it's not personal," he insisted, "it doesn't necessarily mean that PEN hates you or your pathetic novels."

"Are you sure?" I said trying to log into my PEN account without success. Danes Not Allowed, it kept on saying.

So here I am, a South Scandinavian novelist with a chip on his shoulder. However, I've received a beautiful consolation prize. I've become an official PEN blogger. Yes, you heard me. What more does any writer want from life? It's almost as good as receiving the Pulitzer prize or that Swedish literary award that snobs rave about. What's it called again? The Nobel prize ...?

So I'm deeply honored and I promise I'll be fair to those writers who are part of the festival. After all, it's not their fault that they were invited. My therapist and the medication have made me see that now.

2.
New York in April is surprisingly hot, a melting pot of stressed out business men, hardcore joggers, and nuns with iPods. Not all of them have plans of going to World Voices; most are probably heading for Wall Street, Central Park or God. However, we're still many with sound priorities. We want literature and we know where to get it.

I have a list of events I've promised American PEN to cover. And I'm looking forward to them all. I'm going to listen to Stories of Change with Salman Rushdie and Zimbabwe hot shot, Petina Gappah. I'll enjoy a Literary Film Feast at Instituto Cervantes and Evolution/Revolution with Nicole Brossard, Narcís Comadira. And hey, I'll be happy to know more about Trends in Spanish Language Literature (I wonder if Lou Dobbs is going to show up?) and much more.

So please stay tuned because World Voices is a smorgasbord of international literature, it's a celebration of writers dappertutto. This year's festival should make any wordsmith drool. So here I am, a notorious drooler, celebrating PEN and the written word.


PS.
If you're interested in my silly report from last year, read PEN World Voices (Now With Condoms)


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Please Don't Be Cruel to Robert Mugabe. He Is Such a Sensitive Dictator.

 Christopher Mlalazi is one of many writers who had to escape Zimbabwe during the last decade.


1.
Please don't be cruel to Robert Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe is such a sensitive dictator. And as we all know, sensitive dictators don't have any sense of humor. They are too busy torturing poets and worrying about their stool.

So have a heart, have a little compassion for this ageing dictator.

To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for Robert Mugabe. I wouldn't want to swap lives with that man. Too many power hungry spirits are building nests in his short hairs.

And most of all, too many vicious people are making fun of their leader.


2.
Let me mention some of those people: Raisedon Baya, Christopher Mlalazi, Aleck Zulu, Lionel Nkusi. These scoundrels had the audacity of writing and producing a play called The Crocodile of Zambezi. It premiered May 29, 2008; the writers and actors had worked on it for two years.

The play took place in a fictional country, depicting a weak 94 year old dictator in the middle of a crisis.

Robert Mugabe in crisis?

Don't these artists understand that Robert Mugabe was appointed by God? Does God have a crisis? Of course not. God takes care of business as He sees fit. God is in perfect control. That's why He is so loved by His people.

By the way, Robert Mugabe didn't like the play. Actually, He never saw it. Dictators don't have time for the arts. Well, maybe they listen to Wagner or watch the odd rerun of the Sopranos, but satire, no, that's not their kind of thing.

So Robert Mugabe send some of his boys from the secret police. They rounded up the actor Aleck Zulu and the production manager Lionel Nkosi and gave them a ride in their car. They tortured them and put a gun in their mouths. Maybe they broke a few limbs as well because you shouldn't insult the man who has given so much to his subjects .... sorry, co-patriots.

The play, by the way, was closed down after one performance.

That's totally understandable, because who in their right mind would want to see a play making fun of the Supreme Savior of Zimbabwe? Instead these artists should lavish Mugabe with praise. They should write pompous poems to glorify His strength, they should construct endless bridges in His name, they should create religious cults instead of telling lies about this incarnation of Light.

As I said, Robert Mugabe is a sensitive dictator. And maybe He sleeps a little better after the play closed down.

After all, it's hard to sleep when people laugh at you.


3.
Maybe that's why PEN should change its policy.

You see, I'm a member of the Danish chamber of PEN, an international organization of writers, poets, and novelists who fight for The Freedom to Write.

But perhaps PEN got it all wrong. Instead of fighting for The Freedom to Write, we should have more compassion for Mugabe. We should fight for The Freedom to Torture.

So I propose a new program that supports dictators' God-given right to educate their people. We should print Freedom to Torture t-shirts, arrange expensive conventions at Sheraton, and invite leaders from Belarus and Brunei.

I mean, why become a dictator if you can't torture the people you want? Isn't that part of the job description? Even George Bush had fun at Guantanamo Bay, so why can't Robert Mugabe?

So have a little compassion, have a little heart.

Support Robert Mugabe's Freedom to Torture. The poor man had a difficult childhood, anyway.



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This blog entry is dedicated to the brave people of Zimbabwe who have the courage to laugh, especially Raisedon Baya, Christopher Mlalazi, Aleck Zulu, Lionel Nkusi, Petina Gappah, and many, many more.

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