Tonight, Thank God It's Them Instead Of You

A sober Christmas message via This is Zimbabwe:

Every day I ask myself ,what am I - a child of Africa and a Zimbabwean of many generations - doing here in England ? Every day I am reminded that I don’t really belong in this alien culture. What am I doing here, away from the sun-drenched plains of Africa in this dank, dark and cold climate ? What am I doing among the cold and indifferent and (though they don’t know it) amazingly prosperous Brits ....

....For three years I struggled on under the ZANU PF monolith, bartering my soul away bit by bit in order to retain the confidence of my superiors. In truth it became more and more difficult to look at that questioning face in the mirror each morning. Yet with shame I have to confess it was not the moral compromises which finally forced me to a decision to leave.....


.....Yes, we’re surviving. We’ve made the break so many Zimbabweans dream of as they struggle on in the wretched conditions Mugabe has created for all (save his own select group of cronies). But you’d be wrong to envy us. Like thousands of other Zimbabwean exiles we have an existence here but we are hardly enjoying the experience....

.....The truth is we are dreading our first Christmas in exile - away from our real home.

Years on from the original Band Aid record, made in response to a natural disaster in Africa, there is a man-made calamity in Zimbabwe that seems to have fallen out of the headlines altogether.