By Bev Clark
Bev Clark is an openDemocracy contributor based in Zimbabwe
Kubatana.net is an online community for Zimbabwean activists. We’ve been publishing civic and human rights information for the past 5 years. It is widely agreed that the media environment in Zimbabwe is extremely repressive. To challenge this repression and to keep information flowing, we integrate Internet, email, SMS and blogging into our work so that we can communicate with Zimbabweans.
As Joan Baez said: Action is the antidote to despair. And that’s exactly what Kubatana.net stands for: encouraging Zimbabweans of all walks of life to speak out and mobilize around issues of social and political injustice: to become active and participatory citizens, not just bystanders.
Our work includes maintaining an online directory for NGOs in Zimbabwe helping to increase their local, regional and international accessibility. We also run regular electronic activism campaigns covering a variety of issues from domestic violence through to providing resources to help activists stay inspired and strong.
Just recently we launched Kubatana Blogs, which we hope will become a community blogging space for Zimbabwean activists. Some recent posts include the controversial introduction of Electronic Visa Application Forms by the United States Embassy in Harare, moves to establish a national human rights commission and poetry in response to the Jacob Zuma rape trial in South Africa.
One of my favourite quotations right now which I featured on the Kubatana blog speaks to the heart of our crisis in Zimbabwe where several stolen elections have left Zimbabweans despondent and despairing. Subcomandante Marcos, spokesperson for the Zapatista National Liberation Army in Chiapas, Mexico, writes that resistance takes place:
anytime any man or woman rebels to the point of tearing off the clothes resignation has woven for them and cynicism has dyed grey.
