I Am Packing For Victoria Falls

Left of What's RightMarlan Padayachee In our business of newspapering and publishing, all in the public interest, there is an old adage: "If it Bleeds, It Leads."This is about sensational reports making the headline news in newspapers, television and radio sound bytes.The media is often castigated for sensationalism rather than idealism. Newspaper, TV and radio are communication and information consumer products that publishing houses sell to the public domain. There's no sentiments, no matter the size, status, stature of big, small or powerful people who are not above the law because the Fourth Estate has its one rules and power as watchdog mirroring society. In our business, we have been empowered by these mantras: 'Publish and Be Damned', report "Without Fear or Favour, and as the Americans say 'There's no such thing as a free lunch" and as we say in isiZulu country, 'Nothing for Mahala'. Zim Who? So what's the point?After weeks of sensational headlines and sound bytes, my breakfast was greeted by a breakthrough storyline: Zim deal struck at last.And after the longest poll in the world in the post-colonial-apartheid democracies, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia to expatriates who still fly the old colonial flags and have probably immortalised Cecil John Rhodes). Long after the multiparty negotiations became a no-hoper on-off case study under the stewardship of Thabo Mbeki and at the cost of hard-pressed taxpayers, and with Robert Mugabe stubbornly sticking to traits of his post-Lancaster House intransigency and guerilla doctrines, the world had given up on the Promised Land that was once Africa's breadbasket and liberation template. So how does this affect our constituencies and communities? As I have stated previously, xenophobia has been on your doorstep for a long time.The recent xenophobic attack on African nationals from Harare to Houghton was a haunting political choreography of a nation bursting at the seams. The political powder keg had at last exploded on the Proudly South African face. Other reasons and critical and shrinking resources may have sparked the xenophobic attacks that put SA to shame. Embarrassed and belittled with Nelson Mandela's heart bleeding in the background over our ingratitude to the Africans who sheltered, fed and clothed exiles, and the global village that saluted our peaceful transition to democracy and rainbow nationalism, Mbeki soldiered on. The media covered the mixed messaging from the recent talks about talks aimed at getting poll winner Morgan Tsvangirai, dealmaker Arthur Mutambara and the Chimurenga warlord Mugabe to smoke the peace pipe. Once he retires from the Presidency next autumn, he can expect a call from the UN in New York to be redeployed as its Ambassador-At-Large in the trouble spots in the footsteps of his British counterpart and exiled academic days host Tony Blair, an envoy making peace work in the Gaza Strip. Ja, well, no, Chief, Commander Mbeki has pulled our troublesome neighbouring out of the fire and the boiling political pot. Yesterday's Heroes I recall as if it happened yesterday. Picture this two-part scenario: Mbeki, the ANC diplomat in exile tugging at his trademark pipe and sipping lager in the breakaway interviewing sessions during the Non-Aligned Movement congress in Harare in 1986, just like Yusuf Dadoo, the SA Communist Party leader in exile, tugging his trademark pipe and sipping lager in London during the United Nations' apartheid sports-sanctioning conference under the stewardship of Sam Ramsamy in 1982.Quite prophetically, the bearded persona who was to become our visionary president, told me to go home because "they" needed journalists to cover the story of the victory over apartheid, while Dadoo provided some incredible insights into how his conservative family prodded him to study medicine over political activism.The rest is history until Mugabe, who hosted the Non-Aligned Summit in a town that was once called Salisbury under the chairmanship of India.Mbeki began taking the heat and refused to leave the kitchen while our belligerent neighbours ran the gauntlet in the reading room. Who Started the Joke?Public confidence started waning and slowly the world was writing Zimbabwe's death warrant. The country's currency under crisis and cronyism became a standing joke from Bulawayo to Beit Bridge. From Downing Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, Africa's once powerful economy and hospitable nation became the laughing stock of the 21st century world. Who started the joke? Life President or Zimbodweans? So when "Zim deal struck at last" hit the streets last Friday, displacing Jacob Zuma's public-interest court trial from the front pages and leading sound bytes, it must surely convinced the world that Africans, stigmatized by stereotyping, have at last pulled it and they have a grasp of outcome-based solutions and strategies. In the spirit of multiparty democracy, the one-time adversaries will now share the political pie and bring the controversial country back from the Zimbabwe Ruins. Remember how the warring Irish factions worked around the Good Friday Accord. Closer to home, this was a Good Friday, indeed, despite the President-elect hogging the limelight in court, surrounded by all the well-wishing bigwigs (no pun intended) from Amichand Rajbansi to bald-headed Jeff Radebe after Judge Chris Nicholson set him free. New statesmen are taking the podium across the Limpopo skyline and the few millions of persecuted economic exiles and migrants will soon be homeward bound, leaving behind vacancies for our jobless to become car guards, chefs and waiters and teachers and lecturers and Home Affairs getting on with the core business of delivering new ID books and passports to South African taxpayers. Along the SADC route via the Maputo Corridor, Angola's long-running ruling party, MPLA, are thinking of drinking Windhoek Lager with the opposition party, UNITA, after a bloody 30-year bush war with slain rebel leader's Jonas Savimbi's guerilla movement. Last week's parliamentary vote in which the ruling party won a landslide victory has raised hopes for the end of a one-party state since Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975 that triggered a deadly civil war. Peace at last on the south? So instead of the crime and corruption scourge compelling fed-up taxpayers to join the brain drain for foreign shores, like Packing for Perth (PFP) or To Run To (Toronto), I am packing my bag for Victoria Falls because it has been a long time since the real rainbow hit me in the eyes with the holy water from the Great Lakes soothing my face from the sunny blue skies and sprays from one of great wonders of the world. Here goes when I reach Makasa: "Prime Minister Tsvangirai, I presume. Sir, take me to Your Excellency, it's been a long time since we shook hands and had bear hugs. Back on the home front, watching Jacob Zuma being feted in the capital's old courthouse, I also see value in old adage: "You cannot keep a good man (woman) down" and until next week: About Braaivleis, Sunny Skies, Amabenzi and Jacob's Ladder: "Zuma is one of the few leaders with whom I would sit around a fire. He's an honest man and speaks like an Afrikaner — a straightforward person." - Celebrity Steve Hofmeyr after a braai with the ANC President who has started wooing the hearts of the marginalised Afrikaner tribes. Marlan Padayachee is an international freelance journalist, socio-political commentator and media communications strategist whose work earned him the British Council Fellow and USIS International Visitor awards.